Seven Deadly Sins Part II: Electric Bonobo

He's the host of The Daily Zychuys. Ye did get that one right? Huh? Despite your high pitched voice, you were correct. You could say the Daily z the days and on a declarative low note. Yeah, yeah, Hey, thanks for having me, big fan. Ye first time, long time. Today, let's first dive right into lust. I know, all right, it's pretty disgusting. I find it gross. It is gross. I mean, you know, I think if people just would

stop feeling emotions, everything would be less disgusting totally. So the Bible blames the sin of lust for our human infidelities, But are there other driving factors behind the psychology of cheating. There's a study that looks at cheating not on your wife or husband, but on your trusting, loving bagel man. There was an economist who quit his job to sell bagels. He used the honor system. You would deliver bagels to businesses and leave a money collection box for taking a bagel.

Most people would pay, but their word cheaters and cheating tended to increase at bigger more in personal offices during bad weather and during Christmas and Valentine's Day. According to surveys, people are more likely to cheat when they have the opportunity to and when they feel they're good Samaritans, like

somehow deserved to cheat. So that explains why they feel like during Christmas and Valentine's Day you can cheat because you know you're buying people gifts, and maybe during bad weather you feel like, well, life is crappy, it's raining, so I'm just going to steal a bagel, right, Yeah, you're treating yourself right, right, Like like God decided to rain on me, I'm gonna take a bagel? Well, right, And during Christmas, we also, you know, drink and eat

bad foods. Food doesn't have calories on Christmas or the Christmas season. Uh so, I'm sure it's that same sort of overall system of just not feeling like we need to be responsible for anything that is allowing us to steal the proverbial bagel. If you know what I'm saying, that's gross. But even if these excuses work for bagel pilfering, there's some thing about romantic cheating that is considered to be especially wicked, one of the ultimate breaches and trust.

For humans, it's the emotional blow of having someone we love betray us. For animals, the costs of cheating are cold, cruel biological calculation. Most animals aren't monogamous, and for many species this is the best strategy. You're diversifying your genetic risk by mating with lots of partners. But birds are an exception. Almost nine of bird species are monogamous, meaning they will form a pair bond either for life or, as is often the case, just a single breeding season.

And in a way this makes sense. Nests require work to build eggs, and chicks are vulnerable the predators and chicks are loud, insatiable little horrors, so having to parents around is often critical for their survival. But even though birds form adorable little nuclear families. Their infidelity is so dramatic it make Jerry Springer's head spin. That's a timely yeah, king of sin, Jerry Springer. Hey, my dude, millennials remember Jerry Springer. Um, that's interesting that birds are the sort

of monogamous among us. Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting thing because I think it does have to do with how their babies are very helpless. So, like you know, you look at a lot of ungulates, like hooved animals, they just pop right out and they're ready to go. H They can walk within just about thirty minutes. But like a baby bird, they're just a little squishy balls

of flesh. Sit there and open their mouth. Yeah, they are very similar to human Actually, human babies are, aren't They like known to be the most helpless of all the babies. They take the longest to develop, and they don't really make that much sense as an animal because their heads are huge. They can't even lift their own heads like when they're first born, and they have no motor skills that they absolutely can't do anything for themselves. And then it also takes them years to actually be

able to survive on their own. I know, I have a two and a half year old and he's just now learning how to kill his own dinner. But yeah, I mean, and I think I've heard that the theory is that, uh, you know, they basically for that time that they're out and completely helpless, they could just be in the mother's body still justes stating, But they aren't because their head would be too wide to pass through. Yeah. Yeah, too wide and too solid, Like their head has to

be squishy. Um, there's that where those plates connect on the head where it's like the fontanelle where it's like still squishy. Yeah, babies come out. This is a This was a big surprise to me and some of my friends who just had babies that babies come out looking like cone heads, and it's terrifying. You're like, oh no,

what did we just do. You should never like rest your drink on a baby's head because it'll just like create like sort of an impression of your beer, you know, although it does make it easier for it to you know kind of a little. I mean, there there are you know, risk reward, right, right, You do want to have a place to rest your beer when when you have a new child around, you're going to need a beer, right, you need to stay pretty drunk. Guys, these are all

good parenting. Yes, thank you, I'm good at parenting. Yes. So you want to go on an imagination I was waiting for you. Yeah, yeah, this is a fun one. Okay, I'm closing my eyes. Yes. Now, imagine if your wife started acting strangely. Hey, I don't need to imagine. That's my new catchphrase on That's right, fell is alright, that's You're just gonna be like, no, no no, no, I didn't mean it was. My wife does listen to the Daily Ziegeist, and I get in trouble basically every time her name

comes up. I was like, I mean about that. It made me sounds mean. Uh So she makes grocery trips at odd hours and your energy bill skyrockets. Um. So there's a closet you're not supposed to go in because it has quote unquote Christmas presents in there. Um but you're you start to just get this this sinking feeling that something's weird. So you just it's uh you know,

uh July. Yeah, I'm starting to get very suspicious. Uh So you decided to peek inside and you find that there's a large industrial refrigerator in there, so you open the door and there's, you know, a woosh of cold air, and inside are dozens of vials of a white substance, each labeled with a specimen number. And next to the fridge you find stacks of files containing information on quote unquote donors with the profile of their health and genetic

compatibility with your wife. Oh that does not sound very good for me. Well, bad news if you're a bird. Oh that also doesn't sound very good. Katie knows this because she's sitting across from me, but most of the listeners might not know. I am a giant bird. Yeah, it's it's like really disgusting in the office too, just everywhere. God, I hate bird poop. I mean, like I've heard people say that, oh, bird poop is one of the least obnoxious forms of animal poop. It's not smelling, but it's

just it's white, and that's weird to me. It is weird. It is good that it's not smelly, though they PopEd like dogs. That would be a real problem for us as people. Just dogs falling from the sky, just some kind of like dog bird hybrid. And there's just like mounds of poop all over chairs. No, I don't want to I don't want to think about that. So let's go back to birds, any species of birds. As I mentioned earlier, they're monogamous, but they will still cheat from

