Monkey Business and Freakonomics

marct22 writes "Stephen J Dubner, co-writer of 'Freakonomics' said there will be a second Freakonomics book. One of the items that will be covered is capuchin monkeys' use of washers as money, buying sweets, budgeting for favored treats over lesser treats. He mentioned that one of the experiments had similar outcomes as a study of day traders. And lastly, he watched capuchin prostitution!"

There's only been half a book so far..

[QuantumG]

If you're thinking of buying Freakonomics, don't bother. Half the book is "letters from our website".

It's one of those books you buy at the airport before a long trip only to discover that it only takes half the trip to read it.

Re:There's only been half a book so far..

[26199]

It was short. But also one of the most interesting short books I've read.

So I hereby counter your unrecommendation ;)

Re:

[moosesocks]

I concur. Freakonomics stripped a bit too much of the science away in an attempt to make the book accessible.

Naked Economics [amazon.com] tries to do the same thing as Freakonomics, but achieves a much higher degree of success. Freakonomics was dumbed down to an almost insulting level, and many of the examples provided felt somewhat outlandish. Naked Economics does a much better job of distilling economic theory down to plain english, and picks much more relevant examples. I also found it to be a pretty entertainin

Re:There's only been half a book so far..

[vidarh]

From the descriptions on Amazon, it seems like Naked Economics tries to be something completely different than Freakonomics. The entire point of Freakonomics is applying economic theory to areas economists don't usually look at, and describe some of the more interesting results in an entertaining and accessible way, not to be an economy textbook. You say it was "dumbed down" - I say it was written with a specific audience in mind: People who are not interested in economics, i.e. most of us, but who might find a description of some of the results of applying economic theory to everyday situations interesting and entertaining.

It never spends much space on economic theory, even "distilled to plain English", because that isn't the purpose of the book.

Re:There's only been half a book so far..

[Scaba]

So, you're saying independent thinkers should take your word for it and do what you demand?

Re:

[ichigo 2.0]

If you consider yourself an independent thinker, don't buy it.

This statement seems to me a bit contradictory. :)

Re:

[FooAtWFU]

The book is full of half-answered questions, followed by sweeping generalizations. The irony is that the authors criticize "expertise" constantly (such as in the real-estate agent case), but then turn around and make sweeping statements that depend on their own status as experts.

My local expert (a fellow with a Ph.D. in economics) has a similar opinion, and doesn't really consider anything in it particularly insightful to begin with.

Sorry, I don't have mod points

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I've been trying to tell people the same thing since the book was released. I don't have any economics degrees, just ones in common sense. although, I think your last line has an extra word in it.

If you consider yourself a thinker, don't buy it.

There, thats closer. That should remove the objections other posters have.

Re:

[MeanderingMind]

You underestimate the tenaciousness of determined /. posters!

Your statement implicitly asserts that to buy this book is to undermine your position as a "thinker". The more proper statement might be as follows:

Reading this book is not likely to stimulate the mind of a self-proclaimed thinker in any manner, let alone a pleasing one.

Or, if that is too long for you.

The worth of this book to someone who enjoys thinking is probably nil.

Those statements combine exception handling and a clear indication the book is

Re:There's only been half a book so far..

[Erwos]

Speaking as someone who actually did econometrics and hard math/statistics economics in school, I could not agree more with this critique of Freakonomics. It is an entertaining read, to be sure, but he's omitted a lot of the data to support his conclusions, making it more of a "just believe me" book than an actual primer to non-traditional economics.

Re:

[freedom_india]

Yup. I agree. "Undercover Economist" is far for informative and interesting, although written from a London persective.

Re:

[ocbwilg]

I don't recall so much of the "letters from our website", but I do recall being seriously disappointed with this book. For starters, it's very short. I know, that may not sound like a bad thing, but it is representative of a lack of detail. They cover several topics that I thought had the potential to be really interesting, but for the most part they cover them with a "studies have shown" or "we were able to show" or similar statements. They didn't really go into any of the details of their analysis of

Washers

[Anonymous Coward]

And lastly, he watched capuchin prostitution!

Wow! I need to hit up home depot!

3 week later, in prison... "I need to learn how to spell Cancun."

Monkey prostitutes

[Firethorn]

And lastly, he watched capuchin prostitution!

Proof positive that it's the oldest profession?

I find it interesting how monkeys can be compared to day traders. I think to goes to show how similar us humans really are to other animals. In many ways we're more a fortunate combination of traits than having truly unique traits.

