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Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

crowdedcities.com

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Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#81

Post by eric-hu »

dTal wrote: post #34
__s wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crows aren't punished for not exhibiting this behavior. Positive reinforcement training is distinctively different than negative reinforcement training. Slavery is the latter

Slavery is not 'negative reinforcement training'. Indeed, it is possible to be a slave and be rewarded for good work. Slavery is where you have no choice but to work. If the food reward is substantial enough to be worth a crow's while, then it confers a competitive advantage and crows that refrain from this behaviour will face pressure on their food sources from the offspring of the well-fed crows; essentially you've…

> Slavery is where you have no choice but to work. If the food reward is substantial enough to be worth a crow's while, then it confers a competitive advantage and crows that refrain from this behaviour will face pressure on their food sources from the offspring of the well-fed crows; essentially you've artificially raised the carrying capacity of the ecosystem, for those crows that agree to your "bargain". Effectively, for the crows, the choice becomes "pick up cigarettes or starve".

This definition of slavery sounds a lot like capitalism.

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#82

Post by lucasgonze »

andymcsherry wrote: post #49
ceedan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... the callousness of smokers and their littering is unacceptable. I understand that throwing your cigarette in the trash can be a fire hazard sometimes, but put the cigarette out and throw it out. Some smokers just seem to love flicking that still-burning cigarette into the road like it's no big deal.

Smoker in San Francisco here. I've thought about this quite a bit and here's my dilemma. 1. It is illegal to smoke indoors 2. San Francisco has made it illegal to have ash trays outdoors 3. Cigarettes set trash on fire so it's not acceptable to put them in the bin 4. Cigarettes have a tax on every pack earmarked to fund street clean-up I'd prefer to not throw my cigarettes on the ground, but I've been left with no re…

Well, this is an eminently reasonable case, even though my basic instinct is to harass smokers however possible.

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#83

Post by joe_the_user »

spaceribs wrote: post #62
joe_the_user wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you also object to training the mice that infest our houses to also engage in activities we consider useful? Perhaps say, training them to do their business outside? I mean, to describe the animals, like crows or racoons, which live in cities and consume human detritus, as "wild" seems like somethings of a misstatement - I'm not sure what the best term would be but "feral", "parasitic" or "coadapted" are seem e…

> they can take comfort that schemes like this should further raise the intelligence of crows to the point they'll have a shot at overthrowing the unjust reign of we naked apes. Here's the thing I think you're missing with this statement though, our rise to intelligence had nothing to do with a superior species endowing us with a head start. In fact, for early man it might have hobbled us to not be challenged because…

It would be pretty much impossible for another intelligent species to appear on earth now without relating to human beings as a context. I mean, the relationship I was groping for above is Synanthrope[1]. Basically, an entire ecosystem of animals eating and using human garbage already exists - what else do you imagine these animal eat? Giving animals some training to also pick-up said garbage seems neither better nor worse than the status quo.

Plus, I don't think anyone will be doing any explaining to the crows - if the crows rise, they're be using fire and poison to exterminate them in the fashion we would use if one another species seemed to threaten our dominance.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanthrope

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#84

Post by caconym_ »

nerfhammer wrote: post #50
clumsysmurf wrote: post #4

This seems neat, but cigarette butts contain toxic chemicals. Training birds to perform an action, but at the same time possibly poison themselves, is ethically perverse. What if their population collapses because of the exposure to something in the butts? (and perhaps this effects other parts of the ecosystem dependent on the services of crows ... like, but not limited to, mitigating hygiene hazards via carcass remo…

They aren't eating them, they're picking them up and dropping them into a bucket.

Users of chewing tobacco and similar products aren't eating them, but that doesn't seem to do them any good.

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#85

Post by spaceribs »

lovich wrote: post #74
spaceribs wrote: post #16

Back in college I did a paper on if this was ethical or not for my bioethics class, I warn people to really take a step back from the positive possibilities with something like this and understand that these are wild animals being trained to become slaves to benefit our human failings and appetites. I would definitely draw a line between this kind of domestication and the domestication of animals by our ancestors for…

Isn't this more like teaching the crows commerce? If we controlled their food 100% and did not give it to them unless they did the work, I agree that would be slavery. This is just paying for a service. I feel like there would be bigger ethical problems over the proper amount to "pay" them than whether or not the act of paying them for a service is ethical

I think a systemic misconception in this thread is that we're teaching crows anything other than how to get food from a device we designed.

