The Acali Raft Experiment Might Restore Your Faith in Humanity

The Acali Raft experiment was a flawed 1970s social test on human violence that surprisingly fostered friendship instead of conflict.

Key Takeaways

Human behavior under stress may be more cooperative and empathetic than expected.
Sexual tension does not necessarily lead to violence or conflict.
Authoritarian and manipulative leadership can undermine group dynamics.
Diversity and shared experiences can foster strong interpersonal bonds.
Flawed scientific methods and biases can distort experimental outcomes.

What the video covers

Anthropologist Santiago Terrazaga designed the Acali Raft experiment in the 1970s to study human violence by isolating 10 diverse people on a raft crossing the Atlantic.
He hypothesized that sexual tension and dangerous conditions would trigger violent behavior, inspired by earlier primate studies.
The group consisted of six women and four men, chosen for attractiveness and diversity, with women assigned key roles like captain and diver.
Participants signed a contract surrendering their 'souls, bodies, and minds' to Santiago, who monitored them with weekly provocative questionnaires.
Contrary to Santiago’s expectations, the group bonded, shared intimate stories, and formed friendships rather than descending into violence.
Sexual encounters occurred but were casual and did not lead to conflict or aggression.
Santiago’s authoritarian and sexist behavior, including preventing a female diver from fixing the rudder, caused resentment among participants.
When the rudder broke, Santiago failed to fix it, but the female diver succeeded, further undermining his authority.
Santiago tried to manipulate the group by reading private questionnaire answers aloud to sow discord, but this backfired.
Ultimately, the experiment revealed more about human cooperation and empathy than violence, contradicting Santiago’s original violent hypothesis.

Chapters

What was the main goal of the Acali Raft experiment?

The main goal was to study the origins of violent behavior in humans by placing a diverse group on a raft in a dangerous situation to see if conflict would arise.

Did the experiment result in the expected violence among participants?

No, contrary to expectations, the participants formed strong friendships and cooperated rather than becoming violent.

How did Santiago Terrazaga’s behavior affect the experiment?

Santiago’s authoritarian and sexist actions, including manipulating questionnaire responses and undermining female participants, caused resentment and undermined his control.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

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The Alkali Raft experiment was a hugely misguided endeavor put on by a really incompetent scientist, but it's also kind of a nice story. Santiago Terrazaga was an anthropologist who was obsessed with studying violent behavior in humans. In the 70s, he was

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inspired by an experiment that had been done on monkeys. The experiment revealed that most violence in that species was driven by a need to have sex with females. Santiago wanted to test that hypothesis in humans. Santiago said that

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if he could find the reason for violence in the human species, then he could uncover the secret to world peace. That was his whole thinking. Now I'll pause here to say something about Santiago. Throughout this video, almost any time he makes a decision or

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has an idea, you'll probably think, "Wow, what a weird and dumb idiot," and in thinking that, you would be correct. Santiago was a terrible scientist, and you will see that all throughout this so-called experiment. But anyways, in the 1970s, he devised the

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Alkali Raft expedition. In Santiago's experiment, 10 people would be put on a raft that would drift across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain to Mexico over the course of 101 days. At almost 40 feet long, the raft was pretty big. Space

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wouldn't be a huge issue, and the people's food would all be provided and rationed beforehand. Still, it was super dangerous, but that was kind of the point. Santiago believed in dangerous situations, people would revert to their baseline instincts.

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Santiago found six women and four men from different backgrounds and countries. He chose a diverse group of people to, A, create tension and, B, create a microcosm of the world on his raft. Now, with that said, Santiago didn't just

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pick people at random. He wanted them to have sex with each other, so they were all in their early 20s to mid-30s, and they were all pretty attractive. Santiago also included a very hunkish priest in the group because he wanted to see what

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would happen. In the 70s, women were starting to have a stronger role in society, so Santiago picked women for the more impactful jobs on the raft. The captain was a woman, the diver who would perform any maintenance on the raft was also a woman,

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the radio operator was a woman. This was one of the only admirable aspects of Santiago's experiment, but as you'll later find out, Santiago's commitment to this idea was tenuous at best. So Santiago had his experiment ready and his subjects selected.

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On the morning of May 12, 1973, the Alkali set off. The experiment, as Santiago said, would basically be he sits in a corner and journals about the people on the raft while they inevitably break down into a lawless mess of violence.

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To me, this sounds less scientific and more fetishistic, but that was his plan. And to really bring home how weird and non-scientific this experiment was, I should note that the contract the 10 participants had to sign required that

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they, quote, give their souls, bodies, and minds to Santiago. Santiago would also give out weekly questionnaires to the participants. These would include questions on how they felt about other people on board, who would they get rid of, who did they like the

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most, who would they most like to sleep with. Some of these questions were about what would compel each person to violence or what they thought would compel others to violence. Weird and kind of creepy, but these surveys were all answered in private and

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shared only with Santiago. So all in the name of science, I guess. Really, it was quite obvious that Santiago wanted his experiment to go in one way: violence. He wanted the raft to break down into a mess of aggression and

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violence so he could witness it all. But weeks into the void, that just wasn't happening. In fact, everyone was basically becoming best friends. They were having a good old time on the raft. Videos taken of the experiment show the participants

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smiling, laughing, and playing games together. Now, Santiago also wanted the people to have sex with each other. He thought this would create conflict and thus lead to violence. And eventually, Santiago got his wish. Hookups did begin to happen.