Re:Monkey prostitutes

[antoy]

I find it interesting how monkeys can be compared to day traders. I think to goes to show how similar us humans really are to other animals.

I think it simply goes to show how similar day traders are to monkeys.

Re:Monkey prostitutes

[montyzooooma]

Careful - the monkeys may sue for defamation of character.

Re:Monkey prostitutes

[ronanbear]

in that case they really are very similar to day traders

Re:

[gstoddart]

Careful - the monkeys may sue for defamation of character.

Hmmm, maybe you meant "Careful - the monkeys may fling poo for defamation of character." ;-)

Cheers

Re:

[veganboyjosh]

no worries, the settlement will be in washers.

Re:

[zotz]

"I think it simply goes to show how similar day traders are to monkeys."

"He also devised two games that showed monkeys could end up feeling as if they'd won or lost, even though they'd actually broken even. Their seemingly irrational preference for the "winning" game had Chen questioning how useful the monkeys would be as a touchstone for studying human behavior. Then he found that a similar study of day traders conducted by another researcher resulted in the same psychological preference. Even when they ca

Re:

[zotz]

"Yeah, that caught my eye also. I think it was supposed to mean that it's irrational to feel you've won or lost when you've broken even.

Of course that's not what the author actually wrote :)"

Good point. Interesting wording that.

It would be irrational to think you had won or lost when you've broken even. Feel? I don't know that how we feel is a rational deal from the start.

all the best,

drew

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=zotzbro [youtube.com]
UFOs, paper planes, and a bit more.

Or maybe

[Moraelin]

Or maybe, it just shows that you can compare anything to anything, if you carefully choose only the aspects that sorta superficially support your idea, do a lot of sophistry to make them look even more supportive, and keep your fingers crossed that noone notices all else you've ignored.

Let me tell you a joke: "A researcher puts a flea on a piece of paper and yells, "JUMP!" The startled flea jumps. The researcher cuts off the flea's legs, puts it back on the piece of paper, and yells, "JUMP!" The flea doesn't jump. The researcher notes, "Fleas hear with their legs. A flea whose legs have been cut off can't hear any more.""

Or here, let me offer definitive proof that cats are nerds, or at least nerds act just like cats. Cats:

- are naturally attracted to books and keyboards. Mine always used to come curl up on the book I was reading.

- aren't very social, and don't deal well with extended periods of social interaction. (Keep petting one too long after it signalled "I've had enough," and it might just scratch.) They also actually need periods of being alone or left alone. Also, bringing a new cat home might just result in a fight over who's alpha, instead of, "hi, welcome to the team."

- except for a few modified/selected races, only "talk" when they actually have something to say and/or when all else failed. (See the widespread myth that meowing is somehow only for communicating with humans.) They're also not good at telling you what they want or why. How introverted is that?

- have a problem with authority and obeying orders. (See, "herding cats.")

- have unbalanced diets, by human standard, and would rather not eat their veggies

- have weird sleep schedules, by human standards.

- like it warm. I can just see a cat coming to the office in mountain boots and a sweater in July, if it were anthropomorphic.

- really dislike being stuffed in a suit and tie.

- really don't like showering, or being given a shower. Actually, "loathe" just about starts to describe it.

- play (with) all sorts of stuff that makes no sense for a normal human.

- never discovered complex courting rituals.

Etc. There you go. I've proven beyond all doubt that nerds act just like cats. Funny how similar we are to animals, eh?

In practice it just shows how easy it is to find _some_ animal that matches whatever you want to match, if you just look hard enough and ignore what is _really_ happening there. E.g., I've thoroughly ignored the fact that a nerd surviving on say, chocolate or pizza/chinese food only, is doing it because of taste preferences or being too lazy for anything else, while a cat is actually biologically made to be a meat-only eater. ("Obligate carnivore.") E.g., I've thoroughly ignored the fact that a cat's attraction to books isn't because it actually wants to read, and to your keyboard isn't because it wants to program. Etc.

To get back to the topic, yeah, you can compare anything from the real economy to a monkey play-economy, but it's just material to make Joe Sixpack feel better about his not understanding the real economy. Day trading especially is a complex phenomenon, including such aspects as being, basically, a form of gambling. I.e., when you see monkeys playing cards/dice/3-cups/whatever, then you'll have an essential ingredient in it. Sure, you can look at it superficially being just like monkeys and bottle caps changing hands, but that's the kind of superficial over-simplification that's outright useless except maybe as an emotional metaphor.

