52-hertz whale • Hacker News Board

Re: 52-hertz whale

#21

Post by ErroneousBosh » Fri, Jun 26, 2026, 4:11 PM UTC

pragma_x wrote: post #17

_doctor_love wrote: post #4

The loneliness aspect of the whale tugs at my heartstrings. I know I am most likely romanticizing and anthropomorphizing nature, but still.

Same here. This part got me: > The whale itself has never been sighted: it has only been heard via hydrophones, but its call has been detected since the late 1980s in a pattern that matches the migration of the blue whale and the fin whale. Those species call at 10 to 39 Hz and 20 Hz respectively. So not only lonely, but sings in a falsetto by whale standards; a weirdo. A lonely fellow with a distinctly high-pitched…

> The whale itself has never been sighted: it has only been heard via hydrophones,

How do we know it's a whale, then?

Re: 52-hertz whale

#22

Post by hmnrxrye » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 6:48 AM UTC

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Re: 52-hertz whale

#23

Post by anomaloustho » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 8:01 PM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #20

_doctor_love wrote: post #4

The loneliness aspect of the whale tugs at my heartstrings. I know I am most likely romanticizing and anthropomorphizing nature, but still.

> anthropomorphizing nature Whales are much more deeply connected emotionally to one another than we will ever be. And some species are probably as smart as we are.

I think you don’t want to anthropomorphize nature, not because you shouldn’t have empathy, but because it can cause you to draw the wrong scientific conclusions.

e.g. faithful bird conclusions when they aren’t always monogamous, ants forming societies and having loyalty when they don’t, alpha wolves when alphas aren’t really a thing.