I don’t know whether you watched Survivor last night, but the producer, Mark Jacobs, did something really interesting. They always pick some older people as part of the cast, and they often get voted out near the beginning (with a few notable exceptions). Anyway, as a sociological experiment, Survivor is fairly interesting. Usually, the behavior of the “tribes” is pretty primitive — the sick and old are voted out rapidly, just as they’d be taken to the edge of the village in ancient times to be eaten by animals.

So last night, the producer took the two oldest people and made them team captains and let them choose teams. Anyway, it built in some immediate respect for the oldsters. I wonder whether it will lead to them sticking around longer? They’re certainly being treated like leaders by their tribe members currently. It should be interesting to see.