Joelle is fast asleep in the other room but I am not able to fall asleep just yet, so I thought I would come talk with you all. I remember seeing a comment earlier today somewhere referencing the crazification factor and Jon Rogers, didn’t think much about it, and then was scrolling through social media that made me think about the crazification factor again.
It feels like it is about every once or twice a year, there is some stupid poll or some stupid debate about how well a human male would do against various animals. The results are about as predictable as you can guess they would be by the male species in our current idiocracy with something like 20% thinking they could win a fight one on one with a Kangaroo and like 10% thinking they could beat a gorilla one on one. It’s a really gross indictment of the American education system, to be brutally honest.
At any rate, the current iteration of the debate is “Do you think 100 men could beat a silverback gorilla in unarmed combat?” and a surprising number of men think that yes, 100 men could win a fight with a silverback gorilla. These people are fucking delusional. My money would be on the gorilla all day, every day, every week, every month, every year for the rest of eternity. A gorilla would effortlessly rip the first guys arms off and then proceed use them to bludgeon to death the other 99 men and it would take less than a minute if it was in an arena and they couldn’t run in different directions. Gorillas, all of them, not just silverbacks, are so strong that it becomes almost difficult to fully internalize how strong they are. However strong you think they are? Multiply it by a 100.
But I digress. At any rate, the connection is obvious- I wondered if close to 27% of men think 100 of them could beat a silverback, thought of the crazification factor again for the second time in the same day, and thought to myself “How weird?” and moved on.
And then I saw this piece by Greg Sargent talking about how according to new polling, and saw these details:
Fifty-six percent of independents disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, while only 42 percent approve. Sixty-two percent of independents oppose deporting international students who have criticized U.S. policy in the Mideast, while only 36 percent percent support it.
Fifty-two percent of independents oppose sending undocumented immigrants who are suspected members of a criminal group to a prison in El Salvador without a hearing, while only 46 percent support it.
Only 21 percent of independents want wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to remain imprisoned in El Salvador, while 39 percent say he should be returned to the United States. Here, many are undecided, but that abysmal 21 percent figure suggests Trump’s propaganda depicting him as a gang member who doesn’t deserve due process is a bust.
Oh, ONLY 21% of self-described independents, you know, the fucking shmucks who think they are the “moderates” and the “reasonable ones” think Harcia should just rot in a supermax in El Salvador and only 46% of them support yanking people off the street under allegations of criminal behavior and send them off to jail for life without any due process.
At what point does the Crazification Factor even matter when half of the country is clearly and deeply broken?
Something Light for Late Evening Open Thread
CHETAN MURTHY
I remember reading that chimpanzees are preternaturally strong, can rip humans’ arms off. Apparently they have different genes expressed in their muscles. I have a memory of reading that doctors were looking into it, looking for a way to impart that strength to humans. And maybe I have a memory of some kid who was born with that gene expressed, and he was much, much stronger than the average human b/c of it. But that last part I might be misremembering.
frosty
Hi John -I’m still awake here in the EDT time zone. The Crazification Factor is a nice metric that it seems we can count on, but it’s really a lower bar. Various Valued Commenters suggest adding 18% or so to get contemporary poll numbers.
The added percentage is from the effect of Fox News.
Anne Laurie
True story: 50 years ago, I strayed too close to a caged chimp at an exotic pet shop, and it tore a 4×6″ swatch out of my tartan wool skirt without apparent effort. Most testostone-fueled dudes wouldn’t win against a smallish chimp much less a silverback!
SpaceUnit
Easily the most clarifying human vs gorilla combat post on this blog so far.
John Revolta
Hey John. I came in late on the last post and figured you wouldn’t see my comment, and also I’m extremely reluctant to ever give anybody advice or suggestions, so if this is just totally unpossible then ignore it and we’ll never speak of it again…… but, lots of people, including married couples, live part of the year in one place and part of the year in another……….. sometimes they rent out the house they’re not using temporarily or sometimes not. Yeah it requires a lot of tactical shit, but people do it…you wouldn’t have to sell your house and your stuff, or leave Bethany forever etc.
Well that’s all I’ll say. Thanks for the blog, I’ve been coming here for years, don’t comment as much as I used to but I still come by at least once a day. Sweet dreams ya bastard.
Rose Judson
The thing about the Crazification Factor is that it was describing the electorate 20 years ago. The informational environment has completely changed since then. In 2005 we had the internet, but no social media. So I think frosty at comment 2 is correct: you need to account for all the people who have been driven nuts by the algorithms (and the instability caused by the Great Financial Crisis, COVID, etc.) since then.
