The past few weeks have found social media saturated with a rather uncanny debate: in a hypothetical battle between 100 men fighting in concert and a lone gorilla, who would come out victorious? At first glance, this appears ridiculous, barely worthy of debate, much less one capable of capturing the imagination of social media users across the world. Humans are, by a considerable margin, the most dominant species. We have transformed entire ecosystems to suit the peculiar demands of modern life and brought almost every other species under our dominion. Gorillas, in contrast, despite their incontrovertible brute strength, are an endangered species, driven to the brink of extinction by the devastating effects of urbanization and the actions of poachers.
The important caveat in this debate, however, is that in this hypothetical battle, the humans in question will not be allowed access to weapons of any sort. The battle would be fought entirely on the altar of brute strength and wits. Opinions on who would come out victorious are split right in the middle. Proponents of the gorilla, rightly, argue that an adult male gorilla, a silverback, is incredibly strong and agile. Gorillas, on average, are 6-10 times stronger than humans, owing to denser muscles, and can easily fracture the bones of even the strongest human. Those on the side of humans have countered that despite the fountain of brute strength a gorilla possesses, humans have dominated the world for a reason: our superior intellect allows us to coordinate better. The number of humans, they also argue, is simply too vast to be overrun by a lone gorilla.
Both sides of the divide have valid arguments, and so, the debate appears to be in a deadlock, with neither side being willing to cede ground or see the other perspective. The conversation also has a whimsical tinge to it, which is to say that despite the feverish debate it has generated, the goal was never to consider it with clinical precision: the way one would tackle an exam or an interview question. If we, however, wanted to consider the question seriously, we would have to realize that the outcome of this tussle would come down to the stakes involved. Why are these men facing off with the gorilla? Are they a group of bored men at a safari simply trying to amuse themselves with this “battle?” Are they a group of young men from a tribe whose traditions demand that they take down a gorilla before they join the ranks of titled men in that society? Or has an alien civilization seized control over our planet and staked our independence on these hundred men successfully taking down the gorilla?
“Man, the bravest of animals and the most accustomed to suffering, does not repudiate suffering as such; he desires it, he even seeks it out, provided that he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering,” Nietzsche says in his seminal book “Genealogy of Morality.” Humans are generally capable of enduring great suffering when they believe it’s towards a worthy cause. Students subject themselves to the drudgery of wending through textbooks and practice questions, because they believe the momentary suffering of study to be worth the joy of passing an exam. Women subject themselves to the tumultuous crucible of pregnancy because they believe the pain and discomfort to be worth bringing a new life into this world. The world is currently mired in several major conflicts—the Russia-Ukraine war and the chain of conflicts in the Middle East being the most prominent. The soldiers on every side of the divide are aware of the risk of death, trauma, and injury. And yet they continue to fight, defying the human tendency for self-preservation. They fight because they each believe the stakes of their respective battles to be existential and that they are fighting for a worthy cause.
Likewise, if the hypothetical battle between these 100 men and the gorilla were predicted on a worthy enough cause, there’s little doubt that the humans would come out victorious. Conversely, if the stakes of the battle were trivial, an attempt at cheap amusement perhaps, the moment the gorilla fractures the first set of skulls and femurs, the party of humans would be sent scampering in all directions.
Another salient question to ask ourselves is why the conversation has resonated so strongly across the internet. The contentious nature of the question has most certainly contributed to its virality. But I suspect that the greater part of its resonance owes itself to the fact that the question and the flurry of discussion it has generated reminds us of a time before the platform X (formerly known as Twitter) became overrun by an unholy triumvirate of hate speech, misogynistic rhetoric, and AI slop. Twitter has always been the platform of choice for fierce debate, cheeky banter, and rib-cracking satire.
But since Elon Musk assumed the reins of the platform and hacked off the guardrails of content moderation, opening the doors to malevolent behavior championed by alt-right figures like Andrew Tate, who faces multiple charges of sexual assault. Something about the platform feels deeply fractured, but the seemingly tenuous question—a hundred men vs. one gorilla—reminds us of what we lost when Musk assumed control of the platform, and offers some hope that even in the darkest times, wholesomeness always finds a way of streaking through.
