6 'Wuss' Behaviors That Were Once Badass Survival Instincts
Usually, when we think of "survival of the fittest," we think about the survival of the biggest, strongest, fastest or smartest. But actually, in evolutionary terms, the "fittest" is just the animal or plant best suited for the circumstances, whether that animal is a lizard uniquely suited for the desert or a Golden Retriever with an uncanny but heartwarming knack for basketball. But you're pretty smart, so you probably knew that already.
What you might not realize is that some of the behaviors that get you swirlied today were survival strategies that kept you alive thousands of years ago. Behaviors such as ...
#6.
Shyness
We're not talking about the strong, silent type who's only shy because he prefers to let his fists/gun/boner do the talking. We're talking about guys who are so unsure of themselves that they can't even look you in the eye. They've been called, "yellow," "shook" and "NERRRRRRD" depending on whether they're being bullied in the 50s, inner city or 80s movies. It all comes down to confidence. The shyer and more easily embarrassed a person is, the less manly they seem.
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Check out this confident hunk of manliness.
Its Badass Origins
Have you ever looked a gorilla in the eye? If so, you're either lucky to be alive, or currently being dismembered by a primate. Gorillas hate that shit. Eye contact and smiles are like subtle ways to tell a gorilla you'd like to see them try to kick your ass. And it's not just normal animal skittishness. Gorillas have a serious problem, and it's your stupid face. One zoo even invented special glasses to protect visitors from eye contact -- instead opting to make making look like they're having the most prolonged orgasms ever ...
Via adland
"We appreciate the gesture guys, but come on. We have to sleep at night too." -- Gorillas
As mankind made its evolutionary transition from ape to human, scientists think that there was a time when a flushed cheek and a downcast eye was a key survival instinct. When one species was still evolving into the other, it meant your genetic line wouldn't end in a dismembered pile of limbs. Blushing would have been especially useful, since it's an involuntary reaction. No matter how hard you tried to maintain eye contact, your blushing face broadcasts just how close you were to soiling your loincloth.
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On the other hand, losing bladder control directly on a shark usually has negative repercussions.
Blushing, after all, signals remorse. Since it can't be faked or hidden, researchers think that our ancestors evolved the function as a display of appeasement towards those that we've wronged. Or who could kick our ass. The walk back to the cave might have been shameful, but it was accomplished with fully intact sexual organs -- the only victory that matters when it comes to the gene pool.
The part of the species that averted their eyes and turned beet red no matter how much they wanted to stand up to the big aggressive guy taking their lunch lived to see another day, and breed with the (presumably underwhelmed, but realistic) females of the species. The big guy eating our lunch might have won that battle, but that same unwavering belief in himself was what sent him out in a blaze of monkey-fisted Neanderthal asswhoop. The meek end up inheriting the Earth by default.
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"Hmm, it's a choice between that nerd or the chunks of Brad's intestines that were left behind after the ass kicking."
#5.
Helpless Babies
Being called a baby is one of the most stinging insults most of us encounter as kids. Wah-wah. Is little baby gonna cry? they'd chide as we ran home crying for a breast feeding. In the grand sweep of nature, we have good reason to be insecure. Most animals are pretty much able to fend for themselves days after they're born. Anything longer than a week, and they're legally declared dinner. Human babies are completely useless balls of skin, tar poop and weird belly button stumps for years.
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Who's an adorable drain on society's resources? You are!
Not only are human babies the failures of the baby world, we stay that way for years, taking longer than any other primate to reach sexual maturity and adulthood. While foals are standing within their first hour of life and lions are banging each other by age four -- humans take their sweet time learning how to do everything that's not crying, farting or being adorable viral video fodder.
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Outside the safety of the towns, we're all just fodder for vicious wild animals.
Its Badass Origins
That stupid baby who ruined your flight by crying might actually be the main reason we're sitting on top of the food chain in the first place.
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Babies make terrible pilots.
