The MonkeysphereThe Monkeysphere
Demi Lune
"The what now?"
Posts: 909
07/06/2009 01:01 | http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html
I realize that, in internet time, this article is ancient. However, it is based on an actual scientific study and stuff! I probably read something about it ages ago, but I read a lot of things and a lot of it goes in one ear, then out the other. Then gets brought up as a random story during a conversation with anyone who might be interested in it.
The idea is this. People, just like monkeys, can only fit a certain number of people in their brain. Beyond that social circle, people simply stop being people. The study the article links to mentions a smaller clique size, which is for monkeys who they groom. The human equivalent would be the people whose metaphoric shoulders you metaphorically cry on, and vice versa. These are the people whose lives and emotions are things you think about over the course of a regular day.
The guy flipping your burgers at the local McDonalds? He's super excited about going on his first date tonight. His mom got a promotion. Life's great, except for the shitty job, but that's totally alright. But does that register in your mind at all when you go to complain that some stupid bastard in the kitchen fscked up your burger? No, of course not.
That girl in line for a salad at that McDonalds whose bum CJ won't stop ogling? She wears tight pants because people are going to talk about her clothes anyway, so she may as well get some compliments with the obligatory insults. She's not dating anybody right now, because she's tired of dealing with douchebags who just want to get laid. But does any of that relate to the nice bum in front of you? No, all that's related to that nice bum is a set of nice legs.
Of course, given that CJ is inside our social circle, we know he's getting a big meaty burger, because he figures the protein will help him bulk up a little. He'll probably get himself a combo because it's a good deal, and get a root beer and some fries. Cool stuff. We also know he just downloaded a sweet new game to play, and found an interesting webcomic to read.
When that nice bum + legs set turns around and becomes a nice rack below an angry (though still kinda attractive) face and demands to know why CJ won't stop looking at her bum (because her friend noticed and sent her a text message), do you think she stops and wonders what makes him stare at people's bodies like a starving hyena? If you guessed no, you'd be right. He's just a gangly teenager who is liek omg a super creep amirite? That's because he's outside her social circle.
Eventually, even the nicest, most empathetic person on Earth simply can't comprehend every one of the ~6,000,000,000 people alive today. It's physically impossible. Right now, there are millions of people having sex. Right this second. There are thousands of people googling the word "sex" every second, all around the world. There are people being born, dying, getting hired, being fired, getting drunk, being hungover, getting married, getting divorced...
The human brain can fit about 150 people. The clique thing I mentioned briefly is about a dozen. Outside of that dozen, the other 138 are people you know, recognize, trust to varying degrees for varying reasons, etc. Inside that dozen, those are people who hopes and dreams and successes and failures you know intimately, and who have touched you deeply and made you who you are. The other 138 people you know have contributed to that in varying degrees, too, but they simply can't match the personal degree of that dozen.
And what's outside that one hundred and fifty people? Anonymity. The internet. Trolling. A lack of empathy, not because every human being is intrinsically an asshole, but because we just aren't equipped to think of humans as people. Say there's six billion humans on Earth. You can know one hundred and fifty of them.
0.000000025%. 2.5 x 10^-8%. Two-point-five BILLIONTHS of a SINGLE percent of the human beings on Earth register as people for us.
The other 99.999999975% of the people on Earth? They're the French. They're metalheads, they're Running Girl (local nickname for this tiny teenage girl who seems to spend all her time running up and down various streets), they're kids in baggy pants, they're preps, they're jocks, they're nerds. They're accountants, they're social workers, they're teachers, they're the guys who make sure big filters keep the stuff you flush down the toilet out of your drinking water. Stereotyping, dismissing human beings without a thought, is something nobody can avoid. It's simply too hard. We can't process that many unique lives, that many unique personalities and identities. We are not capable.
Apologies to CJ for using him as an example, as well as totally making shit up about him. I had to use someone from the community. Oh, and I imagined Sledge as the guy complaining about his burger. That one didn't need a personality attached to it, though.
Thoughts? Comments about how I wasted my time writing this? Discussion?
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But when that call never comes, it's time to face what you've become - there's no point doing all of this, unless you know you're having fun. |
Vanilla Name
"h"
Posts: 1275
07/06/2009 13:38 | That's fine, though the truthful thing about that is that i'd be staring at her ass for sure
And yeah, I understand this stuff, the impersonal side of people and how we disregard people and such.
You like to think about things don't you Demi?
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h |
Frank Lux
"Hello Motto"
Posts: 167
07/06/2009 16:41 | This is why it's impossible for us to really care about Africa's problems or in other far place... They're not in our social circle, and they will never be (except you travelled to that place and made friends but that's "crazy")...
