Friday Funny: YouTube Video “Capuchin Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay”

October 11, 2012 | Jamila Akil |

While having a discussion in one my MBA classes, the Professor showed the following video as an example of how everyone–and yes, “everyone” even includes lower animals–wants to be treated fairly. Look what happens when the Capuchin doesn’t feel he received his due.

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Jamila Akil is a senior editor at Beyond Black and White. Follow her on Twitter @jamilaakil or email her at jamilathewriter-at-gmail-dot-com.

Toni_M
LOOOOOOOOOL. That monkey was not having it.
EvetteH
Oh I remember this scene from a TedtalksDirector! It was about the moral behavior in animals. You should really check out the whole video, it is pretty funny and informative (well I thought so).
ironcowboy
That’s a darn funny video… but… the title of the article is completely misleading, and does so for entirely political purposes, and so I’m calling that out… I will also call out the narrator of the video as being completely illogical and politically biased.

This video does not represent an unequal pay situation or condition, and no logical conclusion results in arrival at that destination. Two year old children throw fits when they don’t get ice-cream… is this because they understand labor scarcity and money supply? I kind of doubt that…and like a two year old child, Capuchin monkeys do not comprehend remuneration for labor or services rendered either.

Monkeys evidently like grapes more then they like cucumbers, and the video simply demonstrates this is true for these two monkeys.

OK so if we want to pretend that Capuchin monkeys understand economics:

We reach a totally different conclusion by this video… the cucumber and the grape are both ‘tender’ and where the grape represents gold, or real money, and the cucumber represents the USA’s Federal Reserve Note (a fiat paper product). The monkey on the left is pissed off because it is well aware that the US dollar is crap, worthless, and becoming crappier, and more worthless every single minute… because Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner are conspiring to devalue the USD via quantitative easing round #3, and Federal Reserve purchases of US debt products (deep breath) The monkey on the left clearly knows that the grape is solid gold, and is rejecting the crappy paper dollar that this “Federal Agents dressed in white” is forcing it to accept against it’s will.

The video clearly shows two monkeys that have freedom of choice when this is allowed to them… the monkeys… they prefer a gold standard (grapes) and reject crappy US dollars (cucumber) for the fiat money that it is, and represents.

These two Capuchin monkeys are Libertarian Capuchin Monkeys! Please watch the companion video of what happens when Capuchin monkeys are given election ballots and a real choice to put American back on track.
- Toni_M
  @CortlandCarrington “This video does not represent an unequal pay situation or condition, and no logical conclusion results in arrival at that destination.”
  
  Hmm, I disagree.
  
  Both monkeys were given the same task. Both monkeys performed the same task with equal efficiency. And both were rewarded, but one was given a better reward than the other (it was explained in the video that this species preferred grapes to cucumbers). And the other monkey rejected the lesser reward.
  
  If you look, you’ll actually see the monkey “test” a rock before handing it in. In other words, he was trying to be sure the reason he was being short-changed wasn’t due to his being inadequate. Once he was certain, he completed the task, and then rejected the lesser reward.
  
  Even more interesting (this is discussed in the full video, not this short version) is that some monkeys didn’t like seeing their peers unfairly treated, and refused to do the task until the other monkey was given grapes as well.
  - ironcowboy
    @Toni_M
    I agree to disagree for exactly the reason you indicate… who says the cucumber is (less) valuable, and a grape is (more) valuable… that is a determination you (or the narrator / experimenter is making); however, the truth is that the determination of value is entirely in the mind of the monkey… not in your mind.
    
    If this species prefers grapes over cucumbers than the ENTIRE video is a forgone conclusion, and would only indicate that a monkey that prefers grapes, prefers grapes…. No matter what happens the monkey will want a grape over a cucumber, or ANYTHING else if it has a choice…
    
    Think of it this way… Imagine if I put you in one cage and your best friend in a second cage. (where you can both see each other) And I told you that if you hand me a rock, I’ll give you the key to the door… but I give your friend the key, and I only give you a slice of cucumber. You want the key, not the cucumber… it is no surprise to anyone if you put your hand through a hole in the cage and throw a slice of cucumber at me… You want the key, and the value of the key in your mind is higher.
    
