@Pelican3301
They would argue the monkeys did not went to space... (and still let their neighbour die of starvation of course)
@yogthos

@Pelican3301 Yeah. I'm pretty sure that money experiment have been made with chimps, and there are, as you might expect, able to hoard it as well as human.

@yogthos

@im @yogthos I know that when they're given children's pedal cars to play with they don't want to stop 'driving' them.

@yogthos
Please provide link to a reliable study about billionaires and their banana consumption.

@yogthos
What dollars? Your post is about eating bananas, not about spending money.

@yogthos
Ah, so you are saying that eating obscene amount of food is comparable to spending obscene amount of money? Anyone can definitely spend 1 milion dollars but is unable to eat 1 ton of bananas so this metaphor does not work very well.

@yogthos
That's certainly an interesting problem but not related to the original "metaphor" which tries to draw parallels between two acts, one of which is quite feasible (and desirable for many) and the other medically impossible.

@yogthos @fuxoft The metaphor is indeed quite flawed if we do not ignore its contents to pay attention only to its form. That said, it would be fair to get rid of the "scientists" part.

@yogthos @cyberskija Oh, so you think that monkeys don't stuff themselves full of bananas because they think of other hungry monkeys? I think they don't stuff themselves with bananas because it's physically discomfoting for them (as it is for most living being). How is that analogous with hoarding wealth, which has minimal negative consequences to the hoarder?

@yogthos @cyberskija I've read it. It says that monkeys have the capacity to be almost as big assholes as humans, which is not surprising to me. It's been known for many decades that apes wage wars between themselves. I see nothing about hoarding bananas on that page and I don't see its relevancy to your original "metaphor"...?

@fuxoft @yogthos @cyberskija There is nothing wrong even with the monkey hoarding bananas despite being unable to eat them all. It this still provides him with a significant advantage. It would be smart to save a few bananas for some limited future. The rest may then be traded for services (making the hungry monkeys do what the hoarder wants). It would be silly to give them away for free.

@yogthos
Yes, absolutely nothing wrong with monkeys doing that. Or shitting on the floor or having sex in public. But if people start doing either of those things, that is very wrong.
@strec @cyberskija

@yogthos You don't believe that this would really happen. More probably, a few other monkeys would gang up and get the bananas, then they would start killing each other and the strongest one would be the new owner of the bananas. @cyberskija @fuxoft

@strec @yogthos @fuxoft That's precisely what's wrong with the metaphor. Because in the chimps's case, there is nothing of really unusual about such behavior (of hoarding or fighting with each other).

@cyberskija @fuxoft @yogthos Humans are a bit smarter and can see further. In the monkey analogy, the hoarder would throw a few bananas on the hungry monkeys. They would then become less hungry and therefore less willing to fight. Key is then to find the sweet spot where the hoarder can keep the most bananas and still not be killed by the others.

@yogthos @fuxoft @strec No i'm not. I'm saying that scientists would not say at the outset that this is a "heck of a wrong behavior". Which means that the two things involved in the metaphor provide a weak analogy.