At some point way up the evolutionary chain, our babies probably hit the ground running and screwing too. But as we evolved our super large brains, we also had to evolve larger skulls which required a birth canal you could go bowling in. This led to a sort of anatomical arms race between mom's cha-cha and junior's head. If the heads got too big, mom would lose the ability to run (No. 2 on our list of the 6 Abilities You Didn't Want to Lose in a World Filled With Man-Eating Animals). To keep women ambulatory without losing any of that big-brained goodness on the back end, the species began naturally selecting women who gave birth earlier. The species got to keep our big, tool-operating brains and female hips that wouldn't get clogged in a hula hoop.
The trade-off was that our babies came out stupid and helpless, and had to be taken care of for years if you didn't want them to find the only sharp rock in the entire jungle and try to do a headstand on it. While this extended ankle biting phase might seem like nothing but downside at first, the mixture of big brains and more time spent hanging around made us even smarter.
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But still vulnerable.
Scientists believe that this delay actually allows us to reach higher cognitive levels, because it prolongs the types of learning that only juveniles are capable of. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, so you keep the dog a puppy longer, thereby allowing him to learn more tricks overall. And considering those "tricks" are language, culture and the ability to solve a Rubik's cube, being born helpless isn't such a bad trade-off.
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It also helps that just being around a baby drugs you into a happy stupor.
Early helplessness is the price we pay for later brilliance. Or, at least our later capacity for non-idiocy.
#4.
Ticklishness
It seems a little pathetic that some of us can't even handle a light touch to certain parts of our body without peeing our pants a little bit. While we wouldn't say being ticklish makes you a wuss per se, it's hard to picture Teddy Roosevelt squirming around while being attacked by the tickle monster, and it's literally impossible to tickle someone without talking like a Muppet.
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He often left himself open to a tickle attack, because he knew no fear.
Its Badass Origins
Ever see dogs play? They tackle and growl at each other, bite and slash at each other's throats, stopping just shy of a playful disembowelment. In fact, in most of the Animal Kingdom, playing looks a lot like two animals trying to murder each other. Now imagine what tickling must look like to them. One person's got their hands on the throat or ribs of another person who is screaming and begging for them to stop. Hell, under the right circumstances, that would look like a murder to just about anyone.
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A wedgie is, at best, provoked manslaughter on the grounds that your victim is an insufferable nerd.
In good news for creepy uncles everywhere, tickling totally evolved as a way to hone our self-defense reflexes. One researcher pointed out that the most ticklish parts of our body (our ribs and neck) also tend to be the most open to attack. So when primates evolved the behavior of tickling our little ones, they were actually training their babies to protect their most vulnerable body parts in a safe (and hilarious!) way.
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"Laugh it up! This is where the grizzly will strike, son!"
Not only is the behavior of tickling rooted in our evolutionary history, being ticklish was also once the trait of a survivor. Because ancient humans who were highly sensitive to swishing, creeping stimuli were faster to detect predators and parasites and, thus, lived longer. Individuals who had low sensitivity got eaten or infected. In this respect, ticklishness evolved as a form of self-preservation and was a 100-percent-beneficial trait back when the tickle monster was an actual monster.
"We're not talking about the strong, silent type who's only shy because he prefers to let his fists/gun/boner do the talking."
ReplyMade me laugh, good stuff!
Imagine what's on the trays in front of the nerds. Did you see salads, gluten free rice cakes and hypoallergenic cardboard?
ReplyNope. I saw Doritos and Mountain Dew. Voltage.
when I saw the pic of the people with the goggles, first thing that popped into my mind was the awesome face/epic smiley. am I the only one who got that impression at first glance?
ReplyLOL @ Steven Seagal
ReplySo, basically, supertasters are like bratty little kids who refuse to eat anything that isn't chicken nuggets? Because those kiddlies make me sad. SPINACH IS NOT EVIL. Spinach is a good, healthy, leafy green that tastes amazing stir fried with garlic.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesI'm a supertaster and it's OK in salads. It definitely has a bad rap and people avoid it. I HATE spicy food, coffee, beer, wine, old fruit (well duh), most alcohol or a lot of alcohol in a drink (big trend here) ... and more. Also, I can easily tell things apart that are supposed to be similar, like all the SodaStream flavors/comparisons. (Maybe the company just lies, but I do hate most of their flavors while other people do not.)
I also like broccoli tops with a lot of butter.