I disagree

[arcite]

Humans thrive on metaphor and symbols. In fact we are the only species on the planet that can create, manipulate, fuse, and synthesize in everything we do. Perhaps it is true that some metaphors are more useful than others, but metaphors more often than not help people understand. The proof? Look at the continued success of poems; Are these essential to human development? Many would argue yes.

Humans are a fickle species. We demand to be entertained, humored, amused. Perhaps its our irrational emotions tak

Yes, but...

[Moraelin]

Yes, but, see, the trick is to know when it's just a funny metaphor which shouldn't be taken seriously. Nothing against the human species coming up with entertaining metaphors, similes and other figures of speech, but the trick is to know that that's not, in fact, an accurate model of reality.

Yes, if we couldn't dream, fantasize, whatever, we'd probably be less successful than snails. But equally if we took all phantasies to seriously, we'd be even less successful. The trick is to _not_ jump off the house j

Re:

[maxume]

Trained monkeys enacting a silly pseudo economic game *is* a decent description of the real world.

(Or do you think pretty, shiny diamonds truly are useful, and so on?)

Re:

[supersnail]

"nerds act just like cats" except when cats do it, its cool!

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly you simply are stereotyping cats. And you are being silly for the sake of making a joke but I have to correct you.

a cat does not inherently act that way, humans promote that behaivoir in them. I have had 5 cats in my lifetime as well as trained 4 more for friends because of how cats act from my rearing.

Cats if raised correctly will tolerate anything and can learn that humans are harmless and will not hurt me. Instilling this fact (you can even instill this fact into the cats mind of a dog if you

Re:

[Moraelin]

Honestly you simply are stereotyping cats. And you are being silly for the sake of making a joke but I have to correct you.

Very much so. It was _supposed_ to be a thoroughly silly illustration of anthropomorphising animals, and anthropomorphising all wrong at that, to make fun of people who do that to draw some conclusions about human behaviour.

So I'm not going to disaggree with your corrections there. E.g., yes, I know what they really wanted when they curled up on my book. Very much so.

So, on the whole, y

Re:

[Alioth]

My cats keep my hours, but I didn't go out my way to train them to be like that.

Re:Or maybe

[A Name Similar to Di]

Or maybe, it just shows that you can compare anything to anything, if you carefully choose only the aspects that sorta superficially support your idea, do a lot of sophistry to make them look even more supportive, and keep your fingers crossed that noone notices all else you've ignored.

Allow me to start by mentioning my bias, I liked the book, took classes from Steve Levitt, and worked for him for a while during and after college. It may help to know that those gimmicky "comparisons" really were not a part of Levitt's academic papers [uchicago.edu] which the book is based on. Here's a bit of background on Freakonomics, basically Levitt writes a ton of clever papers that win him some recognition. Dubner took these papers and simplified them to try and make them accessible to the non-economic public. Sure, stylistically, there's issues that I have with it as well (and these are issues I have with virtually every pop-science book out there). But I feel as if you've belittled the book's content based on some style choices designed to draw the reader in.

Perhaps I've misunderstood your point, but gimmicky comparisons aside, there's a lot of well thought out content to that book that shouldn't be outright dismissed or characterized badly due to some tasteless introductory paragraphs.

Re:

[khallow]

I like how you use a metaphor to attempt to discredit metaphors. Let me add that you never show a problem with the original "monkeys versus day traders" comparison.

man, beast and machine

[N3wsByt3]

"I think to goes to show how similar us humans really are to other animals."

Kenan Malik would disagree.

That said, there are some things I disagree with Kenan Malik myself. ;-)

In any case, his book 'man, beast and zombie' is an interesting read, which make you wonder of the intrinsical (?) differences between humans and animals (and AI's).

Re:

[elrous0]

Actually, 1000 monkeys typing on a keyboard would probably make more money than your average day trader.

Re:

[abb3w]

Proof positive that it's the oldest profession?

Depends how you define "profession", I suppose. It does suggest that prostitution seems to develop pretty quickly after the conceptual introduction of the idea of "trade", and perhaps some medium of exchange. The more abstract "trader" is likely to predate it, since the conceptual leap of trading something desirable for something desirable in a different manner is not required; trading grapes for bananas or some suchmay have come first. However, Prostitutio

Re:

[outsider007]

In many ways we're more a fortunate combination of traits than having truly unique traits.
Fortunate? These monkeys are getting laid for *washers*!

May I be an early welcomer...

[Anonymous Coward]

of our monkey-shagging overlords?

1) capture monkeys
2) provide a selection of washers
3) !!sex!!
4) profit!!

In Africa, monkeys shag you!

God, Slashdot is soooo predictable these days....

