221–230 of 261 posts
>But the trait that ALL domesticated species demonstrate relative to their wild species is a smaller brain. I’d bet it’s happening with humans, too, but that’s just an observation for another day. It is: http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-...
I'm quite amused to see all that veiled scaremongering when it comes to crypto, even if it has a grain of truth. Yeah, truly the ones who get involved in it can be thought of as either coyotes or raccoons, but I think prohibition and "the war on drugs" only shows how much can something be made desirable by making it unfit for public consumption, and at that point the animal simile breaks down. Not to mention that, as…
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> not even in the desires of the humans who participated in most of the dog domestication (even if some of them may have thought about it, but by then it was already happening). Again: Can you support this claim with anything? I'm actually curious, and you seem evasive.
Huh? Again: Proof has to be provided by the one making the extraordinary claims. The statement that requires proof is the one that dog evolution was caused by desires of any one in particular, especially "hopes to integrate with us" of wolves. That statement was made by anonytrary , not by me.
Okay. Let's slow down here: The OP says. >> And they’re not that smart. I’d put our barn cat up against a raccoon any day on any sort of cognitive test. We think raccoons are clever because they have those anthropomorphic paws and those cute little masks and even a Marvel superhero with its own toy line, but please. Raccoons are takers, not schemers. From Wikipedia >> Zoologist Clinton Hart Merriam described raccoons…
It would be like reading The Lion and the Mouse and tossing the whole thing out because you think that a mouse really wouldn't be able to chew through all those ropes.
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does any individual animal other than humans meta game? I'd be surprised if even chimps had long term deceptive overarching strategies
I think another point of the article is that even though we humans meta-game, we probably aren't meta-gaming at a high enough level and that might give the human species trouble at some point in the future. You could even argue that it's already happening with our fairly casual destruction of the environment, overfishing, over use of certain crops, etc.
I really enjoyed this article. Summary Coyotes are too clever because they know that people shaking jars full of coins can’t hurt them. Thus the animal control patrol has to get called and when they don’t shoo, the animal control person who loves animals has to shoot the coyote. Coyotes are winning the mini-game of each human interaction, but they are losing the meta-game of what society will do if coyotes aren’t sca…
The question for me is the definition of “winning”. In his perspective animals like sheep are “winning” the meta game because they behave. However, becoming dumbed down just to survive is maybe not much of a “win” either.
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Interesting thing is feminism is also winning skirmishes but loosing the metagame. Unless having less children but with more disorders born in fractured families is the goal. Something to ponder.
I'm not sure I understand. How is feminism leading to children with more disorders and fractured families?
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I'm not a fan of having house cats. Indoor only cats develop weird psychological issues at a rate that makes me suspect that living inside isn't all that healthy for them. Every cat I have owned has been an indoor-outdoor cat. There are downsides. They tend to be less affectionate and more independent than house cats, but they also seem healthier and happier than the indoor cats I have known. Also they don't need a l…
Well, having an indoor cat means keeping an indoor cat happy which is a larger problem (for the caretaker) but indicative of the meta supremacy in house cat behavior. In all seriousness I would rather take the time to care for a house cat than to deal with the possibility of roadkill/injury, disease, pests or other accidents of nature. If the cat is a problem for you then don't own one?
The point being, it's not that the cat is a problem. It's that some of us think nature should remain natural, not be pressed into service keeping us company.
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I feel a lot of white males don’t understand this. Not out of malice, but simply because the circumstances of their lives don’t put them in these situations as often as say, a black woman. It really affects the way you interact with the world and vice versa. In general, white men still make the rules, so if you’re different than that in any way, you have to adapt to the rule makers.
What does race have to do with this? Your average white male in the US is not a rule maker and suffers under the same arbitrary and often downright unfair consequences as anyone else. I just watched a white male friend get punished for academic dishonesty because another student cheated off him, despite being able to prove conclusively with logs and other evidence that he had no part in it. I also just watched anothe…
Okay. Let's slow down here: The OP says. >> And they’re not that smart. I’d put our barn cat up against a raccoon any day on any sort of cognitive test. We think raccoons are clever because they have those anthropomorphic paws and those cute little masks and even a Marvel superhero with its own toy line, but please. Raccoons are takers, not schemers. From Wikipedia >> Zoologist Clinton Hart Merriam described raccoons…
This is a weird point to decide to get stuck on. The whole "coyote/racoon" thing is just meant to be an allegory. The correctness of author's definition of "racoon" is irrelevant; rather, how these definitions correlate to and can help illustrate the author's main point is what matters here. It would be like reading The Lion and the Mouse and tossing the whole thing out because you think that a mouse really wouldn't…