[HN Gopher] Parrots learn to make video calls to chat with other... ___________________________________________________________________ Parrots learn to make video calls to chat with other parrots: study Author : tosh Score : 371 points Date : 2023-04-22 07:33 UTC (15 hours ago) (HTM) web link (news.northeastern.edu) (TXT) w3m dump (news.northeastern.edu) | eimrine wrote: | Skype for parrots - what a great startup idea! If parrot is in a | cage and not sleeping and not talking to other parrots then | consider him online. A large sensor display in a cage with image | of online parrots, you just peek a bird and go. And of course, | any time you are online somebody might call you. | euroderf wrote: | I want to see the tiktok dance challenges as adapted for parrots. | rurban wrote: | Much better than the guardian link | 1Engels wrote: | Then the parrots could make a better UI than that website | Findecanor wrote: | I'm curious to how the parrots perceive the video images ... with | cameras, codecs and screens tuned to a human visual system. | | While our eyes have three primaries (red, green, blue), birds | have _four_ and can see into the ultraviolet -- which is missing. | The "cones" in their retinas also have additional colour | filters, which allows them to notice differences in hues, and | thereby quantisation in the codec's colour planes easier than | humans. Birds' eyes are also faster, so they might find the frame | rate to be irritatingly low, and PWM-driven backlight would need | to use high frequencies so as to not be perceived as flickering. | | The paper does mention these issues and finds that the birds seem | to _cope_ -- but I anticipate that they would give criticism if | they could. :) | haolez wrote: | This got me thinking: what would we see if we implanted (with a | futuristic tech) cones that can see ultraviolet? Would we see a | new color? Or perhaps our brain would recalibrate and | ultraviolet would be the new purple? | gpderetta wrote: | Egan wrote a short story ("Seventh Sight", collected in | "Instantiation") about a subculture of otherwise blind people | that hack their optic protheses to see ultraviolet. | | Excellent as usual, if you like Egan. | wcoenen wrote: | > _if we implanted (with a futuristic tech) cones that can | see ultraviolet?_ | | The information also needs to make it from the retina to the | brain. Surprisingly, there are no separate red/green/blue | channels for the different cone types. Instead, there is a | channel for the difference between red vs green, and another | for the difference between between blue vs (red+green). | | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2826135/ | | So adding a new cone type would not be enough, it would also | have to be represented in one of these channels, or a new | channel. | bitwize wrote: | Our cones can already perceive ultraviolet. The lenses of our | eyes filter UV out. That is why we are prone to cataracts; | the UV light the lens absorbs clouds it over time. | | People who lack eye lenses have been reported to see | ultraviolet as a light, bright purple. Maybe if you had a | tetrachromat with no lens, she would see it differently, I | don't know. | lostlogin wrote: | I've heard people argue that Monet could see UV light after | having cataract surgery as his lens was removed. | | Others argue that this wasn't the case, but it's interesting | either way. | | https://www.quora.com/Could-Monet-really-see-Ultraviolet- | lig... | leetrout wrote: | This made me wonder how long we have been doing cataract | surgery... | | > In 1753, Samuel Sharp performed the first documented | intracapsular cataract extraction (ICCE). | | I would not have guessed 1753. | Dylan16807 wrote: | Color vision is based on two signals, one that varies between | red and green and one that varies between yellow and blue. | | So a cone integrated normally would probably just come across | as further blue and a better purple, not something notably | distinct from existing colors. Getting the full use out of | more cones would require a significant rework to how our | optical nerves work. | perfmode wrote: | there are already some people in the population who have | enhanced visual perception. i believe they have a fourth | cone. | bassrattle wrote: | Yes! It's called terachromatism, and I gather they perceive | color nearly the same except the subtle differences between | colors is more pronounced. | tomatotomato37 wrote: | I know our brains are already capable of rendering impossible | colors produced whenever certain cone cells are intentionally | fatigued | dorfsmay wrote: | Humans took pictures and watched movies and TV in black and | white without any issue. High def colour is nice but not a must | have to communicate. | pimlottc wrote: | They did, but not without a lot of tricks to compensate for | the uneven color sensitivity of early black and white film. | Standard makeup didn't look right on film so they adopted | some very extreme styles just so things would look "normal" | on screen [0]. | | The point is, there's no "objective" version of black and | white, or full-color, or full-color-except-for-ultraviolent. | They're all tuned for our specific visual perception and may | look bizarre past the point of recognition for other species. | | 0: https://cosmeticsandskin.com/aba/max-and-the-tube.php | TomK32 wrote: | You can go further back to the art created by our ancestors: | cave paintings, carved stone figurines and cubism can all be | understood by modern humans who are 99% of their time | confronted with a high resolution environment. | bhawks wrote: | If anything I would say their ability to cope with the poor | medium indicates even more complex levels of understanding. | | They are able to reason