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NancyLebovitz comments on Can the Chain Still Hold You? - Less Wrong
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I think some famous feminist recommended unspecified disappearing of 90% of males to make the world a better place, but right now I can't find the quote.
However, from scientific point of view, this situation could be an inspiration for some interesting experiments. If you remove dominant males from one generation, how long does it take until the next generation creates new ones? (I would expect one or two at most.)
The baboon story implies that how males are treated has something to do with their behavior-- it's not innate.
I think the more interesting question is whether pacific baboons can co-exist with the more usual sort.
The line between the nature and learning is often blurred. Simply said, if someone's genetic code contains an instruction "when X, do Y", should we say that the behavior Y was caused by the code (is innate) or by the presence of X (is learned)?
The story implies than in conditions X1 baboons behave violently, and in conditions X2 baboons behave peacefully. The word "conditions" here includes both their environment and their history, and it seems that X1 = "lack of food OR recent history of violence" and X2 = "enough food AND recent history of peace". When there is enough food, both X1 and X2 seem self-perpetuating, though the experience with X2 is very short yet.
My prediction is that adding violent baboons to the group would create an X1 situation. (A less certain prediction is that even without external baboons, sooner or later the group will generate a violent individual. Problem is, due to the "sooner or later" part, the second prediction is unfalsifiable.)
I thought there were violent baboons added to the group?
How the hell did anyone reading this subthread (including me) miss that?
Possibly because the concept of a violent male disrupting a peaceful group is a violent adult male, perhaps even a violent alpha, while the violent males actually coming in are relatively young.
We can guess that abundant food is needed to stabilize peacefulness among baboons, but the hypothesis isn't tested, though it's plausible.
I don't think it's obvious that one violent baboon would be enough to get a peaceful troupe to return to the usual-- it sounds as though systematic mistreatment of new males is needed to get a standard troupe, and I don't think one violent male has enough time or attention for the job.
This is one of the situations that would be better answered by experiment. I wouldn't mind being proven wrong, but I would like to know how exactly I am wrong. How exactly would a new violent baboon not disrupt the peace in the group?
Would he be like: "see, there is enough food, and no one is preventing me from eating as much as I want, so why don't I just relax and enjoy this piece of paradise"?
Or would he attack the other males, but when no one fights back, he would be like: "oh, this is so boring, and by the way there is enough food, so what don't I just relax..."?
Or would the other males fight him back, but despite their new first-hand experience with violence, they would keep the libertarian ethics that it is wrong to initiate violence, and it is only ok to defend oneself?
Or perhaps would the males in the group instinctively attack any other new male (even without him attacking first), but would maintain the peace among themselves?
There are many alternatives to return to global violence, but I would like to know which one of them will happen. Though, at this moment, the return to global violence seems the most probable option to me.
There are no baboons in the Pacific, as far as I can tell.
(Sorry, couldn't resist.)