Whales in 19th century shared information about ship attacks • Hacker News Board

Re: Whales in 19th century shared information about ship attacks

#41

Post by EdwardDiego » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 6:55 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #40

EdwardDiego wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Soviets had blocking battalions ordered to shoot any of their own comrades who did not advance. Well, yes, but also not that straightforward. https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3igu17/on_the_c...

The fact they existed at all makes the point that the army discipline was forcibly applied, including executions for cowardice. Even just a few executions gets the point across to the troops.

Yes, but as the link states, they primarily focused on controlling the penal regiments.

And that's one example, from one particular culture.

Executions for desertion are very rare in western culture armies. Not that western culture armies couldn't be cruel. Field Punishment No. 1 is culturally engrained in my country: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/field-punishment-no-1

That said, you seem to be implying that all armies ever have relied on force to recruit and retain members, which rings hollow.

If simply because my step-father, an Englishman touring the world, happily volunteered to fight the North Vietnamese as part of the RNZA, as did many others, all of NZ's troops in that war were volunteers. No conscription at the barrel of a gun.

Hell, during WW1 and WW2, people were faking their age to join up.

Reality is a lot more nuanced than you're making out.

I mean, we're social animals, for millennia we've lived or died by the group.

Re: Whales in 19th century shared information about ship attacks

#42

Post by ganafagol » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 7:17 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #33

coldtea wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For better or worse, people are individuals, not members of a collective. Huh? There might be a few "individuals" living individually in the history of the world. Isolated from the world, forgotten in some jungle, retreated to some cabin in Alaska, or so. Some not by choice (e.g. due to some accident with their boat or something), others by choice but only after they've first been raised and prepared by living in c…

I explicitly said that people still organize. Not as collectives, though. Perhaps you're missing what a collective is - it's an organization where people share equally in the results. It's characterized by self-sacrifice for the collective benefit. The huge majority of organizations are set up for selfish benefit, not collective benefit. Cooperation in mutual self-interest is NOT the same thing as cooperation in self…

Maybe it's you that has a too narrow definition of "collective". It's a cooperative organization. Nothing in that definition demands self-sacrifice.

Re: Whales in 19th century shared information about ship attacks

#43

Post by leto_ii » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 7:21 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #33

coldtea wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For better or worse, people are individuals, not members of a collective. Huh? There might be a few "individuals" living individually in the history of the world. Isolated from the world, forgotten in some jungle, retreated to some cabin in Alaska, or so. Some not by choice (e.g. due to some accident with their boat or something), others by choice but only after they've first been raised and prepared by living in c…

I explicitly said that people still organize. Not as collectives, though. Perhaps you're missing what a collective is - it's an organization where people share equally in the results. It's characterized by self-sacrifice for the collective benefit. The huge majority of organizations are set up for selfish benefit, not collective benefit. Cooperation in mutual self-interest is NOT the same thing as cooperation in self…

> The huge majority of organizations are set up for selfish benefit, not collective benefit.

What on earth are you talking about? For most of human history we lived in small bands of hunter-gatherers where selfishness could lead to ostracization. Even nowadays we organise in nation-states which try to (artificially) extend tribal loyalty to larger groups. Sometimes this leads people to commit the very self-interested act of dying for their country (note the sarcasm).

And how about families? Have you heard of those?

Re: Whales in 19th century shared information about ship attacks

#44

Post by leto_ii » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 7:27 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #39

smolder wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure where you are drawing the line between organization and collective. I don't think there is such a clear separation, or much of a distinction at all. When I get a job at a company, yes I'm doing it in self interest, but I still make sacrifices to that group as part of my participation. Is it an ability to come and go independently and form or be part of different organizations that you think makes those n…

Let me put it another way. In a free market, any group is free to start a commune. In America, many thousands have been created. They all failed. People try it. After a few months, within a couple years, they tire of it and leave, and the commune collapses. What that strongly suggests is communes are just incompatible with human nature.

> What that strongly suggests is communes are just incompatible with human nature.

I really don't understand how this conclusion follows from your premises. Even assuming that you're right and that all US communes failed, what does this have to do with human nature?

By the same token you could say that people tried to be gay in Nazi Germany, but they all died, therefore it's against human nature to be gay (maybe my example is a bit strong, but hopefully you get the point).

Re: Whales in 19th century shared information about ship attacks

#45

Post by ohthehugemanate » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 7:32 AM UTC

wombatmobile wrote: post #14

slowmovintarget wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we keep torturing ourselves by forgetting our own language. Whales do not have a culture. They may be intelligent and social creatures, they may communicate, but they don't have civilization, art, morals, laws, and the practices for developing and improving these things in the minds of our children. The origin of the word is to cultivate, from Latin, and implies building and transmission. Familial training in…

> they don't have civilization, art, morals, laws, and the practices for developing and improving these things in the minds of our children How can you be so sure of that? Clearly they don't build roads, city halls, cinemaplexes, court houses, theatres, or boxing rings, and they didn't invent Spotify, but neither did you do any of that, and you have culture, don't you, even if you don't engage with any of those examp…

Obligatory Douglas Adams

> "For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons."