NotMax
Reminded of this.
JaySinWa
@Rose Judson: You put forth an interesting proposition that people are being actively crazified. I think that is objectively correct, and undoubtedly has happened in various scales over the history of humankind. That people have been driven mad either on purpose or by accident explains a lot of history.
Xenos
I have had a long-standing theory that marketing over TV and the radio, when done correctly, can restructure people’s brains at a physical level. Social media seems to be an order of magnitude more effective.
I don’t know what to say beyond that. The only thing that resets the culture and the psychology of a population that has been poisoned for generations have been massively traumatic events like the Red Army or Genghis Khan rolling through the neighborhood. Then rebuilding a functioning culture is a matter of decades, if not centuries.
There was what, 325 years between Atilla and Charlemagne?
ColoradoGuy
Thinking about (big) animals vs humans. They are way faster than us. What looks like a blur to slow human vision is crystal clear to most animal predators … their eyes, brain, and muscles work about 2X faster, and their twitch response is insanely fast and powerful. Monkeys and apes move with terrifying speed … if you’ve ever seen them in real life go after something they want, it’s pretty scary. Movies and TV do not show just how fast they move (60 frames/second isn’t enough).
How on Earth did our ancestors survive? Not just survive, but kill off nearly every other apex predator? The answer is something these Ayn Rand fools would not consider … social hunting. Human beings are the most dangerous social hunters in the animal kingdom. That skill became even more powerful when our ancestors discovered cooking, a social skill not available to other hunters, and that unlocked nutritional content not available to other animals. Again, a social skill transmitted through the generations, since managing a fire (without getting burned) is not something easily learned.
The final phase was the recent alliance between canids and humans, with the two of the most deadly social hunters on the planet forming an intimate alliance over the millennia. Nothing could resist that combination, except other humans.
That’s something the Ayn Randers cannot acknowledge. What makes us human, and most deadly hunters of all, is our social network, and that’s been true for our entire evolutionary history. In tribal cultures, expulsion from the tribe means almost certain death from other predators, or maybe worse, other tribes. Culture makes us human.
Gloria DryGarden
I’ve heard this as well. I knew a couple who lived across the Atlantic from each other, got together perhaps once a month, kept their careers going. The English person said, in their sweet English accent, “it’s the only way to be civilized.”
It doesn’t work for everyone. Worked for them.
satby
Good points.
And a toxic culture can strip that humanity away. We had genocides before we had mass media, throughout history. All it took was dehumanizing / creating fear of one group of people in the eyes of another. What’s changed is the speed that information and propaganda spreads, and the society is still working out how to cope. Eventually, we will. Living through society learning to cope is pretty awful though.
satby
@John Revolta: I think, given that John lives in a college town, that might be a real option to consider for a year or two. It could be to a visiting instructor, not students, and give John and Joelle a little more time to plan. When John goes back he can see if there’s any interest in renting from incoming faculty, and he has family and friends right next door(s) to keep an eye on things for him. Plus, extra income covering the house expenses.
Repatriated
Just want to point out that the way surveys/polls are written can skew the results.
no body no name
Years ago I got to meet some gorillas. They are gentle giants and beautiful animals. Nobody should consider them a threat. When you see them up close in person, watch them move, and they actually touch you it will shatter any illusion that you can do anything to the smallest female gorilla. The males will straight wreck you. They are faster and stronger than you can fathom.
@CHETAN MURTHY:
Chimps are known to remove limbs, testicles, and faces of people when they get upset. They are also really aggressive. In the case of gorillas or orangutangs they are very docile creatures. Chimps are our closest relatives and like us wage war, murder infants, and are completely unpredictable. They are violent shits. You don’t want to be near a chimp.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/story-california-couple-mauled-chimps-become-even-disturbing-rcna74173
Two other chimpanzees escaped from their enclosure just as St. James and LaDonna were preparing to eat birthday cake with Moe.
These chimps, Ollie and Buddy, charged the Davises. One bit off LaDonna’s left thumb, but it was St. James who bore the brunt of the attack.
The chimps gouged out his right eye and chewed off his nose, eight of his fingers, a chunk of his skull as well as parts of his lips, cheek, buttocks, genitals and feet.
The mauling went on for several minutes until a relative of the sanctuary’s owner ran out with a gun and shot the two chimps dead.
St. James spent five months in the hospital and underwent several surgeries. But he would never walk again, see out of his right eye or regain full use of his hands.
We are a creature that can lose a fight to a goose. Ain’t any of us surviving a fight with an apex predator let alone an ape.
