Aping

On good days, politics is 95% primate screeching and hooting. On bad days it's 100%. This is why I hate and fear politics so deeply.

In any case, the New York Times Freakonomics blogg has an interesting interview with Frans "Bonobo" de Waal that touches on primate politics:

If both monkeys got the same reward, there never was a problem. Grapes are by far preferred (as real primates, like us, they go for sugar content), but even if both received cucumber, they’d perform the task many times in a row.

However, if they received different rewards, the one who got the short end of the stick would begin to waver in its responses, and very soon start a rebellion by either refusing to perform the task or refusing to eat the cucumber.

This is an “irrational” response in the sense that if profit-maximizing is what life (and economics) is about, one should always take what one can get. Monkeys will always accept and eat a piece of cucumber whenever we give it to them, but apparently not when their partner is getting a better deal. In humans, this reaction is known as “inequity aversion.”

I actually don’t think the response is irrational at all, but related to the fact that in a cooperative system, one needs to watch what kind of investment one makes and what one gets in return. If your partners always ends up getting a greater share, this means that you’re being taken advantage of. So, the rational thing to do is withhold cooperation until the reward division improves.

This holds an important message for American society which is becoming less fair by the day.

De Waal also points out other species besides humans have a sense of rhythm; for instance, cockatoos. Watching the below video, I'm seized with the desire to tape myself mimicking this dancing bird as closely as possible. I'd like to get a white suit and white headdress and then put them on and try to reproduce his moves exactly. Among other things, I'd have to keep my hands clasped behind my back and not bend at the knees.

—Jonathan Schwarz