First lethal attacks by chimpanzees on gorillas observed • Hacker News Board

Re: First lethal attacks by chimpanzees on gorillas observed

#101

Post by sidenote » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 1:53 PM UTC

lewispollard wrote: post #82

bonoboTP wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to tie your research to the popular causes of the day. It would a bit far-fetched to tie it to gender and underrepresented minorities or online misinformation or covid, so the nearest possible "serious issue of our time" is climate change.

What on earth has happened to HN comments over the last couple of months? Every post I've opened today has had this same kind of "half-joking-but-not-really SJWs are bad" comment on something completely unrelated.

There is a lot of incentive to flood well-meaning discussions with vitriol in order to bring the political temperature up. Most people that do this aren't even trying to be trolls, they are caught up in the fury of those around them.

Re: First lethal attacks by chimpanzees on gorillas observed

#102

Post by j_wtf_all_taken » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 1:54 PM UTC

robbedpeter wrote: post #55

denkmoon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and why is it an important issue? In part because of the ecological stresses it causes, which results in less supply of resources in a given ecological niche. Seems entirely reasonable to hypothesise the cause of aggression being related to this. That's not something they tested, merely a proposed hypothesis.

It's a convenient hypothesis, given the ubiquity of climate change impacts, but also a lazy one, like blaming the aggression on something equally as prevalent and relevant to the situation, like chimp genetics. The hypothesis is untestable absent some other specific assertions, and therefore unscientific.

And you have enough knowledge on the subject matter so this can be seen as an educated guess, or are you just throwing some good-knowing words around to see what sticks?

Re: First lethal attacks by chimpanzees on gorillas observed

#103

Post by j_wtf_all_taken » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 1:55 PM UTC

skocznymroczny wrote: post #56

diognesofsinope wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've turned climate change into the new boogeyman, which is a shame since it's an important issue.

Give it few more weeks of research and they'll blame it on covid.

Give it five minutes and you'll contradict yourself.

Re: First lethal attacks by chimpanzees on gorillas observed

#104

Post by j_wtf_all_taken » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 1:55 PM UTC

pelasaco wrote: post #70

skocznymroczny wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give it few more weeks of research and they'll blame it on covid.

Maybe the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro...

Well he IS a wild chimp attacking people, right?

Sorry chimps, that was mean.

Re: First lethal attacks by chimpanzees on gorillas observed

#105

Post by klyrs » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #93

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "caused by climate change" Can be translated to "we know this is a good word to say to get research money, so we say it" in this context.

Yeah and you don't know how the research organization works that produced that research, so ...

I appreciate that you're trying to combat the anti-science shallow/kneejerk critiques, but this is not the way. You're feeding trolls by the handful. Here, you're jumping to conclusions just to dunk on somebody. Please pick your battles more carefully so you can be more deliberate as you wage them.

Re: First lethal attacks by chimpanzees on gorillas observed

#106

Post by sidenote » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #100

sidenote wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very well known information. Sources are easily available on the news source of your choice. https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/animals/2019/11/i-am-sc... https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/magazine/hunting-a-chimp-...

The first sentence is: "Forest clearing has forced hungry chimps to raid villagers’ crops." So it doesn't seem that's their natural behavior. So how's that relevant? Oh wait it its, just exactly the opposite of what you said! Nice.

Did I mention natural behavior? Did the comment I responded to mention natural behavior? How is natural behavior relevant to the discussion between OP and I? What is the point that you are arguing and why are you taking it up with me? Further, how are you defining natural behavior? Can natural behavior change over time, in response to external stimulus?

Re: First lethal attacks by chimpanzees on gorillas observed

#107

Post by j_wtf_all_taken » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

sidenote wrote: post #106

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first sentence is: "Forest clearing has forced hungry chimps to raid villagers’ crops." So it doesn't seem that's their natural behavior. So how's that relevant? Oh wait it its, just exactly the opposite of what you said! Nice.

Did I mention natural behavior? Did the comment I responded to mention natural behavior? How is natural behavior relevant to the discussion between OP and I? What is the point that you are arguing and why are you taking it up with me? Further, how are you defining natural behavior? Can natural behavior change over time, in response to external stimulus?

> and why are you taking it up with me

Don't be sad. For grown ups its normal to live with objections. You'll learn.

> How is natural behavior relevant to the discussion

Original post: " Perhaps a particular chimp or gorilla was having a really bad day and just went out looking for a fight." that implies natural behavior.

Re: First lethal attacks by chimpanzees on gorillas observed

#108

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

woofie11 wrote: post #75

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Declaring the cause must be food competition or climate change seems a bit hasty? It's not a declaration, but a hypothesis that attempts to explain the observations according to prior knowledge. It "will now be investigated in more detail" to try and disprove it. That's bog standard scientific work. What's hasty is the easy dismissal of the opinion of experts on a subject most commenters here are probably unfamlia…

Science is a process. HN isn't anti-science. The scientific establishment is a group of people in various organizational structures and alliances. I'm part of that establishment, and I can say that it lies, exaggerates, and has become increasingly untrustworthy in the past decade or two: - The easiest way to get ahead in the scientific establishment is to fabricate politically-motivated results. - Competition is inte…

[deleted]

Re: First lethal attacks by chimpanzees on gorillas observed

#109

Post by j_wtf_all_taken » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #105

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah and you don't know how the research organization works that produced that research, so ...

I appreciate that you're trying to combat the anti-science shallow/kneejerk critiques, but this is not the way. You're feeding trolls by the handful. Here, you're jumping to conclusions just to dunk on somebody. Please pick your battles more carefully so you can be more deliberate as you wage them.

But its true? This research organization doesn't have to beg for short-term or 3rd party research money?

Also, I'm really pissed and also I'm kind of convinced that its too late anyways to try to convince someone who says stuff like that that they're not right. The only thing that can still be done is trying to keep more people from getting sucked into that black hole. The best way to do this seems to be to de-platform these people. The 2nd best way? No idea. Did I mention I'm pissed?

I mean, do you really believe well-researched, weighted, deliberate, thought-through arguments still help? Wouldn't climate science then have succeeded in convincing people? Maybe 20, 30 years ago. But then some people decided to start systematically lying instead of facing reality and lots of people decided to believe those lies and not face reality, and here we are.

Re: First lethal attacks by chimpanzees on gorillas observed

#110

Post by j_wtf_all_taken » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #89

woofie11 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science is a process. HN isn't anti-science. The scientific establishment is a group of people in various organizational structures and alliances. I'm part of that establishment, and I can say that it lies, exaggerates, and has become increasingly untrustworthy in the past decade or two: - The easiest way to get ahead in the scientific establishment is to fabricate politically-motivated results. - Competition is inte…

People lie. People who care more about getting their PhD and less about the actual research. Cause they don't have the integrity to not cheat. If you care about the actual research, why cheat. And still if researchers would only care about getting funding, they'd all "prove" that them fucking democrats eat children cause man, would they get donations by them QAnon people. And of course if you have a distinguished res…

For which part of that commend did I get the downvotes? Seriously interested to know so I can write more of that.