5 ms·

I'm as or more cynical than the next guy - but it seems to me that being able to communicate with animals has high utility for humans. Partly from an emotional

I'm as or more cynical than the next guy - but it seems to me that being able to communicate with animals has high utility for humans. Partly from an emotional or companionship perspective as we've been doing with dogs for a long time, but maybe even on purely utilitarian grounds. If we want to know something about what's going on in the ocean, or high on a mountain or in the sky or whatever - what if we can just ask some animals about it? What about for things that animals can naturally perceive that humans have trouble with - certain wavelengths of light or magnetic fields for example? How about being able to recruit animals to do specific tasks that they are better suited for? Seems like a win for us, and maybe a win for them as well. Not sure what else, but history suggests that the more people have been able to communicate with each other, the better the outcomes. I assume this holds true more broadly as well.

doublerabbit 2y ago
I am all for the Disney utopian fantasy of us living with animals. However if universal communication was to be made. Don't you think that animals are going to be pretty pissed to discover what we have done with their kingdom? "Hi Mr Dolphin, how's the sea today?" "Wet and a plastic bottle cap got lodged in my blowhole last night..."
- lesuorac 2y ago
  I suspect Dolphins can tell people apart and will recognize you as not the guy that threw the bottle cap akin to all those stories about crows. Certainly will be interesting to see how much we can bribe Dolphins to do once we have faster communication methods.
  - 9dev 2y ago
    So you think you’re not responsible for the fucked-up oceans because you let other people throw your trash into the sea for you, and the organically farmed salmon you eat surely wasn’t produced under atrocious conditions?
    - Der_Einzige 2y ago
      Embrace antinatalism and life denial or embrace amor fati. Sitting on the sidelines like so many others do on this topic is intellectually bankrupt.
      - lesuorac 2y ago
        Eh, collective punishment is the fallacy. These problems are generally industrial in nature so it's very knowable as to where a large source of pollution comes from. There just isn't a political will to actually enforce laws.
  - sally_glance 2y ago
    I think you're overestimating the dolphins here. Even humans have trouble not placing collective blame on groups of people they don't know well - it even has a name in social psychology, the "out-group homogeneity effect". Just think about opposing political groups or international relations.
- Nifty3929 2y ago
  I'm not suggesting a Disney utopian fantasy. I'm just suggesting that in a very pragmatic way, we can ask them questions and get meaningful answers, or ask them to do things for us. What's going on down the the sea over there? Would you mind pulling that thing from here to there? Or whatever - I don't know what we'll figure out to do, but certainly something. As far as them being mad at us, I doubt they will be, but I'd be interested to get their perspective - if they have one. I do not believe we can expect anything resembling a human level of intelligence to be discovered.
  - nirav72 2y ago
    Or do you mind going over there and planting this round thing to the side of the ship belonging to the other humans?
- iury-sza 2y ago
  There's an Apple TV+ series called Extrapolations with a plot of a dystopian future heavily affected by climate change. One of the plotlines involve humans successfully developing the technology to communicate with humpback whales. So, the story involves an animal DNA archivist interacting with what's presented as the last living humpback whale, focusing on its isolation etc. It turns out the research lab's goal is to trick the whale by faking mating signals, aiming to get it to reveal information about whale history and culture. It's essentially data mining the animal.
k7sune 2y ago
I was just reading how fishing industry’s longlines have caught many dolphins and other bycatches. It would be great to be able to give them warnings, or even better, to ask them to keep other big animals away from the longlines.
- gazebo64 2y ago
  I know this comment is totally innocent but it does kind of bum me out to be at a point in time where instead of addressing our impact on the environment directly, we're trying to make computers that can talk to dolphins so we can tell them to stay out of the way lol
  - kuhewa 2y ago
    You don't tend to hear about it and not that there isn't still progress to be made, but there has been tonnes of progress on fisheries interactions with protected bycatch species. For ex the infamous dolphin problem in the eastern tropical Pacific purse seine tuna fishery is down 99.8% from its peak to the point populations are recovering, despite the fishery intentionally setting on dolphin schools to catch > 150,000 t of yellowfin tuna per year. Pelagic gillnets are probably the gear that still have the most issues with dolphin bycatch, and acoustic pingers that play a loud ultrasonic tone when they detect an echolocation click are already used to reduce interactions in some fisheries.
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    One of the things I think is amazing is that people will say “here’s a way to make the world better” and others will react with “it’s so sad that you propose making the world better instead of making it perfect”. I think it’s great.
- theyinwhy 2y ago
  Dear Mr Dolphin, can you please tell the large sharks to not go that way? - No, f... the sharks!
- 9dev 2y ago
  Or, like, we could stop ravaging the oceans by industrial fishing, stop pretending magical technology will save the day, and try to limit our resource consumption to sustainable levels? Humanity’s relationship with animals is so schizophrenic. On the one hand, let’s try to learn how to talk to cute dolphins and chat with them what it’s like to swim!, and on the other, well yeah that steak on my table may have once lead a subjective experience before it was slaughtered, and mass-farming it wrecks the ecosystem I depend on to live, but gosh it’s so tasty, I can’t give that up!