And water is farrrr from tasteless.
I'm not a supertaster nor an allergy magnet, but I do have a seriously heightened sense of smell. I guess I have some sensitive lungs or something because I can really gag when there are are even remotely strong smells around... ones that other people can't even detect.
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesYou think you smell with your lungs? Do you see with your liver?
I detect the faint odor of bullshit
so u r like any other person who can detect (remotely) strong smells?
I can gag even when there aren't smells around, i just have to poke my uvula.
I see with my liver only on St. Patrick's Day and during happy hour.
I see with my liver on St. Patrick's Day and during happy hour.
#5 It's really too bad (and pathetically sad as well) when millions of babies are being raised by complete idiots who think that they're smart. America's quickly becoming an idiocracy... that is, if it's not there already.
ReplySays the guy with sensitive lungs.
You see here, good sir samurai, what makes your point invalid is that you made the grievous mistake of assuming that we gave a shit.
Guys crying gets them laid but girls crying turns guys off...so unfair. (*sniffle*)
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesUnless you cry from your boobs, odds are we would not even notice.
I know a guy who has a thing for seeing chicks cry.
It strikes me as an incredibly creepy fetish.
It does? ... I dunno, it makes our honeys hug us and stuff, at least.
I'm a supertaster! My sense of taste is so strong that a lot of the time, I can taste every individual ingredient (that I recognize) that was used in the food I am eating. Being a supertaster makes my meals quite boring, though. I basically live off of cheese pizza.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesAh, yes such is my curse as well. I must eat boring foods because I can't stand tomatoes, onions, peppers, celery, mustard, mayo, relish, most sauces, pepper, mint-flavor, wheat bread, a whole slew of other things and anything even remotely spicy will send me into eyewatering badassness. Basically, I can eat no Italian or Mexican food and live on buttered pasta. I feel your pain!
Me too! I live off simple foods because I can't stand the extreme stuff - I can taste *everything* and it's overwhelming, and not in a good way. It's so hard to explain to people. I actually have bad allergies and a hyper sensitive sense of smell, too, so it kind of makes me wonder if maybe my body just didn't evolve well enough. Lol. J/k It is nice to see someone else has my problem, though!
My supertasting abilities go as far as being able to tell the difference between diet and regular sodas... Apart from that, I'm fine.
There has been research showing the main reason people eat spicy food is to release endorphins. Also of note, Spicy food reception is not bound to taste buds, but to TRPV1 receptors, so I would think that specific part would not be bound to being a supertaster.
Ah, yes, knowing the ingredient is key. ... This is fun. Like these people, I hate (in addition to what I wrote above): onions, peppers (ALL - the ultimate veggie flavor, like the notorious one), mustard (unless it's honey mustard with a LOT of extra honey added or honey mustard with ham sandwiches - odd one), relish I fear even trying I think, MOST breads, even "mild" spice...
And I'm really picky with tomatoes, and don't usually like much sauce, mostly I'm not a big fan.
I don't feel this pain. I love it. I know that coffee is actually terrible, "ha ha!" (Etc. etc.)
sweet article
ReplyI cry all the f*****g time, im not ashamed
ReplyThere's a difference between crying when you drop a sledgehammer on your foot and crying because this evening's episode of Star Trek was cancelled.
haverchuck for president! .. also, great article.. except for the part where you slagged off spinach, that stuff's delicious, even as a dwarf i thought so and so did most of the kids i grew up with, once we'd gotten past the 'eurgh it's green and slimy' thing
ReplyMan, I want some of those god damn glasses...
ReplyAnd I don't know, having allergies like I do where one's eyes puff up so large that they can't see and end up itching their freaking eyelids out if mulch or tree pollen gets in one's eye for some reason seems like it would not be a very effective survival technique. Plus, while I don't know statistics or anything, in the past the kind of people who seem to have really a lot of allergies seem to often look unhealthy or sickly looking overall and seem to get sick really often, when people like myself or my brother who have a single known allergy each have already gone whole years at times in the past without getting sick at all.