time to time, and only at the grocery store. If if I'm getting your imagination journey correct, and then they tell their partners that it's so you know, I'm shopping for Christmas presents because it's bird Christmas? Do they put humans in a pear tree? Christmas? Bird Christmas? This isn't probably not going to come out around Christmas, so this is gonna Really these jokes are gonna land. Christmas jokes

are only funny around Christmas. Uh. Researchers found that Goldian finch females will not cheat too often, but even if they cheat once, they can store the sperm from the tryst and use it to fertilize the majority of their offspring. So I don't know if you guessed on our little imagination journey, but you know that was a refrigerator fall of sperm? Is that? Oh? Yeah, you didn't specifically say that. I never I assume all white substances are sperm. That

same mixed mayonnaise sandwich is very difficult for me. Yeah, mannais really I don't like it right now. Yeah, that's my thing. That's my trademark, not liking mayonnaise and thinking everything that is white and goody's probably sperm. Yeah, they're great trademarks. Katie, I've always said that, Hey it's Katie, it looks like sperm. Yeah, it's logical. So google and finches come into fla verse. There's the redheaded and the

black headed. So redheaded finches are more genetically compatible with other redheaded finches, which sounds like if there was like a weird kind of like if Nazis were all redheads that just like you know, all frankly and redheads, they just all you're describing my night, they all. I mean, that'd be easy though, because instead of being killed by the Russian winter, they just anytime the sun comes out, they'd be like new, right, we must go inside. We

cannot take over Europe. Your German accent, it's very good. I'm good at accent, I know. Right. Anyways, So if a redheaded finch mates with another redheaded finch, their offspring is much more likely to survive because it's a genetic masterpiece. Okay, that sounds very I'm Jewish, I get to say things. Okay, genetic masterpiece, red red genet. Sorry, I'm taking notes. Um. So this is also the same thing for like black headed finches, when they're paired up, their genetic compatibility is better.

And isn't that the opposite of humans? Aren't humans supposed to mate with people who are genetically dissimilar. Yes, but it's sort of complicated, so like it is a good kind of herostic that someone who looks more different from

you is probably gonna be more diverse from you. Um, but there are certain things that like in human there are certain markers that can fit together better and it doesn't seem to have any connection to physical appearance, so um, but in these finches, it's it's just a different kind of story. But yeah, in general, even with with animals,

genetic diversity is better. Um, but there can be Yeah, And well, I mean it's not that diversity isn't better, It's just that there are certain compatible gene markers that occur in redheaded versus the Yeah it um, and if you mate with your twin, you will give birth to an evil king. Yeah, with six fingers right. Um. So the study paired up female finches with male finches and allowed them to mate, and they formed a social pair, and then the researchers allowed the female to have a

short affair with another bird. Weird, I know, these research are just like, yeah, you're go have checks with that other bird. Um. Now that was a very convincing impression, yes, horny scientists, much better than your German impression. Ye kiss each other pairing alright. So, so they found that given the opportunity, the females were just as likely to cheat, no matter the head color of the male they were cheating with or the head color of their own partners.

So they're just horny horny gals gals um. And female finches whose social bond was with different headed finches so less genetically compatible, and who had the chance to have a tryst with the same headed finch managed to store the sperm from the affair with the more genetically compatible finch, and they used it in up to of their fertilized eggs. So now, okay, so you're talking about storing sperm. I'm assuming these birds do not have industrial refrigerators in their

in there or in their nest um. So is this a decision that they're making, like is it something that's happening in there? But I guess I was going to ask consciously they can they think about I want to hold onto this sperm. Probably not, it's just happening inside

their body. Yeah, and they're not really No, I wouldn't say I don't think that they're because like you know, they're not thinking through like hey, al right, this sperm is more They're not like little robots who can analyze like the sperm and be like this sperm is not compatible. But things that can happen is like you look down to sort of the cellular level, there could be some ability for that sperm to be stored longer because it's

like genetically more compatible. The just responding right, but positively. But to be honest, researchers aren't really sure. So researchers, Sarah Prike says, they don't totally know how the finches managed this. It's quote a little bit of a black box. What's actually happening inside the female Yeah, so the female finches vagina is a black box. They don't know. So when the birds crashed a boom roast did but yeah.

I mean, like it's like if a bird crashes. I like this idea of like saying like, well, we gotta look at the bird vagina, right, So that's that's interesting. Yeah, did the study mentioned if they show, like when they're mating with somebody for the season, do they show a preference for a genetically similar versus genetically different or I guess you wouldn't really need to show that preference because

your body is just doing some behind the scenes sperm juggling. Yeah. Yeah, it seems to be more just that biologically there's a preference maybe not like intellectually, a preference for the genetically more compatible. And it's crazy because like they can keep that sperm stored in their reproductive track for up to thirteen days, which is kind of gross, right yeah, but but that means that they can be mating with their actual partner and use that sperm to continue to fertilize

their eggs. What is the length that that happens with human to keep things in a disgusting area, but like, isn't there a long window that I think it's like, I think it remains viable for around a week, which is longer than I would have expected is longer than it should be. God made a horrible mistake. I think maybe it depends though, if like, if you're keeping yourself at room temperature or like, like I wonder if it's spoiled faster. It's like, now, don't go out in the sun.

Red gross. It is all sexes gross, It's all disgusting. This podcast is about discouraging people from expression expressing physical forms of love. It's disgusting. You should be a I so disagreed with that sentiment. My mouth would even let me say it. It's like, no, you fool, that's mean. Stop it. Then our spec would die up. So only about four percent of all mammals are monogamous. Even our closest relatives, the apes, aren't always monogamous. Gibbons are faithful,

but chimpanzees and gorillas are promiscuous. So why are some apes monogamous and others living a banana fueled or gy lifestyle. One theory is that infanticide has driven some species of apes to become monogamous, So that's killing of babies. So in species where there's a great threat of rival males killing the babies of their own species, monogamy ensures the males will work with the females to protect their offspring.

