7 ms·

I think that people, on the whole, vastly underestimate the degree to which humans are animals.

vehemenz 2y ago
Maybe I'm more optimistic. Is it our animal nature? Or is it that science is hard, and most people don't have enough formal education in the relevant subjects to know they're out of their depth, let alone to understand these things.
- cruffle_duffle 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - schmidtleonard 2y ago
    Right back at you.
    - throwway120385 2y ago
      Especially in the first couple of nursing home outbreaks where the entire patient populace died within a few weeks.
- binoct 2y ago
  I don’t take issue with the point of your last sentence, but rather the framing that “animal” is somehow a negative thing. Humans are animals, there’s no separate animal nature. We are animals, full stop. The scientific method is a skill we have developed to be more objective about complicated phenomena. Depth of knowledge and education certainly help an individual reason more carefully about cause and effect in various domains, but scientists and other highly educated people share the same set of biological behaviors as everyone else.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    What separates men from animals is men have honor.
    - bregma 2y ago
      Some men have honor. FTFY
      - WalterBright 2y ago
        Those without honor are intelligent animals, but not men. Each of us makes that choice for ourselves.
        anothertroll123 2y ago
        [dead]
    - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
      I'd nuance that argument a bit; we know of the concept of honor and can distinguish between "honorable" and "dishonorable" behaviour, and / or the definition thereof depending on culture, whereas animals only have instinct. But then again, smarter animals do know right from wrong, or honor, if you will. But this is a philosophical subject, which I'm not educated in.
huijzer 2y ago
Although there is one part of my brain which tells me I and other people are rational beings, my own behavior tells me otherwise. Why else would I eat a candy when I rationally know I don’t need it? For people interested, I can highly recommend Our Inner Ape by Frans de Waal. It tells many interesting stories about social interactions between apes that look surprisingly human. By the way, did you know that apes pick their nose, just like humans?
- kykeonaut 2y ago
  because candy is to carbohydrates what meth is to adderall :)
  - NavinF 2y ago
    meth vs adderall is more about dosage. If for some reason you decided to consume massive amounts of adderall the same way crazy homeless people consume meth (1000mg instead of 30mg), you could get addicted to it. Pretty much nobody does this with adderall, but the theory is solid. See https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/drug-users-use-a-lot-of-drugs https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/drug-users-use-a-lot-of-dru... > Despite the repeated claims of METH being more addictive or preferred than AMPH, proven differences between METH and AMPH in addiction liability and in reward efficacy have evaded researchers. Animals self-administer METH and AMPH at comparable rates (Balster and Schuster 1973) and humans prefer similar doses (Martin et al. 1971). Also, neither humans nor animals discriminate between equal doses of METH and AMPH (Huang and Ho 1974; Kuhn et al. 1974; Lamb and Henningfield 1994). Furthermore, while METH is commonly believed to be a more potent central psychostimulant than AMPH, no direct comparison on the potency of the two drugs to stimulate central processes have been verified. In addition, no previous study has directly compared the acute effects of the two drugs on locomotor activity, an important central process that contributes tothe definition of psychostimulant. Moreover, there are no known neurobiological differences in action between METH and AMPH that would account for the putatively greater addictive, rewarding, or psychomotor properties of METH.
    - SanDiegoSun 2y ago
Vegenoid 2y ago
I don’t understand how people underestimate it so badly when we have so much history we are taught that demonstrates it. History makes it abundantly clear that it is a regular occurrence for large groups of people to collectively believe things for which there is little evidence, and furthermore, to take extreme actions based on such beliefs. This applies to you too, reader. Many would read the above and fully agree with it, but fail to apply it to themselves and the groups they identify with. It is even more important to critically consider your own beliefs than the beliefs of others.
- Eisenstein 2y ago
  > I don’t understand how people underestimate it so badly when we have so much history we are taught that demonstrates it. It is the tendency to think that people in the past were dumb, and we aren't. Like, there always has to be some explanation involved when we learn that people did something unintuitive in the past -- people learned how to make beer by accidentally leaving leftover bread in liquid and then drank it when they were starving. Maybe? Or maybe they figured out that things ferment and played with it until it worked, like we would have done it? Why does it always have to be an accident? People may have had less access to information and technology, but that didn't make them any dumber than we are now.
  - RajT88 2y ago
    > People may have had less access to information and technology, but that didn't make them any dumber than we are now. There's probably an aspect to people confusing "knowledge" with "brainpower". People in the past were just as good at figuring stuff out as we are today. We have the advantage of Millenia of stuff figured out and documented. So we know on average more about how the universe works than people in the distant past.
    - abakker 2y ago
      I’d say it: we know that some people currently know more, but, the average person mostly knows something about what is known, rather than knowing it directly.
2lazy2pwdmgr 2y ago
There's a word for it: anthropocentrism. And another apt aphorism: arrogance.
steve_adams_86 2y ago
It took me around 20 years to kind of key into that, but then it took almost another 20 for it to properly click. I find it pretty hard to get on the same wavelength as most people about it. A lot of us feel distinctly human as opposed to, I don’t know, like a smooth ape that is neurotic enough to develop space travel. I’m half joking. I’ve found the revelation made me love animals a lot more than I had. It brings a sense of unity to my life. Dogs really are family, birds are not nearly as different from us as they seem, and even creatures like fish or squid share remarkable traits with us. These fundamental aspects of being animals. I really enjoy it. I think it’s a great thing to contemplate and embrace.
- michael1999 2y ago
  This is more broadly held than you might think. Just look at the outcry about Harambe. My sense of kinship is weak with arthropods. Vertebrates are clearly kin. Birds and mammals are so clearly fellow beings, that I simply can't imagine caring about people if the concept of people must be narrowed to exclude them. It goes the other way too. I find it easier to love my fellow human animals when I remember they are neurotic hairless apes wearing hats. Our intelligence is so new (in an evolutionary sense), we are just barely smart enough to pull this all off.
  - steve_adams_86 2y ago
    I totally agree. Coincidentally my son keeps some isopods as a sort of hobby in a terrarium, and yeah, I do find it hard to see them as quite the same. Your latter point is a very important one. I think of intelligence as a very tenuous, fragile thing. We can barely utilize it the ways we intend to, and it isn't a guard-rail against all kinds of bad behaviour. It's almost useless to us in all kinds of common scenarios, or barely accessible. We get enraged, drunk, turned on, depressed, etc. and suddenly these faculties are barely function in the ways we need them to be. So, it becomes much easier to forgive people for making mistakes. You begin to realize we're holding onto this potential by a thread most of the time, not wielding it like a trusted tool. The more you observe this, the more it's a wonder anything works at all.