that it is a real bird, it is not | physically present, doesn't sound perfect, doesnt look right | but they still engage despite all of that friction. | Swizec wrote: | What's worse: My parrot will happily attack the screen when | I'm talking on FaceTime and he deems it's been long enough or | doesn't like the human on the other end. | | For example he lets me talk to my sister but attacks my mom's | video immediately. | andai wrote: | Where can I learn more about this stuff? Also for other | animals. | | I remember reading that a fly's "framerate" is so high, it | doesn't see an image on TV, just the dot created by the | electron beam slowly making its way across. | roughly wrote: | Ed Yong just put out a book, "An Immense World," all about | animal senses and how they experience the world. It's | magical. | | https://bookshop.org/p/books/an-immense-world-how-animal- | sen... | michaelmrose wrote: | > A new study shows that their rapid vision may be a result | of their photoreceptors - specialised cells found in the | retina - physically contracting in response to light. The | mechanical force then generates electrical responses that are | sent to the brain much faster than, for example, in our own | eyes, where responses are generated using traditional | chemical messengers. | | https://phys.org/news/2012-10-eye-mystery-insight-flies- | fast... | wanderingstan wrote: | If you like this, you'll love learning about "Imaginary | Colors" aka "Impossible colors": | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_color?wprov=sfti1 | | Also don't miss the Mantis Shrimp eyes: | | https://www.radiolab.org/podcast/211178-rip-rainbow | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp?wprov=sfti1 | bitwize wrote: | Mantis shrimp eyes, it turns out, aren't as extraordinary | as you might think. Yes, they have twelve different color | receptors... which means they can see twelve different | colors. Near as I can tell they can't integrate all the | input from their compound eyes into a single, cohesive | image. Rather, different sections of their visual system | are tied directly to ganglia that recognize features or | movement characteristic of predators, prey, or other mantis | shrimp.[0] | | It really is the simplest possible visual system that could | work for a mantis shrimp. It's like the first engineer from | Do-While Jones's story about the breakfast food cooker[1] | designed the mantis shrimp's visual system, and the second | engineer from that story designed ours. (Of course as far | as Do-While Jones is concerned, both animals had the same | designer.) | | [0] https://ryanblakeley.net/p/mantis-shrimp-eyes | | [1] http://www.scienceagainstevolution.info/dwj/toaster.htm | pjmlp wrote: | We need to improve our understanding of parrot languages. :) | eimrine wrote: | Not language but rather physiology. Don't you sympathize the | birds which are annoyed by our flickering displays? | chimpanzee wrote: | Why not language? We could then ask them how they feel | rather than just assuming. People themselves usually prefer | receiving informed, accurate sympathy rather than sympathy | based on crude assumptions. | | And physiology alone seems unlikely to tell us how they | "feel" about it. | | Perhaps they are so amazed by the technology that they | couldn't care less about the flicker :) | eimrine wrote: | We can barely do this to apes (gorilla Koko and maybe few | others). | | Best cognitive interaction what the best educated birds | can perform is to count 2+3 verbally (some African grey | parrot). | arcanemachiner wrote: | We've already jumped to assuming the birds are annoyed? | | What if it's more like using an old telephone or a black- | and-white TV? A hindrance, but better than what came | before? | eimrine wrote: | > We've already jumped to assuming the birds are annoyed? | | If our displays flicker to them, which is a highly | probable, it is annoyance by any definition. It may be | not annoying to spiders which have a tiny brain and live | in a world of mechanical sense, but birds are smart and | most of their brain is shaped for visual data. | | > A hindrance, but better than what came before? | | How can this statement be applied to birds? They neither | expect nor desire all these technology and the only | reason they are not scared of it is a professionalism of | their caretakers. | teapot7 wrote: | > If our displays flicker to them, which is a highly | probable, it is annoyance by any definition. | | Well, an annoyance by your definition. Not sure how you | managed to declare it universal. | JoeDaDude wrote: | I don't disagree, but the trend is to teach parrots our | language, with some degree of success [1]. | | [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot) | V__ wrote: | Please, for the love of god, can this scroll-hijacking (or | whatever it's called) trend just die already. Just give me a | video I can scroll past or watch fluently instead. | | Besides that, I love paper titles which don't take themselves too | seriously: Birds of a Feather Video-Flock Together | qtzaz wrote: | It looks pretty stupid when you scroll with a scroll wheel with | smooth scrolling off. But I guess as long as it looks good | using a macbook touchpad then the designer is happy. | [deleted] | lima wrote: | Well-done parallax scrolling libraries do just fine with | scroll wheels and no smoothing. This one just isn't very well | done - I bet accessibility features don't work either. | katrotz wrote: | Had to refresh the page more than a couple times as I was not | able to scroll passed the first "video" only to realize I have | to keep scrolling to get to the article. I genuinely thought | the website is broken | bbarnett wrote: | I would have liked sound, too. Mystified. | ziftface