13 ms·

Pigs recorded using tools

134 points by rising-sky 7y ago

cm2187 7y ago
The video is missing the Also Sprach Zarathustra theme.
- rezonant 7y ago
  My thought exactly. Someone should mash it up
gsaga 7y ago
>One of the Visayan warty pigs—a critically endangered species It's a rare species, what they saw might be genetically coded behaviour, previously unseen because not much behavorial data is available.
- stubish 7y ago
  What isn't generically coded behavior is pushing rocks against electric fences and listening to the noise to determine if the fence is live or not.
- stewbrew 7y ago
  What makes you believe this is a more likely explanation than imitation of what they saw their peers doing?
  - banku_brougham 7y ago
    Electric fences haven’t existed long enough for evolution to have encoded genetic responses to them.
ljw1001 7y ago
At least someone is making progress.
austincheney 7y ago
Finally this is proven. It is by no means surprising. Wild domestic pigs, which I know are a different species, are a plague in much of North America and Australia partially due to their intelligence. Half the North American pig problem is in Texas where an estimated 2-2.5 million pigs roam the country side. Because they are such a threat to the environment and their population is so out of control there is no limit on hunting them in either season or quantity. Pigs are particularly challenging to control because of their intelligence and lack of predators. Because of their size, intelligence, and aggressiveness they have no natural predators in Texas. They are quick to learn of hunting traps and will either avoid or disarm them. A herd of pigs reduced in population by 70% can rebound within 2-3 years without continued management. They tear up the land and are a serious threat to the natural ecology and food supply. Their damage to commercial agriculture is estimated at $50 million per year, but their damage to property and the environment is estimated at close to half a billion each year. Because of their high intelligence they are adapting their range from rural areas to suburbs and urban areas. Unlike coyotes, which have also adapted from rural to urban areas with great success, they are often not afraid of people are known to hurt people in attacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_pig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_pig
- mikelyons 7y ago
  I found it interesting that many of these things you could also say about humans. Massive populations, no predators anymore, environmental damage, intelligence ...
  - WaxProlix 7y ago
    There are a ton of cool similarities, including compatibility of tissues in transplants! Also according to cannibals we taste similar (hence 'long pig' as a term for human flesh). Smart, deeply interesting animals. https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/pigs-and-humans-more-closely-related-thought-according-genetic-analysis https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/pigs-and-h...
    - war1025 7y ago
randall 7y ago
I wonder if future species will look back on humanity like we look back on the dinosaurs. Interesting to consider... there's also probably a short story in there.
- m0llusk 7y ago
  There is an interesting theory that humans are descended from pig and primate hybrids. This may sound bizarre, but there is evidence of pig primate hybrids in the wild and so-called humanzees have been bred. This theory is also one of the few alternatives to the aquatic ape hypothesis that can explain why humans have skin that is more common for aquatic mammals.
  - echelon 7y ago
    If true, there would be genetic evidence of this. I've never heard of such a thing. It sounds ridiculous. Do you have a source?
    - m0llusk 7y ago
      I'm having trouble finding the links as the recent humanzee hype currently dominates everything. ... Wait, here is the main page where this is discussed in detail with references: http://www.macroevolution.net/human-origins.html http://www.macroevolution.net/human-origins.html However, it is critical to understand that with hybrids there may be little if any genetic evidence remaining or it may be simply too scrambled to understand. Hybrids from a genetic point of view are complicated and do not necessarily leave a well defined record in their genetics.
      - fao_ 7y ago
        This somehow hits most of my alarms for "bad science", hah.
    - tastygreenapple 7y ago
      I just got this from googling, it seems less crack pot-y than I imagined: https://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html https://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html
YJR 7y ago
Obligatory "Cows with guns" comment
standardUser 7y ago
There's a great book called "Lesser Beasts" that dives in to the cultural history of pigs (mostly in Western societies).
- war1025 7y ago
  Seconded. This is a great book.
fargle 7y ago
Is the next revolution upon us?https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79a/index.html https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79a/index.ht...
userbinator 7y ago
For those stymied by the ambiguous parse in the title: Pigs using tools, recorded using cameras.
- anonytrary 7y ago
  I'll admit I didn't think of it that way, but that is a neat and funny ambiguity indeed.
- throwaway_bad 7y ago
  I initially read it as we are using (even better) tools to record pigs. This is in part because an article about pig facial recognition frontpaged on HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19277846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19277846
shostack 7y ago
Are they ramen yet? Or still djur or varelse?
war1025 7y ago
