What if yellow and red started breeding?

April 20, 2008 10:27 PM

Survival of the fittest
posted by Blazecock Pileon (23 comments total)

The writer is clearly blue-ist.
posted by cosmonik at 10:30 PM on April 20, 2008

Now that that's settled, time to move on to the other candies. What about Survival Of The Skittle-ist?
posted by jonmc at 10:34 PM on April 20, 2008

People are awesome.
posted by Dasein at 10:35 PM on April 20, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

That's pretty excellent.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:35 PM on April 20, 2008

an oldie but a goodie - always was a favorite of mine
posted by jfrancis at 10:36 PM on April 20, 2008

It's an oldie but a goodie. It was linked here before (at least).
posted by peacay at 10:36 PM on April 20, 2008

And here I thought this was going to be about the box-office results for Ben Stein's movie.

rimshot
posted by SomeOneElse at 10:42 PM on April 20, 2008

What about Survival Of The Skittle-ist?

The red and yellow would clearly be superior in that case, too. It's about RACE not CLASS.
posted by cosmonik at 10:46 PM on April 20, 2008

old copypasta is olddddddddd
posted by Spacelegoman at 10:47 PM on April 20, 2008 [8 favorites has favorites]

Proof of Intelligent Design?
posted by orthogonality at 11:11 PM on April 20, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Did Internet archaeologists unearth an old BBS or something?
posted by Krrrlson at 12:12 AM on April 21, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Here in the UK Cadbury does the reverse. They test their customers by releasing chocolate with salmonella. I guess the plan is the have a salmonella resistant population so they can cut that corner in their production more regularly.
posted by srboisvert at 5:10 AM on April 21, 2008

I play the same game.

Except with eggs.
posted by Kibbutz at 5:23 AM on April 21, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I tried that with some M&Ms today. In many cases, both M&Ms would have their shells cracked.

Therefore, my real empirical experimentation proves this post is a HOAX! Or is at least falsifying data.
posted by delmoi at 6:09 AM on April 21, 2008

So the ultimate m&m would be one with a shell so hard that no one could eat it?

No thank you.
posted by blue_beetle at 6:59 AM on April 21, 2008

Yes, blue_beetle, that seems to be the take-home message: if the m&m you're enjoying doesn't cause structural damage to your dental work, it's genetically inferior.
posted by cosmonik at 8:05 AM on April 21, 2008

if the m&m you're enjoying doesn't cause structural damage to your dental work, it's genetically inferior

The fittest candy is not the one that survives contests but rather the one that has a reproductive edge. Fitness is relative, after all. It's a question of what traits in a population of individuals work best in a given environment and not simply genetic "superiority." What is a superior trait in one environment might be a true hindrance in another. A thinner shelled candy might have other qualities that contribute to a higher or equal fitness. The blue candies could be more difficult to capture, or their coloring may warn of a deadly poison. They might be prickly or taste bad. They might reproduce sooner or have a higher survival rate of their offspring. They might be able to eat a food supply that is more available and that the thicker shelled candies can't eat.

I would be willing to pilot a project to explore the other facets of this important and overlooked branch of evolutionary biology. Please send candies.
posted by Tehanu at 10:45 AM on April 21, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Hilarious! My favorite part is when he sends the surviving M&M to Mars to use for "breeding purposes".
posted by geeky at 10:56 AM on April 21, 2008

Is it weird that I used to do the exact same thing when I was 9? Of course, I learned that it was easy to futz the results; the M&M on bottom tends to have an edge; the M&M on the thumb-side has a disadvantage; and the M&M that has gone through at least one round has already been structurally weakened, thereby making it impossible to survive subsequent rounds.

I call shenanigans.
posted by jabberjaw at 11:25 AM on April 21, 2008

I'm curious about this M&M breeding program; is this some kind of terrifying eugenics program who's end goal is to create the strongest and best of Ms?

Like some kind of... UberM?

Because as anyone who has seen a sci-fi movie in the past 20 years can tell you, this will end in either some kind of zombie/mutant apocalypse, or a fascist New Candy Order kind of dystopia where lesser confections are sent to their deaths after toiling their lives away in the chocolate mines.

Regardless; it will be delicious.
posted by quin at 12:26 PM on April 21, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I tried that with some M&Ms today. In many cases, both M&Ms would have their shells cracked.

You apparently got the Sid & Nancy bag, delmoi.
posted by Spatch at 12:42 PM on April 21, 2008

A fascist New Candy Order kind of dystopia

Ruled over no doubt by Doctor Who villain The Kandy Man.
posted by electricinca at 7:45 AM on April 22, 2008

I personally welcome our new impenetrable chocolate overlords. Of course this is HAWTALTA; it's one of the many subplots to be explored in the new X-Files movie, I'm sure.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 11:24 AM on April 22, 2008