of Mice and Bonobos
Below from Bruce Schneier. His post ties very much into my winter project with the mice I am feeding in my bathroom. Below Bruce's post is an expanded comment I have just posted to Bruce's blog.
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Self-Domestication in Bonobos and Other Animals
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/02/self-domesticat.html
Self-domestication happens when the benefits of cooperation outweigh the costs:
But why and how could natural selection tame the bonobo? One possible narrative begins about 2.5 million years ago, when the last common ancestor of bonobos and chimpanzees lived both north and south of the Zaire River, as did gorillas, their ecological rivals. A massive drought drove gorillas from the south, and they never returned. That last common ancestor suddenly had the southern jungles to themselves.
As a result, competition for resources wouldn't be as fierce as before. Aggression, such a costly habit, wouldn't have been so necessary. And whereas a resource-limited environment likely made female alliances rare, as they are in modern chimpanzees, reduced competition would have allowed females to become friends. No longer would males intimidate them and force them into sex. Once reproduction was no longer traumatic, they could afford to be fertile more often, which in turn reduced competition between males.
"If females don't let you beat them up, why should a male bonobo try to be dominant over all the other males?" said Hare. "In male chimps, it's very costly to be on top. Often in primate hierarchies, you don't stay on top very long. Everyone is gunning for you. You're getting in a lot of fights. If you don't have to do that, it's better for everybody." Chimpanzees had been caught in what Hare called "this terrible cycle, and bonobos have been able to break this cycle."
This is the sort of thing I write about in my new book. And with both bonobos and humans, there's an obvious security problem: if almost everyone is non-aggressive, an aggressive minority can easily dominate. How does society prevent that from happening?
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Very interesting post.
This winter I have been doing my own domestication of wild mice experiment.
Every winter I get invaded by mice. They fight with one another. They do not cooperate. They steal my food and eat my paperwork.
This winter I decided to feed the mice until Spring when I can trap them with live traps and put them back outside.
It took a few weeks for the mice to realize that I keep their food dish full with a slurry of pistachio nuts and coconut oil. Then the fighting and rape ceased. Mice stand shoulder to shoulder at the food dish and water dish. Even Mighty Mouse does not pick on the other mice, even though he is twice their size and rippling with muscles.
They no longer steal my food or eat my paperwork.
They no longer walk thru the food dish, so the dish remains free of mouse turds.
In but a single generation, the mice are well on their way to becoming civilized.
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And this makes me ponder if human tribal aggression would just go away if us humans all have enough to eat, enough room, and enough resources. Could it really be that simple?