I listened to a podcast today where they guy being interviewed said something to the effect of: "We like to say that humans are the tool-using animal, but we've found that lots of animals use tools. What I think is the actual advantage of humans is that we are the mimicking animal. We see what works for other animals and find ways to do the same thing without having to evolve those traits" I thought that was a really interesting way of thinking about it.
- atdrummond 7y ago
  Seems to be a summation of Dawkins' hypothesis of memetics.
- chr1 7y ago
  There is no single thing having or not having which distinguishes people from other animals, the difference is in the degree at which we can use tools/mimic/create mental models etc.
  - Dwolb 7y ago
    Is your claim there exists no uniquely human trait as compared to other animals? That’s interesting I feel like there is but I’m not so certain. How about the Sapiens take on gossip?
    - chr1 7y ago
      There are many traits that become available only when some other trait gets to a high enough value. For instance gossip requires speech or some other method of communication so only very few species get a chance to it (maybe dolphins? but not likely). There are traits that are definitely unique, like building rockets, but they are usually complex things.
bredren 7y ago
> “It brings us closer to animals,” she says It is so human to act like we are not also animals.
lordnacho 7y ago
A friend of mine is a farmer. He supplies all kinds of meat to butchers in the local area, except pig. I wondered why, and he told me that after he had kids he decided pigs are about as intelligent as a 3 year old, and he simply couldn't bring himself to kill them anymore.
- yummybear 7y ago
  This is my personal view, but that is nonsense. I understand intelligence is not all these things, but 3 year olds can follow instructions, do pretty advanced problem solving, speak, do basic math, understand logical problems. I'm sure you can find some aspect where a pig and a 3yo are on the same "level", but as a general comparison, it absolutely fails.
  - Sawamara 7y ago
    There are so many things wrong with this post that I cannot even begin to dismantle it. Lets see. How about mentally ill children at the age of 3? How about kids who cant do "basic math and understand logical problems" (ignoring the fact that animals are pretty good at solving puzzles and they DO understand logical problems). Or how about the fact that these animals have conscience: they have a view of themselves, they empathize with each other, they form social relationships. They care for their young, etc. The comparison does not fail. My dog might only be at a level of a 1.5 year old, instead of a PROPER 3 YEAR OLD, but nevertheless, he has ego, he has behavioral patterns, he has feelings. You can tell by living with one.
    - everyone 7y ago
      "There are so many things wrong with this post that I cannot even begin to dismantle it." True to your word do dont even begin to dismantle yummybears arguments. Most of what you've written is 'avoiding the argument' https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/61/Avoiding-the-Issue https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla... with a bit of 'strawman' https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/169/Strawman-Fallacy https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla... EDIT:I almost forgot 'Appeal to Emotion' https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/29/Appeal_to_Emotion https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla... Dude, have you thought about a career in politics?
EU_commissioner 7y ago
Intelligent or not, with tools or not, Garlic butter pork chops are my favourite dish.
- uxcolumbo 7y ago
  I'll probably get downvoted to hell, but hey... let's have this little experiment: Pigs when they are slaughtered die a horrible death [0]. Right before you have your pork chops, or even during, could you watch a video of a pig being killed and slaughtered (with sound on) and would you still have the same enjoyment - knowing where it came from? You might not care about animals, so what about the people working in slaughterhouses. Could you work in an environment where you had to kill & slaughter animals all day, hearing their screams, smelling the blood etc. What do you think this environment does to ones psyche? Slaughterhouse workers experience PTSD. Now you might not care about these workers. How about our biosphere? Several studies have shown the immense strain and damage large scale animal agriculture has on our biosphere [1] Hey look, we all (or most) love our BBQs or pork chops or whatever. But when approaching this with a critical / logical mind - do we really think that all the damage our craving for culinary pleasures warrants the damage it creates on a human, environmental and animal level? Ethan Brown provides some alternatives that are worth exploring: https://www.ideacity.ca/video/ethan-brown-beyond-meat/ https://www.ideacity.ca/video/ethan-brown-beyond-meat/ [0] This if for the UK, but I imagine it's the same for anywhere else https://www.viva.org.uk/what-we-do/slaughter/slaughter-farmed-animals-uk https://www.viva.org.uk/what-we-do/slaughter/slaughter-farme... [1] http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-06-01-new-estimates-environmental-cost-food http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-06-01-new-estimates-environmen... - The researcher himself of this study gave up meat & dairy completely after he completed this study/. PS. If you raise or hunt your own then ignore the stuff above (which is mostly about factory farmed carrion)