This doesn't actually explain why humans are monogamous. This theory only works for a primate species who aren't in close knit troops or societies, in which the case the whole group will protect the babies. Human monogamy is on a different evolutionary path than that of gibbons, given that our closest ape relatives, chimps and bonobos are horning little tramps. They love humping each other. They'll hump anyone. It's just

it's madness. It's evangelicals worst nightmare. Also, humans aren't always monogamous. Only sevent of human cultures exclusively allow for monogamy. But even in these more permissive cultures, people are still more likely to form monogamous relationships. So there's actually a book called Sex at Dawn that talks about how people had sex and formed family units in very early human societies and also looked at some tribal communities now like hunter gatherer.

I think is the delineation he makes between like hunter gather pre government societies, and he was basically suggesting that tribal and like non monogamous is the natural state of humans, and basically he's suggesting that humans in the early tribal state would all have sex with each other and the men wouldn't know whose kid was who's so they would all just look out for all the children in their tribe and it would be this big. You know, if you ask me, the idea sounds kind of communist, down

right communists, but sex communism. Sex communism, which communes are I mean, yeah, I've I've heard this theory before, and I think one of the difficulties with determining whether it's that we we are promiscuous by nature and therefore we created social groups is the causality. So it could be that once we form social groups, it's easier to be promiscuous because having that group looking out for you means

that you won't be punished for sleeping around. Your children will be raised by the group and protected by the group no matter what it versus if you were isolated, where you have much more of a motivation to make sure your monogamous, make sure your partner's monogamous, so that you're investing everything in the correct genetic um organism, which sounds really cold, but that that is sort of the calculation that animals make um so, but then the other

way could be that, oh, because we were promiscuous, then we formed these social groups because you know, if you don't know who you're your offspring is, then it's more beneficial to form these big groups where you're just all looking out for each other. So it's hard, it's hard to say which way that, like, did we did we start out sleeping around and form society around our desire to make promiscuous or did we start forming social groups?

Because there is some evolutionary evidence that once our brain started to change and we became less aggressive and we have less testosterone, we became more pro social because we him more gentle, less prone to this sort of impulsive violence, and that enabled us to form social groups. Um just changing the way we think about right right, wanting to

kill everything in front of us, right. It is kind of interesting because like, uh, you know, you you may have like some interaction that our ability to form social groups because we're a lot and even though chimps form social groups, they are a lot more violent, so they

have trouble, like say, forming bigger social groups. They have these individual troops and they don't get along with other troops very well, but humans, being a little less aggro could potentially start to communicate with other other social groups and like, hey, you know, we're not so different. Let's trade shells and um, you know, and so it's it

makes it. And then that nature, that kind of pro social nature may make people either It's hard to say whether that would make them more monogamous or more promiscuous, because I could see arguments both way, Like if you're more monogamous, you may form a stronger emotional connection because you're less aggressive, but you could also be you know,

just like if everyone's socializing, there's more chance for promiscuity. Yeah, And I guess another way to look at it would be that the natural state is tribal where everybody has sex with everybody else, and that's like the best for the like overall utilitarian, like that's the highest level of happiness. But then like a handful of like jealous weak men were like, I'm going to build society so that I

can control women so that they only have sex with me. Um. But I think that's basically the thesis of Dan Brown's Da Vinci code. Yeah, I mean, if you look at tender, that does seem to like, like if you're like, hey, have checked you with me and you're like no, like you dirty, she doesn't actually make sense. Yeah. And by the way, you heard the theory that I just suggested from a guy trying to get you to join his commune, right to make that clear to everybody his sex commune.

One of the most common questions about monogamy and humans is whether it's a natural which is a tricky question given that even our early ancestors formed social groups which influence their behavior. But I think what this question is trying to get at is whether it's a biological imperative or culturally learned one. There are some biological markers that

seem to indicate we should be monogamous. Primates with higher second to fourth finger length ratios tend to be less promiscuous, as it's a marker of lower tiestosterone exposure, and that's the case for humans like if you look at your hand. But monogamous primates like gibbons often have smaller tests due to the lack of need for sperm competition with rivals, and in polygamus species like chimpanzees, the tests are large.

Ready to quote play ball with rival males um, but in humans, the testies ratio is kind of somewhere in the middle, not too big, not too small, the goldilocks of balls. So this is the issue with looking for a single biological marker to answer a complex social practice such as monogamy. It's very hard to trace one physiological characteristic to faithfulness, and society is such a strong driving force it's an extremely difficult challenge to parse whether this

complex human behavior has evolved culturally or biologically. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you cheat and you try to blame it on your huge chimpanzee balls, sorry dude, but science does not have your back on this point. Hold onto your balls. We'll be right back after these nets into their Greed seems like one of the most natural elements on Earth. After all, evolution seems

to be based on creed. Animals that gain the most resources and greeding opportunities succeed, But the added component of social networks among animals creates a competing force. Social groups may offer more benefits than temporary greed provides. Perhaps in this way, complex emotions can take form in more intelligent

social animals, such as envy. Humans are the ultimate social animal, and we have a complex emotional landscape that includes being angry at those who we deem to be too greedy, and also to be envious of those who we think have gotten an unfair share. But are we the only ones who shall covet our neighbor's os or, as we'll see in some cases, our neighbors grapes. That's usually what I'm most covetous of the number of grapes that my

neighbors have. Grapes are so good. It's like now that I'm an adult and I can't just eat canned you whenever I want. It's I feel like sometimes when I eat grapes or or little those little clementines, Oh, this is like candy, And then I feel sad because, like my seven year old in time, he was like, you fool. I found that it helps to just keep it in candy, like you're a child until your teeth fall out. That's true. Yeah, but it's always between whether I'm more jealous of my

neighbor's grapes or their oxen. Yeah. I mean like it's like your neighbor gets an ox and then you get a knox and then they get like the Ox arms racing Jetta, which I don't know. I think I'd rather

have an OX for sure. So it's time for imagination station. Yeah, alright, eyes closed, and I everybody should know that my eyes are actually closed during this and I find that it helps and that you should also close your eyes, close your eyes unless even if you're driving, even if you're driving, right, I will go on record and say that, yeah, I'm not I'm not gonna keep your eyes open. I'd say

buckle up safety first, turn it off. So, uh, say you and a friend find someone's wallet, what would make you angrier getting no reward for turning in the wallet, Or say your friend hands it over to the owner and the owner is just like, oh, thank you, you know, you're so great and completely ignores you and then like gives them two hundred dollars and says, don't you dare share a cent of this two hundred dollars. So they get all of the credit, all of the reward, and

not you. Sorry, what was the first scenario again, you just don't get a reward at all. You return it and don't get a reward, or my friend gets the reward right exactly and my friend is not willing to share it with No, because that friend is me and I'm not sharing it at all. I think I would have to think about who my friends are and whether they're really my friend. Kat eyes are still closed? Should I open them? Sure? Okay? Cool, it was dark in there?