wrote: | Unpopular opinion but I didn't mind it on this site. Reading | this on a phone it's like scrubbing through a video for part of | the article. I usually agree it's annoying though. | dang wrote: | " _Please don 't complain about tangential annoyances--e.g. | article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button | breakage. They're too common to be interesting._" | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | gcheong wrote: | Parroulette? | petercooper wrote: | Birds see very differently to humans [0] and standard RGB | displays aren't able to reproduce the full experience for them. I | wonder if the results would be any different if we could produce | something more realistic to them. | | [0]: | https://www.reddit.com/r/parrots/comments/7itlyx/can_budgies... | bayesian_horse wrote: | Budgies will try to socialize (in vane) with extremely | unrealistic plastic budgies. Parrots actually recognize each | other by voice, the colors of the feather doesn't matter hardly | at all (maybe for mating...), we know that because certain | species do have different colors in different breeds. | | I think RGB displays are fine for this particular purpose. | yareally wrote: | I don't have the context of the research you read, but I've | seen my budgies try to socialize and play with all of the | following in a similar fashion: | | - other budgies | | - my green cheek conure (who isn't sure what they're doing | exactly, but still tries to humor them) | | - cuttlebones | | - my fingers and tip of my nose | | - my wife | | - various parts of their cage | | - toys | | Honestly, I think budgies are happy go lucky little birds | that like to play with anything and everything | KronisLV wrote: | Got a cookie banner with the only option being "Accept", that | covered most of the screen on mobile. Figured I'd actually follow | the link to the "Privacy Statement", to learn what sort of dark | pattern is used and how I could actually consume the content | without opting in to the tracking. Once I got there, however, I | got an even bigger banner that also had accepting whatever they | want me to as the only option, to the point where I can't even | read their statement. | | Commenting this because I've never actually had that happen | before - accepting something being the only way to actually | figure out what it is that I'm accepting. If it wasn't | deliberate, it'd be quite the ridiculous UX failure. I actually | recall some sites just telling me that users in EU aren't allowed | to access their content, which somehow felt better because they | were honest about it. | | Might need to look for a plugin for mobile Firefox to | automatically set the correct preferences. | | Seems like the Web Archive copy has the same issue: | https://web.archive.org/web/20230422100711/https://news.nort... | tempodox wrote: | There's a reason stuff like that is called webshit. | belter wrote: | The UI was optimized for Parrots. | MrGilbert wrote: | They want you to install the "Google Analytics Opt-out Browser | Add-on" provided by Google itself. Which is kinda pointless on | iOS. | | Regarding the "you cannot view this content as EU citizen": I | find it sad. I miss the old days of the web where it was a web. | javajosh wrote: | _> I miss the old days of the web where it was a web._ | | Everything is a trade-off. A partitioned culture is worse for | exchange, but this is good when there is a risk of memetic | infection. I suspect the best case is a softly partitioned | culture, with barriers surmountable by intellectuals with the | time and energy to learn a new language, and also a rational | immune system and the good sense not to bring contagions | home, but which remains partitioned for most people. | MrGilbert wrote: | I cannot recall any occasion were I brought home a flu from | visiting a page on the interwebs. Maybe you have a point | with what you are saying, but I would not translate that to | the internet. | hiatus wrote: | They are trying to say we are too stupid to be allowed to | freely consume the internet and need someone to protect | us from misinformation. | javajosh wrote: | And yet the arrogant position is to believe you know how | human society works so well that you can say with | confidence that obliterating a hundred thousand years of | cultural isolation has no downside. | | The burden of proof is on the one who wants to change | things, and the burden is higher the more you want to | change things. In 2023 US democracy is falling apart, we | are on the brink of civil war, in part because of these | effects, so I think they are worth questioning. | technothrasher wrote: | Things change naturally. There is no "burden of proof" | unless you are making an argument to not allow things to | naturally happen, whether that is to purposely change | something or purposely keep it the same. | coldtea wrote: | > _Things change naturally_ | | That's a statement so empty as to not even exist. | | The worst attrocities and bad developments happened | "naturally" too. Climate change also occured naturally | (since in your use, naturally includes the acts of | societies and people). | | We definitely should not allow things to just "naturally | happen". We should steer things towards a better future, | and be able to see which "naturally ocurring" | developments are good, and which are bad. | javajosh wrote: | The term "natural" is basically meaningless here, and the | rest of your comment implies that humans are incapable of | saying "no" to change. The Amish, and Richard Stallman, | are both counter-examples. _We don 't have to do | anything_, and anything that arises we don't have to | accept, promote, or integrate into our lives. | | We "naturally" made fluorocarbons, and