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African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there

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Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there

#31

Post by posterboy »

joshmarlow wrote: post #22
crpatino wrote: post #19

I am surprised that nobody has raised this issue? If elephants are smart enough to recognize an enemy, avoid it, and warn other elephants that have not seen this enemy first hand... do they qualify as people? They certainly seem at least as smart as dolphins, and their trunks allow for a crude form of tool manipulation that dolphins lack. We humans define our personhood in terms not just of raw intelligence, but also…

Tangentially related, but if this train of thought interests you, you may be interested in the "Great Ape Personhood" project. From [0]: > Great ape personhood is a movement to extend personhood and some legal protections to the non-human members of the Hominidae or great ape family: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_personhood

This is great. Finally people should accept me how I am.

Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there

#32

Post by dalbasal »

maxerickson wrote: post #23
dalbasal wrote: post #2

This is tangental.... I've read/heard a bunch about "rewilding" as a concept over the last year, introducing mostly megafaunal populations to their historic ranges, sometimes very historic. Hippos, lions and hyenas in scotland for a particularly quirky example. There are some very tentative efforts currently to reintroduce bison, lynxes and some other species to western europe. Anyway... 350,000 wild african elephant…

One theory I've seen is that African megafauna evolved alongside tool using bipeds so they never had a period where they didn't have a fear instinct.

I agree, it seems like this might have something to do with it. I recently heard some speculative but reasonable (I thought) theory about early Levant humans.^ Basically, elephants were these people's primary prey until populations dwindled and the lifestyle died out.

We often note that our bodies are so weak relative to animals' but that really understates how game changing the human species must have been. First, bodies have all sort of potential that most people never experience because we don't grow up outside and chase elephants. More importantly, people are is good at figuring things out. We're impressed by inquisitive animals, bears or honey badgers, relentlessly try to get what they want by trying everything. That's nothing compared to humans.

A hippo-or-walrus-like thing might avoid getting eaten by a cat-or-bear-like thing by having really thick skin. Humans can't be deterred that way. We don't need to wait until we evolve longer teeth.

Real people must have been a holy terror.

^Fascinating old human stomping grounds... Early Sapiens predate neanderthals in the region. A rare situation where they displace "us," or at least people with skeletons similar to ours.

Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there

#33

Post by toasterlovin »

Can_Not wrote: post #17
cronjobma wrote: post #6

I wonder if having for-profit organisations/startups who's core mission it is to protect these fantastic animals would be more successful vs non-profits or government projects. Not necessary to make a buck, but in many cases, for-profit organisations get more done because of the constant pressure they feel to perform.

> for-profit organisations get more done because of the constant pressure they feel to perform. How is it possible that changing the primary existential goal from "save animals" to "make profits" will lead to more efficient animal saving rather than loss of efficiency in animal saving for the sake of profit? That seems like the exact opposite of what would happen.

If saving the animals = more profit, then more animals will be saved. That's the argument, at least, not saying it's feasible.

Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there

#34

Post by toasterlovin »

slgeorge wrote: post #10
cronjobma wrote: post #6

I wonder if having for-profit organisations/startups who's core mission it is to protect these fantastic animals would be more successful vs non-profits or government projects. Not necessary to make a buck, but in many cases, for-profit organisations get more done because of the constant pressure they feel to perform.

There's no particular evidence that "for profit" organisations do better at handling "common goods". And the very definition of your 'for-profit' organisation is that this is what is providing 'pressure to perform'. If they didn't have that pressure they'd just be the same as non-profit. You'd have to explain how a "profit motive" could impact these common goods - which would mean they wouldn't be in public ownership…

I think the idea is to take the common good and make it, to some extent, a private good so that there is a profit motive behind keeping it intact.

Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there

#35

Post by toasterlovin »

adjkant wrote: post #21
crpatino wrote: post #19

I am surprised that nobody has raised this issue? If elephants are smart enough to recognize an enemy, avoid it, and warn other elephants that have not seen this enemy first hand... do they qualify as people? They certainly seem at least as smart as dolphins, and their trunks allow for a crude form of tool manipulation that dolphins lack. We humans define our personhood in terms not just of raw intelligence, but also…

As "people" is quite a bar and one I don't think is relevant. I think they do require agency/respect/laws fitting of a properly conscious being though. Often people put humans on a pedestal, but in reality, we aren't special in regards to morality.

Yeah, but we're special in regards to human morality. There's nothing wrong with giving your own species a higher moral weight. It derives quite naturally from us being the result of self interested genes.

Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there

#36

Post by crpatino »

joshmarlow wrote: post #22
crpatino wrote: post #19

I am surprised that nobody has raised this issue? If elephants are smart enough to recognize an enemy, avoid it, and warn other elephants that have not seen this enemy first hand... do they qualify as people? They certainly seem at least as smart as dolphins, and their trunks allow for a crude form of tool manipulation that dolphins lack. We humans define our personhood in terms not just of raw intelligence, but also…

Tangentially related, but if this train of thought interests you, you may be interested in the "Great Ape Personhood" project. From [0]: > Great ape personhood is a movement to extend personhood and some legal protections to the non-human members of the Hominidae or great ape family: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_personhood

Nice. Thanks for the link

Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there

#37

Post by zoom6628 »

Seems humans having a tough time these days. Elephants better at directions, goldfish have a longer attention span, and orcas are better at mimicking speech. And given that humans (so far) the only species to knowlingly destroy its own habitat, one has to wonder if climate change isnt our own reward.

Having gotten that off my chest its an intersting article about group learning.

Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there

#38

Post by adjkant »

toasterlovin wrote: post #35
adjkant wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As "people" is quite a bar and one I don't think is relevant. I think they do require agency/respect/laws fitting of a properly conscious being though. Often people put humans on a pedestal, but in reality, we aren't special in regards to morality.

Yeah, but we're special in regards to human morality. There's nothing wrong with giving your own species a higher moral weight. It derives quite naturally from us being the result of self interested genes.

> There's nothing wrong with giving your own species a higher moral weight.

Without reason, I'd say there absolutely is something wrong with that. In fact, I'd argue there's no such thing as "human morality", only morality, which applies to humans (and other species). There are certainly some applications of moral law that only apply to humans, but that also applies to other species as well. Again, there's no rightful pedestal to put humans on.

> It derives quite naturally from us being the result of self-interested genes.

You're making an implicitly claim here that what results naturally from our DNA is morally right. You'll have plenty of people arguing that as well.

Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there

#39

Post by Can_Not »

toasterlovin wrote: post #33
Can_Not wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for-profit organisations get more done because of the constant pressure they feel to perform. How is it possible that changing the primary existential goal from "save animals" to "make profits" will lead to more efficient animal saving rather than loss of efficiency in animal saving for the sake of profit? That seems like the exact opposite of what would happen.

If saving the animals = more profit, then more animals will be saved. That's the argument, at least, not saying it's feasible.

All you did was repeat the argument without adding any plausible explanation.

Re: African elephants are migrating to safety, telling each other how to get there

#40

Post by toasterlovin »

adjkant wrote: post #38
toasterlovin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but we're special in regards to human morality. There's nothing wrong with giving your own species a higher moral weight. It derives quite naturally from us being the result of self interested genes.

> There's nothing wrong with giving your own species a higher moral weight. Without reason, I'd say there absolutely is something wrong with that. In fact, I'd argue there's no such thing as " human morality", only morality, which applies to humans (and other species). There are certainly some applications of moral law that only apply to humans, but that also applies to other species as well. Again, there's no rightf…

Everybody treats different categories of living things differently. Most of us would save ourselves before a stranger. We prefer family to non-family, our in-group to our out-group, human life to non-human life, and dog or cat life to rat or cockroach life.

You can argue that all of these different categories have inherent moral worth and that moral worth is not dependent on the perspective of the person making the judgement about moral worth, but almost nobody actually behaves that way. And I would argue that the people who do behave that way are mostly confused.

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