Bulgakov
Didn’t the 2008 Obama v Keyes Senate race in Illinois establish that the bottom line Crazification Factor was 27.05%? That was the percentage of voters who voted for Alan Keyes over Barak Obama. Keyes was a last-minute, carpetbagging, God-praising, self-hating, looney-tune from Maryland and 27.05% of Illinois Republicans said “We can agree with him more than the other black guy running”.
So the Crazification Factor might bottom out near 27% in the center of the country.
Betty Cracker
@satby: Good points. Thanks to the MAGA movement, I have much more personal insight into how Nazism in Germany took hold. Fear and relentless propaganda can make otherwise civilized people believe preposterous lies and endorse monstrous actions. It’s no longer an abstract concept.
On a somewhat related note, we see military helicopters make training runs along our river from time to time. About an hour ago when it was still dark, three passed by at rooftop level with spotlights sweeping across the water. I miss not having to ponder sinister implications of that.
lowtechcyclist
@no body no name:
And this is why I refuse to engage in gorilla warfare.
p.a.
100 humans could win, the way the orcs finally overcame Húrin: so many dead orcs piled up around him he was immobilized. Of course the orcs weren’t: “oh hell no, you go first” which is the way men would act.
The Audacity of Krope
@lowtechcyclist: …oof…
no body no name
@p.a.: Yeah humans are cowards. And the worst cowards are the ones that think this is possible. If you if you were in full armor and had a battle axe it wouldn’t do jack shit. The first person who ran up would get torn in half so fast all everyone one would be able to visually track would be the shower of gore. Then comes the screaming and the running away.
kalakal
What brought home to me just how outclassed we are by various animals was watching dolphins hunting in the marina where I go for my lunchtime walks. Dolphins go there a lot and most of the time they’re goofing around, they’re fun to see and the babies are super cute. But every so often…
Fish flee to the shallow water of a sea grass area by the marina wall and what looks like the wake of a WW2 torpedo follows. The water can get so shallow the dolphins are on their sides and you get a close up view of a 1,000 lbs of muscle working in perfect co-ordination going by at 30 mph. Totally focused and utterly terrifying. The sense of sheer speed and power is incredible and you realise you wouldn’t be even playing the same game let alone be in the same league.
No One of Consequence
@ColoradoGuy: Good stuff. Sagan iirc, argued that Culture is derived from the evolution of the cerebral cortex. I think that it could be argued that that development of the cortex, accompanied an atrophy of sorts, of those portions of the brain more dedicated to predator superiority.
I posit additionally, that early humans discovered that increasing the distance between predator and dangerous prey, increases survival rates for hunters.
Lastly, I align with those favoring a gorilla against 100 men. This assumes a fixed space, equal equipment (naked, tool-less men). This also assumes a featureless arena that provides no cover, nor material to leverage as defense or weaponry. If there are trees, then the whole ordeal will be over that much faster with the ape the clear winner. If there is water of any significant depth, then I favor the human’s chances.
I also concur with whomever commented that a gorilla (let alone a silverback) on offense against a naked human would be nightmarish to behold. It would also be over very, very quickly. The levels of strength required to swing oneself (i.e. our entire bodymass) through the trees from branch to branch with your arms, and not be dislocating your shoulders on the regular… I think such strength at the end of an extended swipe of such an arm would fell the toughest muthaphuckas that ever took breath.
Ah, internet arguments. Reminds me of polluting UseNet feeds in my younger days, maliciously shit-posting “Pee tastes better than it smells. Discuss.” Fnord. And then came 9/11 and culture jamming would get you labeled a terrorist and I don’t think it ever got much better. Adopting a full-on Church of Bob attitude will likely get one shot these days.
Alas.
-NOoC
Bupalos
The biggest thing that has changed is this. Right here. The internet. The way it changes brains and social patterns. It delivers the propaganda, of a new type and in a new form, and the propaganda is coming from inside the house. We weren’t ready for it and, like the printing press, it may take some time before we learn to live with it constructively rather than destructively.
The existence of Fox isn’t really any significant part of the problem.
Trivia Man
@JaySinWa: the term Gas lighting gets thrown around a lot and is often misused – but faux news is 100% gas lighting us all
Salty Sam
I absolutely agree with your theory. I don’t remember which of his books this appeared in, but Robert Heinlein wrote (paraphrasing) “Once a society’s government starts using modern marketing and advertising techniques to sway public opinion, it’s time to get out of there.”
Fox News has mastered the technique. Social media algorithms appears to magnify it.
ETA: also, Neal Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves To Death” describes how television alters brain structure.
brendancalling
“At what point does the Crazification Factor even matter when half of the country is clearly and deeply broken?”
