I recently learned how to become the alpha male of a chimpanzee tribe. I know what you’re thinking, “That’s useful in our modern economy.”

I agree because chimpanzees are our closest living relatives where we share 98.4% DNA and so by investigating their primitive brains maybe it can give us a glimpse into our own underlying nature after we strip away our tools and neocortex.

Chimpanzees live in patriarchal hierarchal tribes of 20–150 individuals. In each Chimpanzee’s brain exists a mental map of where everyone falls in the power lineup.

To gain a better understanding of chimpanzee behavior, a group of researchers have been observing a chimpanzee tribe in the African jungles of Gogo for over the last 20 years.

They paid particular attention to 3 apes…

Mweya, #1 (strong and social): They could tell Mweya was the alpha male by his swagger and by how everyone in the tribe would “pant grunt” in his presence to acknowledge his superiority.

They could tell Mweya was the alpha male by his swagger and by how everyone in the tribe would “pant grunt” in his presence to acknowledge his superiority. Bartok, #2 (social): One could expect Bartok to be Mweya’s eventual successor since they were allies and because Bartok was younger, self-confident, and politically savvy.

One could expect Bartok to be Mweya’s eventual successor since they were allies and because Bartok was younger, self-confident, and politically savvy. Lofty, #3 (strong): Lofty had a rapid rise in the dominance hierarchy by beating up one-by-one those above him.

Based on this information, who do you think succeeded Mweya?

If we are to say humans are similar to chimps then if you believe humans are fundamentally social creatures then you might conclude Bartok, but if you think humans are fundamentally brutish creatures then you might conclude Lofty.

After years as #3, Lofty confronted #1.

He chased Mweya into the bushes. A few moments later you could hear Mweya pant-grunting and see Lofty swaggering out as the new alpha male.

Does this therefore mean humans are fundamentally brutes?

As the alpha chimp you get your first pick of women, food, and grooming. And so if the most aggressive apes get the most women then isn’t it likely that this gene would have been passed on into our gene pool too?

But the story didn’t end there.

Because despite being the alpha male, Lofty didn’t feel comfortable in his position of power. He increasingly distanced himself from the tribe where his paranoia beget more isolation to eventually he became a social outcast.

Bartok made his move.

With a group of allies, he surrounded Lofty. They then beat up Lofty until eventually he submitted. Victorious, Bartok became the new #1!

So maybe the lesson here is that physical strength is enough to gain the top spot, but sociability is required to maintain it.

Bartok won allies by grooming and feeding the biggest apes. This lesson is particularly profound, not in the sense that you should go and groom your fat friends, but that the way to get what you want is to help people get what they want.

We can conclude SOCIAL POWER is more powerful than PHYSICAL POWER.

From this understanding of power we can imagine how social apes are more likely to become the alpha male and therefore have more opportunities to pass on their social genes to the next generation. If we isolate an ape tribe over a period of millions of years we can therefore see how a more social species might evolve. This species would then be able to easily dominate the animal kingdom with its unique ability to unite and conquer.

But overtime as this species would become socially stronger it would also become physically weaker. This goes to the concept of atrophy…

Atrophy: gradual decline in effectiveness or vigor due to underuse or neglect.

If you don’t use it you lose it.

As humans we are socially stronger but physically weaker than chimpanzees, i.e. the strongest man is weaker than the average chimp.

So if you’re still following my train-of-thought here then you’ll discover another profound truth…

We are kind BECAUSE we are selfish.

This is because by being kind, especially to those we perceive as above us in the hierarchy, it’ll be easier for us to rise up and pass on our genes.

For those of us with a normal-functioning brain and a relatively-normal upbringing we shouldn’t have to think, “I’m going to be good because in the long-run it’ll help me spread my gene pool”, but instead we’re going to be good because it makes us “feel good” and we aren’t going to be bad because it makes us “feel bad”. We may not be able to articulate why it makes us feel this way because after millions of years of evolution our biology has done the heavy-lifting for us.

Therefore to become the alpha chimp we don’t need to be a cold calculating evil genius, we just need be more in-tune with our social nature.

Learn More @ www.AnthonyGalli.com

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