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Crown shyness

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Re: Crown shyness

#31

Post by jpttsn »

harryjo wrote: post #27
Mz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped obsessing about the supposed morality of eating meat after I learned these things. Just because you can't hear your veggies scream doesn't mean they aren't suffering. (There are lots of really good reasons to limit meat consumption. But, the touchy-feely appeal to "think about the suffering of the animals" is species-ist (for lack of a better word).)

The same argument leads a rational person to stop obsessing about the supposed morality of killing humans. The touchy-feely appeal to "think about the suffering of the _humans_" is likewise species-ist

So the rational path takes us to a horrible conclusion. Are you saying it's time to throw out rationality?

Re: Crown shyness

#32

Post by deerpig »

tptacek wrote: post #3

Perhaps somebody else here listens to the Slate politics podcast, where John Dickerson this week spent 4 minutes describing this phenomenon.

I heard it on the Gabfest before seeing it here as well.

Re: Crown shyness

#33

Post by qguv »

jpttsn wrote: post #31
harryjo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same argument leads a rational person to stop obsessing about the supposed morality of killing humans. The touchy-feely appeal to "think about the suffering of the _humans_" is likewise species-ist

So the rational path takes us to a horrible conclusion. Are you saying it's time to throw out rationality?

I think they're saying that you may have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. If your conclusion horrifies you—doesn't resemble what you were optimizing for—you may be optimizing for the wrong thing. Rationality isn't broken; revisit your optimization criteria. See the paperclip optimizer, the smiles optimizer, etc.

Re: Crown shyness

#34

Post by unsupported »

tedunangst wrote: post #15
tptacek wrote: post #3

Perhaps somebody else here listens to the Slate politics podcast, where John Dickerson this week spent 4 minutes describing this phenomenon.

https://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane/status/895162795733524481 seems to be a popular source.

Indirect source in my case: http://kottke.org/17/08/the-shyness-of-trees

Re: Crown shyness

#37

Post by tptacek »

Houshalter wrote: post #28
tptacek wrote: post #3

Perhaps somebody else here listens to the Slate politics podcast, where John Dickerson this week spent 4 minutes describing this phenomenon.

There was a bunch of popular posts about it on reddit yesterday. I would bet that is probably the most direct source of this post. Perhaps the podcast inspired the original reddit posters.

That's kind of even cooler, the idea that a 4 minute bit Dickerson did about tree growth patterns could spread so virulently.

Re: Crown shyness

#38

Post by Mz »

thomasfoster96 wrote: post #21
Mz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also can "scream" by giving off a pulse (that humans can't hear) when attacked and can "talk" to each other by giving off chemicals when attacked by insects, thereby warning neighboring relatives to start creating protective chemicals to defend themselves.

> They also can "scream" by giving off a pulse (that humans can't hear) when attacked... Do you have a source for the ‘scream’ phenomenon? I am aware of (and was myself misled by) several pop-science books which confusingly tried to compare plants giving off chemicals when attacked with animals screaming. The result was that a skim read would have given one the impression that plants could make sounds inaudible to hu…

Sorry, no. It was in a textbook from a college class some years ago. I no longer have the textbook and can't tell you more than that.
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