buffallo
22 years ago
How policies are established.............

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.

After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result
All the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and
Replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to
climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.

Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.
Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana.

Why not?

Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done around here.

And that, my friends, is how policy begins.
JonR
22 years ago
And that's why we have an abundance of bananas and no stairways in our zoos. JonR
jjohnson28
22 years ago
Bananas are on sale at Ralphs,4lbs for a dollar, this week,this week only!!!
Cigarick
22 years ago
SAVE THE BANANA SCANNERS!!!
eleltea
22 years ago
Let the chimps fall where they may.
Cigarick
22 years ago
Ooh-ooh-OOH!
Gene363
22 years ago
There is a Corollary to this story:

Every once in a while a maverick ape comes along and says, “I don’t care how much they beat me, I going to get those bananas.” Then the other apes have to decide to kill the maverick ape. The must kill the maverick or face the fact that the maverick will be enjoying the bananas and the fact that they could have been enjoying them all along.

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