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Start with a cage containing five apes.
In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with cold water.
After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result, all the apes are sprayed with cold water. This continues through several more attempts. Pretty soon, when another ape tries to climb the stairs, the other apes all try to prevent it.
Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one ape from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other apes attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Again, replace a third original ape with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four apes that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape.
After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes that were sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs. Why not?
Because that's the way they've always done it and that's the way it's always been around here.
- -- Sean Barrett | Q: Magic 8-Ball, which e-mail sean@epoptic.com | client should I use? | A: Outlook not so good.
On 20/09/06, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:
Start with a cage containing five apes.
Is there a canonical version or source of this story? It so so so needs to go in [[User:David Gerard/Process essay]]. (Which I should pick a name for and move to Wikipedia: space some time soonish ish.)
- d.
On 9/20/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/09/06, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:
Start with a cage containing five apes.
Is there a canonical version or source of this story? It so so so needs to go in [[User:David Gerard/Process essay]]. (Which I should pick a name for and move to Wikipedia: space some time soonish ish.)
- d.
No really because at wikipedia we have this tendacy to write things down so it is posible to find out why policy exists.
geni wrote:
On 9/20/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/09/06, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:
Start with a cage containing five apes.
Is there a canonical version or source of this story? It so so so needs to go in [[User:David Gerard/Process essay]]. (Which I should pick a name for and move to Wikipedia: space some time soonish ish.)
No really because at wikipedia we have this tendacy to write things down so it is posible to find out why policy exists.
One of the most effective ways of hiding things is in plain view. Stage magicians do this very well. The more people are creating policy, the greater the chance that they will do so unnoticed.
Ec
Sean Barrett wrote:
Start with a cage containing five apes.
In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with cold water.
After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result, all the apes are sprayed with cold water. This continues through several more attempts. Pretty soon, when another ape tries to climb the stairs, the other apes all try to prevent it.
Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one ape from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other apes attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
...
After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes that were sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs. Why not?
Because that's the way they've always done it and that's the way it's always been around here.
Since we also have five members of the Board, was this intended to be an allegory? I'm sure that we have more than our share of experimenters willing to throw cold wateron our apes. :-)
Ec
On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:09:54 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Since we also have five members of the Board, was this intended to be an allegory?
No, it's *ape*, not alligator.
Guy (JzG)
On 9/20/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:09:54 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Since we also have five members of the Board, was this intended to be an allegory?
No, it's *ape*, not alligator.
Allegory: a story with a deeper level of meaning, where elements of the stories generally represent something else in real life. The question was if the apes were supposed to stand for the Board, not if "alligators" were intended instead of apes.
Carl
On 9/20/06, Carl Peterson carlopeterson@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/20/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:09:54 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Since we also have five members of the Board, was this intended to be an allegory?
No, it's *ape*, not alligator.
Allegory: a story with a deeper level of meaning, where elements of the stories generally represent something else in real life. The question was if the apes were supposed to stand for the Board, not if "alligators" were intended instead of apes.
Carl _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
The story goes back to at least mid-March 1998 - the earliest reference I can find in Google Groups is: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/8683e153416e9f8a?dmode=source
That message says "forwarded by my girlfriend" and has no attribution, so it may be difficult to identify the source. But it's over 8 years old.
On 20 Sep 2006, at 20:28, Carl Peterson wrote:
On 9/20/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:09:54 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Since we also have five members of the Board, was this intended to be an allegory?
No, it's *ape*, not alligator.
Allegory: a story with a deeper level of meaning, where elements of the stories generally represent something else in real life. The question was if the apes were supposed to stand for the Board, not if "alligators" were intended instead of apes.
It's hard to tell where the humour ends sometimes.
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Guy Chapman aka JzG stated for the record:
On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:09:54 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Since we also have five members of the Board, was this intended to be an allegory?
No, it's *ape*, not alligator.
Guy (JzG)
We deny the allegations and are working to identify the alligators.
- -- Sean Barrett | Power will get you through times of no sean@epoptic.com | brains much better than brains will | get you through times of no power.
On 9/20/06, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:
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Guy Chapman aka JzG stated for the record:
On Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:09:54 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Since we also have five members of the Board, was this intended to be an allegory?
No, it's *ape*, not alligator.
Guy (JzG)
We deny the allegations and are working to identify the alligators.
This is newt the joke you're looking for. It's neither benthic nor vagile.
On 9/19/06, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:
Start with a cage containing five apes.
In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with cold water.
[snip]
No no no.. You've got it wrong.
It really works like this (on Wikipedia for sure, and other places soon)...
There are five apes. Ape 1 really hates ape 2... perhaps ape 2 took his girlfriend, or whatever.. the cause isn't important.
The social structure of the apes discourages hostility, .. so the rest of the apes may be unaware of the dislike.
One day Ape 2 decides to climb the stairs... Ape 1 then, either due to a failure to assume good faith due to his dislike or from outright malevolent intent, yells "LOOK! APE 2 is trying to *STEAL THE BANANA*" The rest of the apes step in to stop ape2, either out of support for their friend ape1 or just because they didn't think it through and thats what the other apes were doing..
The end result, with the behavior being conserved, remains..
The behavior that gets conserved never actually made any sense.. but a 'reasoning' for it can still be provided.
I can't say that I've seen too many examples on wikipedia where the situation has changed enough to completely remove a just cause for strong action... The project just isn't that old... Far more often there was just no really strong justification in the first place.