then realized it | was a bad idea and stopped. | | The notion that free and open informational borders is an | unalloyed good has risen to the level of dogma for many | in SV, and I think that's a naive mistake. Making bomb | making material accessible to an unhappy teenage boy is a | bad idea; letting professional manipulators "flood the | zone with shit" to perform a coup in a democracy is a bad | idea, too, and for similar reasons. Letting it happen to | satisfy a dogmatic position is a good way to let your | civilization die. And a dead civ has no positions. | chimpanzee wrote: | Alternatively, GP is suggesting these barriers are part | of the "natural" change and can have their own positive | effects. We can fight them if we wish, naturally, and | doing so brings about a necessary balance. But we | shouldn't fool ourselves into believing that we are | necessarily "doing good" in relation to the other. And we | shouldn't believe that achieving the extreme, the | unbalanced, is necessarily "best". | | "Freedom-of-information fighters" are always simply | fighting for a belief and a desire, not a truth. And in | turn bringing balance or potentially imbalance depending | on one's assumptions regarding "Mother Nature's Grand | Evolutionary Scheme" or whatever we want to call it. Just | as all fighters have been doing throughout time. | mensetmanusman wrote: | Every human decision is nature and natural. | kortilla wrote: | > In 2023 US democracy is falling apart, we are on the | brink of civil war, | | Both of these statements are bullshit. People voted based | on terrible information 50 years ago as well (a couple of | TV appearances for the "informed voter"). | | The political discourse is shitty again, but we aren't | anywhere near a civil war. The discourse and violence | back around the Vietnam war was far worse than anything | today. | rapnie wrote: | https://archive.is/5EQSa | ben_w wrote: | Thanks :) | doodlesdev wrote: | Life pro tip: Disable JavaScript. | ravenstine wrote: | Yeah, NoScript can be kind of a pain but it's less annoying | than all of the banners and popups that don't appear because | it's effectively blocking them. | | Also, Reader mode helps a lot. | _a_a_a_ wrote: | Disable JS. Refresh. Start reading. | turtleyacht wrote: | Thank-you. Disabling JS may help with reading many other pay- | or other-walled submissions. | _a_a_a_ wrote: | It really can! The flipside is you tend to lose images but | I'm okay with that. Good luck with your new-found | kryptonite | hkt wrote: | I recommend consent-o-matic on desktop. It'll be good to see it | appear on mobile, though I have my doubts that it'll appear | soon since the entire ecosystem of plugins seems to have been | hobbled on mobile. | | Regarding EU users not being allowed on certain websites.. | well, frankly, I'd rather they do that than have to deal with | people who refuse to comply with a very simple legal | requirement for user autonomy. It is a basic moral failure not | to offer that autonomy, really. | jerpint wrote: | I was able to read privacy statement without cookie banner on | iOS using brave browser | andai wrote: | I find the other archive produces more readable pages. | | This one still has the banner but it's glued to the end of the | page. | | https://archive.ph/5EQSa | echelon wrote: | I just had an idea. | | I should call up my local privacy-contrarian legislators (I'm | in a purple state) and ideate cookie banners as being a | populist tool of the opposing party. And if that doesn't get | them, as a tool for foreign powers to slow American tech | startups and innovation. Bombastic take, but something you | could plausibly sell. | | The hope would be to get our lawmakers to put forth legislation | banning the use of cookie banners and popups on US websites | entirely. That's a cross-cutting solution that would force | websites to immediately remedy their frontends. | | If it ever came to pass, web operators would be doing a version | of the "two buttons" meme wondering which jurisdiction to | comply with. Hiring lawyers to determine if IP geolocation is a | viable out, but how to respect EU residents abroad, etc. | muyuu wrote: | the entire website is unbearable | | shame on you Schuyler Velasco and northeastern.edu | kibwen wrote: | Click the Reader Mode icon in the URL bar to bypass this. | FireInsight wrote: | I'm using uBlock origin on mobile Firefox and was able to just | hide the banner with the element picker. | fdgjgbdfhgb wrote: | It doesn't really solve the problem though, since continuing | to use the site is the same as accepting the cookies | kevviiinn wrote: | Are you saying that the cookies are set _before_ the user | clicks accept? | yencabulator wrote: | Here's a "remove sticky" bookmarklet that worked flawlessly: | javascript:(function()%7B let i%2C elements %3D | document.querySelectorAll('body *')%3B for (i %3D 0%3B i < | elements.length%3B i%2B%2B) %7B | if(getComputedStyle(elements%5Bi%5D).position %3D%3D%3D 'fixed' | %7C%7C getComputedStyle(elements%5Bi%5D).position %3D%3D%3D | 'sticky')%7B | elements%5Bi%5D.parentNode.removeChild(elements%5Bi%5D)%3B %7D | %7D %7D)() | lathiat wrote: | Formula 1 website (*on iOS/iPhone) has the same issue right now | once you hit customise the literally 100s of options appear but | the accept/reject/save appears for a microsecond and disappears | as it loads. Hitting the X doesn't save. | JKCalhoun wrote: | "Reader" view on Safari (Desktop) made all the bad go away. | | I set Safari to enable it by default on many, many sites now. | eatonphil wrote: | Does it automatically accept or decline consent or what? | throwaway290 wrote: | It just extracts text content covered by all the pop-ups | and shows it with some readable styling