What next? What? What would mad at you? You're mad at me? Would you feel worse if like you hand it in the wallet and the person is like, oh, great things and they didn't give you any reward, or if just me, just me Katie got all of the reward huh. I feel like, see, I'm extremely passive and conflict of verse. So I would probably just be happy that you got money and then probably like months down the road, be like wait, asshole, uh no, yeah, I

would probably be happier that you got some money. Really yeah, but I'm better than most people. Yeah, because I wouldn't

feel that way. Like I feel like if we both found the wallet together, like if it was sort of a team effort of lifting this, like each taking a corner of the wallet and lifting it off the ground, like oh this is a heavy as wallet, or like I spotted it and they picked it up and helped find the person and then they just got all the reward, even though on my surface, what my face would be saying would be, oh, I'm so happy for you. Good for you, I'm so got two hundred dollars and knowing

it good. I think a place I'm very spiteful is in sports and politics. Like I would much rather neither side win than my team lose and the other side win. I hate the team that wins. I understand how that works with sports, but with politics, what does that mean

neither side winning? So if the devastation, if it was between Trump winning the election in the world being as bad off as it is right now, or neither side winning, society collapsing and the world being as bad off as it is right now, I would probably go with society collapsing because I hate that the Republicans right about things right now. Yeah, but I feel like that's for a different podcast, Okay, Yeah, something like a daily maybe you know, maybe have me on the record. I know you don't

need to say it through clenched teeth. It was just like, hey, maybe mightly clenched teeth Jack, I would love to be on your show again. I would love to Loah, this is just strangely tense. I think it's because we imagined me, reimagined me taking all of your money. That's right, that's what did it. So I guess I'm not as nice as I thought, right, And neither are chimps good. Okay, I didn't think chimps were nice though. Yeah, I know they did rip that one lady's face. I know that's

what That's what did it for me. I was like, maybe chimps are nice. And then I listened to that nine one one calling. Yeah, it's pretty rough because it's just I mean, that woman survived, but her friend calls in is just like, yeah, it's pretty creepy. So researchers, they are always dicks, and they like to make dicky experiments where they dick around with chimpanzees. So too, chimpanzees

were given rewards for exchanging tokens with the researcher. So like they get like a little like tablet or coin or something and they hand it to the researcher and they get a reward, and they're trained that this is how it works, so they are becoming good, good capitalists. In the test condition, that subject chimp was given a lesser reward than his partner. Um, So a bland, stupid cucumber versus a juicy, amazing grape. Um. The chimps who

were given the cucumbers responded really negatively. So they're really jealous that for the same token that their partner gets like a grape, and then they get a shitty cucumber and they're really upset. Grape versus a cucumber. Yeah, I mean grapes. Grapes are way better. Grapes are way better. And for chimps, grapes are like that. They're like, yeah, just if you can imagine, like you know, they're like crown nuts or something. So, uh, back to cucumbers, Um,

the chip dicks of vegetables, right, that is true. They are the chimp dicks of vegetables. Uh. And so when the chimp's just got a stupid cucumber and not a great grape, they would respond quote unquote negatively, which includes refusing to participate in the study, which is really funny to me. The visualizing like a chimp just like folding it. Starmon's being like, well, I won't be in your stupid experiment.

It seems very passive for it. Yeah. Yeah, they'll they'll refuse to accept the cucumbers, so they'll like not even take it, Like I won't even take your stupid shitty cucumber. Um that they can't even throw away the cucumber, so like like throw it like you want you cucumber, just let it fall to the ground. Yeah. Um. And what's really interesting is chimps also differentiate between greed and jealousy.

So it's not just that they really they're really greedy, they want the grape, and so they're angry that they don't get the grape. It's that they're specifically angry that their partner got the grape but not them. So chimps were shown a tasty grape and then prompted to do the whole exchanging coins for the grape. But instead uh,

both the chimp test subject and his partner received gross cucumbers. Uh. And in that case, they were less likely to respond negatively, Like they weren't thrilled, but they weren't as violently angry. So they were just pissed, but in a general sense, because cucumber suck. Yeah, cucumber like it. I mean, imagine if someone hand you a cucumber, how would you react just like the fuck yeah, I guess I don't want a cucumber. Were they led to believe a grape was

the payment for this? Yeah, I got it. Yeah, Like they were shown a grape, there was the old grape and switch the grape and switch. Yeah. Um. So they seem to have a concept of the unfairness of it and respond angrily. But it's the other person enjoying the grape that really say right right, And I'm sure that other chimp is being a real Also, yummy, I love this grape so tasty. Chimps aren't known for their subtlety unless you give them a cucumber, and they just go

on strike. I mean not necessarily quietly, like they'll throw it, throw a fit, you know, good point, get really angry, poop on you say your experiments stop it. Yeah, call you a small dick Experimenteragee's signing small and then oblong no no, no wait. So Capucheon's and even dogs will respond the same way in similar studies, and the dogs would sulk and refuse to perform tricks if they saw another dograssy rewards when they didn't. And I have a dog,

he's extremely spiteful. She uh like will loudly sigh if she feels like she's been tricks, so like she knows the drop it command and she'll get a treat and like, but now she's just learned that she takes things and steals things, and if she takes something, then she can extort treats out of me. But if I like get the thing from her without rewarding her, she'll like like like really angry at me and in sulks and like

because she's like, that's not how we play this game. Um. So much of this is reminding me of having a two year old. Yes, he is very we we also have a dog, and if a piece of his food falls on the ground, Uh, he doesn't care unless the dog gets it, in which case he's like, you mother, get dog. Well that's interesting because so chimps will actually show a similar level of greed and cooperation as human children.

