The Octopus and the Coconut
Scientists, whilst not trying to save the world in Copenhagen, have recently been dropping coconuts into the ocean off Bali.
This was an experiment in animal psychology. But rather than what I expected, which was to see how a row of monkeys chained to the sea bed would interact with the coconut shells once they sank, the scientists wanted to find out more about octopuses.
There was general astonishment and surprise when they observed some of the octopuses running away with the coconut shells and building houses out of them much like Spongebob Squarepants and his pineapple.
Apparently the octopuses had demonstrated basic tool use - a hallmark of advanced animals like humans. This was so impressive it was almost on par with tool use by women.
I respect women and octopuses equally as much but you never see a woman getting very excited about tools and I find this very annoying. Octopus? Endearing and trying it’s best with the coconuts. Women - dismissive and uninterested; Doesn’t even want to play on my steering wheel racing game simulator.
Why does it have to be like this? The question I’d like to ask the Australian scientists in Bali is did the coconut manipulating octopuses have willys? Do octopuses even have willys? And if so, what were the female octopuses doing whilst the male ones were playing with their coconut shells? Cooking pasta?
It recently took me 2 weeks to get Joey to visit a headphone shop with me. She did so very reluctantly in the end, and she still isn’t very interested in graphics cards. So on this regard, the octopus does in fact seem to be more evolved. Therefore I have made it my mission to somehow rewire a woman’s head to find technology interesting. When man builds a new space rocket, I want her to be on the NASA mission control webcam faster than you can say Heat Magazine. The answer to my mission seems to be a social one. Therefore I’m probably going to fail it.
It comes as a particular annoyance that woman aren’t interested in tools and technology because these areas are the pinnacle of man’s achievement. Apart from blowing up the world with guns and bombs, it’s what we do best. Our egos want recognition.
Yet tools like space rockets and computers are cast aside by women as pointless novelties. Left to the female population of Earth, tools would simply vanish and infrastructure collapse. Since women are currently earmarked to succeed men in almost every aspect of life, this is of great concern. They need to appreciate spanner use at the very least. Surely the research on octopus behaviour can cast some kind of insight into my concerns about women? Well, unwittingly I have also recently been doing my own research into the subject of females and tools.
I recently bought a new kettle which is shiney and silver and looks like a spaceship, but I made the mistake of throwing out the old kettle which had been making my tea taste of ricin. Despite the fact that this 10 year old Made-In-China wonder was depositing plastics and solvents into my daily cuppa, what I didn’t know at the time was that it had been kindly bestowed on the flat by Joey’s mum. When Joey returned from work to see it sat on top of the dustbin outside, she wasn’t happy. Yes, I should have asked before throwing it away, but this was against all I knew about tools. A broken tool causes frustration and death, therefore should be deposited in bin and replaced with more expensive one. However to a woman it seems that the paramount reason to appreciate the tool is socially orientated. Maybe that’s why they like jewellery so much?
Another difference I’ve observed with my eyes is that it seems a woman can happily use a digital camera until its 10 year old. I haven’t yet been able to keep the same one for over 6 months yet. Although men are absolutely right when it comes to using tools and should always be in charge of the remote control and the decision to purchase a new 60 inch plasma screen, they are absolutely 100% responsible for fucking up the world completely.
In Copenhagen recently, some scientists and politicians got together to try and fix the climate, seemingly forgetting that it doesn’t take 450 politicians and climate scientists to change a lightbulb and replace it with an energy efficient one which takes seven hours to come on and turns your chips green. Unimprovement is done on an individual person by person basis. But oh, never mind. Let’s do it politically.
These men (and possibly some women too, worried about the future of their children) sat at the summit with faces like haunted baboons. The aim was (past tense if you’re reading this tomorrow after the talks fail) to hammer out an agreement over reducing emissions and other such things which cause the world to heat up, like new babies being born. Frankly, I think we’re as fucked as Jordan’s vagina. There is nothing we can do about global warming and there never has been. Its been a steady journey towards our destiny of death ever since mankind discovered how to kill animals with rocks and put Irish twins on TV. Forget Copenhagen, the only ‘green’ movement which is real is that of green land sliding under blue sea.
One day we’ll realise this, and short of murdering half the world’s population and changing human nature so the reward circuitry in our brains don’t respond to achievements of any sort, we could relax in certainty that we’re going to die. Even if we keep recycling toilet paper we’d still have to deal with the big thermal event WHEN it happens. Nature has a way of sorting itself out eventually, and if the removal of humanity from the face of the earth is required to balance the scales once again then it will happen, and there is nothing Ed Miliband or his brother can do about it.
The reason these talks (involving 192 countries) are so fucking useless is because of politics. Or more specifically, it is very hard to get China to agree with you.
Equally, I have been wondering about bankers and why the rich ones have decided to leave the country and live in Hong Kong. It’s something to do with the government taxing them at 50% and now their bonuses too. So the bankers go and live somewhere else. It’s simple, until you start looking at why the government wanted to tax their bonuses in the first place.
Without getting into too much financial detail, it’s because they’re fucking bastards.
But they do contribute a lot of tax. At least they did… before they left the country to avoid it. Now, you may then ask - what is the point of taxing their bonuses if they can do even more damage to the country by simply ignoring the new rules and buying a ranch in Switzerland?
My conclusion is that if any meaningful change is to happen with broken banks and the crap climate, the world needs one leader, one country, and one rule for every single business and person alive today.
If Tesco suddenly began eating babies, and the British Government decided this was not allowed, and passed a law preventing it from eating babies, what is the point of this when China allows super markets to eat babies perfectly well?
Likewise, if the world feels a bit hot and has had enough carbon dioxide for one century, what is the point of the UK closing down what few factories it has left, if China’s expansion and reliance on coal power continues at their political insistence? Of course, that’s broad-stroke stuff. Wait until you see what demons lurk in the details of the politics.
The world has come to a critical point. We’re culturally, economically and climatically fucked. The world needs uniting politically and economically into one place yet culturally it needs splitting up into tiny diverse chunks.
For example I’d like to see the internet banned. This is because when I make a music video I have to compete with just about every other person in the world who has ever made a music video. This is making it impossible for anyone to have an original voice any more, or to achieve proper recognition for their achievements. Likewise, to rise to the top of your career you’ll probably have to beat a whole country’s worth of competitors, all linked together by Twitter.
Divide it all up. Being back smaller communities like in The Village, who think the neighbouring town is far away, with a wood full of monsters in between ‘them’ and ‘us’. Bring back a sense of joint identity amongst people you have real connections with, not superficial ones on Facebook. Let’s not be afraid to put our necks on the line in our own little way - so what if someone else, somewhere in America has come up with the same idea as you for a business? You’re no longer competing with anyone but the people you see around you. Wouldn’t that be more satisfying than boring office jobs, constant failure and thermal heat death?
And maybe one day after global warming has finally got on with it, we can all get on wooden ships and discover strange new places. Like Birmingham.
Somehow, the Octopus’s new home inside it’s coconut shell seems all the more appealing.