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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

#61

Post by hyperpallium »

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…

I have mixed feelings about dogs. On the one hand, their faithfulness and loyalty is proverbial - better than human. On the other hand, we bred that subservience into them, selecting for willing, loving slaves.

Like Douglas Adams' vegan cow, bred to want to be eaten.

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#62

Post by spaceribs »

joe_the_user wrote: post #56
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…

Would you also object to training the mice that infest our houses to also engage in activities we consider useful? Perhaps say, training them to do their business outside? I mean, to describe the animals, like crows or racoons, which live in cities and consume human detritus, as "wild" seems like somethings of a misstatement - I'm not sure what the best term would be but "feral", "parasitic" or "coadapted" are seem e…

> 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 we're "really good at picking up cigarette butts".

Also, do you want to be the one that explains to the super-intelligent crows how we used them to pick up garbage?

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#63

Post by joe_the_user »

ipsum2 wrote: post #52

> When we started doing research we found out there is a guy in the States that is teaching crows to collect coins. His name is Joshua Klein. It's commonly agreed that this never worked successfully in the wild. > In that correction the NY Times states that the experiments never succeeded in teaching the crows to drop the coins into the slot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Klein#Crows > Klein did get a professo…

Coins seem like they'd very difficult for a bird to handle - they're heavy for their volume and can't be bitten into.

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#64

Post by fleitz »

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…

So you are also against agriculture?

It might be unethical, but I'll take unethical civilization over ethical subsistence hunter gathering (remember that even subsistence farming is unethical)

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#65

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#66

Post by [deleted] »

clumsysmurf wrote: post #4

This seems neat, but cigarette butts contain toxic chemicals. Training birds to perform an action, but at the same time possibly poison themselves, is ethically perverse. What if their population collapses because of the exposure to something in the butts? (and perhaps this effects other parts of the ecosystem dependent on the services of crows ... like, but not limited to, mitigating hygiene hazards via carcass remo…

[deleted]

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#67

Post by dogruck »

hyperpallium wrote: post #61
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…

I have mixed feelings about dogs. On the one hand, their faithfulness and loyalty is proverbial - better than human. On the other hand, we bred that subservience into them, selecting for willing, loving slaves. Like Douglas Adams' vegan cow, bred to want to be eaten.

Domesticated dogs co-evolved with humans. They're born to be our companions.

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#69

Post by dogruck »

spaceribs wrote: post #54
fimbulvetr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that there is a black/white side of convenience vs. survival is not reasonable. It is very much a gradient, and I’m afraid that there’s much more nuance to it. For instance, if I have a dog trained to fetch my fowl from a lake after shooting it, is that convenience or survival? Does it not depend on the circumstance? In the deep cold of winter it may spare me from a swift death, for the very same hunter in t…

I just don't think we can in good conscience domesticate any more animals. We are a thriving empowered species on our own, we are starting to make our own creatures (both robotically and genetically) and we shouldn't have to subjugate more of nature for our overconsumption and shortsighted behaviors.

You might be imparting human perceptions onto other species. Fun to think about though.

Re: Training crows to pick up cigarette butts for food

#70

Post by vortico »

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…

>and the human responsible should be the asshole who picks it up.

You're suggesting a solution to a problem which is impossible. Crows may be a solution to the problem. Convincing all assholes to pick up their cigarettes is not a realistic solution.

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