So they they're like, you know, these researchers are like, m We're gonna test these chimps and compare their scores to human children. Uh and so uh, here's a slight variation on the study we were talking about before. So chimps were offered to tokens. One token meant that both the chimp and its partner would receive an equal food reward, so that's the like cooperative token. And then there's the selfish token, which when they hand that into the researcher,

they just get all of the rewards, so double the reward. UM. So I mean obviously double Uh. These are bad parents to these chimps. Uh so Uh. The catch is that he can't just hand the token to the experiments or so in one condition he can and when it's just like you're just sort of it's called like the dictator um game where it's like you just get to control the tokens. They obviously hand in the one that gives

them all of the treats um. But then in the ultimatum game, they have to hand they don't have a direct way to hand it to the uh the researcher, so they have to hand it. They hand it to a partner, uh, and then that partner can hand it in to the researcher. So that means they get to select the token, but their partner has to actually be the one to turn it in for the reward. And that's why it's like an ultimatum that partner gets to decide whether or not they're going to actually go through

with the transaction. UM. So in that case, the chimpanzees will actually select the one that is more fair and handed into their partner. UM, which seems to make sense. Like they're thinking, well, you know, you might think that it's because they've learned that when they hand in the selfish one, they just get nothing like that it's some kind of operat conditioning, But actually it turns out that

it is completely independent of actual consequence. So like they didn't find that the partner chimp would refuse to hand in tokens, So the chimp is sort of predicting that perhaps this is the more pro social thing to do, and will preemptively be more fair rather than responding to a consequence. I think I kind of understand that. So yeah, so it's like there's no situation in which they don't receive a reward. They're never punished for handing in the

selfish token to their partner. Their partner is just kind of like indiscriminately handing in the tokens to the researcher,

got it. So really it's more they're thinking, oh, you know this may either they're kind of thinking, well, maybe if I hand this to my partner, it's going to piss them off, or they're kind of almost like maybe sheepish, like this is gonna seem really rude, because I think that's that's actually the case with humans as well, where it's like sometimes we do things that there's no consequence, Like say you have like a grocery cart and you're in a parking lot and like nobody's around to see

you like leave it, you know, but you still kind of feel like I'm just gonna like push it out of the way of the cars and like put or put it in the carousel. Yeah what Yeah, no way, I push it out into traffic. Yeah, that that is the right thing to do. That is correct. Um, we're just things like privately, like like you're in your own home and you're deciding whether or not to recycle something like there's no social consequence to you, right, but you're

you're just kinding, you know, because you love. It's like there's maybe just kind of a social instinct. And so they actually found that human children did the same thing as the chimps. It's interesting because in the Dictator game where they get complete control, complete power, they are selfish. But when they have to work together with this other child, even though there's not really a direct consequence to them handing the selfish token to their partner, they will still

be more generous in that social situation. I think the tokens thing is confusing me. Yeah, So, like basically, if you don't have to work with some someone like you don't you don't have to look them in the eye and hand them this token that says I'm about to dick you over then, and they can just directly hand

it into the researcher. Uh, they'll hand in the token that's like give me all of the reward, Whereas when they have to like be like, hey, would you please hand this to the researcher It says I get both bananas. It would you be cool with that? They don't do that. They avoid that situation where they are more likely to be like, Hey, I'm a I'm a cool chimp slash child.

Here's a token that says we both get bananas, right, because they somehow feel bad about the fact that it's sucking the other right, Like, I wonder if it's even just having to look them in the eye and be like, I'm about to fuck you. Yeah right, Well isn't there. So you opened this episode talking about the bagel experiment. They're a bagel experiment where there's eyes drawn on the Do you know this one? I don't put that. I

mean that sounds interesting. Yeah. So there's this one where they had a like donation just leave whatever you want jar next to bagels, and they found that people gave way more money when they just put photographs of eyes on the because it was just like they were somehow being reminded that eyes were like of somebody looking at them. So it's almost like it's communicating to a very dumb

and basic part of our brain. I mean, I know they do that with an anti shoplifting signs, like they put a pair of eyes on those, and I think that's supposed to like Tom, they can't see me. Darn it, I could have been doing a lot of crime. Um. I mean, even so, children were actually a little more fair than the chimps, so that there is some hope for human children. They're a little um nicer than that is that is good for humans in general. My kid not so much. That would not be better. So that

is that makes me fear for his future? Yeah, I will think about that after we're done. Uh. So, it's tempting to think that humans are just naturally greedy, especially when reading the news or wanting to merge on the freeway, but a study by Yale psychologist David g Rand calls this notion into question, and his study participants engaged in various economic games similar to what we described with the chimps.

He found that when people are given less time to think about their decision, they act more cooperatively and altruistically, meaning that it's only after careful consideration that we decide to be selfish. So we may not be able to blame our greedy nature on our impulses, but rather on our rationality. So it's like, hmmm, yeah, I'm gonna be

an asshole. That actually totally makes sense to me, But I've never thought about it before that all of my most like selfish, shitty decisions are the ones that I like reason my way into inherently just immediately knee jerk doing the right thing right right. I mean, I wonder if that's like when people like literally take a bullet for someone. I think that is they aren't they don't give themselves time to think about it, right, because it's

a stupid thing to do. Well on people who are survived of taking a bullet for someone, or like there was like one guy who like jumped on the train tracks to flatten someone. I mean not only was it like not only was it altruistic, but it's really smart. And he thought about it in like half a second.

