• Zorque@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 day ago

      Hmm, I dunno, I seem to recall something about mercantilism and sex work with reference to bonobo populations…

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        18
        ·
        edit-2
        1 day ago

        You’re talking about the study where they introduced currency into a contaiment with capuchins.

        For some reason, a lot of people must have heard the story as involving bonobos, but anyway:

        https://www.zmescience.com/research/how-scientists-tught-monkeys-the-concept-of-money-not-long-after-the-first-prostitute-monkey-appeared/

        They gave them little silver disks, just randomly, for a while.

        Eventually the monkeys figured out the ‘money’ could be exchanged for grapes, from the researchers.

        They kept giving the monkeys ‘money’ randomly, and for doing various tasks.

        Then they gave them different kinds of fruit for different prices.

        Then they introduced them to gambling, random amount of fruit for a certain price.

        Then a monkey stole another monkey’s ‘money’, which caused basically a a free for all monkey riot that involved almost all the monkeys.

        … And then shortly after that, the monkeys invented monetarily compensated prostitution, with a male paying a female for sex, which the female immediately afterward purchased a grape with.

      • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        1 day ago

        We’re gonna slut-shame wild animals when there are still billionaires we haven’t strung up? Let’s tend our own gardens for a while, at least until we’re in a geological period not named after our mistakes.