doublerabbit 2y ago

I am all for the Disney utopian fantasy of us living with animals. However if universal communication was to be made. Don't you think that animals are going to be pretty pissed to discover what we have done with their kingdom? "Hi Mr Dolphin, how's the sea today?" "Wet and a plastic bottle cap got lodged in my blowhole last night..."

lesuorac 2y ago
I suspect Dolphins can tell people apart and will recognize you as not the guy that threw the bottle cap akin to all those stories about crows. Certainly will be interesting to see how much we can bribe Dolphins to do once we have faster communication methods.
- 9dev 2y ago
  So you think you’re not responsible for the fucked-up oceans because you let other people throw your trash into the sea for you, and the organically farmed salmon you eat surely wasn’t produced under atrocious conditions?
  - Der_Einzige 2y ago
    Embrace antinatalism and life denial or embrace amor fati. Sitting on the sidelines like so many others do on this topic is intellectually bankrupt.
    - lesuorac 2y ago
      Eh, collective punishment is the fallacy. These problems are generally industrial in nature so it's very knowable as to where a large source of pollution comes from. There just isn't a political will to actually enforce laws.
- sally_glance 2y ago
  I think you're overestimating the dolphins here. Even humans have trouble not placing collective blame on groups of people they don't know well - it even has a name in social psychology, the "out-group homogeneity effect". Just think about opposing political groups or international relations.
Nifty3929 2y ago
I'm not suggesting a Disney utopian fantasy. I'm just suggesting that in a very pragmatic way, we can ask them questions and get meaningful answers, or ask them to do things for us. What's going on down the the sea over there? Would you mind pulling that thing from here to there? Or whatever - I don't know what we'll figure out to do, but certainly something. As far as them being mad at us, I doubt they will be, but I'd be interested to get their perspective - if they have one. I do not believe we can expect anything resembling a human level of intelligence to be discovered.
- nirav72 2y ago
  Or do you mind going over there and planting this round thing to the side of the ship belonging to the other humans?
iury-sza 2y ago
There's an Apple TV+ series called Extrapolations with a plot of a dystopian future heavily affected by climate change. One of the plotlines involve humans successfully developing the technology to communicate with humpback whales. So, the story involves an animal DNA archivist interacting with what's presented as the last living humpback whale, focusing on its isolation etc. It turns out the research lab's goal is to trick the whale by faking mating signals, aiming to get it to reveal information about whale history and culture. It's essentially data mining the animal.

k7sune 2y ago

I was just reading how fishing industry’s longlines have caught many dolphins and other bycatches. It would be great to be able to give them warnings, or even better, to ask them to keep other big animals away from the longlines.

gazebo64 2y ago
I know this comment is totally innocent but it does kind of bum me out to be at a point in time where instead of addressing our impact on the environment directly, we're trying to make computers that can talk to dolphins so we can tell them to stay out of the way lol
- kuhewa 2y ago
  You don't tend to hear about it and not that there isn't still progress to be made, but there has been tonnes of progress on fisheries interactions with protected bycatch species. For ex the infamous dolphin problem in the eastern tropical Pacific purse seine tuna fishery is down 99.8% from its peak to the point populations are recovering, despite the fishery intentionally setting on dolphin schools to catch > 150,000 t of yellowfin tuna per year. Pelagic gillnets are probably the gear that still have the most issues with dolphin bycatch, and acoustic pingers that play a loud ultrasonic tone when they detect an echolocation click are already used to reduce interactions in some fisheries.
- renewiltord 2y ago
  One of the things I think is amazing is that people will say “here’s a way to make the world better” and others will react with “it’s so sad that you propose making the world better instead of making it perfect”. I think it’s great.
theyinwhy 2y ago
Dear Mr Dolphin, can you please tell the large sharks to not go that way? - No, f... the sharks!
9dev 2y ago
Or, like, we could stop ravaging the oceans by industrial fishing, stop pretending magical technology will save the day, and try to limit our resource consumption to sustainable levels? Humanity’s relationship with animals is so schizophrenic. On the one hand, let’s try to learn how to talk to cute dolphins and chat with them what it’s like to swim!, and on the other, well yeah that steak on my table may have once lead a subjective experience before it was slaughtered, and mass-farming it wrecks the ecosystem I depend on to live, but gosh it’s so tasty, I can’t give that up!