Where it's like there's a guy on unconscious lying across the train car, like jumped down got him, you know, parallel to the tracks so that he'd be under the car and they both survived and he like kept him flat, so like the train just passed over him. But I wouldn't recommend it, Like that's very risky. They could he

could have died, um, but you know he didn't. And he was saying like afterwards, he's like, you know, people are like, oh, you're so brave, and he's like, no, I mean I literally wasn't thinking And if I had

thought about it for longer, I probably wouldn't have done it. Um. And that's a really common trend in like these amazing acts of altruism where there's like some part of our our brain that's just like it is very not that we don't always listen to Well, yeah, it's like courage equals not thinking, because that's what you know chanting And a lot of the army drills are called thoughts stopping exercises, And when you're playing a sport and you choke, it's

usually because you're thinking about it, because they say, like a good way to get around choking in sports is to just start singing a song because you're focused on that and then you're you let like the you know, unconscious part of your brain takeover for the actions. So yeah, basically our our ability to think. It's almost like the Book of Genesis and the Adam and Eve story knew something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, women just screw everything up. Thank you. I didn't want

to say it, but I'm glad you did. On that lovely note that won't get us angry. D m S. We're going to take a quick break, and what do I think? It's not hard to find gluttonous sinners in the animal kingdom. Often animals will eat more than what's good for them. Open up the stomach of seagulls who come to buffet at a landfill and you can find tinfoil, metal glass, rubber bands, plastic cutlery, and more. Sharks also have eaten their fair share of creative cuisine, including boots, raincoats,

pieces of boats, toys, license plates. Maybe that's where all the POGs wound up. But do humans ever eat the inedible? Pika is a disorder found in both humans and animals. Those with pica will eat inedible or even dangerous items. Some of the more common forms of pika are pagophagia eating ice, trictophagia eating hair, xylophagia eating paper, lithophasia stones, geophagia soil, and even corporophasia feces which I'm sure I pronounced all of those perfectly. What's the name for people

like me who eat taco bell am? I right, fellows. Uh. It can be a purely psychological disorder, but it can also indicate a mineral deficiency, such as low iron, which is associated with eating soil, or anemia, especially among those who eat ice, and I mean like water ice, not um. Anyways, Pregnant women and children are more likely to have pike it and are also more likely to be simultaneously suffering

from anemia. If you own a dog, you know, they might occasionally dabble in coprophagia, the eating of their own feces. Coprophagia isn't always pike a. Many animals find feces to be nutritional and delicious, such as rabbits, guinea pigs, baby koalas, and flies. Dogs who take to eating their poop maybe trying to make up for a nutritional deficiency or to help nourish their gut biome. But they could also just

be anxious or simply bored. That's why I do it. Yeah, I know who among us doesn't like to sit down and just eat some ship when you're bored. Yeah, So earlier I mentioned tricophagia, which is also called Rapunzel syndrome because that means eating your own hair, which, as we know in the classic fairy tale, she eats her hair, right, the famous story of her Punzel who eats all her own hair. Love that scene Entangled where she eats her own hair. Um, it's like a bunch of linguini. So

this can actually be really dangerous. Hair is indigestible and conform blockages in the intestines. Right. I remember we did a story back in our days at that one website where, yeah, like the weirdest things removed. Back when we were like highbrow journalists, we did an article about the weirdest things removed from people's bodies. Giant hairballs. Yeah, yeah, and they have to be surgically removed. One of the records setting ones weighed fourteen pounds. And you don't need a Google

image it. You don't need to. It looks like a big chunk of condensed hair. Yeah, I did. I had described it for you. Yeah, it's a it's if you've ever removed a hairball from like a drain. Just picture that that but like like a neutron star of that. It's like very compacted. But to put it bluntly, so like eating other parts of your body wouldn't really technically count as pika because it'd be pretty nutritious. Like if you ate a finger, that'd be nutritious. What about fingernails, No,

that's just that, that's just keraton. It doesn't doesn't add anything, and you can't digest it. Sorry, Jack, I know you've been doing it wrong. I have to start spitting them out. You're supposed to eat the actual fingers. Um, So let's go on an imagination journey through the mind to a stop imagination station all aboard the brain train. So if you were starving, what what body part would you eat first? Like, like you're on a raft in the middle of the ocean.

There's nothing you can eat. There's no fish in this scenario, or you're just really bad at fishing. So it's like five years in the future, right right, Um, we're all we're all flooded, but there's no fish and all the bees are dead. And but I've already eating all the people that I've been went on the board, You've already eaten the cabin boy. Um, So there's no no more boys to eat um, no more eat um. So what body part would you eat first? My butt? Where are

you gonna sit though? I'm a face sleeper, okay, so just cut on into the butt. I think it's what i'd go for, nice and meaty rump rosta Yeah, no, no, no, that's that's ends. That sounds disgusting. But yeah, I mean I guess that's like a good choice because it's very fatty. You so much, I mean, I'm appreciate, I appreciate you in that round about way telling me I have a fat Yeah. Well, you know, um, and it's like there's not there's not like too many blood vessels. There so

no major arteries in your butt. Uh so you know you you Yeah, let's face it, I'm a white male. Nobody's gonna miss. But it's it's you might barely there to begin. You might like get like the nickname the butt survivor. But you know, but survivor. Yeah, you mean the superhero name, but survivor, right, But you do actually have to I mean, like I feel, I guess if you're starving, though, would like a human butt be appetizing. I think it's the first thing I would eat even

if I had food. No, I I don't know. Yeah, I guess I was kind of thinking that that has the most because don't they say that fat has a lot of energy, like a lot of calories. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean fat is Yeah, it has a lot of calories, and it's probably you're probably getting the most bang for your buck with the butt because there's

no there's not like bones in there. There's not a lot of tendons, and like it would be among the hardest things to turniquet though, that is true, a butt tourniquet. I don't know, but you know, maybe like maybe you just like slice it real thin, like like a ham, like one of those like one of those slicers at the grocery store. So it's like it's so thin you don't even feel it. Yeah, I don't think that's possible.