An over active immune system is a sign of health in the same way that an over active thyroid or having the disorder that makes someone extremely tall or an over active bladder is...just because it performs a beneficial function or is good normally doesn't mean that over performing it or having too much of it equates to better health, usually it's just points to dysfunction and being unhealthy...
The article didn't say an acute immune response was highly beneficial. They said it's been theorized the acute immune response was necessary to survive some sort of plague in the past.
Who actually has a ticklish neck?
ReplyI do, it's actually frustrating >.>...
JESUS, THOSE f*****g GOGGLES.
ReplyI love the photos for #5, especially the one with the caption "It also helps that just being around a baby drugs you into a happy stupor."
ReplyEr, for those saying that the 'Helpless Babies' thing is fake.
ReplyNo, actually, it's true.
The first few weeks in Anthropology 101, Human Archaeology, and Forensic Anthropology cover each of the evolutionary forms of hominids and early humans. Archaeological evidence proves that as the human brain developed (shown by behaviors such as the capacity to start making and using tools, for instance), there were also notable changes in the skull-it became bigger for cranial capacity with flatter brows. Now, we didn't cover so much the ability to run, but we did cover the fact that it got to a point where it was extremely likely that childbirth would ultimately kill both the mother and child, due to the fact that the birth canal was too small for the-at that time-abnormally increased size of the skull. Mothers that started having their babies premature, however, increased the survival rate of both parties.
Around the same time that this evolutionary trait started cropping up, humans also started to show stronger social and cultural interactions, as well as higher intellectual traits, evidenced by some of the earliest artifacts of weapon creation and much more advanced tool use, basic necessities for survival such as clothing, more advanced social structures created for survival and lifestyle (especially with food-gathering and skirmishes or breeding with other nomadic groups), and then eventually the earliest artifacts of art, language, and religion. Anthropologists now believe one of the biggest reasons for this is because with the added time humans spend outside of the womb, it allows things like emotions (or at the very least, emotional display) and social interaction to be better imprinted on the baby, and provides them more time to pick up new things with a mind that has far more neural pathways than the average adult.
...Anyway. That's some of the info from my school notes as an Anthropology/Archaeology major. *anthropology/archaeology geek and proud*
Lies. The world and modern humans were created in 7 days, by God. Duh.
/sarcasm
Babies may look like squishy, mindless, pooping machines
Replybut child psychologists say their brains are actually running 3 times faster than the average adult's brain. That's because almost every moment is devoted to learning about the world and their surroundings.
There was a study done where scientists took 20 babies and while each were breastfeeding from their mother the scientists put headphones over the baby's ears. They had a recording playing where if a baby sucked at a normal pace they heard a stranger's voice. But if they slowed down their sucking pattern to a slower pace they heard their mothers voice. It turned out every single one of the 20 babies changed to a slower sucking patern and chose to rather hear their mom's voice over a strangers. And they were all under 12 hours old!
And then they were all wired together into a missile guidance system.
"They were so useful that while all the guys who hear sounds 20 times louder than everyone all died off years ago[...]" -Sez YOU. I hear things 20% louder, and that's saved my life on more than one occasion. It's particularly useful for assessing the distance and speed of an incoming vehicle without having the delay of turning my head to look, thus also circumventing the deadly "startled deer in the headlights" effect.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesOn the downside this also means I'm more sensitive to sounds on the extreme spectrum, i.e. low-range ultrasounds and infrasounds. Which means I can't attend open-air concerts or nightclubs without a pair of earplugs ...so there's That :(
Twenty percent is not the same thing as two-thousand percent.
how the f**k has your hearing saved your life on more than one occasion?
Kadzar just owned you with facts, sir.
"No other animal cries in sadness". Have you not seen a dog lay its head on its injured owner and cry? I have!
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesYes, but we're the only ones who shed tears out of emotion.
@ErinM
the Dog isn't injured the owner is.... so how is it anything but tears of emotion?
Humans massively overrate their emotions and underrate most other animals. Just because the facial expressions are different, Dogs are higher emotionally than humans because Most dogs can judge a human's emotional state with just a sniff and a glance but few humans can judge a dogs mind so quickly and accurately.
I think what the author was referring to was having physical tears come out of your eyes while you cry. dogs can cry but no tears