And why was my capcha 'incest'? Is someone trying to make a point?

From my personal experience

[metushelach]

If anything, Day Traders are the closest thing you can find to prostitutes.

Only difference is that prostitutes usually dress up nicer and generally have a better taste in men.

Re:

[Opportunist]

I'd rather compare them to gambling addicts. They'd die or kill, whatever necessary, for an inside tip.

Bonobo prostitution

[dargaud]

I remember watching this video about the sexual life of Bonobo apes (cousins of chimpanzee with a social life very similar to humans in many respects, in particular sex). One funny part was a young male coming to a female resting on a branch with a banana. The males makes it very clear what he wants in exchange, they do the deed and the the female eats the banana after he leaves. The funny part is that in the commentary they explain that this specific female never goes looking for food...

Re:Bonobo prostitution - maybe not

[arcite]

On the contrary it sounds like the female has herself a sex slave. ;)

Re:

[mgblst]

On the contrary it sounds like the female has herself a sex slave. ;)
 
How is this contrary, as opposed to the exactly what the poster was saying? Perhaps you should head back to the trees yourself.

Or it was his girlfriend

[Moraelin]

Sounds to me like the poor guy was bringing his girlfriend gifts and/or taking her out to lunch to get any action. If the bonobos were any more evolved, they'd probably have also seen him taking her to a movie ;)

Re:Bonobo prostitution

[PateraSilk]

An even funnier clip I saw had the male bonobo minding his own business, eating a bunch of bananas. A female comes over to him, rolls over and spreads her legs. You could clearly see the male thinking, "Uh, okay, sure!" He drops the bananas, is all ready to get it on, and the female gets up and steals the bananas. The male is left with no bananas and a raging hard-on.

Re:

[elrous0]

Apparently even the monkeys are learning from Paris Hilton.

Re:Bonobo prostitution

[pohl]

...then he went back to his buddies and said "I slipped her the banana, heh heh heh..."

Re:

[HungWeiLo]

On the Nature channel, they also talked about how they would trade food rations for photographs of "alpha-male" top monkeys. Very analogous to humans buying US Weekly or People at the checkout stands.

Washers as money?

[yada21]

How can they use washers as money? I assume they're the normal kind made of base metal (not silver or gold) so anybody could mine some more zinc or steel and make more of them. Where's the intrinsic value? It's just another fiat currency like dollars except in this case the 'the man' is the zookeeper.

Re:

[Dragonslicer]

I assume they're the normal kind made of base metal (not silver or gold) so anybody could mine some more zinc or steel

1) Right, because we can't mine or silver or gold anymore, we just have to use what we already have.

2) I think you'll find a lot more silver and gold coming out of mines than steel.

What makes monkeys so special?

[iminplaya]

The only reason you don't see amoebas doing the same thing is because they don't have opposable thumbs.

They don't have any thumbs to speak of!

[arcite]

And their cookings skills are none too developed either.

Re:

[zotz]

What? Monkeys or amoebas?

And let's not even mention those spyrogyrators shall we?

all the best,

drew

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=zotzbro [youtube.com]
If you dare...

Re:

[PateraSilk]

And because of this, they can't get the nuts on the bolts, so they have no use for washers.

I've read the book...

[rinkjustice]

and I've taken economics in college, but the kinda freakonomics people should hear more about (and do something about) is how the top 1% of the American population controls 95% of the wealth. Between 1979 and 1997, income for the middle class rose 9%m while income for the top 1% rose 140%! Now that's freaky [nader.org]!

Re:

[Notquitecajun]

Odd how we haven't had any sort of economic collapse, isn't it? So the people who know how to make money just make more. Wow. What a concept.

Re:

[fruey]

You say "the top 1% of the American population controls 95% of the wealth"

The article you quote says "The top 1 percent owns over 38 percent of the nation's wealth"

You got confused with "The top 1 percent's financial wealth is equal to that of the bottom 95 percent" which is not the same.

Re:

[Lord Ender]

Your complaints are meaningless unless you propose a solution. Oh, and any solution which causes business to LEAVE the US, driving pay for the average American DOWN, is probably a stupid solution.

Put up or shut up.

Proposed solution

[rinkjustice]

It's a simple two step process.

1) I would discuss the issue. there needs to be an open dialogue with a free exchange of ideas. However this cannot be done without performing step two.