applied. | bookofjoe wrote: | Reader Mode on Chrome does the same thing | Liberonostrud wrote: | The website is terrible. | uxcolumbo wrote: | This is a great. | | But the article was totally ruined by trying to be clever and | reinvent some basic interaction design principles. | | Just use a video to show what the parrots are doing rather than | having to scroll down to advance to the next frame. | | At first I thought 'Why is the video not working?' | | Whoever the designer was... why? | | But yes - parrots (and other birds like corvids) are pretty | amazing - how much intelligence is packed into such a small brain | ;) | onetokeoverthe wrote: | [dead] | MagicMoonlight wrote: | That is absolutely adorable. We need to start doing that for | other pets. I want my dog to call up other dogs. | t-3 wrote: | I think dog vision is too bad, and their socialization too | scent-based, to make such a thing practical. Howling is a | thing, but as far as I know, is more of a "here I am" thing | than having a chat. | brokenkebaby wrote: | Nevermind AI, parrots can take a bunch of jobs now! | ChatGTP wrote: | Seriously, if someone wired parrot up to ChatGPT-4 who knows | what will happen. | sannysanoff wrote: | now get some footage of their communications, and let's finally | put that to some unsupervised learning algorithm so it distills | some patterns in their audio/visual communication and then builds | parrot2vec. Then you perform clusterisation analysis, and obtain | some characteristic patterns. At least we'll have the vocabulary | size with some precision. The vocabulary of bored domestic | animal, therefore reduced to some degree.. | BulgarianIdiot wrote: | This site with the "scrolling videos" is fucking horrible. | skinkestek wrote: | As commented by everyone already, it is amazing how far they have | gone here to ruin tye viewing experience. | crooked-v wrote: | A video with some (sadly pretty short) excerpts: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHcAOlamgDc | misnome wrote: | Short but lots of them, a good summary, thanks - much much | better than TFA | rwc wrote: | Everybody's so worried about AI they forgot about the parrots! | j45 wrote: | This is the content I come for on HN | rickcarlino wrote: | On Firefox mobile, I don't even get a consent banner. The video | just goes full screen and doesn't let me scroll anywhere so I | can't read the article. | lostlogin wrote: | No, it's working. When you scroll the video plays. The article | is below the 'video' | | I know Dang has warned about this topic, but this is a new | horror for me. Apple does a similar thing with their new | products and animations that move as you scroll, but this is | next level. | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | The New York Times had a good interactive on this [0] (non- | paywalled[1]). | | [0] | https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/21/science/parro... | | [1] | https://web.archive.org/web/20230421235932/https://www.nytim... | drcongo wrote: | Thank you, that's a _much_ better link. | 2bitlobster wrote: | Great UI. I thought originally the comments here about the UI | were about the Times site. Ha! Seemed like a tough crowd! | chclt wrote: | Are these the statistical parrots everyone keeps talking about? | bayesian_horse wrote: | First question in my mind was: How did they stop the parrots from | destroying the devices? But the species they used is quite small, | so... | Buhljingo wrote: | Generally curious, how do you measure: "the findings suggest that | video calls can improve a pet parrot's quality of life." | csomar wrote: | From the look of his face, that parrot looks very happy. | capableweb wrote: | I think it's very hard to objectively measure and give it a | concrete number, but anyone who have kept a pet (dog, cat, | parrot, pig or otherwise) can usually tell if their companion | is happy or not, as they have bunch of signals they give us | throughout their lives. With dogs, you can usually tell by the | ears if they're curious or defensive, while the tail tells you | if they're happy. | lostlogin wrote: | > the tail tells you if they're happy. | | I like some of the other tail signals. | | Pointing - 'there is something in that hedge.' | | Confidence wag - 'I'm going to win this coming fight.' | | Scared/ashamed tuck - 'I'm sorry.' | | Zoomies tail tuck - 'look how fast I can corner.' | markdown wrote: | Parrots are very expressive, and if you live with one for | months/years, you'll learn its moods. Not hard to see how a | parrot responds to something new. | short_sells_poo wrote: | They also have clear signs of depression (eg plucking their | feathers). They are really amazing animals, but non trivial | to keep as pets. | sroussey wrote: | I have three, and they are a lot of work. Assume a couple | hours a day. We make toys for them every day. The noise, | the mess, the neediness. It's a lot. They are a joy, but I | don't really don't suggest others to get any. | ChatGTP wrote: | [flagged] | curiousObject wrote: | Would it be reasonable to re-title this to 'Scientists Teach | Parrots to Push a Button'? | | I believe the parrots enjoy this experience but do the parrots | understand that they are placing a video call? | yyyk wrote: | The interesting issue is not whether the parrots understand | they are placing a video call, but rather if they understand | they are interacting with another member of the species - | apparently they do. | forgotmypw17 wrote: | https://archive.is/5EQSa | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | Wait till the parrots get addicted to social media and start to | develop mental illnesses. | kleene_op wrote: | I trust they are too smart to fall into such an obvious | pitfall. | SoftTalker wrote: | Many pet parrots are already mentally ill. It's not really kind | to keep them in captivity. | oulipo wrote: | Am I the only one to find this sad? It just means parrots are not | meant to be raised alone in homes. Pets should be outside, with | their own pet friends | ChatGTP wrote: | Could say the same thing for people, I find remote work super | isolating sometimes. | layer8 wrote: | The very concept of pets is unethical towards animals. | quesera wrote: | Some animals-turned-pets developed/evolved symbiotically with | humans, and continued through selective breeding (inevitably, | and with mixed virtue). | | The classic example is wild dogs to work dogs to pet dogs. I | think this is healthy and remains symbiotic. | | And the classic example of excess is all the sad purebred | dogs, developed by bad people to accentuate some aesthetic | values with inadequate regard for the (sometimes life-long) | pain and discomfort caused by side effects of the genetic | selection. | | Agreed on birds though. They are pretty and entertaining, but | how can it not be cruel to cage a bird? | | Do all those African Grays who amuse and seem to enjoy their | humans really just suffer from Stockholm Syndrome? | | I don't know, but I don't trust that the humans have thought | about it in a non self-serving way. | | And don't get me started on zoos... :( | [deleted] | kube-system wrote: | The initial existence of pet and worker breeds may be | symbiotic and natural, but the way people treat them like a | slave species and perpetuate them is arbitrarily done for | the convenience of humans. | | I can't stand when I see "my fur baby is lost!" when | describing the escape of large adult social dog. No, that | dog knows how to get home. It escaped its prison. | renewiltord wrote: | I get where you're coming from in the extreme, but | animals do get lost or into situations they can't get out | of. We took in two stray kittens as outdoor cats and we'd | occasionally have to go around the neighborhood to find | them because they'd be behind a wall in someone else's | yard and forget how to make it back. | | As soon as they saw our faces over the wall they'd follow | us to an opening or the gate and then find their way | home. | | Ultimately, one of them met an untimely end from some | stray dogs. But that's life. | mlyle wrote: | > I can't stand when I see "my fur baby is lost!" when | describing the escape of large adult social dog. No, that | dog knows how to get home. It escaped its prison. | | That dog may know how to get home initially and enjoys | the freedom having slipped the leash and exploring. But | there's no guarantee that when the dog decides it would | like to get home that it can, nor is it making an | informed decision about the risks that it faces. | meken wrote: | It really seems like a trade off. Animals seem "happy" and | "free" out in nature, but are they? | | They have to be on guard every single second because | something might eat them. If they get injured, that is an | absolute death sentence. There is no safety net. They have to | weather harsh weather conditions. They are at risk for being | eaten alive and enduring a slow agonizing painful death by | other animals that do not care one iota about their well- | being | | At least in captivity they are safe. I don't see how we as | humans are all that different in how most of us choose to | live our lives | yunohn wrote: | This is a fundamentally misguided take. | | An equivalent comparison would be jailing all humans to | keep them safe from each other. Humans having a home for | occasional safety from environmental hazards is not the | same as free-flying birds being caged in isolation forever. | [deleted] | swalling wrote: | Say that to dogs, who have co-evolved with humans over | thousands of years to a level that not only do they look | completely different from wolves, but they can happily digest | food that a wolf cannot. | | Dogs like to be with people. Even free-roaming street dogs | will usually live in close proximity to people. A well-cared | for household dog or cat is one of the most happy, pampered | beings who ever lived, often cared for at a level akin to | human children. | | Absolutist anti-pet thinking is how PETA ends up euthanizing | 97% of the pets it receives at its shelter. | layer8 wrote: | My conviction comes from having owned a dog, and realizing | after a couple of years that it will never have the life in | a pack roaming the lands that it obviously craved | ("obvious" after observing its behavior for long enough). I | don't think a healthy co-evolution can be claimed when the | animal is not free to act independently, i.e. without being | coerced (like being taken on a leash or otherwise | physically constrained). I'm more sympathetic to cats as | pets, if they can come and go as they please. | kortilla wrote: | A dog that requires a leash or an active restraint to | prevent it from running away is not representative of dog | ownership in general. My dog has no interest in running | away and the only time I have to use a leash is when it's | imposed by local ordinance. | | If your dog wanted to run away it probably had a shitty | life. | bagels wrote: | My nextdoor feed is filled with run away dogs. I think | your experience might be slightly less common than you | think. | lostlogin wrote: | For those as confused as I was, Nextdoor: some sort of | social thing. | | Not a feedlot nextdoor to OP. | kortilla wrote: | Survivor bias. Your nextdoor feed doesn't have posts | about the orders of magnitude more dogs that aren't | running away. | mlyle wrote: | Different breeds, and different dogs within those breeds, | have different drives. | | I know some well-trained dogs that will still gleefully | run