But there's like this thing called like mapping the Human Body project or something, and like it's where they take dead people's bodies and then like they map the whole body by taking pictures of cross sections all throughout the body.

And to do that you have to freeze. Yes, they freeze the body and actually watch this and it's a you know, when you get past the fact this was like a human it's actually kind of interesting because they like take like very thin shavings off of it and take a picture and then that way they can make a three D They put all of those pictures into a computer program and it makes it an entirely complete three D model of everything, the skin, the fat tissues,

the circulatory system, the bones um. And there was this lady who like volunteered to do it, and it's just like it's so weird because you like there's just like a pair of legs and like the bottom half of the body, just like getting sliced up, and it's hot. It's hot, it's hot. It's really yeah. Um So, I thought this was about gluttony, not lust. Come on, come on, guys, come on. Eating your own butt would be called auto cannibalism. And see, squirts are marine. Squirts are marine invertebrates who

practice auto cannibalism. So in their adult forms, they look like these weird, globbly, colorful tube things that, uh, they don't even look like animals. They look like some kind of weird SpongeBob plant because they're attached to rocks or reefs. They don't really move on their own. They they're just kind of look like like very colorful inflatable you know, those like inflatable dudes that are outside of like card dealerships and stuff where it's like, oh, it's like a

wacky inflatable dude. Nick, do I have to tell her that those aren't real dudes? I need to reassess my relationship then one of those. Um So, adults can either be solitary or form colonies, and they they're really weird. And it took me a lot of time to wrap my mind around this. Because they can reproduce sexually by just shooting out sperm and egg or by collecting sperm that is fertilized within the C. Squirt. And they can also reproduce a sexually by butting, which is a form

of like creating a clone of itself forming colonies. And it's just it's basically they'll just try anything one budding b U D D I. Yes, yes, not butting. That's that's what we were talking about earlier with the butt

eating um. That is the scientific name for it. By the way, could we edit it so that when she asks what I would do, or even before she asked the question, I have the I'd eat my own butt answer like way too ready to go, Like immediately, I'm just like I'd eat my own butt, Katie, proceed with your question. So, uh. Some colonial species of C squirts are linked by root like projection called stolens, which sounds like gross, and these stolens can grow into new individuals

within the colony called zooids. This just sounds like an alien porno now, like I'm gonna part my stolen in your huoid. Yeah yeah, yeah, super hot, And everyone was thinking that before you said, yeah, I mean we're all on the same page here, right, Yeah, So other species of sea squirts can just like break apart and form new buds, like new little protos c squirts, or they'll split in half and make two seats. It's just like

they do anything they feel like they can. They can have sex, bite just randomly tossing out sperm and eggs or like sperm eggs and like, it's just it's crazy that they have all these different types of reproductive strategies where they can like just be like I'm just gonna like just pop off a couple of babies a sexually, or I'm just gonna like dissolve into a few new babies, or we're all split in half and create a twin.

It's it's really weird. That would be a great imagination station for down the road, just imagining if humans had the ability to just reproduce all of those ways. Like, would we ever have sex with each other? Because I feel like everybody would just probably break themselves off because we're all narcissists. But I mean, I feel like people don't always just have sex to have babies these days. What I know, right, I'm sorry, I have to reevaluate

my relationship. I'm sorry, Jesus. Um. So, for C squirts who fertilize their eggs doing reproduction in the normal god fear in American way, then the missionary position, a larva will form, and the larva actually looks like tadpoles, which is weird because the adult forms of C squorts look like weird plants and the larva look like actual kind

of like you know, like a tadpole. Um, And they undergo process called retrogressive metamorphosis because that means that their adult form is more simplistic than the larval form, just like humans. Huh yeah, we lose a lot of our souls when we become adults. Yeah yeah, um so children are so pure, they are pure. Nobody has ever said that.

Who has had children? Right? Right? Yeah? So they attached themselves to rocks or reef material, and they'll become a mobile filter feeders, which is called being sessile, which to me, it just sounds like ale and porn. Again. It's like like I'm gonna put my chest and shy of your huoid. I'm that's your sex voice. Yeah, I'm here to deliver some stolene. But look appears you do not have any credits, so I'm going to seshile. So basically they're just a

mouth of stomach and a butt tube. But that's not the crazy part. The c squirt larvae have like tadpole form of them have this very simple brain vesicle. It's a nerve cord and a primitive precursor to the spine uh and sensory organ so like an I dot which detects light and an autolith which detects gravity. So it forms this very simple, dumb little brain nervous system that allows it to seek out a solid surface to attach to.

Once it attaches itself to a reef and becomes an adult, it will eat its own brain, nervous system and tail

because it doesn't need them anymore. Kind of. So this is one of those things where like the headlines are like it eats its own brain, and then you read it further and it's still really cool, but it's not just like somehow physically and possibly like turn running around and chewing on its own brain and digests it right right, so it absorbs it kind of like if anybody watches Doctor who the absorble off or it just sort of like melds things into its body um nerd alert, nerd alert.

Oh yeah, no, we all watch that. Yeah yeah here

in America. Move along, I watched Sports Center. Uh. So it'll absorb its own tail nerve cord and sensory organs, and the brain vesicle that controlled movement and digestion is also absorbed, and it's recycled into sort of a more simple form of like it's a cerebral ganglion, which is just kind of a group of nerve cell bodies that now all it does is allows it to eat and reproduce, so turns into just this like tube that it's just like eaten, having sex and pupin the ultimate center because

it's like getting drunk for that species. Feel like yeah, I guess so, because it's just like sitting around just allowing everything to come to it, like you know, like it doesn't even move to like go have sex. It's just like I don't know, just come, you know, order to pizza. It's like getting way too drunk. I think it's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like like the kind of drink you shouldn't be doing where you're just like ordering a bunch of food off of like Amazon Prime, where

you're just like groceries, not even a meal. Just I want, like I want like a dozen eggs. Yeah, I mean, I like pomegrants take into account all the work. That's when, you know, you know, like when it's just like you you wake up and you're surrounded by like eggshells and like half eaten pomegranates, that you're in trouble. That's that's what told me so. But if you're more interested in the kind of glutton that uses its mouth to eat, gosh darn unaccepting people like you should be able to

eat too. I know. There's a frog called the argentinean wide mouth frog, which is which is really insulting, just like the wide mouth um. It's also known as the pac man frog, and it makes a lot of sense because the frog has a mouth that takes up a bunch of its body volume, and it mainly subsists on ghosts, so it looks like a green pac man and it

acts like one too. It'll just fearlessly eat rodents, reptiles, large spiders, each other, and even prey that's too large to fit in its mouth, and it's it will actually like choke to death or even rip its own stomach open. Attempting to gorge itself on something way too big, and they're like pictures of it, like with like a lizard just like popping out of its stomach because it's like it's like that looks about right, and it's just like forcing it in, like Kirby, just like get in there. Stop.

