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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

#111

Post by astrodust »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #110
spaceribs wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Crows have multiple ways to get food, and choose the ones they like. Is that not sufficiently rational?

What if their population expands beyond what's sustainable on conventional food and they become dependent on the "butts" food?

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#112

Post by astrodust »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #109
VeejayRampay wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, wouldn't the crows end up suffering from nicotine/tar poisoning on the long run?

More interesting, what happens when the crows realize that nicotine is a nootropic?

What happens when they realize they can burn down our homes with a smoldering butt?

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#113

Post by astrodust »

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…

5. "Carrying around a portable ashtray makes me all too aware of how filthy smoking is in the first place, so no way I'm going to do that."

6. "E-Cigarettes are for pussies."

Have you tried...not smoking? It's almost like the city is trying to tell you something.

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#114

Post by tomtheengineer »

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…

The other aspect of this is that the crows could become reliant on this mechanism as a food source and be unable to survive on their own once it is removed from the environment (or runs out of food).

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#115

Post by Mtinie »

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.

I find the interesting question to be the hypothetical one where they are rational actors. Crows are smart, relatively, so how does the conversation change if we apply that they are not just rational but also have agency?

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#117

Post by Mtinie »

astrodust wrote: post #111
Dylan16807 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crows have multiple ways to get food, and choose the ones they like. Is that not sufficiently rational?

What if their population expands beyond what's sustainable on conventional food and they become dependent on the "butts" food?

Replace “crows” with “humans”. Does your opinion change?

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#118

Post by Mtinie »

joe_the_user wrote: post #83
spaceribs wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Unless we create them. There will always be a point that the apex predators fail to recognize the threat until it is too late.

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#119

Post by Mtinie »

adventured wrote: post #95
eric-hu wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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". Effective…

You have a choice to not work under Capitalism. What you don't have a choice to do, is to enslave someone else to meet your needs or desires by using the State as a violence proxy that handles the racket for your benefit (while the cartel that runs the State takes a big cut of the action). Socialism: where other people have to work for your benefit because you don't want to. It is in fact Socialism that meets the per…

Yo have the perceived choice not to work, but that doesn’t mean you’ll survive. A hallmark of capitalism is smoke and mirrors.

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#120

Post by smcameron »

I seem to remember back in the 70s and early 80s, cigarette butts being everywhere was a problem, then for awhile, they disappeared, like smokers got trained not to throw them on the ground. But lately, they seem to be back, like new smokers came up without remembering what it was like in the 70s and 80s, and they just throw them on the ground again.
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