Has anyone done this experiment? Actually put a monkey in an environment with the equivelant of a million bananas (unlimited food, uncontested mates, whatever puzzles we can think of to make life interesting in the absense of pain and conflict, etc.) and watched how it acted over a period of years for signs of boredom and despair?
Might be useful information about the real effects of certain kinds of “Utopias.” Also might be horribly unethical, depending on how you feel about primate experimentation.
I meant that in the context of the Fun Theory sequence, which I’m currently reading through. It seems to me to implicitly predict that a monkey given unlimited bananas, mates, etc., ought to turn out surprisingly unhappy, at least to the extent that its psych is not-too-dissimilar from humans. It would be interesting to see if that prediction is correct.
Has anyone done this experiment? Actually put a monkey in an environment with the equivelant of a million bananas (unlimited food, uncontested mates, whatever puzzles we can think of to make life interesting in the absense of pain and conflict, etc.) and watched how it acted over a period of years for signs of boredom and despair?
Might be useful information about the real effects of certain kinds of “Utopias.” Also might be horribly unethical, depending on how you feel about primate experimentation.
If giving a monkey some bananas is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
I meant that in the context of the Fun Theory sequence, which I’m currently reading through. It seems to me to implicitly predict that a monkey given unlimited bananas, mates, etc., ought to turn out surprisingly unhappy, at least to the extent that its psych is not-too-dissimilar from humans. It would be interesting to see if that prediction is correct.