away and explore the woods if given the chance... and | then return sheepishly 20-30 minutes later. If they ever | do get lost, or someone else "finds" them, etc, it'll be | a tragedy. | | They also tend to come back covered in thorns, with cut- | up paws, etc, etc. | swalling wrote: | Your conclusion may have been correct about _your_ dog, | but extending that to all dogs is pretty large and | ridiculous leap. Dogs view their people as family members | (which is what a pack is), and many other people's dogs | get to have a healthy group of dog friends as well. You | sound like a person who just failed to keep a happy dog | and developed a rationalization that all dog ownership is | morally wrong. | | Dog domestication is generally thought to be an example | of commensalism, and potentially mutualism. https://www.f | rontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2021.6623... In | other words, it only happened in the first place because | a group of wolves benefited from association with people. | Pleistocene hunter-gatherers did not have the physical | ability to force a grown wolf to be captive if it did not | want to be. | moralestapia wrote: | I'm on this boat as well. | | Keeping other life captive for your own sporadic amusement is | pathologically self-centered. | lostlogin wrote: | Adopting injured animals sometimes leaves them dependent. | We have an aviary of deceive pigeons. They each have a | different issue. Is letting them die kinder? | | I'd say that it is sometimes, but it gets complicated fast. | pvaldes wrote: | Maybe we should ask the pets about that, instead drawing | random lines in the sand that feel just like parroted BS | | Do chicken feel that being the most successful bird in the | planet is unfair? | garblegarble wrote: | Yeah, the whole idea of keeping birds seems painfully sad to me | - taking creatures that have this amazing power of natural | flight, with agency to explore vast landscapes and see amazing | things, and then keeping them inside (and/or sometimes with | clipped wings). | | And added to that how difficult it can be for long-lived birds | when their caretakers die and they can be left with somebody | who doesn't really like them (or whom they don't really like), | or donated to a zoo... a family friend's parrot was given to a | (very good) butterfly house when she died and he just seems so | sad every time I see him now | | Maybe I'm just being narrow-minded, and the exact same thing is | true for dogs & cats | nopassrecover wrote: | Do you feel differently about fish who can swim? | eimrine wrote: | No fish is so intelligent as the simplest bird. | pvaldes wrote: | I would not bet my money on it. In some areas fishes can | score higher than many other vertebrates for sure, | including big apes | | Anybody keeping an aquarium knows that many fishes are | surprisingly smart. Specially predatory fishes. They have | a good long term memory and can recognize individual | caretaker humans. | | The brain/bodyweight ratio of some species is bigger than | humans. This mean that they have a bigger brain that most | birds, lizards and rodents of the same size. Sharks are | pretty clever for example. | garblegarble wrote: | A very good question - I do feel differently about fish, | and I think it's the relative level of intelligence. | | As you suggest, it's clearly not just because birds have an | ability to explore an environment natively that humans | don't. | | I'm sure that's a bias towards similarities with human | intelligence - to communicate, solve puzzles, and use tools | (e.g. crows and parrots) because it would be very sad if | people were regularly keeping octopuses in home fish tanks. | skinkestek wrote: | For those like me who thought clipped wings meant exactly | that, at least from what I have learned it usually just means | removing 1 or 2 large feathers at the wing tips, not | amputating an actual part of the wing. | | Maybe this is obvious to everyone else but for me this thing | seemed way worse than it actually was. | MandieD wrote: | For some pet parrots, yes, flight feathers are trimmed as | they come in to temporarily prevent or reduce flight, but | traditionally, ducks and geese being raised for meat and | feathers do have part of the outside wing joint removed to | permanently prevent flight - this is called pinioning. | someweirdperson wrote: | At least they won't be hungry, getting fed more than they | would eat on their own [0]. That seems to be called | gavage. | | [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force-feeding | garblegarble wrote: | While that's good to hear, what disturbs me about clipping | wings is robbing a bird of their ability to fly | yareally wrote: | As long as they're not fully clipped, they can still fly, | but they don't get a ton of lift. Parrot owners typically | do it so they don't accidentally fly outside and end up | in a worse situation than a few clipped feathers that | grow back in a few months. Birds get spooked by the most | random things, so it's hard to know what will trigger | them to fly into danger | | Fully clipping their flight feathers is cruel, dangerous | and can result in injury when a bird falls more than a | few feet. Also causes muscle atrophy and makes the birds | dependant on their humans | xeonmc wrote: | It's why the symbolism of caged birds is a recurrent literary | device for a long as the history of literature. | sebiandev wrote: | Domestic cats are another story. Mine actually prefers inside | and is not very social even with other cats. Prefers | solitude, sleep, cuddles and eating. My dog, on the other | hand, a 70lb Husky mix requires a great deal of activity | outside as well as socialization with his pack of friends | from the dog