134 points by rising-sky 7y ago

cm2187 7y ago

The video is missing the Also Sprach Zarathustra theme.

rezonant 7y ago
My thought exactly. Someone should mash it up

gsaga 7y ago

>One of the Visayan warty pigs—a critically endangered species It's a rare species, what they saw might be genetically coded behaviour, previously unseen because not much behavorial data is available.

stubish 7y ago
What isn't generically coded behavior is pushing rocks against electric fences and listening to the noise to determine if the fence is live or not.
stewbrew 7y ago
What makes you believe this is a more likely explanation than imitation of what they saw their peers doing?
- banku_brougham 7y ago
  Electric fences haven’t existed long enough for evolution to have encoded genetic responses to them.

ljw1001 7y ago

At least someone is making progress.

austincheney 7y ago

Finally this is proven. It is by no means surprising. Wild domestic pigs, which I know are a different species, are a plague in much of North America and Australia partially due to their intelligence. Half the North American pig problem is in Texas where an estimated 2-2.5 million pigs roam the country side. Because they are such a threat to the environment and their population is so out of control there is no limit on hunting them in either season or quantity. Pigs are particularly challenging to control because of their intelligence and lack of predators. Because of their size, intelligence, and aggressiveness they have no natural predators in Texas. They are quick to learn of hunting traps and will either avoid or disarm them. A herd of pigs reduced in population by 70% can rebound within 2-3 years without continued management. They tear up the land and are a serious threat to the natural ecology and food supply. Their damage to commercial agriculture is estimated at $50 million per year, but their damage to property and the environment is estimated at close to half a billion each year. Because of their high intelligence they are adapting their range from rural areas to suburbs and urban areas. Unlike coyotes, which have also adapted from rural to urban areas with great success, they are often not afraid of people are known to hurt people in attacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_pig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_pig

mikelyons 7y ago
I found it interesting that many of these things you could also say about humans. Massive populations, no predators anymore, environmental damage, intelligence ...
- WaxProlix 7y ago
  There are a ton of cool similarities, including compatibility of tissues in transplants! Also according to cannibals we taste similar (hence 'long pig' as a term for human flesh). Smart, deeply interesting animals. https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/pigs-and-humans-more-closely-related-thought-according-genetic-analysis https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/pigs-and-h...
  - war1025 7y ago

randall 7y ago

I wonder if future species will look back on humanity like we look back on the dinosaurs. Interesting to consider... there's also probably a short story in there.

m0llusk 7y ago
There is an interesting theory that humans are descended from pig and primate hybrids. This may sound bizarre, but there is evidence of pig primate hybrids in the wild and so-called humanzees have been bred. This theory is also one of the few alternatives to the aquatic ape hypothesis that can explain why humans have skin that is more common for aquatic mammals.
- echelon 7y ago
  If true, there would be genetic evidence of this. I've never heard of such a thing. It sounds ridiculous. Do you have a source?
  - m0llusk 7y ago
    I'm having trouble finding the links as the recent humanzee hype currently dominates everything. ... Wait, here is the main page where this is discussed in detail with references: http://www.macroevolution.net/human-origins.html http://www.macroevolution.net/human-origins.html However, it is critical to understand that with hybrids there may be little if any genetic evidence remaining or it may be simply too scrambled to understand. Hybrids from a genetic point of view are complicated and do not necessarily leave a well defined record in their genetics.
    - fao_ 7y ago
      This somehow hits most of my alarms for "bad science", hah.
  - tastygreenapple 7y ago
    I just got this from googling, it seems less crack pot-y than I imagined: https://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html https://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html

YJR 7y ago

Obligatory "Cows with guns" comment

standardUser 7y ago

There's a great book called "Lesser Beasts" that dives in to the cultural history of pigs (mostly in Western societies).

war1025 7y ago
Seconded. This is a great book.

fargle 7y ago

Is the next revolution upon us?https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79a/index.html https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79a/index.ht...

userbinator 7y ago

For those stymied by the ambiguous parse in the title: Pigs using tools, recorded using cameras.

anonytrary 7y ago
I'll admit I didn't think of it that way, but that is a neat and funny ambiguity indeed.
throwaway_bad 7y ago
I initially read it as we are using (even better) tools to record pigs. This is in part because an article about pig facial recognition frontpaged on HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19277846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19277846

shostack 7y ago

Are they ramen yet? Or still djur or varelse?