What is the evolutionary advantage of like not having a I'm too full reflex? Just fast eating like and it's it's not even that it's too full, it's like that it doesn't even it's not even thinking about like what

it's eating. It's just like eating eat. It's like if it isn't thinking before eating, it's going to be faster at grabbing prey and uh and then like on average, you know that'll be okay because even like like big, bigger prey, prey that's too big will generally maybe be able to escape and so like no harm, no foul, but like, uh, if it's indiscriminate, it's going to get

as much in there as possible. But sometimes too much, sometimes too much, and then they're just like a statistic and uh, you know it's it's too bad for the pac man frog. But overall it's a relatively good strategy to just like, I guess animals can look at us and be like, why do they do drugs? Until that didn't make sense. Yeah, uh so creepy or still there's a human version of the argentinean wide mouth frog. I feel bad because they're about no. So it's he's actually

a Frenchman in the late eighteenth century. And I swear I did not plan out like calling them like like making comparing a French person to a frog. That was not that. There's no reason to do that. I'm not intentional. So in the late eighteenth century, this guy was known simply as Tarar, and Tarar was insatiably hungry, eating anything

and everything he could. Uh. He was a normally sized man, even kind of a little bit on the skinny side, but his stomach would distend to accommodate his strange and gluttonous diet. I think what the kids call this day like a food baby. And he had an abnormally wide mouth and loose skin on his cheeks, just like kind of flocking around Aura and his own kid just unlocked her joke fit an entire gerbil inside my mouth. His

own parents kicked him out for eating too much. He traveled as an entertainer and this is kind of gross, but he would swallow full baskets of apples, dozens of eggs, feasts in one sitting, and even live eels, snakes, lizards, and live cats and puppies. Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean this is back in the eighteenth century where they're just like it's we don't see the amazing. We don't have TVs, so I don't know, eat a kitten, throw

your cat at and see what happens. So there, you know, Peter didn't exist at the time, so people were like, oh, he just ate seven kittens, how droll um. So while he was in the hospital attempting to undergo treatment, he even attempted to eat bodies in the morgue, and he was accused, although it was not proven, of eating a toddler. Uh So the hospital kicked him out like well, like they're like, all right, you can eat as many dead bodies in the morgue, but you eat a toddler, that's it.

Animal Again, they found him in like the newborn nursery. Yeah, I'm not sure, like what they I think a toddler just went missing. So they were like, tarare I heard he even ate the hospital food. All right, guys, so the hospital kicked him out. I've been Jack everyone Jack's been jack Um. And so that's the story of ter Aar, the legendary human pac man frog. The hospital kicked him out,

and he just kind of well, he eventually died. Yeah, dissolved, dissolved into like like several smaller terrs, like I don't knows where he is to this day. He might be. He could be right behind you, that's right in your back seat, yes, because you're driving, or like yeah, open your eyes. By the way, Oh, ship, we never told you got a seat to drive. Your car is covered in human body parts. Well, at least you know, at least you learned something. At least you learned. You've been

on a journey. You've been on a learning journey, learning journey, learning journey. Uh, that's gonna be the new name of this podcast, My Good Mouth eaton Boys a learning journey. So this seems like it was a more common thing to just eat ship, like not ship, but like eat

just things that aren't supposed to be eaten. Because another article we did at an hour old hybrow publication was about like people with really weird diets and Darwin, in addition to like discovering all these species and like coming up with the theory of evolution ate every species that we documented. And there are a bunch of kings and

other people throughout history who just like ate everything. They thought it was like a sign of like maybe that was before we had gotten used to being out of the food chain, and like that's how you showed your dominance over Interesting. There's like that one French scientist guy who like this is like right before the French Revolution and like all he would do is drink milk for a long time to see if that worked. He was killed in the revolution, but to see if that would

bring peace to the French countries in the world. Know, think it was more of a scientific thing, like can you just drink milk? Oh, to see if that would make them all the sustenance that he needed. Yeah, Mussolini was also that he would only eat white things and mostly at the end of his life was just racist. Don't say that about Muslin. Um, Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think, although to be fair to Darwin, if you're like the grandfather of discovering all these new species,

wouldn't you just taste them? I wouldn't. But that's where you and Darwin are different. He found like an entirely new turtle. You wouldn't just taste it. Then he ate an entire turtle like a giant tortoise. Ate turtles. But that's crazy. I mean, there's used to be a food before, Like we killed a lot of them, and I guess I went out of vogue. Well, this is the Animal Theme podcast, where we actively encourage eating endangered species. So, Jack, you got anything to plug? I don't know, like maybe

a podcast tong sort. Yeah, we have a podcast here on this very network. It's called The Daily Zeitgeist. Uh. We published a new episode every weekday. Is I My co host Miles Gray, who was on the episode about Weird Moms from season one. We talk about all the news that's fit to print and just try and figure out what people are thinking and talking about down in

the pop culture. It's a blast. And you follow me on Twitter at Jack Underscore O'Brien, and you can follow us on Twitter by us, I mean me, it's the Royal US creature feet pod, not feet like as in feet but at the a t you can tell me at Community Golden and at pro Bird writes, because I'm very much an activists or burbs uh. And we'll be back next Wednesday with another episode of Creature Future by Guys bye ye h