2) Reform the media in the United States. Inform the general public. Give the airwaves back to the public. There are a handful of transnational media conglomerates that control the news and entertainment in the United States [corporations.org]. Discussing unfair wealth distribution is a complex issue, which will not increase their profit base, th

Re:

[PTBarnum]

Those transnational conglomerates didn't make their fortunes by sitting in a room and saying "let's keep people pacified and preoccupied", they did it by sitting in a room and saying "let's figure out what news and entertainment people will take time to read or watch, thus attracting a valuable demographic and increasing our advertising rates". The way to be a profitable news outlet is to be a popular news outlet.

There are segments of the population that are very interested in economic issues, and as a re

Re:

[rinkjustice]

You equate your webpage with Rupert Murdock's? Does your voice and opinion have the same reach? Hmmm... let me thinNO!

Re:

[rinkjustice]

Rupert Murdock's website being MySpace, IGN, GameSpy, Rotten Tomatoes and Askmen.com, Strategic Data Corp, Movielink, Fox, Viacom, Sony, MGM & Disney, Indya.com, Sports.com, Scout.com, Sibeliusmusic.com, Jumptheshark.com, News.com.au, CareerOne.com.au, CarsGuide.com.au, in2mobi.com.au, TrueLocal.com.au, Realestate.com.au, Casa.it, Sky Italia,Propertyfinder.com, PropertyLook, HomeSite.com.au, DVD Unlimited etc.

Pick only one though. No cheating.

Re:

[jackbird]

How about restoring highly regressive tax rates on stratospheric tax brackets, as well as the inheritance tax, closing loopholes allowing people to offshore their wealth, and funding the IRS to enforce the laws.

Check out the top tax brackets from the 50s and 60s (a time of great economic growth) sometime.

Re:

[rinkjustice]

Math was never my strong suit, especially after I first wake up. Here are more coherent statistics:
http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03may/may03 interviewsbernstein.html [multinationalmonitor.org]

Re:

[Luyseyal]

Right... so the top 1% should be paying 95% of the taxes. :p

Back in the real world, we nearly have a flat tax already [assetbuilder.com].

-l

Re:

[jedidiah]

Those with 95% of the income should be paying at least 95% of the taxes.

If this is the top %1 of the earners, then so be it.

Monkeys...

[Mockylock]

Lucky little bastages. I wish I could toss my wife some washers or food for some service. He needs to do experiments to see if a metal band around a Capuchin's ring finger stops the process of copulation. The males will give the females all of the washers and food, and the females will in turn become celibate or have intercourse with different monkeys.

Re:

[HungWeiLo]

It's been shown in numerous studies that a band consisting of gold and diamonds causes an allergic reaction of which a typical symptom is excessive bloating.

Sensationalism to sell books?

[walterbyrd]

Could this guy be deliberately setting up "experiments" to get weird results? My guess is that bizare stuff will sell more books, but is it more credible than the more traditional, boring, studies?

The titles of these books sound more catchy than the typical titles of most scientific studies, I'll say that.

What do other real economists think of these studies?

Re:

[gstoddart]

Could this guy be deliberately setting up "experiments" to get weird results? My guess is that bizare stuff will sell more books, but is it more credible than the more traditional, boring, studies?

No, I believe he is purposefully setting up weird experiments to see if he can get surprising results that might be something you can apply to traditional, boring conclusions and gain some insight.

He makes no bones about the fact that he's stepping outside of the box, and then trying to compare that to more mainst

Monkey business news, only 2 years old

[Nevyn]

One of the items that will be covered is capuchin monkeys' use of washers as money, buying sweets, budgeting for favored treats over lesser treats. He mentioned that one of the experiments had similar outcomes as a study of day traders. And lastly, he watched capuchin prostitution!

The NY Times article on that study, from 2005, can be found here [nytimes.com].

Re:

[mshurpik]

Thanks. And it's suspicious. With regards to the prostitution incident, the article freely admits that they didn't even try to reproduce it. And their excuse was, "it wouldn't reflect well on anyone involved if the money turned the lab into a brothel."

Oh really, reproducible claims wouldn't reflect well on anyone. I'll keep that in mind.

Obviously that researcher isn't married

[JustNilt]

My first thought when I read that description was this:

1. Monkey finds money laying around.
2. Monkey brings the money home and shows it to his wife.
3. Wife is impressed and, after a little heavy petting, puts out.
4. Guy's happy, wife goes shopping.

Sounds to me as though the researcher's proved monkeys essentially get married. Nothing new there as far as I know.

Capuchin Whores

[The Angry Mick]

And lastly, he watched capuchin prostitution!

Big deal. Five minutes of C-SPAN will show you the same thing . . .

