Are humans wired as predators?
- Thread starter Maelstrom
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jhco
Member
Humans are weird in every way!
Thin Black Line
Member
There are sheep, sheep dogs, and wolves in this world. Strap a pair of claws
onto a sheep and it doesn't make it a predator or even a capable protector
of his fellow sheep. --quoting me today, Thin Black Line.
onto a sheep and it doesn't make it a predator or even a capable protector
of his fellow sheep. --quoting me today, Thin Black Line.
The Bushmaster
Member
I would be more worried that the danged cheetah catching me...
By The Way...Where in hell did the the "danged cheetah" come from anyway?
By The Way...Where in hell did the the "danged cheetah" come from anyway?
misANTHrope
Member
The Bushmaster said:
Well, you see, when a lady cheetah and a gentleman cheetah love each other very much... oh wait, that's probably not what you meant. Carry on.
Hoplophile pretty much said it all.
Look...how often do bears and wolves and alligators invade your home and steal your babies to eat them? Of course we're predators. We're the apex predators. Sure, we can (and do) get preyed upon if we're in the wrong place at the wrong time, but we aren't the main source of food for any other species.
Second, many dangerous animals are not predators at all, by any stretch - hippos and elephants come to mind.
I know it's intriguing to explore the analogies between predators and prey and criminals and victims, and so on, but they only go so far. First of all, the ecosystem and the human social strata are both so complex as to deny easy analysis in and of themselves. That means most witty comparisons kind of crumble under extensive analysis. And hey, that doesn't matter if you're just using a metaphor to get your point across. I just don't think that taking up naturalism is the best way to become proficient at self-defense and reading people.
Look...how often do bears and wolves and alligators invade your home and steal your babies to eat them? Of course we're predators. We're the apex predators. Sure, we can (and do) get preyed upon if we're in the wrong place at the wrong time, but we aren't the main source of food for any other species.
Second, many dangerous animals are not predators at all, by any stretch - hippos and elephants come to mind.
I know it's intriguing to explore the analogies between predators and prey and criminals and victims, and so on, but they only go so far. First of all, the ecosystem and the human social strata are both so complex as to deny easy analysis in and of themselves. That means most witty comparisons kind of crumble under extensive analysis. And hey, that doesn't matter if you're just using a metaphor to get your point across. I just don't think that taking up naturalism is the best way to become proficient at self-defense and reading people.
Loyalist Dave
Member
Actually explorers in Polynesia in the 19th century established that humans taste like pigs, AND due to the vast array of data showing that big cats and bears, would take and enjoy a human until the proliferation of firearms..., people taste good to other predators.
A study was done to try and determine how an unarmed human (they had very small flint knives, and could not make spears for the experiment) could bring down a good sized animal. They did it as described in a previous post..., a group of males chased an antilope, most jogged, and they would take turns chasing after the animal, finally exhausting it, and then they jumped it and pinched off its nose and held its mouth closed..., they killed it and used the small stone knives to butcher it. So it could've been done that way.
LD
Eye placement is not "wiring." Eye placement would be physical adaptation.
You wanna consider physical adaptation? Human vision is geared for living in trees, swinging from limb to limb -- technically call "brachiation." Eye placement works hand-in-hand (pun intended) with brachiation. Binocular vision and depth peception are necessary for swinging limb to limb.
Mostly, I think you're going to have to construct a paradigm which sorts out and excludes the efffects of millions of years of socialization.
"Predator" ??? Where do you draw the line between predation and self-preservation?
You wanna consider physical adaptation? Human vision is geared for living in trees, swinging from limb to limb -- technically call "brachiation." Eye placement works hand-in-hand (pun intended) with brachiation. Binocular vision and depth peception are necessary for swinging limb to limb.
Mostly, I think you're going to have to construct a paradigm which sorts out and excludes the efffects of millions of years of socialization.
"Predator" ??? Where do you draw the line between predation and self-preservation?
Double Naught Spy
Sus Venator
"Human" vision (that is, primate vision) may be beneficial for living in trees, but it is also beneficial for many things, not beneficial for others.
I don't know that anyone can say that binocular vision is necessary for brachiation anymore than for predation.
Strangely, while primates and many types of predators have such vision, so to many marsupials not known for predation such as kangaroos, koalas, and the like.
Something of note here is that many mammalian carnivores TEND to have binocular vision as many mammalian herbivores TEND not to.
It is NOT a determining factor.
I don't know that anyone can say that binocular vision is necessary for brachiation anymore than for predation.
Strangely, while primates and many types of predators have such vision, so to many marsupials not known for predation such as kangaroos, koalas, and the like.
Something of note here is that many mammalian carnivores TEND to have binocular vision as many mammalian herbivores TEND not to.
It is NOT a determining factor.
expvideo
Member
Can't you say that about any predator? Clearly most animals don't kill for the joy of it. Except cats.
Anyway, human vision and depth perception is adapted to use projectiles to hunt, not to swing limb to limb.
