America Is Heading For Civil War (So Says Chimp Research)

In this episode of Based Camp, Simone and Malcolm explore the ongoing chimpanzee civil war in Uganda’s Ngogo community—the largest wild chimp group ever studied—and what it reveals about how civil conflicts actually start.

What looks like a random outbreak of violence among chimps turns out to be the mechanical result of a few subtle shifts: the deaths of key intermediary individuals who once connected rival subgroups, a power transition, and the complete breakdown of everyday social exchange. Once those bridging relationships vanished, the community split into hostile blocs that began patrolling, ambushing, and killing with deliberate cruelty—including females participating in infant killings.

The parallel to modern human politics is hard to ignore. When groups stop talking, stop sharing social spaces, and begin treating the other side as non-human, the same fission dynamics appear. Simone and Malcolm discuss the research graphs that look eerily like U.S. political polarization charts, the role of “compromise monkeys” who keep factions stitched together, and why deliberately targeting intermediaries may be one of the most dangerous strategies a side can pursue.

They also dig into practical implications: the value of cultural networks that maintain cross-group exchange, the strategic importance of tech capital and institutional control in a modern “civil war,” and why freezing people out of coalitions is a reliable way to lose.

A darkly fascinating look at primate politics, human polarization, and what it actually takes to keep a society from splitting into permanent, hostile camps.

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