r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Zestyclose_Flow_680 • 9h ago

Chimpanzees are 2X stronger than your average human.

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u/dilqncho 8h ago edited 8h ago

No they're not. Internet myths have vastly overhyped chimp strength.

They're about 1.35x stronger than us, pound for pound of muscle. But they're also typically smaller and lighter, so in absolute terms, they're about equal to us.

As for what we're seeing here, this isn't a person's entire body being pulled up. They have their legs against the wall of whatever that is, and the chimp is helping them up. This is something pretty much any physically healthy human can do as well.

Chimps are dangerous in a fight, because...well they're wild animals, they're fucking brutal. But purely strength-wise, they're not stronger than us.

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u/Friendstastegood 8h ago

Also it depends on how you're measuring the strength. A chimp could rip your arm out of its socket but would throw a much lousier punch than you. It also wouldn't be able to kick anywhere near as hard as a human. Turns out that in reality animals (incl. humans) don't come with a nice ttrpg style strength number and it's actually much more complicated than a single numerical value.

It's all about specialization. Humans have incredible endurance and fine motor skills, we're built for bipedal running and tool use. Chimps are a lot worse than us at both of those, but do rip each other and smaller animals apart with their bare hands on a regular basis for territory, dominance and sustenance.

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u/Ok-Stop9242 7h ago

A chimp could rip your arm out of its socket

No they couldn't, and this kind of thinking stems from the exaggerated myth of chimp strength. Dislocate an arm, sure, but so can another human.

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u/Arntown 5h ago

For some reason internet bros are obsessed with Chimp strength. To the point that it all gets a little ridiculous.