Maybe I'm more optimistic. Is it our animal nature? Or is it that science is hard, and most people don't have enough formal education in the relevant subjects to know they're out of their depth, let alone to understand these things.

cruffle_duffle 2y ago
[flagged]
- schmidtleonard 2y ago
  Right back at you.
  - throwway120385 2y ago
    Especially in the first couple of nursing home outbreaks where the entire patient populace died within a few weeks.
binoct 2y ago
I don’t take issue with the point of your last sentence, but rather the framing that “animal” is somehow a negative thing. Humans are animals, there’s no separate animal nature. We are animals, full stop. The scientific method is a skill we have developed to be more objective about complicated phenomena. Depth of knowledge and education certainly help an individual reason more carefully about cause and effect in various domains, but scientists and other highly educated people share the same set of biological behaviors as everyone else.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  What separates men from animals is men have honor.
  - bregma 2y ago
    Some men have honor. FTFY
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      Those without honor are intelligent animals, but not men. Each of us makes that choice for ourselves.
      - anothertroll123 2y ago
        [dead]
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    I'd nuance that argument a bit; we know of the concept of honor and can distinguish between "honorable" and "dishonorable" behaviour, and / or the definition thereof depending on culture, whereas animals only have instinct. But then again, smarter animals do know right from wrong, or honor, if you will. But this is a philosophical subject, which I'm not educated in.

huijzer 2y ago

Although there is one part of my brain which tells me I and other people are rational beings, my own behavior tells me otherwise. Why else would I eat a candy when I rationally know I don’t need it? For people interested, I can highly recommend Our Inner Ape by Frans de Waal. It tells many interesting stories about social interactions between apes that look surprisingly human. By the way, did you know that apes pick their nose, just like humans?

