Superfreakonomics - Finita

Cărţile mele, prietenii mei...mănîncă cu mine, se spală cu acelaşi şampon şi se plimbă în aceleaşi trenuri (gratis).

Cartea e extraordinară pentru cei cărora le este sete de un pic de cultură generală neordinară. E mult de povestit şi nu aş vrea să vă intrig, pentru mine e suficient că am citit-o eu ( auch)..dar voi lăsa o pată de carte din ultimul capitol...îmi vine să rîd doar la gîndul că postez acest fragment.

Excerpt | Monkey prostitution (page 215)

Microeconomist Keith Chen taught capuchin monkeys to use money, to use coins to buy food, and when he changed the relative cost of various foods — Jell-O cubes, apple slices — they made good decisions based on price. But then something happened ...

(O)ut of the corner of his eye, Chen saw something remarkable. One monkey, rather than handing his coin over to the humans for a grape or a slice of apple, instead approached a second monkey and gave it to her. Chen had done earlier research in which monkeys were found to be altruistic. Had he just witnessed an unprompted act of monkey altruism?

After a few seconds of grooming — bam! — the two capuchins were having sex. What Chen had seen wasn't altruism at all, but rather the first instance of monkey prostitution in the recorded history of science.

And then, just to prove how thoroughly the monkeys had assimilated the concept of money, as soon as the sex was over — it lasted about eight seconds; they're monkeys, after all — the capuchin who'd received the coin promptly brought it over to Chen to purchase some grapes.

This episode sent Chen's mind spinning. Until now, the researchers had run narrowly defined money experiments with one monkey at a time. What if Chen could introduce money directly into the monkeys' lives? The research possibilities were endless.

Alas, Chen's dream of capuchin capitalism never came to pass. The authorities who oversaw the monkey lab feared that introducing money to the capuchins would irreparably damage their social structure. They were probably right.

10.