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> Why would humans feed wolves scraps without them providing something of value in return? Human beings aren't all always that transactional. "Homo economicus"

> Why would humans feed wolves scraps without them providing something of value in return? Human beings aren't all always that transactional. "Homo economicus" is joked about for good reasons. You can easily imagine situations where a) food is in a temporary surplus due to a successful hunt, so there is little downside to wasting some and b) a sentimental child has access to it.

metalman 2y ago
close, but of course far more complex, Wolves are savy negotiators, highly social, and often (not always) fun loving, the variations in personality amongst them is large.Wolves team up with Ravens, another species with complex behaviors, ravens work as airial spoters, and wolves take out the targeted prey, with both sharing the kill, in exceptionaly close quarters, it's easy to see that those roles could change, with humans around, and there is a limited window to prepare and consume, and drag off a large kill, before it atracts an apex preditor, or just a huge flock of hungry birds, that can decimate an untended carcas in miniuts.So teaming up, rather than dependency, is the most likely begining. Archiological work on wolf dens, show that choice sites in the Canadian High Arctic, have been in continious use for 10000 years, by Canadian Wolves showing that a core group, will maintain a teritory, indefinitly.....even with humans and other large dangerous animals around... Peoples view of dogs, is often based on experience with what are breeds that are strictly house pets and have been inbred to the point of bieng helpless morons or neurotic edgy wierdos, but that one central behavior, of guarding what and where they are instructed to, remains.
- gus_massa 2y ago
  > Wolves team up with Ravens I had to search it. For example https://www.yellowstone.org/naturalist-notes-wolves-and-ravens/ https://www.yellowstone.org/naturalist-notes-wolves-and-rave...
thiago_fm 2y ago
There are plenty of humans that got a 100% wolf and managed to keep them around, even in modern times. In the past, people were always looking for ways to automate hunting, just like we do with technology, as this was the hardest thing. And if you ever hunted, imagine having a wolf around when you hunt, it's nuts. They are so powerful and can so easily find prey, they have sick instincts too, much better than humans. Pair them together and you can understand why that combination works so well. Our ancestors also gave up lots of surviviability skills to become homo sapiens together with our beloved doges.
code_for_monkey 2y ago
modern people are so capitalism brained the idea of feeding the animals without them paying is out of scope. Humans love animals, and feeding animals, and keeping them around, people will go to huge lengths to take care of animals for no reason at all.
- SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
  > modern people are so capitalism brained "Not all people" but yeah, a certain class of HN commenter who tries to be "rational" about everything.
  - pnw_throwaway 2y ago
    I'd imagine there's a fair amount of folks with autism here. Nothing wrong with that, but it can lead to these narrower perspectives about certain social topics.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
      Right. It is not rational to assume that all human behaviour is rational.

metalman 2y ago

close, but of course far more complex, Wolves are savy negotiators, highly social, and often (not always) fun loving, the variations in personality amongst them is large.Wolves team up with Ravens, another species with complex behaviors, ravens work as airial spoters, and wolves take out the targeted prey, with both sharing the kill, in exceptionaly close quarters, it's easy to see that those roles could change, with humans around, and there is a limited window to prepare and consume, and drag off a large kill, before it atracts an apex preditor, or just a huge flock of hungry birds, that can decimate an untended carcas in miniuts.So teaming up, rather than dependency, is the most likely begining. Archiological work on wolf dens, show that choice sites in the Canadian High Arctic, have been in continious use for 10000 years, by Canadian Wolves showing that a core group, will maintain a teritory, indefinitly.....even with humans and other large dangerous animals around... Peoples view of dogs, is often based on experience with what are breeds that are strictly house pets and have been inbred to the point of bieng helpless morons or neurotic edgy wierdos, but that one central behavior, of guarding what and where they are instructed to, remains.

gus_massa 2y ago
> Wolves team up with Ravens I had to search it. For example https://www.yellowstone.org/naturalist-notes-wolves-and-ravens/ https://www.yellowstone.org/naturalist-notes-wolves-and-rave...

thiago_fm 2y ago

There are plenty of humans that got a 100% wolf and managed to keep them around, even in modern times. In the past, people were always looking for ways to automate hunting, just like we do with technology, as this was the hardest thing. And if you ever hunted, imagine having a wolf around when you hunt, it's nuts. They are so powerful and can so easily find prey, they have sick instincts too, much better than humans. Pair them together and you can understand why that combination works so well. Our ancestors also gave up lots of surviviability skills to become homo sapiens together with our beloved doges.

code_for_monkey 2y ago

modern people are so capitalism brained the idea of feeding the animals without them paying is out of scope. Humans love animals, and feeding animals, and keeping them around, people will go to huge lengths to take care of animals for no reason at all.

SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
> modern people are so capitalism brained "Not all people" but yeah, a certain class of HN commenter who tries to be "rational" about everything.
- pnw_throwaway 2y ago
  I'd imagine there's a fair amount of folks with autism here. Nothing wrong with that, but it can lead to these narrower perspectives about certain social topics.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
    Right. It is not rational to assume that all human behaviour is rational.