RX-178
Member
The simplest response would be:
We were wired to survive OUTSIDE of our cushy modern environment.
Our cushy modern environment has been designed based on our wiring to survive.
Every single thing we are capable of learning, adapting, and performing comes from a mechanism that exists for a specific, practical purpose in the context of survival in the wild.
Also, every technology that we have ever developed has come from a desire (both conscious and unconscious) to improve the likelyhood of survival.
What comes to mind when you try to think of our modern world, as contrasting with our hunter-gatherer days?
Television?
Cars?
Video games?
Internet?
We developed ALL of these as a result of our natural conditioning towards survival.
Television, at its root cause for development, is as a medium for storytelling, and transmitting information. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors recognized storytelling and transmitting information (cave paintings, etc.) as invaluable methods to share information that could improve our odds of survival in future generations.
Cars are the end result of our old survival methods of traveling in search of food during changes of the seasons. If we did not have to travel long distances to survive, what desire would we have had to develop means of travel?
Video Games? Well, I'm sure this is a controversial comment, but I believe it to be absolutely true, and especially with the context of modern video games. We find acts of violence to be entertaining. We HAVE to, because if we didn't have that emotional and physical reaction to acts of violence (even simulated), we would not have been as capable hunters as we were.
Winning a swordfight against an evil spellcasting warlock, fragging a cyborg across the map with a railgun, or running over virtual gang members with a pickup truck is FUN to us, because our ancestors had to have a desire to chase and kill animals to survive.
Now, most of us humans have a natural reluctance to killing a fellow human (another survival mechanism), but since our enemies scurrying around on a PC screen don't register as 'human' to us, the same instincts we had when we were chasing antelope across the plains kicks in, and we find it enjoyable.
The internet was developed as a method of communication for people across the USA, and later across the entire planet. Our ancestors had developed communication because individually, humans were small and weak compared to certain other animals of that age. Banding together into communities was a natural method of survival, and that desire to communicate with fellow humans was pursued until now, where just about anyone on the face of the planet is just a mouse click away.
We're wired as SURVIVORS. And I think having some 'predator programming' was a very large part of that.
We were wired to survive OUTSIDE of our cushy modern environment.
Our cushy modern environment has been designed based on our wiring to survive.
Every single thing we are capable of learning, adapting, and performing comes from a mechanism that exists for a specific, practical purpose in the context of survival in the wild.
Also, every technology that we have ever developed has come from a desire (both conscious and unconscious) to improve the likelyhood of survival.
What comes to mind when you try to think of our modern world, as contrasting with our hunter-gatherer days?
Television?
Cars?
Video games?
Internet?
We developed ALL of these as a result of our natural conditioning towards survival.
Television, at its root cause for development, is as a medium for storytelling, and transmitting information. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors recognized storytelling and transmitting information (cave paintings, etc.) as invaluable methods to share information that could improve our odds of survival in future generations.
Cars are the end result of our old survival methods of traveling in search of food during changes of the seasons. If we did not have to travel long distances to survive, what desire would we have had to develop means of travel?
Video Games? Well, I'm sure this is a controversial comment, but I believe it to be absolutely true, and especially with the context of modern video games. We find acts of violence to be entertaining. We HAVE to, because if we didn't have that emotional and physical reaction to acts of violence (even simulated), we would not have been as capable hunters as we were.
Winning a swordfight against an evil spellcasting warlock, fragging a cyborg across the map with a railgun, or running over virtual gang members with a pickup truck is FUN to us, because our ancestors had to have a desire to chase and kill animals to survive.
Now, most of us humans have a natural reluctance to killing a fellow human (another survival mechanism), but since our enemies scurrying around on a PC screen don't register as 'human' to us, the same instincts we had when we were chasing antelope across the plains kicks in, and we find it enjoyable.
The internet was developed as a method of communication for people across the USA, and later across the entire planet. Our ancestors had developed communication because individually, humans were small and weak compared to certain other animals of that age. Banding together into communities was a natural method of survival, and that desire to communicate with fellow humans was pursued until now, where just about anyone on the face of the planet is just a mouse click away.
We're wired as SURVIVORS. And I think having some 'predator programming' was a very large part of that.
Our depth perception started with our primate ancestors (sorry, Sarah) that weren't weapons users. Moving out of the trees freed our hand usage for tools and weapons. Tools, weapons and language seemed to develop and shape our language. Cro-magnon (us for a large extent) seemed to have a breakthrough in generative language and generative tools and weapon development about 60,000 years ago (Sorry, Sarah - Huckleberry).
Thus, stereoscopic/disparity based vision exists in forms similar to ours in all kinds of related primates that don't have language or our kind of weapons and tool usage.
Basic neuroevolution of language and tool usage.
expvideo
Member
Umm, actually, humans have only been around for 3000 years since God created them, and they used weapons to kill off the dinosaurs, which they made sure to bury deeper than they buried the wooly mammoths.
Duh.
Duh.
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Byron Quick
Moderator In Memoriam
Off-topic. Closed.
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