They are not rational actors in this situation. They are never on the same playing field as we are. We would be taking advantage of their limited intelligence to do our bidding.

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#86

Post by MikeTheGreat »

spaceribs wrote: post #85
lovich wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this more like teaching the crows commerce? If we controlled their food 100% and did not give it to them unless they did the work, I agree that would be slavery. This is just paying for a service. I feel like there would be bigger ethical problems over the proper amount to "pay" them than whether or not the act of paying them for a service is ethical

I think a systemic misconception in this thread is that we're teaching crows anything other than how to get food from a device we designed. They are not rational actors in this situation. They are never on the same playing field as we are. We would be taking advantage of their limited intelligence to do our bidding.

Ah. That's why it's not ethical to train a crow to do this, but it is ethical to pay a person to do this.

(Yes? I was genuinely wondering about this)

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#87

Post by always_good »

andymcsherry wrote: post #49
ceedan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... the callousness of smokers and their littering is unacceptable. I understand that throwing your cigarette in the trash can be a fire hazard sometimes, but put the cigarette out and throw it out. Some smokers just seem to love flicking that still-burning cigarette into the road like it's no big deal.

Smoker in San Francisco here. I've thought about this quite a bit and here's my dilemma. 1. It is illegal to smoke indoors 2. San Francisco has made it illegal to have ash trays outdoors 3. Cigarettes set trash on fire so it's not acceptable to put them in the bin 4. Cigarettes have a tax on every pack earmarked to fund street clean-up I'd prefer to not throw my cigarettes on the ground, but I've been left with no re…

Scrape the burning cherry off or mash it into the concrete. It's cool enough to touch almost immediately, so it's certainly not going to be setting bins on fire.

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#88

Post by undersuit »

jackgolding wrote: post #72
undersuit wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Birds have already been observed to use cigarette butts for nest building, and no resultant population crash has happened for them. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2138655-birds-use-cigar... Maybe the food being given to the crows is more beneficial than any of the downsides of the exposure to the butts.

If you read through to a linked article you'll find there is indeed long term health effects to the birds https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22730341-600-birds-lo...

I never said there weren't. I specifically worded my comment to suggest that the benefits might outweigh the harm.

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#89

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

andymcsherry wrote: post #75
RandallBrown wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put them out and put them in the garbage, your pocket, or a plastic bag. When people go out to a national park they don't just throw trash on the ground because "I paid an entry fee that should fund the clean up."

I think what I've mention already should outline the impracticality of your suggestion. It's hard to distinguish between a cigarette that's fully extinguished or not. This is why ashtrays are made of glass or contain sand, you can't set it on fire. Smokers are easy to demonize when you don't understand their dilemmas. Don't worry we're pretty used to it. Most smokers I know understand their habit bothers people and d…

So smush it properly with your shoe and then put it in your pocket until you get home or find a worthy receptacle. If I have a granola bar wrapper in my hand and there's no trash cans nearby, I don't throw it on the ground; I hold it in my hand/pocket/bag until I can dispose of it. Cigarette filters are not a special case in this thinking.

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#90

Post by billsmithaustin »

spaceribs wrote: post #85
lovich wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this more like teaching the crows commerce? If we controlled their food 100% and did not give it to them unless they did the work, I agree that would be slavery. This is just paying for a service. I feel like there would be bigger ethical problems over the proper amount to "pay" them than whether or not the act of paying them for a service is ethical

I think a systemic misconception in this thread is that we're teaching crows anything other than how to get food from a device we designed. They are not rational actors in this situation. They are never on the same playing field as we are. We would be taking advantage of their limited intelligence to do our bidding.

A hundred years from now, when crows run all the major tobacco companies, it will be too late to do anything about this.
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