181–190 of 390 posts
2020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23598939
2019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21769575
2017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15486368
2015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10789631
2014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8086105
2009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=470840
Pretty sure there have been other good threads too...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But this type of reasoning went out the window, as soon as humans started killing dolphins in large numbers (see tuna nets), and the dolphins had no way to defend themselves or otherwise dissuade humans from doing that. This is one of the big lessons in history. The civilizations that use their intelligence to make tools and weapons end up screwing civilizations that "muck about, having a good time".
Well, species success is measured in periods of time orders of magnitude larger than recorded human history. It’s an open question whether our aggressive strategy will be successful past anything but the very short term. (Currently it’s not looking that good.)
Modern humanity has certainly impacted the ecology dramatically over the past couple hundred-thousand, but calling us successful is premature. When we're as old as bluegreen algae (or hell, even Araucaria araucana), I'll happily revise my position.
I have a personal experience story regarding crows. This is completely anecdotal of course but, to me, compelling. I live on an island near Seattle, very quiet and rural. We have a lot of wild life. One morning I was woke by persistent crowing by... well crows. Black Crows (not the band). Having been awoke from wonderful REM sleep I was understandably annoyed. So I went out to the street in front of my house and grab…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
True, but perhaps they could harness technology we never thought of as valuable. Perhaps they could build structures around sea vents, or use sticks and weeds to build pens in which to farm fish. Many possibilities exist. They could even be doing agriculture right now and we wouldn't even know it.
I like your ideas but without dexterous extremities it at least a very versatile mouth it seems you'd be very limited in your capacity to control or shape your environment.
The headline of the article, as is often the case, overstates what the actual research shows. Here is the actual claim made in the abstract of the paper: "We show that single-neuron responses in the pallial endbrain of crows performing a visual detection task correlate with the birds’ perception about stimulus presence or absence and argue that this is an empirical marker of avian consciousness." In other words: when…
As I understand, this study proves that birds have something equivalent of a cerebral cortex which has been considered exclusive to mammals. Cerebral cortex is critical for awareness, consciousness, thought, memory, and language.
I don't know what's that got to do with "higher intelligence" though.
Researchers Find Crows Smart Enough Not To Let On How Smart They Really Are: https://www.theonion.com/researchers-find-crows-smart-enough...
One particularly early, groggy morning I was walking into work and there were a few crows pecking around the grass by the sidewalk. Lost in my thoughts I hear a raspy old man say, "good morning". I look around and don't see anyone, then I look at one of the crows and it looks me right in the eye and repeats, "good morning". I doubted my sanity for a few days before confiding in my wife what happened and was surprised…
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Amazing. It carries its "sled" back up to the top, stands on it, and pecks it get it started. Whenever I see stuff like this, I can only think about this[0] (normal operation in US and AU at least), and how absurd it is that we treat animals like this, knowing how intelligent they are. [0] https://i.imgur.com/ucJNZoX.png
Yeah I guess "sledding" is more accurate than "snowboarding".
I have a personal experience story regarding crows. This is completely anecdotal of course but, to me, compelling. I live on an island near Seattle, very quiet and rural. We have a lot of wild life. One morning I was woke by persistent crowing by... well crows. Black Crows (not the band). Having been awoke from wonderful REM sleep I was understandably annoyed. So I went out to the street in front of my house and grab…
I think this is well established.
I have a personal experience story regarding crows. This is completely anecdotal of course but, to me, compelling. I live on an island near Seattle, very quiet and rural. We have a lot of wild life. One morning I was woke by persistent crowing by... well crows. Black Crows (not the band). Having been awoke from wonderful REM sleep I was understandably annoyed. So I went out to the street in front of my house and grab…