Yes, but TRAINED

[Moraelin]

That may well be so, but that sorta misses the point that it's useless to compare a human to an animal that has been _trained_ to do something, as a way to draw conclusions about the human. E.g., sure, you can train a gorilla to understand sign language, and it sure says something about its intelligence. But then you can't go and write a book on the premise that, basically, "hey, what mutes do is exactly the same sign language as these gorillas are using! Mutes are just like gorillas!"

Basically it's bullshit to then compare a community of gorillas arificially _trained_ to do X to a community of humans who have a rationale behind doing X, as if there were no difference there. Whatever X may be.

In this case, "monkeys using washers/caps/whatever as money" conjures an image that is thoroughly misleading. It's not like those monkeys just saw a heap of washers and went, "I know, let's use those as money". They were _trained_ and coaxed to play a game they don't even understand.

Money was a hard concept to figure out even for humans. It took tens of thousands of years to figure that one out. Even if you look at the economy of, say, the Old Kingdom (an ancient Egypt period), it was based on barter. If you had some extra grain (e.g., you were a farmer) and wanted a pot, you'd go to the potter and ask, basically, "how much grain do you want for that pot?" Then the potter wanted a knife and went to the smith and asked, "can I trade you some pottery for a knife? What if I gave you some of this grain I earned too?" And so on.

Discovering money wasn't just an accidental seeing a round piece of metal and going, "oh, you know, we could use a bunch of those as money." It was a long and rocky road in itself, for example, discovering first the artificial value of jewellery and other rare luxuries. Then the fact that a golden chalice could be stored longer than a ton of grain, which would eventually rot. And only then the money wasn't just some rounded bits that could be traded, but a standardized quantity of such a valuable, non-decaying metal.

E.g., the value of the Roman Solidus, wasn't just being a round piece like a washer, but being a standardized quantity of gold. There wasn't some arbitrary assigned value to it, like when playing with washers or Monopoly money, the value was the exact value of the 4.5g of gold in it. Two pounds of Solidi weren't just an arbitrary value multiplied by the number of coins, it was the exact value of two pounds of gold.

Floating paper money with floating values are a _very_ recent invention, and it took lots of growing pains to wrap the human mind around _that_ notion. It took first assigning a value in gold, and getting people to believe that they can actually go and redeem a 100$ note for 100$ worth of gold. I.e., the value was _still_ tied to the idea of having an inherent value. It took a Great Depression to finally decouple money from an intrinsic value in precious metals, and some people _still_ can't really wrap their mind around it.

That was, in a nutshell, 40000 years after humans got out of Africa. Yep, 40k years. That's how long it took humans to arrive at the modern concept of money as just tokens.

So it's silly to believe that a bunch of monkeys would just see a bunch of worthless (for them) washers and immediately come up with the exact same concept. "Hey, we'll use these as tokens whose value is dictated by supply and demand." Nope, sorry, it's just not going to happen.

What you can have is monkeys _trained_ to play with washers in a mockery of an economy. We don't even know how much they understand there, and how much is mindless imitation and "pavlov's dog" kinda reflexes.

E.g., did someone actually figure out prostitution in all its human implications? Or more likely, a bunch of monkeys trained to give tokens to the researcher on all occasions, e.g., when they're fed, started also giving tokens as a reflex to anyone, including to the female they're mating with?

Did they really understand the concept of _buyin

Re:Yes, but TRAINED

[Opportunist]

Still, the analogy holds. Since we too are "trained" to see money as money. Do you really think a lot of people put any thought into the development of money and currency? No, they are trained that they get goods for their greenbacks, and that they may accept those green bills for their stuff 'cause there's someone else who's gonna give them other items for them.

People don't see that development, the money-for-gold of the old days. They see the essentially worthless token that becomes valuable because everyone around them deems it just as valuable. They don't care about how international trade influences inflation and how the Dollar stands towards the Euro or Yen, they know that prices go up or wages go down, but the why and how completely escapes them.

So generally, most people are just at the level of those monkeys. They know that if they perform some tricks (i.e. work), they will get some tokens (a paycheck) and they can redeem them for sweets (or a new computer). And that's it.

When you look at the bottom of it all, you'll see that many people are just that: Trained monkeys.

Yes and no

[Moraelin]

As usual with such issues, the answer is: yes and no. Depends what you're looking at and at what level.

Yes, you can say that many individual humans are not much better than trained monkeys. But that's a different topic.

No, IMHO, you can't compare:

A) a human behaviour that evolved over 40,000 years, and based on concepts refined and formalized over all that time, to

B) a monkey behaviour that exists only because someone trained them to do that.

