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Couldn’t this be explained by the “tit-for-tat” hypothesis? That selfless behaviour is learned in communal animals, and that its implied it will be you who need help next time?
Don’t think there has ever been much dispute of a rat’s intellect
I don’t think this was about the intellect either, just about empathy. Sure, the free rat could learn to open it quicker, but the point is that it did. It didn’t eventually figure “eh, nothing in it for me”, it repeatedly went and freed the other to the point of routine.
That sounds eerily similar to a situation in Secret of NIMH (the book, not the movie), when the rats
Tap for spoiler
being taught how to read discover how to open their cages at night and decide to free the caged mice next to them out of empathy, who then aid in their escape.
Rats. Can’t use the term as an insult anymore considering they’re more human than we are.
Seems that’s an insult to the rat.
I wonder about this in animals all the time. Like, many animals seem to really enjoy being loved on and getting scritches, have a relationship with their owner or caregiver, are happy to see them and snuggle up… but in the wild they might be mostly solitary, only interacting with their own kind for mating and maybe raising young. Yet they’re often very different from the (eat sleep reproduce survive) basic wild animal when given the opportunity. They have personalities, happiness, etc.
It’s called domestication. In the Soviet Union a scientist domesticated foxes by selecting for “niceness”. It only took a couple of generations for the typical domestication signs to appear: longer childhood, friendlier face, smartness etc
They’re talking about fully wild animals. Grab a baby squirrel, and it will enjoy human company in no time. Same with raccoons, ravens, mountain lions, etc.
You’d be hard pressed to find an animal that doesn’t take to human companionship when given a real chance. And it has nothing to do with breeding.
Ok, but let’s say they is a toy train and it splits into two tracks and put the rat at the lever.
Rats are more compassionate than insurance companies CEOs.
Cordyceps is more compassionate than insurance company CEOs.
I’m always mildly concerned about how shocked people are about animals being conscious beings with feelings. Do people really think we are mentally that different from other animals with brains?
Yes
I’m more concerned that people believe it’s rare, in both humans and the animal kingdom
Predators will share territory if there’s enough to go around, even forming close relationships across species, sometimes even raising their young together
Empathy is the natural state, unless there’s enough scarcity. Humans are naturally generous, unless we’re raised in an environment of eternal artificial scarcity…
All those rich bastards that are not generous at all must have been raised in a lot of artificial scarcity then. Really artificial since most of them grew up well to do as well.
They spend all their damn lives not even fully comprehending they’re not living in scarcity, because the only resources they’ve ever been taught to focus on are those which are inherently scarce - competing for attention, fame, social status, etc.
To be fair, with academic types running experiments like this, the question is usually more along the lines of “At what point does instinct become empathy as we would recognize it?”, and depending on how high the criteria is set for empathy there, the level of premeditation may be geniunely surprising in some animals.
Yes, they do. And Christian types often believe that we have “souls” and animals do not.
Yes, they really do.
Almost every creature that lives in a harsh environment understands about looking out for your buddies. The next day, it might be you snapped into the trap. Allies are a precious thing. A lot of people prominent in our society have forgotten, but the rats have not, nor many of the people, either.
Remember this when they start deporting your neighbors next year.
Today you, tomorrow me.
You made me a little nostalgic, reminding me of when reddit was good. Right around that timeframe was the last days of when it was a human place.
https://aroundincircles.net/tales-from-a-dishonest-used-car-dealership-stories/
Yeah, I sometimes miss Tales From Tech Support. There were some damn good stories in there. The car dealership ones were some of the best.
I like how it started with “lol the car ID has the wrong number of digits” and keeps evolving to the point of sawing cars in half, the car that runs on recycled grease, pure madness.
mutual aid: a factor of evolution
rb>c
Well, every social creature. There are plenty of species that don’t give a fuck.
Perhaps most mammals and birds understand empathy, but plenty of animals in classes like reptiles, insects, amphibians, don’t exert almost any empathy as humans understand it.
Why do you say the rats are better than us? Humans can be observed doing the same in similar circumstances.
Some humans. The notable (but not exclusive) exceptions being people who manage to become ultra-wealthy.
I do agree, but the thing that really defines your worldview is what you think the ratio of “good” to “bad” people are, along with how much you think people can change.
Personally, I think a lot of humans are largely interested in maintaining the status quo and avoiding large amounts of change. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re bad or evil or unredeemable, it just means that they’re influenced by the systems that we’ve built and take comfort in what is known.
Be careful of diving too far into cynicism. Why would you try to change anything if you think it’s impossible? Understand that the world is frustrating sometimes and give grace whenever you can when people make mistakes (as long as you make it clear when boundaries are crossed).
I’m sure if you lock somebody in what used to be a filing cabinet or toolbox in a rich man’s office and they start wimpering for help then the rich guy will get up and go let them out (unless he put them there).
Might even share his chocolate chips with them.
I think is also shows the potential that empathy can be instinctual aswell as trained and reenforced
A rat may save another rat purely on instinct. Aswell as being able to be rewarded for either action and be influenced in the future to embrace a particular ethos
That’s clearly not the point of the post.
The post title says exactly:
The rat bastards are better than us
The rats don’t live in a system that exacerbates and encourages the worst excesses of the worst people. The rats that don’t help are our billionaires.
Yeah, pick any two humans and put them in a similar situation, and I truly believe that you’ll see similar empathy 99.9% of time time. But that fucking 0.1%, they’re ruthless and they’re rewarded handsomely for that behavior.
they’re rewarded handsomely for that behavior
It’s more just that they aren’t punished for it. They don’t have the empathy to give a shit, and thus will do things regular people won’t. If society doesn’t punish them for being a piece of shit, then there’s no downside to being a piece of shit for them, only upsides from taking advantage of situations others won’t.
A lot harder to punish when you can start making the laws as well. Society won’t just reward them sometimes they will let them write what everyone else should do as well.
This is why you have to introduce the concepts of mimics or demons that have access to change shape. Otherwise the party always frees the chained up maiden in the dungeon without asking any questions. Alternatively, if there is a rogue, you don’t have to worry. They’ll try their best to convince the others that they’ll get xp for stabbing the prisoner.
You might be curious to find that in many animal species studied, from pack animals down to ants, there is always a large percentage that contribute nothing and are a net-drain on the larger life-structure or colony. Humans and all other forms of life seem to share this commonality.
And yet the groups survive anyway. So does it really matter?
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Rats together strong
have you considered that no longer hearing cries of healp is reason enough
And the chocolate chip? Animals having empathy is the most logical conclusion if the experiment went as described here.
“wow, that guy is annoying. Maybe this will shut him up”
Which is why rats never built empires and conquered the world
In many cities, there are more rats than human. And yet, who feeds who?
Tell that to the rat king
or destroyed it
I’m curious if the rat would bother to let the other rat out if it’s not confined to an enclosure with the caged rat. If the rat can just run off and ignore the cries for help, will it still help? That would be much more impressive.