TBH? My dad recognized this brokenness back when we decided to invade Iraq based on the most obvious lies in the world. He saw it as the beginning of the end, because as a nation we we made a choice to “believe” these very obvious lies. If Bush hadn’t fucked up the economy, people would have happily claiming to believe the lies.
It took less than 25 years to make half our country a nation of degenerates.
Trivia Man
@no body no name: I knew someone who worked at a zoo. Every animal has a planned escape response. Might be tranquilizers, shouting, an enticing open door with food – every animal has a planned escape response to get them back. The escape plan for chimps is a shotgun. Shoot to kill ASAP. Even things like tigers use death only as a backup option.
brendancalling
@John Revolta: been doing this since 2022 w/my gal who lives 4 hours away.
Trivia Man
@Salty Sam: might have been Methuslas’ Children. Lots in there about public opinion dangers. And when you are 2,000 years old you can experience a lot of governments… you develop a sense for when you need to GTFO.
Glidwrith
@Rose Judson:
@JaySinWa:
@Xenos: We’ve had longstanding laws that the government is not allowed to use brain washing techniques on our population.
That doesn’t mean private entities can’t use them.
And why I never watch or listen to Fox News, Newsmax or ONN.
ETA: And beaten to the punch by at least two others
no body no name
@No One of Consequence:
Strength alone, and this is not a real fight. They are faster than you’d think.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rEEcsnafTXA
They are also pretty gentle and safe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48kJYvKaTIo
But an angry one? Yeah don’t go there.
Salty Sam
Yeah, and the addendum to Heinlein’s quip was “the good thing about interstellar space travel is that we have the means to escape”.
Unfortunately that is not an option for us at this point.
no body no name
@Trivia Man: Yeah probably the worst thing to get out. In terms of raw carnage and ability to go wherever it wants.
Ksmiami06
@Xenos: or a couple nukes
Doug R
@CHETAN MURTHY:
I know humans lost muscle mass-I suspect that happened coupled with the subcutaneous fat gain to help us float. Yes, I’m a fan of the aquatic human theory-it helps explain our upright posture, our fur changing to thin hair, the fat, our loss of muscle mass, etc.
Doug R
@Bupalos:
The internet allows hostile foreign actors (especially now Russia) to amplify dishonesty. We have to get control of that, short of blocking social media access we could require social media to flag it as propaganda.
This is where AI could actually do something useful, it could spot these patterned posts and flag them, leaving the decision to block or mark for a human.
chemiclord
For what it’s worth, humans before advanced societies did have one fairly remarkable advantage that a lot of other predators didn’t have.
It appears that humans have unusually high average endurance. Sure, we might not run very fast, but we can run really fucking far and chase you for a very long time. Couple that with the sort of pack hunting that was made even more lethal with the addition of wolves/dogs, there’s a good reason the animal world has a reflexive fear of humans… we were like the wild kingdom’s version of the Yautja.
Gvg
Watching Trump these last 9 years I have also remembered some Heinlan stories and I think that if a person is fed mostly incorrect information and told it is true, he will be something functionally resembling insane. Trump is too rich for his own sanity. He has always made anyone who told him facts he didn’t like go away, from childhood apparently, accelerating after he inherited. That means he created his own insanity. I think all rich people do this somewhat without knowing it. That makes them dangerous to the rest of us. I speculate further, that Americas longstanding prosperity have done that to all of us in comparison to the rest of the world.
In any case our education system has gotten screwed up for sure. How can we teach real fact checking and not encourage more people to just fall for pseudoscience quackery that they are convinced they have fact checked? This last step of confirming lunatics to head scientific departments is going to be really damaging.
Mr. Longform
I would just like to point out that the gorillas who rip the guys arms off and bludgeon the rest to death are vegans. That is all.
No One of Consequence
@chemiclord: Wolves can run us into the ground for endurance and distance. Personally, I think that is why we made some dogs. Both pack animals at this point, if we could have found some newborn pups, they would have been raised to be a part of our pack.
Or, alternately, why the Wolves domesticated some early humans. I’m not really convinced either way. The benefits of the relationship are obvious I think in the historical and fossil records.
But yes, humans used to be able to do some distance. Is there not a Mexico-area tribe that ran 35-70 miles a day? IIRC, that is.
-NOoC
No One of Consequence
@no body no name: Hadn’t seen that first clip. Knew about the second. If that had been an adult, I am not so sure the Gorilla would have behaved the same?
The first clip is deceptive, to me at least, because they are roughly equal mass. Were that a human receiving that charge, don’t care who you are, you’re done.
Thanks for posting those.