Even if many of the individual humans involved at point A don't re

Re:Yes and no

[BiggerIsBetter]

You're right, but IMHO, that just tells me that the monkeys and us are not so different. They haven'thad to evolve that behaviour, but they're capable of implementing it. It suggests that monkeys would be capable of arriving at a society similar to ours, given enough time and environmental pressure to do so (including specialization, see the post about the female bonobo monkey).

Re:

[Shotgun]

So you're saying that someone studied and explained the behavior of day traders and formalized a theory about how they behaved. Now that there is an explanation the behavior has been modified? The traders are no longer acting like trained monkeys?

Wouldn't it make more sense to explain the monkeys' behaviour with the same theories as used for the day traders?

Re:

[Opportunist]

Erh, I hope you don't want to claim that our system of trade somehow "evolved" into our genetic makeup. That would be, quite bluntly, bullcrap. Trading and the 'value of money' is a learned practice that we do of course pass on to the next generation, since they can't exist in our world without the knowledge of money and property in the first place, but it's no less a learned behaviour than stopping at a red light. It's not something ingrained in our brains and rooted so deeply that we simply feel compelled

Re:

[abb3w]

Even if you view humans as trained monkey, it's really comparing:
A) a human trained humans to do X, vs
B) a human trained monkeys to do X.

First, there's another remark which notes the observation of prostitution in bonobos, without the human introduction of economic concepts. Second, there were several behaviors (like the scramble for washers and prostitution) that the researchers did not train for, but emerged as a logical consequence of the introduction of the concept of "money". And third, your

Re:Yes, but TRAINED

[TheLink]

Most people don't understand money either. They're just passing around tokens the way they've been trained by their parents and others around them.

Washers and monopoly money aren't worth much because not enough people believe they are worth something.

What it takes is belief.

If the belief in the US Dollar's value weakened, it will fall in value. If it dropped enough you might have to give a million of them to perfect strangers just to buy loaves of bread, or a virtual sword in an MMOG.

Most people do not make buying decisions the way you claim they do. Only a few would do "this will save me X hours, but does it cost more than I make in X hours". Maybe even more people would go "Shiny! Let's buy it" than do what you say (looking at how advertising works ;) ).

See "The Psychology of Spending": http://web.mit.edu/giving/spectrum/winter99/spendi ng.html

Re:

[TheLink]

Pessimistic?

The US dollar is not gold backed, but it doesn't have to be as long as everyone uses the US dollar for trade - the Feds can keep printing money (either by actually printing money or with "IOU"s) and things still "kinda work" (there's so much USD in circulation and 66% of it is held outside the USA, so it's not devalued as fast). The problem is if more and more start shifting to other currencies like the Euro. In 2002/2003 EUR25 and USD25 would get you 1 barrel of oil. In 2006 it was USD70 vs EUR

Humans are not trained?

[Lethyos]

So you are saying you emerged from the womb with complete understanding of language, mathematics, and cause-effect association? When you were a child, did you have a clear rationale explaining why you were being taught how to divide or expand your vocabulary? I think you were sent to school where you received exposure to these and other concepts repeatedly until you began accurately repeating them to your instructors. Eventually you learned how to independently form sophisticated compositions of those si

Re:

[porcupine8]

Human pick up language naturally, without being explicitly taught. All humans (without a severe neurological disorder) do this automatically and are fluent to a nearly-adult level by the age of 5, without instruction. Yes, it is common in Western societies to "teach" kids new vocabulary, but there are cultures where this is not done. Also, correcting 2-5 year olds' grammar generally has no effect on their usage - they're just going to make certain mistakes until they get to the right stage, and then they'll

Wetware features

[TapeCutter]

"...the point that it's useless to compare a human to an animal that has been _trained_ to do something..."

I agree with your point but lets not forget that humans are also "trained", the only part that is "instinctive learned" is language, writing, maths, farming, building, ect, are all taught. Our unmatched ability to manipulate symbols means thousands of generations of "trainning" can be condensed into a text book, or a comprehensive model of the known universe in a handfull of equations and a periodic

Re:

[Red Flayer]

So it's silly to believe that a bunch of monkeys would just see a bunch of worthless (for them) washers and immediately come up with the exact same concept. "Hey, we'll use these as tokens whose value is dictated by supply and demand." Nope, sorry, it's just not going to happen.

Well, TFA does state that the monkeys were trained to use the washers as currency.