We invented Sociology for that very reason: to don't care about the unique qualities of the people.
I want to think this more throughtly, but I fail to concentrate...
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Screw this, I'm going a-back to Italia! |
Sledge Wielder
"Go Reapers!"
Posts: 374
07/06/2009 17:54 | I read it. I understand it. I still don't care to get to know anyone more than I already know. By the way, the drink and fries are just going to fatten you up. If you're looking to bulk, you have to go with the protein shake mix and milk, and possibly throw in ice cream if you're looking for a layer of fat with the muscle. Oh and yeah I definitely would complain about my burger!
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If everything's right, what's left? |
Demi Lune
"The what now?"
Posts: 909
07/07/2009 11:10 | Lol, I just said bulk up. Could be he needs a bit more fat on his bones 
I think all the time, I can't help it. Sometimes it's introspective thinking, sometimes it's other people, sometimes it's interesting stuff like this.
Frank: That's exactly it. People are like "eat the rest of your food, there's starving kids in Africa who'd love to have it!" but that's not caring about them. That's being like "haha starving kids, also my kid is having a temper tantrum and won't finish his supper." As far as people who donate to charity and stuff, the best reason most of them will ever have is it's tax deductible, or occasionally that they're giving it as a gift to someone who doesn't really need anything else.
For a few years we've always pitched money together to buy stuff like goats and books in Africa for my mom's parents, because they really could care less what random knick knacks we pick up for them Of course, my mom and dad will usually get them actual gifts aside from that, but the main thing from my family for them is that. It's a good thing to do, but honestly? Tax deductible.
Sledge: In my head, I picture you as my dad. He's got to be the fittest old man I've ever seen. When he was in university he was a little twiggy guy like me, then he quit smoking not long after I was born and started going to the gym. And now, he bikes kilometers at a time and can bench press god knows how much.
He's also a master complainer. No matter how small the screw up, they'll probably give you a free meal or $10 gift coupon or something like that. Once upon a time, we went to Burger King and kinda wanted some Pok�mon toy or something, but because we live in a tiny, insignificant place, they didn't have the newest toys. And we cried. And we cried some more.
So, my dad calls up the head Burger King office, tracks down the e-mail address of the vice president and sends her nasty e-mails, the whole deal. We get a coupon for a free meal for the whole family, AND the entire set of toys plus some extra ones thrown in to even the number out or something XD We never counted them, but there were a lot.
We were the happiest kids on Earth, until we forgot about them the next day and went back to playing video games.
A game I used to play had a system where for posts over a certain length, you received a single in-game credit. Which is about the same as one MonBre buck. If it was over a much larger length (like 5000 characters or something) you would get two credits. But, there was a discussion forum for interesting stuff like this, and the credit bonuses there were doubled. And I was the happiest teenage boy on the internet. And I slowly accumulated 10,000 posts. And then kept posting.
And it was good. We discussed religion without any flaming, we discussed political systems (capitalism vs communism, not democrat vs whatever your second american party is), we discussed love, we discussed various disorders like depression and stuff... It was good times.
The point of that story? MonBre normally has a character limit for posts. I got Vael to raise it because writing stuff in my Dear Demi topic was going over the limit XD But I can't see anyone else ever using that many characters. So, I say we should have a "discussion" type forum, where there's no character limit, and set it back to normal on the rest of the forums.
To the suggestion forum!
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But when that call never comes, it's time to face what you've become - there's no point doing all of this, unless you know you're having fun. |
Sledge Wielder
"Go Reapers!"
Posts: 374
07/07/2009 13:20 | Demi, I never smoked, but I was definitely skinny in college, but not for lack of bodybuilding(or eating). I just had this super metabolism that could decimate a cow carcass in 30 seconds leaving nothing behind but a smile of satisfaction on my face, and the urge to drink a milkshake. I regularly would sit back to watch a movie on my Playstation holding a full sized bag of doritos and a two liter of Mountain Dew, while cooking up some Encore family dinners(the swedish meatballs kind that they dont make any more) which would finish about halfway through the movie, thus I'd be eating meatballs, chewing doritos, and drinking dew until the end of the movie, which normally coincided with the food all being gone. Then I'd proceed to max out my electronic weight machine on the bench for sets of 10, do a couple hundred sit-ups, then eat a box of little debbie snack cakes about an hour later. I'd have goofed off and ate more, but the rest of my day was filled pushing carts at k-mart and going to school.
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If everything's right, what's left? |
Demi Lune
"The what now?"