-- the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Re: Whales in 19th century shared information about ship attacks

#46

Post by cmurf » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 7:41 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #39

smolder wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure where you are drawing the line between organization and collective. I don't think there is such a clear separation, or much of a distinction at all. When I get a job at a company, yes I'm doing it in self interest, but I still make sacrifices to that group as part of my participation. Is it an ability to come and go independently and form or be part of different organizations that you think makes those n…

Let me put it another way. In a free market, any group is free to start a commune. In America, many thousands have been created. They all failed. People try it. After a few months, within a couple years, they tire of it and leave, and the commune collapses. What that strongly suggests is communes are just incompatible with human nature.

Nonsense.

https://www.ic.org/

Communes predate America.

The more likely story is free markets collapse under weight of adversarial greed and need communes to bail them out. Where would American airlines be at right now left up to free markets? We've socialized their losses and privatized their profits like so many ither examples.

Re: Whales in 19th century shared information about ship attacks

#47

Post by leto_ii » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 7:48 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #34

coldtea wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corporations are not collectives. They are organizations of people with self-interest, not selfless-interest. Which is neither here, nor there. First because nobody said people on collectives can't also have self-interest: just that they work together for the benefit of the collective too. That said, there are also collectives where self-interest comes second (to the point of sacrificing yourself for them) and they…

> armies We tend to give medals to soldiers who self-sacrifice, because it's unusual. Not many are interested in dying for their country. If you refuse an order to advance on an enemy stronghold, you'll get shot. Remember those Soviet blocking battalions? How does that relate to self-sacrifice for the collective? You overlooked the rest of what I wrote about armies.

> Not many are interested in dying for their country. If you refuse an order to advance on an enemy stronghold, you'll get shot.

Actually, what that shows more than anything is that not many people are willing to kill for their country. Killing other humans, even in self-interest, is often very hard to do - this is actually further evidence that people are quite collaborative and non-confrontational by nature.

Re: Whales in 19th century shared information about ship attacks

#48

Post by austinjp » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 8:31 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #16

ramblerman wrote: post #15

The idea of whale intelligence is super interesting and I hope we do more to understand it. But the unfortunate pseudo-scientific need for the author to push the culture/religion angle becomes almost political at times, and seems like a stretch. We should be able to determine intelligence/communication first without antromorphizing the notion of culture. Some quotes from this article, and another linked by the author…

> Bound by communality, sperm-whale culture expresses a collective individuality: “We” and “us” may be more important than “I” and “me”. If that isn’t a lesson for their Homo sapiens cousins, I don’t know what is. For better or worse, people are individuals, not members of a collective. Collectives of people don't work, and it isn't for a lack of trying. People aren't whales or bees in a beehive. That doesn't mean, h…

Collectives are fundamental to human society and always have been. Even hunter gatherers lived and still live in communities. These pre-date the "free market" (no idea why you introduce this) and will outlive it.

Certainly, there is room for individuals, but individualism as you describe it is always the exception.

Re: Whales in 19th century shared information about ship attacks

#49

Post by GoblinSlayer » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 9:00 AM UTC

ramblerman wrote: post #15

The idea of whale intelligence is super interesting and I hope we do more to understand it. But the unfortunate pseudo-scientific need for the author to push the culture/religion angle becomes almost political at times, and seems like a stretch. We should be able to determine intelligence/communication first without antromorphizing the notion of culture. Some quotes from this article, and another linked by the author…

FWIW humans do know a collectivist morality - Confucianism, and, well, it has its own failure modes.

Re: Whales in 19th century shared information about ship attacks

#50

Post by WalterBright » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 9:09 AM UTC

leto_ii wrote: post #44

WalterBright wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me put it another way. In a free market, any group is free to start a commune. In America, many thousands have been created. They all failed. People try it. After a few months, within a couple years, they tire of it and leave, and the commune collapses. What that strongly suggests is communes are just incompatible with human nature.

> What that strongly suggests is communes are just incompatible with human nature. I really don't understand how this conclusion follows from your premises. Even assuming that you're right and that all US communes failed, what does this have to do with human nature? By the same token you could say that people tried to be gay in Nazi Germany, but they all died, therefore it's against human nature to be gay (maybe my e…

> tried to be gay

and getting murdered is not remotely like losing interest in commune life and leaving.