-NOoC
Citizen Alan
@Glidwrith: What always gets me about Fox News is that Rupert Murdoch is literally the only living human to have been the basis for a Bond villain. The only way Elliot Carver could have been more obviously based on Rupert Murdoch is if Jonathan Pryce had used an Australian accent (and ditched the Nehru jacket that he inexplicably wore). And the movie in which Carver tried to gin up a regional war just to increase the reach and value of his media empire came just 5 years before the Iraq War. There was even a scene in which M, James Bond’s boss, expressed fear about the consequences to her position and career if the Prime Minister found out MI6 was even investigating Carver.
no body no name
@No One of Consequence:
Wolves and humans are highly intelligent, sociable, pursuit, pack predators that engage in communal rearing of their young. It’s not that shocking that we encountered each other and thought “why not team up and eat all the things” and became best friends forever.
@Mr. Longform:
This is a myth. Gorillas are largely herbivores. But they do eat insects and will consume meat. Our closest relative is the chimp. They are vastly more dangerous than any gorilla due to raw aggression and other human traits. They are omnivores who eat smaller mammals and even other primates. They even engage in cannibalism. Do not make the mistake of thinking our fellow great apes are gentle vegans up in the trees eating fruit. Apes are not vegans.
@No One of Consequence:
Their bone density, twitch muscles, and a slew of other factors puts them in a different game than us. They can kill you without trying. People get killed by cows all the time and it’s not an enraged bull but just by raw accident. It moves the wrong way and you are crushed. Great apes are something even apex predators will not mess with. They can match them or beat them in brute force, keep a grudge, and are fucking smart. Most of us are also pack groups. So if you mess with one in a moment you have a mob of angry monsters showing up that will settle for nothing less than death of you, your friends, and anything in the general area.
Google up chimp wars. Over some random issue at a fruit tree one group will gather up and march for days. When they find the other group they will eat the children, genocide the adults, have a party, and then go back home as if not a damn thing happened. Apes will take on great cats. Messing with a great ape is one of the dumbest ideas on the planet.
WTFGhost
Actually, gorillas aren’t as strong as people used to think, back in the day – some scientists thought they were much stronger than they are, and that meme has stuck around a bit. I would put money one ten Infantry who were told they were going to fight a gorilla, and had at least one budding master sergeant among them, who explained how you can’t meet a gorilla strength on strength, but you can find their weak points, just like with a person, pin the arms behind them, control the head, and find a big rock.
If no big rocks, or other viable weapons, exist, okay, I’m going with the gorilla, but only against 10. Sooner or later, with 100, someone will find a working “work the eye” strategy, or enough people will create an arm/leg lock, and start breaking bone, etc..
That assumes some level of discipline, of course. If you dropped a gorilla, in front of 100 Joe Rogan watchers, and bet me even money, I might bet a dollar on the undisciplined rabble. Once (as you say) the gorilla rips the arms off the first member of the rabble, I could reasonably imagine everyone running as far away as possible, and not coordinating against the enemy.
OGLiberal
@Rose Judson: People who can be made unstable by algorithms deployed by the worlds’ greatest douchebags were crazy already. A large number of our fellow citizens saw clearly who and what Trump is and put him back in office, regardless. What is it that they say about doing the same thing wrong, over and over? And he didn’t even cheat….we – the collective “US” – wanted this.
Frank Wilhoit
The silly thing about the gorilla question is the notion that the 100 men could collaborate to defeat it. On that note, think how lucky we are that kittens can’t work together either.
am
I started writing something about how I thought 100 people would win if they were athletes, well-trained in personal combat, and had a homicidal rage to win without fear for their own lives.
For perspective, the people would weight about 25,000 lbs together and the gorilla would weight about 400 lbs. But I honestly don’t know how. I don’t know gorilla endurance well enough to know if it would exhaust itself before killing enough people for the remainder to subdue it.
I was just watching a video of Koko and Robin Williams tickling each other. Dian Fossey spent 20 years with them in their habitat, and the *gorillas* were not the problem. Given 100 people and one silverback, the people would be best served just bringing notepads and recording observations on how not to be a dick.
Kayla Rudbek
@chemiclord: yeah, I remember the Tumblr/MediaChimp posts about humans being persistence predators (look for the space orcs or humans are space orcs tags)
Chris T.
@CHETAN MURTHY:
They have different leverage as well as different fiber compositions: they’re optimized for short term strength rather than long term endurance.
A female chimpanzee was once recorded casually (not angrily) pulling with over 1000 pounds of force on a cable measurement system (using a single arm: I’m not sure how that works, maybe had her feet hooked on to something).