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Well, I have known many
alpha males in my life,

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chimpanzee alpha males,

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and I'm going to talk about
what an alpha male is,

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because I think we can all learn
a lot from our close relatives

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where we have alpha males.

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And as an example, I want to give you
Amos, a male that I knew

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who was a young male
and he was alpha male,

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he was very popular,

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but he got sick

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and he lost his position because,
you know, chimpanzee males

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they can spot from a mile away
if you are weak

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and they went for him,

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and he lost his position,
and then he got sicker and sicker

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until at some point

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we had to isolate him.

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The group lived on a grassy island,

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and we had to isolate him in a cage,

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but we cracked open the cage
so that the rest of the chimps

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still had access to him.

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And what happened was most touching.

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Other chimps would bring food to him,

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they would bring wood wool to him,

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which is this thing that they use
to sleep in and build nests out of,

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and females would put
the wood wool behind his back.

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He was leaning heavily against the wall,

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and look, the way we do with pillows
and to patients in a hospital,

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they were putting
that stuff behind his back.

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And I thought, this is the way
to go for an alpha male.

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He was loved and respected,
and everyone was taking care of him,

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and this is not always how it goes,

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because some males don't answer well
when they lose their position.

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So Amos was an example
of a male who was liked as a leader,

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and I think the term alpha male,

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if you look it up on the internet,

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you will find all these business books
that tell you how to be an alpha male,

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and what they mean
is how to beat up others

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and beat them over the head
and let them know that you are boss

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and don't mess with me and so on.

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And basically an alpha male
for them is a bully.

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And I really don't like
that kind of description,

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because I am actually partly responsible
for the term "alpha male"

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because I wrote this book
"Chimpanzee Politics,"

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which was recommended by Newt Gingrich

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to freshmen congressmen.

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I don't know what good it did,
but he recommended that book to them,

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and after that the term
"alpha male" became very popular.