196

And I'll add a semi-related fable.

There were a group of 5 monkeys that all lived on a tropical island; they survived by climbing trees to get bananas.

One day, the monkeys are taken to a lab and placed in an enclosure that somewhat captured the original environment. The only difference was that if any monkey climbed the tree, they'd all get soaked with freezing cold water from a sprinkler system. The monkeys were forced to eat simulated banana paste from a stainless steel bowl on the ground.

Every day for the first few months, at least one monkey would try to climb the tree - either to forage or just for fun, it's irrelevant - and all the monkeys would end up soaking wet and freezing. It got to the point where if any monkey even went towards the tree, the rest would attack it. Eventually, the monkeys left the tree alone.

So the scientists removed 2 of the monkeys, and added 3 more that were freshly captured. These monkeys had no idea about the cold water, so would inevitably try to climb the tree - resulting in them being savagely attacked by the remaining original 3 monkeys.

Eventually, without even knowing why, the new monkeys left the tree alone.

The scientists then removed the 3 original monkeys, and replaced them with 3 more fresh monkeys, who were of course attacked when they tried to climb the tree.

Soon, though no monkey had ever been wet or cold in its entire existence (within this enclosure), they'd all avoid the tree that they'd depended on their entire life "because that's how it goes."

It's time to stop attacking our fellow monkeys, and break out of this lab. I want some god-damn bananas.