war1025 7y ago

I listened to a podcast today where they guy being interviewed said something to the effect of: "We like to say that humans are the tool-using animal, but we've found that lots of animals use tools. What I think is the actual advantage of humans is that we are the mimicking animal. We see what works for other animals and find ways to do the same thing without having to evolve those traits" I thought that was a really interesting way of thinking about it.

atdrummond 7y ago
Seems to be a summation of Dawkins' hypothesis of memetics.
chr1 7y ago
There is no single thing having or not having which distinguishes people from other animals, the difference is in the degree at which we can use tools/mimic/create mental models etc.
- Dwolb 7y ago
  Is your claim there exists no uniquely human trait as compared to other animals? That’s interesting I feel like there is but I’m not so certain. How about the Sapiens take on gossip?
  - chr1 7y ago
    There are many traits that become available only when some other trait gets to a high enough value. For instance gossip requires speech or some other method of communication so only very few species get a chance to it (maybe dolphins? but not likely). There are traits that are definitely unique, like building rockets, but they are usually complex things.

bredren 7y ago

> “It brings us closer to animals,” she says It is so human to act like we are not also animals.

lordnacho 7y ago

A friend of mine is a farmer. He supplies all kinds of meat to butchers in the local area, except pig. I wondered why, and he told me that after he had kids he decided pigs are about as intelligent as a 3 year old, and he simply couldn't bring himself to kill them anymore.

yummybear 7y ago
This is my personal view, but that is nonsense. I understand intelligence is not all these things, but 3 year olds can follow instructions, do pretty advanced problem solving, speak, do basic math, understand logical problems. I'm sure you can find some aspect where a pig and a 3yo are on the same "level", but as a general comparison, it absolutely fails.
- Sawamara 7y ago
  There are so many things wrong with this post that I cannot even begin to dismantle it. Lets see. How about mentally ill children at the age of 3? How about kids who cant do "basic math and understand logical problems" (ignoring the fact that animals are pretty good at solving puzzles and they DO understand logical problems). Or how about the fact that these animals have conscience: they have a view of themselves, they empathize with each other, they form social relationships. They care for their young, etc. The comparison does not fail. My dog might only be at a level of a 1.5 year old, instead of a PROPER 3 YEAR OLD, but nevertheless, he has ego, he has behavioral patterns, he has feelings. You can tell by living with one.
  - everyone 7y ago
    "There are so many things wrong with this post that I cannot even begin to dismantle it." True to your word do dont even begin to dismantle yummybears arguments. Most of what you've written is 'avoiding the argument' https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/61/Avoiding-the-Issue https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla... with a bit of 'strawman' https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/169/Strawman-Fallacy https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla... EDIT:I almost forgot 'Appeal to Emotion' https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/29/Appeal_to_Emotion https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla... Dude, have you thought about a career in politics?

EU_commissioner 7y ago

Intelligent or not, with tools or not, Garlic butter pork chops are my favourite dish.

uxcolumbo 7y ago
I'll probably get downvoted to hell, but hey... let's have this little experiment: Pigs when they are slaughtered die a horrible death [0]. Right before you have your pork chops, or even during, could you watch a video of a pig being killed and slaughtered (with sound on) and would you still have the same enjoyment - knowing where it came from? You might not care about animals, so what about the people working in slaughterhouses. Could you work in an environment where you had to kill & slaughter animals all day, hearing their screams, smelling the blood etc. What do you think this environment does to ones psyche? Slaughterhouse workers experience PTSD. Now you might not care about these workers. How about our biosphere? Several studies have shown the immense strain and damage large scale animal agriculture has on our biosphere [1] Hey look, we all (or most) love our BBQs or pork chops or whatever. But when approaching this with a critical / logical mind - do we really think that all the damage our craving for culinary pleasures warrants the damage it creates on a human, environmental and animal level? Ethan Brown provides some alternatives that are worth exploring: https://www.ideacity.ca/video/ethan-brown-beyond-meat/ https://www.ideacity.ca/video/ethan-brown-beyond-meat/ [0] This if for the UK, but I imagine it's the same for anywhere else https://www.viva.org.uk/what-we-do/slaughter/slaughter-farmed-animals-uk https://www.viva.org.uk/what-we-do/slaughter/slaughter-farme... [1] http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-06-01-new-estimates-environmental-cost-food http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-06-01-new-estimates-environmen... - The researcher himself of this study gave up meat & dairy completely after he completed this study/. PS. If you raise or hunt your own then ignore the stuff above (which is mostly about factory farmed carrion)