kykeonaut 2y ago
because candy is to carbohydrates what meth is to adderall :)
- NavinF 2y ago
  meth vs adderall is more about dosage. If for some reason you decided to consume massive amounts of adderall the same way crazy homeless people consume meth (1000mg instead of 30mg), you could get addicted to it. Pretty much nobody does this with adderall, but the theory is solid. See https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/drug-users-use-a-lot-of-drugs https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/drug-users-use-a-lot-of-dru... > Despite the repeated claims of METH being more addictive or preferred than AMPH, proven differences between METH and AMPH in addiction liability and in reward efficacy have evaded researchers. Animals self-administer METH and AMPH at comparable rates (Balster and Schuster 1973) and humans prefer similar doses (Martin et al. 1971). Also, neither humans nor animals discriminate between equal doses of METH and AMPH (Huang and Ho 1974; Kuhn et al. 1974; Lamb and Henningfield 1994). Furthermore, while METH is commonly believed to be a more potent central psychostimulant than AMPH, no direct comparison on the potency of the two drugs to stimulate central processes have been verified. In addition, no previous study has directly compared the acute effects of the two drugs on locomotor activity, an important central process that contributes tothe definition of psychostimulant. Moreover, there are no known neurobiological differences in action between METH and AMPH that would account for the putatively greater addictive, rewarding, or psychomotor properties of METH.
  - SanDiegoSun 2y ago

Vegenoid 2y ago

I don’t understand how people underestimate it so badly when we have so much history we are taught that demonstrates it. History makes it abundantly clear that it is a regular occurrence for large groups of people to collectively believe things for which there is little evidence, and furthermore, to take extreme actions based on such beliefs. This applies to you too, reader. Many would read the above and fully agree with it, but fail to apply it to themselves and the groups they identify with. It is even more important to critically consider your own beliefs than the beliefs of others.

Eisenstein 2y ago
> I don’t understand how people underestimate it so badly when we have so much history we are taught that demonstrates it. It is the tendency to think that people in the past were dumb, and we aren't. Like, there always has to be some explanation involved when we learn that people did something unintuitive in the past -- people learned how to make beer by accidentally leaving leftover bread in liquid and then drank it when they were starving. Maybe? Or maybe they figured out that things ferment and played with it until it worked, like we would have done it? Why does it always have to be an accident? People may have had less access to information and technology, but that didn't make them any dumber than we are now.
- RajT88 2y ago
  > People may have had less access to information and technology, but that didn't make them any dumber than we are now. There's probably an aspect to people confusing "knowledge" with "brainpower". People in the past were just as good at figuring stuff out as we are today. We have the advantage of Millenia of stuff figured out and documented. So we know on average more about how the universe works than people in the distant past.
  - abakker 2y ago
    I’d say it: we know that some people currently know more, but, the average person mostly knows something about what is known, rather than knowing it directly.

2lazy2pwdmgr 2y ago

There's a word for it: anthropocentrism. And another apt aphorism: arrogance.

steve_adams_86 2y ago

It took me around 20 years to kind of key into that, but then it took almost another 20 for it to properly click. I find it pretty hard to get on the same wavelength as most people about it. A lot of us feel distinctly human as opposed to, I don’t know, like a smooth ape that is neurotic enough to develop space travel. I’m half joking. I’ve found the revelation made me love animals a lot more than I had. It brings a sense of unity to my life. Dogs really are family, birds are not nearly as different from us as they seem, and even creatures like fish or squid share remarkable traits with us. These fundamental aspects of being animals. I really enjoy it. I think it’s a great thing to contemplate and embrace.

michael1999 2y ago
This is more broadly held than you might think. Just look at the outcry about Harambe. My sense of kinship is weak with arthropods. Vertebrates are clearly kin. Birds and mammals are so clearly fellow beings, that I simply can't imagine caring about people if the concept of people must be narrowed to exclude them. It goes the other way too. I find it easier to love my fellow human animals when I remember they are neurotic hairless apes wearing hats. Our intelligence is so new (in an evolutionary sense), we are just barely smart enough to pull this all off.
- steve_adams_86 2y ago
  I totally agree. Coincidentally my son keeps some isopods as a sort of hobby in a terrarium, and yeah, I do find it hard to see them as quite the same. Your latter point is a very important one. I think of intelligence as a very tenuous, fragile thing. We can barely utilize it the ways we intend to, and it isn't a guard-rail against all kinds of bad behaviour. It's almost useless to us in all kinds of common scenarios, or barely accessible. We get enraged, drunk, turned on, depressed, etc. and suddenly these faculties are barely function in the ways we need them to be. So, it becomes much easier to forgive people for making mistakes. You begin to realize we're holding onto this potential by a thread most of the time, not wielding it like a trusted tool. The more you observe this, the more it's a wonder anything works at all.