this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] HappyFrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 231 points 2 days ago (47 children)

I tgink I heard of that. Didn't the "scientist" just like self isolate, angry that they didn't fight eachother, while the other passengers became lifelong friends and had a great time?

[–] its_kim_love@lemmy.blahaj.zone 321 points 2 days ago (35 children)

It went beyond that. In an attempt to ferment discontent in the group he started reading their reports out loud. Airing all their dirty laundry. Instead of getting them mad at each other he basically forced them to settle all their issues and form together, closer than ever. After that didn't work he started trying to usurp authority from the captain that he selected because he thought as a woman she would crumble under the pressure of command. His greatest accomplishment as the new captain was damaging a fuel line and failing to fix it by swimming in the fuel and water.

If I remember correctly they had to rescue him and distract him while they fixed it themselves and after that he basically sulked in the corner of the raft. Only getting the balls to try something near the end of the experiment, trying to Shanghai the raft and expand the experiment to try and force his theories into reality. After they finally got back the subjects would get together every few years to relive the good old days without him.

It's ironic, by trying to get them to hate each other he accidentally became something for all of them to rally against.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 50 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

That's awesome. Like he was really hoping for some dismal and dark exposé on "savage human nature" a la "Lord of the Flies", and at every turn, proven wrong by people who were happy to just get along and cooperate for mutual benefit...

... Which should come as a complete shock, social species that we are! /s

I think these desperately dark tales of people turning on each other in sociological contexts is another propaganda tool to put this idea in our heads that without "qualified leaders" we'd all just be grunting and beating each other over the head with rocks.

Nah, someone with something to gain has to motivate us to fight each other. What if we just said "lol, anyway" and kept getting along on the raft?

[–] BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Lord of the Flies was also a direct answer to a book that was really popular during England's colonial hey day(?) called the Island, I think.

Basically, English colonial culture wasn't as good as we might have thought.

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