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So, crows, cetaceans, octopuses, and elephants… let’s just be thankful that all of the other smart animals can’t manipulate their environments at scale.

vintermann 4y ago
Elephants can rip up trees at a pretty impressive scale.
- nkrisc 4y ago
  Environmental “engineering” by ancestors of elephants is a possible factor that contributed to the environmental change that likely lead to the extinction of Gigantopithicus, the enormous, ancient ape.
  - b112 4y ago
    So they warred on our cousins! Thus, we shall place them in caged enivros, to be starred at by our young, pointed at, fed token treats, their humiliation complete.
    - yellowapple 4y ago
      The elephants will have their revenge. We might not remember the before-times when the elephants triumphed over us, nor might we remember the systematic extermination of their wooly comrades, but the elephants? The elephants never forget.
j-bos 4y ago
Reminds me of this speculative piece:https://twitter.com/CWingUexkull/status/1554639440873652227?s=20&t=-NY3vLQcPOI23YphDdss4w https://twitter.com/CWingUexkull/status/1554639440873652227?... tldr is ancient elephants manipulating the environmemt at scale and enslaving ancient humans. Short worthwhile read with fun details to justify the narrative.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ren_engineer 4y ago
if you look at all those groups you can kind of see what each lacks compared to humans to get runaway intelligence benefits that basically create a continuous selective effect for more intelligence. humans have a solid combination of dexterity, life span, and verbal communication. Dexterity allows for manipulation that allows intelligence to be used to maximum effect in an environment, life span allows for time to learn and share knowledge, and verbal communication allows to share knowledge effectively which allows group work and knowledge to pass through generations. crows and elephants seem to be the most limited by lack of dexterity, crows actually try to use tools to get around the limitation. If Elephants had some octopus style multi-trunk tentacles that could be used like hands they'd be set I think
- bmitc 4y ago
  I am not convinced dexterity has much to do with intelligence. It is more an enabler of technology development and not raw intelligence.
  - shmageggy 4y ago
    The idea is that the ability to create technology creates an evolutionary gradient whereby increased intelligence yields better tools yields increased survivability
    - bmitc 4y ago
      > increased intelligence Is there a source for that? Because I think you mean knowledge there and not intelligence. I'm not aware of anything that says modern humans are any more intelligent than the oldest archaic humans (homo sapiens). Modern humans just have more accumulated technology and knowledge, something very distinct from intelligence.
      - shmageggy 4y ago
        Humans started using tools over 2.5 million years ago, and that’s also when brain size stared to steadily increase.
brnaftr361 4y ago
"Smart" is a... Bad category. It's just a big breeding ground for reification. We do have a term for animals that do manipulate the environment: ecosystem engineering. Which includes a variety of species, including trees. Which to that extent, it's our scale of engineering that pales in comparison. I mean, cyanobacteria is implicated in an extinction event, and the initiation of the great oxygenation event, and the rise of complicated metabolic systems using oxygen as the terminal electron acceptor. Very cleverly (intelligently, smartly?) they evolved [by chance,] a metabolic niche that was totally vacant which coincidentally could also positively amplify for some extraordinarily long period.

vintermann 4y ago

Elephants can rip up trees at a pretty impressive scale.

nkrisc 4y ago
Environmental “engineering” by ancestors of elephants is a possible factor that contributed to the environmental change that likely lead to the extinction of Gigantopithicus, the enormous, ancient ape.
- b112 4y ago
  So they warred on our cousins! Thus, we shall place them in caged enivros, to be starred at by our young, pointed at, fed token treats, their humiliation complete.
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    The elephants will have their revenge. We might not remember the before-times when the elephants triumphed over us, nor might we remember the systematic extermination of their wooly comrades, but the elephants? The elephants never forget.

j-bos 4y ago

Reminds me of this speculative piece:https://twitter.com/CWingUexkull/status/1554639440873652227?s=20&t=-NY3vLQcPOI23YphDdss4w https://twitter.com/CWingUexkull/status/1554639440873652227?... tldr is ancient elephants manipulating the environmemt at scale and enslaving ancient humans. Short worthwhile read with fun details to justify the narrative.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ren_engineer 4y ago

if you look at all those groups you can kind of see what each lacks compared to humans to get runaway intelligence benefits that basically create a continuous selective effect for more intelligence. humans have a solid combination of dexterity, life span, and verbal communication. Dexterity allows for manipulation that allows intelligence to be used to maximum effect in an environment, life span allows for time to learn and share knowledge, and verbal communication allows to share knowledge effectively which allows group work and knowledge to pass through generations. crows and elephants seem to be the most limited by lack of dexterity, crows actually try to use tools to get around the limitation. If Elephants had some octopus style multi-trunk tentacles that could be used like hands they'd be set I think

bmitc 4y ago
I am not convinced dexterity has much to do with intelligence. It is more an enabler of technology development and not raw intelligence.
- shmageggy 4y ago
  The idea is that the ability to create technology creates an evolutionary gradient whereby increased intelligence yields better tools yields increased survivability
  - bmitc 4y ago
    > increased intelligence Is there a source for that? Because I think you mean knowledge there and not intelligence. I'm not aware of anything that says modern humans are any more intelligent than the oldest archaic humans (homo sapiens). Modern humans just have more accumulated technology and knowledge, something very distinct from intelligence.
    - shmageggy 4y ago
      Humans started using tools over 2.5 million years ago, and that’s also when brain size stared to steadily increase.

brnaftr361 4y ago

"Smart" is a... Bad category. It's just a big breeding ground for reification. We do have a term for animals that do manipulate the environment: ecosystem engineering. Which includes a variety of species, including trees. Which to that extent, it's our scale of engineering that pales in comparison. I mean, cyanobacteria is implicated in an extinction event, and the initiation of the great oxygenation event, and the rise of complicated metabolic systems using oxygen as the terminal electron acceptor. Very cleverly (intelligently, smartly?) they evolved [by chance,] a metabolic niche that was totally vacant which coincidentally could also positively amplify for some extraordinarily long period.