It took a Great Depression to finally decouple money from an intrinsic value in precious metals, and some people _still_ can't really wrap their mind

Re:

[Moraelin]

sorry to break your party but EVERYTHING you know and do as a human comes from the TRAINING you received... a school for humans works on the same basic principles as a school for dogs, gorillas, etc .. the only diff is that humans seem to have a way better capacity to assimilate that training .. or it's just that the methods are better suited for them.

Sorry to break it to you, but if all that school left you with is a bunch of pavlovian reflexes, like a school for dogs would, then you probably shouldn't be

Re:

[$1uck]

Maybe I'm assuming too much

You are. You assume you know that animals can't reason or think about things and apply them differently. Do you really for a moment think the researchers trained the monkeys to be prostitutes for the washers/money? No thats an instance of the monkey's reasoning and thinking about new and other ways to garner their sweets. Is the ability of the monkey's to reason and think about the training as sophisticated as our ability? probably not, but it seems like it should be judged o

Re:

[ThosLives]

You've hit on something that I've been pondering for a while...I've been thinking that one of the qualifications for 'sentience' needs to be "willfully and knowingly acts in opposition to instinct or trained behavior". The problem with that, I realize, is how do you know that it's willful and not also just part of some other training...

Re:

[mrchaotica]

The difference basically is that you also have the intellect to understand _why_ something is done, _when_ it's done, and when _not_ to do it. It's not just stimulus-reaction reflexes based on pure association. You have the mental power to realize when an existing reflex is stupid, and force yourself to stop or develop a better one.

I think you'd be surprised to realize just how much like the rest of the apes we really are. Do you actually think this "intellect" is inherent to being human? It's not; it's "t

Re:

[bloobloo]

"Apes, especially monkeys" is like "Fish, especially dolphins"

Re:

[eennaarbrak]

Just because we're genetically similar does not mean we have the same cognitive abilities. Which makes the fact that traders behave like monkeys so much more interesting.

For a nice expose on the myths of animal "training", take a look at "Do Animals Think?" by Clive Wynne (Easy search on Amazon). In a nutshell, there is no conclusive evidence that animals can "learn" beyond what is required for their natural environment. There is a big difference between Snake! Everyone watch out! and Hmm, I see a danger

Re:they are like us

[porcupine8]

Koko the signing gorilla has been pretty well debunked. Actual fluent speakers of ASL couldn't understand a word she was "saying," and outside evaluators could never manage to verify the huge vocabulary that Penny Patterson claimed she had, only a much more limited one (I think something like 100-150 words instead of 1000+). Chimps and gorillas *can* learn to use various symbols as a vocabulary, but they cannot understand grammar. To them, "me eat banana" and "banana eat me" and "me me banana eat banana me" all mean the same thing.

Re:

[jedidiah]

So let me get this straight...

Some "non-native speaker" teaches some entity how to speak a particular language. Subsequently, actual "native speakers" have a big problem understanding this entity.

Just WHY are you reading so much into the situation?

Humans are tripped up by nothing more than just talking too fast.

Re:

[Herkum01]

Considering how many internal memos, legal documents and news reports that I have read follow the same structure; I fail to see how their understanding is any different from a persons.

Re:

[DragonWriter]

apes, especially monkeys, are very genetically related to humans

Er, no.

First, monkeys are not a subset of apes. Monkeys and apes are different subsets of primates. Of the two, apes, not monkeys, are most closely related to humans (and of apes, chimpanzees are most closely related to humans.)

Re:

[Catchwa]

I enjoyed the first freakanomics, but they guy does seem to have a big head... each chapter starts with some quote by somebody else about how great the author is.

it does? In my "Revised and Expanded Edition" there's nothing of the sort.

Also, their blog [freakonomics.com] (which was linked in TFA, but who reads TFA) is well worth a read if you enjoyed the book (or even if you haven't read it).

Re:

[belg4mit]

I thought this was the reporter's influence on the product, whoring out the humble academic?

Re:

[K-Man]

He seems to be popularizing a lot of research, but it's the type of thing many of us do naturally. For me, chasing down hidden indicators is pretty much par for the course. I live in San Francisco, and the city is so routinely out of whack, corrupt, negligent, etc., that I practically maintain my own data warehouse of performance data.

His "surprising facts" were not that surprising. The fact that many crack dealers live with their mothers? That's a no-brainer. Mom doesn't have a criminal record, so mom

Re:

[cntlzed]

That is because there were twice as many chairs for this guy.

Re:

[Opportunist]

Be honest: Given the choice of hearing a guy speak about the new features of Vista and one speaking of monkey prostitutes and how they do it for bottle caps, which one would you pick?

Also, bear the probable audience in mind...