    My two year old was once ‘conditioned’ to want ice-cream and she tested out various behaviors to get that reward. When she did not get what she wanted she had a tantrum… not because she understood the scarcity of labor to make ice-cream and the monetary base required to provide a stable medium necessary to exchange labor for goods.
    
    All this video is good for is to #1, to allow people who think they can make a connection between the intelligence of monkeys and human in regard to economic ideas, or #2, to prove that monkeys that like grapes, prefer grapes if offers a cumber… especially if a grape is visible to that monkey who wants it.
    
    I can easily taut a 2 year old with ice-cream all day long and make it go wild with anger… it will throw all sorts of shit at me to get that reward!
    
    The video is funny…. But rather pointless…
    - SirLoinDeBeef
      @CortlandCarrington @Toni_M Human males throw tantrums, too … it’s called WAR!
    - ironcowboy
      @SirLoinDeBeef@Toni_M
      Good point… Mr Obama is a male, and got us into a war in Libya… Let me guess… the US involvement in Libya was ‘not war,’ but was a difficult humanitarian mission of supplying military weapons and hardware to theocratic religious fundamentalists, and therefore ‘noble,’ for some reason… to engage in war…to stop war…(gosh I feel warm and fuzzy now)
      
      I wonder why we are not stopping the war in Syria… I was watching a video of government employees being thrown off the top of a 20 story building to the hard concrete steps below about three weeks ago… and the crowd of civilians was cheering! Do you support civilians throwing government employees off the top of 20 story buildings and cheering with ecstasy at their deaths? You probably do… if those government employees were overtaxing you for their personal benefit, and making your family members disappears for not paying enough taxes… you would probably want some form of justice…
      
      In Iraq I’ve seen mass graved filled with hundreds of bound and gagged girls between the ages to 2 and 16, or 20 or so… all machine gunned dead… it’s kind of hard to tell after they have started decomposing… Sometimes war is necessary to protect women and people from other groups…who think they have NO right to exist. For example Shia and Sunni, and Iran and Jews… do Shia, Sunni and Jews have a right to exist? Or should they just stand like lams lashed to a pole in a coliseum filled with tigers and accept the death they have coming without a fight?
      
      If someone you loved was murdered, would you probably be sad, and want the person brought to justice? This ‘bringing to justice,’ or going after the bad guy is war against the criminal… This even involves guns and uniformed troops and is called a police force!
      
      Anyway I’m not sure what a mass grave filled with Sunni girls who were murdered by the Shia clan in Iraq for incorrect religious beliefs, or civilians killing government workers in Syria for overtaxing the people has to do with Capuchin monkeys rejecting cucumber slices when they prefer grapes, (because… this video narrator and others think) monkeys understand the worth of grapes as a scares commodity, and therefor place high value on them as remuneration for effort.
      
      If you tried to pay me in ‘socks’ after you have already conditioned me to believe, and you already know that I want ‘grapes’ for the work I do… I’d through the sock at you… I don’t want socks, I want cash… I probably want equal cash for equal effort… but THAT is not want this video demonstrates.
      
      To the person who wants this deleted as being difficult to read… you can do it… and you will once again cover over the graves of little girls who were buried in the sands of the desert simply for desiring to get an education and worship god according to the dictates of their hearts. This would make that person as bad as the person who pulled the trigger, or drove the earth mover.
- Jamila
  @CortlandCarrington “OK so if we want to pretend that Capuchin monkeys understand economics”
  
  The capuchin’s don’t need to understand a complex concept like “economics”. Monkeys do understand how to share, have been known to hunt together, and can use and create very simple tools. The monkey just needs to understand that his friend got more than he got for doing the same job, and as you can see from the video the monkey does understand that.
Skayi
I love how he shakes the cage. “Why, Why, Why?” lol