Posts: 909
07/07/2009 21:36 | Lol. Not so much the smoking part, or the skinny as a kid part either. Mostly just the buff older guy part.
Also, doing hundreds of sit-ups/crunches is a terrible way to keep a six pack. Unless you just have nothing else to do. You're much better off getting something to lean back off of or something specifically designed to be sat up on/crunched upon... Much quicker and easier.
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But when that call never comes, it's time to face what you've become - there's no point doing all of this, unless you know you're having fun. |
Vanilla Name
"h"
Posts: 1275
07/08/2009 07:23 | If you're skinny you need to eat more to get fat that you can turn to muscle
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h |
Sledge Wielder
"Go Reapers!"
Posts: 374
07/08/2009 11:36 | CJ is correct! So is Demi! You should eat more(but specifically protein), and using a roman chair is the ultimate in stomache forming.
Ok demi, lets see how well you imagine other things.
My preferred dog.
My preferred sock color.
My largest permanent injury.(this one oughtta be fun to see)
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If everything's right, what's left? |
Vanilla Name
"h"
Posts: 1275
07/08/2009 13:44 | I thought Sledge's largest permanent injury was friction burn on his little friend
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h |
Sledge Wielder
"Go Reapers!"
Posts: 374
07/08/2009 14:14 | Close but no cigar hehe
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If everything's right, what's left? |
Demi Lune
"The what now?"
Posts: 909
07/08/2009 14:17 | Absolutely no idea to all those. Not even worth a blind guess XD
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But when that call never comes, it's time to face what you've become - there's no point doing all of this, unless you know you're having fun. |
Sledge Wielder
"Go Reapers!"
Posts: 374
07/08/2009 14:22 | rofl ok I'll just dump em out here. I'm into BIG dogs. My dream dog would be an Irish Wolfhound. And not one of those little ones that look more like scottish deerhounds either. I'm talking BIG irish wolfhounds. I hate staining clothes, so I tend to wear dark colors. The only sock color that can't be stained is black, so that's what I wear to the exclusion of all else. My worst permanent injury was when I managed to lose the tips of my two central fingers of my right hand while working on some industrial equipment. It's barely noticeable, but they're just a LITTLE shorter than they used to be.
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If everything's right, what's left? |
Vanilla Name
"h"
Posts: 1275
07/09/2009 09:58 | Hey, I remember watching this thing on injuries and this bloke had one of those grindy saw things and he forgot to pay attention and grinded a bit off the tip of some of his fingers but it's not as bad as the bloke who had a steel pole go into his eye but they saved his eye and only his tear ducts were broken..
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h |
Sledge Wielder
"Go Reapers!"
Posts: 374
07/09/2009 19:56 | We had a guy working on a cnc with a loose shirt get it ripped right off him without hurting him at all(just embarassed him with his half-nekkidness at work lol)
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If everything's right, what's left? |
Vanilla Name
"h"
Posts: 1275
07/10/2009 09:21 | One guy right, he had a can of pepsi shoved up his bottom
The doctors were laughing at him, if they knew him properly they would maybe have been nicer, monkeysphere, amirite?
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h |
Demi Lune
"The what now?"
Posts: 909
07/10/2009 09:38 | Exactly! If they knew the guy, they'd be like oh god dude that sucks so much, but uh... Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... How in the hell did it happen?
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But when that call never comes, it's time to face what you've become - there's no point doing all of this, unless you know you're having fun. |
Vael Victus 
"See you, fantasy monster game."
Posts: 2200
07/10/2009 12:02 | o.o; oh hey guys.
Yeah Demi this is a great article. I can't wait to say monkeysphere and meatspace and face time.
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MonBre is an unlisted game of Tinydark Studio.
Personal Website: vaelvict.us |
Demi Lune
"The what now?"
Posts: 909
07/11/2009 11:06 | "Hey, Vael, what time is it?"
"FACE!"
"That's... not a time."
"Oh, you're right. It's half past four."
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But when that call never comes, it's time to face what you've become - there's no point doing all of this, unless you know you're having fun. |
Frank Lux
"Hello Motto"
Posts: 167
07/11/2009 18:37 | "I did successfully code a dBASE II microcomputer in 12 parsecs"
"That's not a measure of time"
"Neither is fuck you!"
Doomsday Arcade, check it out!
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Screw this, I'm going a-back to Italia! |
Demi Lune
"The what now?"
Posts: 909
07/11/2009 22:01 | The Escapist is pretty awesome, too. They've had some good articles in the past.
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But when that call never comes, it's time to face what you've become - there's no point doing all of this, unless you know you're having fun. |
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