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A few of the men and women slept with each other, but they were just bored. There was no emotional resonance or attachment involved, so the sex wasn't really leading to any conflict at all. In total, the experiment was going the

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exact opposite direction that Santiago wanted. So as the group got closer and more amicable with one another, Santiago's questionnaires got more provocative. How many times have you masturbated? Who have you had sex with? Who do you want to

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have sex with? Who do you want to kill? And of course, in response to these bizarre questions and Santiago's increasingly dissatisfied mood, the group began to dislike him. In one questionnaire, a popular response to who do you dislike the most was Santiago

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himself. One morning, a few of the people were fishing, and someone caught a small shark. They reeled the shark onto the deck, and rightfully, the group was quite excited. Reading Santiago's journal about this moment, it seems he thought this was it.

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This was when the violence would come in. His journal, he wrote that they bashed the shark's head with an ax and ripped its flesh apart, but as far as I can tell from the video footage, the group was just cutting up

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the shark and eating dinner. There was nothing violent at all happening, and much to Santiago's chagrin, the good vibes kept going. The people on board were just hanging out, hooking up sometimes, and increasingly resenting Santiago. Indeed, the test subjects were becoming

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closer with each passing day. They had to live with one another, and so they began to share more intimate details of their lives. It was a really wholesome and beautiful thing that was happening. One participant said the raft was

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actually an escape from an abusive relationship and how the people on board helped her through that time. Another, the sole African-American woman on board, had a particularly poignant moment. She recognized and shared that her ancestors probably made the same

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journey across the Atlantic as slaves. This realization, she later said, made her more appreciative of the opportunities she now had. And meanwhile, Santiago was sitting in a corner somewhere just hoping everyone would kill each other. One day, the raft's rudder broke. You'll

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recall that Santiago hired women for the most important jobs on the raft. One such woman was Surveying Zenati. Serene was the raft's diver. She was qualified, willing, and able to dive under the vessel to fix the rudder, but

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Santiago didn't let her. He said she couldn't go overboard because she was a woman. A weird response considering he hired her to be the diver because she was a woman. Surveying was obviously mad, but she relented. Santiago took her diving gear,

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which of course didn't fit him, and went into the water. He had no idea how to work Surveying's gear. Her mask didn't fit him, and he had no clue how to dive. Anyways, Santiago completely failed, almost drowned, and came back aboard with the

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rudder still broken. That night, when Santiago went to bed, Surveying dove under the boat and fixed the rudder herself. Next morning, Santiago found out, and he was furious. This was basically the straw that broke the camel's back. Santiago began to blatantly manipulate

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his, quote, experiment. He called a meeting and told everyone that they were too friendly with each other. He admonished them for not taking the experiment seriously. Then Santiago started reading the responses to their deeply personal questionnaires out loud.

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For example, he would tell one person that another wanted to kill them or that a third person wanted to have sex with them. It was a gross and weird way that he thought he could turn the subjects against each other.

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At one point, he called the sole black woman on board a, quote, primitive and said that she should sleep with the black man on the raft because, quote, it was natural. Of course, all of this just made the

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group hate Santiago more. They were already quite good friends, and Santiago's manipulations really did very little to stop that. It was around this time that some

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the newspapers reported almost exclusively about the sexual escapades taking place on the raft the university that Santiago was working with of course saw these articles and headlines they regarded the sex raft story as terrible publicity for the University

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and immediately severed all ties with Santiago and his experiment after hearing from his university that he was basically fired Santiago was more miserable than ever and then a tropical storm was approaching the raft as they drifted into the Caribbean

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Santiago had appointed a Swedish woman named Maria as the captain of the raft it was her job to lead them through any treacherous times and generally keep the raft moving in the right direction she decided that they should take shelter on

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a nearby Caribbean island Santiago argued that contact with civilization would derail his study but Maria refused to risk all of these people's lives for Santiago's seemingly failed experiment so Santiago just usurped her captaincy he said she couldn't be Captain anymore

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and instead made himself the captain Santiago had everyone go inside the cabin lock the doors and just wait out the storm luckily the storm turned and all the raft got was some rain and wind still Santiago was now the captain of

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the raft after this incident everyone was basically in agreement that they hated Santiago they even thought about killing him going so far as to theorize about how they could do it and make it look like an accident group eventually

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reconsidered and decided against killing Santiago then one morning a freighter was heading their way literally the giant ship was coming straight at the raft and would run them over if it didn't turn this happened they would all die

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Santiago the now Captain panicked he ran around the raft screaming with no clue what to do meanwhile Maria the former Captain remained calm she gave everyone instructions on how to signal the freighter to change course Maria had them fire flares wave signals and Sound

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the raft's Horn at the last minute the freighter changed course and avoided the raft from then on Maria was rightfully the captain again after that incident Santiago kind of withdrew from the experiment entirely he stopped giving out questionnaires

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stopped taking notes and stopped holding meetings instead he just kind of sulked by himself Santiago got sick and just sat in the cabin all day and all night being tended to though the participants one of which was the medic later agreed that it was

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probably faking ill for the attention with Santiago basically eliminated from the picture things on the raft were better than ever the group was free to have fun and enjoy themselves without some creepy guy constantly lurking in the corner participants said that after

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Santiago withdrew from the Expedition they became a much tighter group this was when their casual friendships turned into genuine intimate bonds eventually the raft arrived at its destination and everyone was basically just best friends despite Santiago's deep and obsessive

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need for violence it never happened the group grew closer together and formed a sort of support system I really like this story because it represents goodness triumphing over evil in a pretty simple way personally I don't really buy that

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Santiago was interested in anything scientific I think he just wanted to play voyeur to some depraved Lord of the Flies type scenario his experiment was anything but scientific and despite his blatant manipulations and constant antagonizing he never got the violence

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that he so desperately wanted instead he created a group of lifelong friends

Topics:Acali Raft experimentSantiago Terrazagahuman violence study1970s social experimentgroup dynamicshuman cooperationanthropologyAtlantic Ocean raftpsychology experimentsex and violence hypothesis

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