park. 2+ hours of physical activity and | socialization a day keeps him happy but, you have to be a | responsible pet owner, listen to your pets and give them | everything they need and more. Your pet shouldn't just be | surviving, they should be thriving. It's your responsibility. | [deleted] | BulgarianIdiot wrote: | They're not "pets", they're "animals". And social function is | one of their primary instincts. | | But as long as we force them to be pets, they're in fact meant | to be raised alone in homes. And they compensate for it by | bonding with their owners, which are away most of the time. | | It's casually cruel, but also I don't think there's such a | construct as "pets outside with pet friends". Ideally we'd just | let nature handle itself and we stop trying to productize it as | home decoration & entertainment. | locustous wrote: | We have several birds, they mostly like the company of other | some other birds. But they really like people too. Even the | ones always raised around birds grow attached to their | people. | | It's much more complex than "leave animals to the wild". One | of our birds is a rescue and had found himself a new family | when he had gotten loose. He clearly prefers people over | birds, every time. Even with a wide selection. | | Clearly if you are not home most of the time - don't get | birds. But if you are, they are quite good companions if you | are also up for their care. And don't mind losing the | occasional keyboard to fun time... | | They tend to be quite happy when they have some even small | space to fly and extensive contact with both their people and | others birds. I'll often have two on me while coding, by | their choice. The others have other preferences for time use. | | When they get out, and it's happened a few times. They very | much prefer to be back in their home with their clearly loved | social circle. | | Flying is nice, it's fun and good exercise, but it's also a | means to an end. Being with those they love, finding food, | toys, and nesting sites. | flangola7 wrote: | Do you have any durable evidence to back up those | anecdotes? | locustous wrote: | My best summary from years of experience and observations | and learning from several birds. Learning to read their | likes and dislikes. Also exposure to others who do the | same, bird people. | | It is what it is, whatever you may choose to call it. You | may also take it or leave it. | bayesian_horse wrote: | The preference of people over birds is not a good sign. | Usually means he wasn't well socialized or even | misimprinted. Breeders do that intentionally because people | want people-focused parrots. But it's not good for them. | | Sometimes that damage can be undone with very careful | training and resocializing... | | I don't think interaction with people is bad for parrots, | but it shouldn't be their only means of scratching their | social itches. | Wowfunhappy wrote: | > The preference of people over birds is not a good sign. | Usually means he wasn't well socialized or even | misimprinted. Breeders do that intentionally because | people want people-focused parrots. But it's not good for | them. | | How are you deciding what is "good" for a parrot? | | A preference for humans is certainly not _natural_ for a | parrot. However, I don 't think there's anything natural | about the way most humans live _their_ lives, and I quite | like modern technology. Perhaps parrots similarly | appreciate being in a safe environment with loving | caretakers. (Or perhaps they don 't--but I don't see how | we could know either way.) | | Put another way, I'm not convinced that living in the | wilderness and having to scrounge for food and avoid | predators is necessarily a better life than living with a | loving human who cares for you. Both are certainly | imperfect in different ways, but unfortunately we can't | ask the parrots which one they would prefer. | bayesian_horse wrote: | Those comparisons are meaningless, because this bird is | living in Human care through Human decisions (at some | point...). | | What is less meaningless is the idea that animals should | be able to fulfill the full spectrum of their natural | behavior. For parrots that means conspecific company. | People don't talk like parrots and don't act like | parrots. That is consensus among experts, by the way. | locustous wrote: | Don't know his history. He is clearly old. He doesn't | mind other birds, but he loves and takes great delight in | people. Just who he is. | | Sure, there's history there. But I don't see it as | "damage". He is clearly quite happy when he is with his | people. | | His other great delight is figuring out how to open his | palace in the morning to get out early. Every time he | manages it he struts around for quite a while looking | like he just won the Superbowl. | bayesian_horse wrote: | I'm not saying these birds can't be happy. Some certainly | aren't resocializeable, and there's nothing wrong with | keeping them as happy as possible regardless. | | One of the most objective criterion for animal welfare is | how much of their natural behavior they can fulfill. | People don't talk like birds, don't act like birds. Only | parrots of pretty much the same species can fulfill some | things. I'm not even talking about mating and all the | behavior around that, more like everything else. | Micoloth wrote: | Once again, The Onion news was just 10 years too early | | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CJkWS4t4l0k | | (Sorry low effort comment but I couldn't resist) | yareally wrote: | It's actually illegal to import parrots into the United States | now. Nearly all the ones that are here are not going to live | out in the wild and survive. I see this discussion about | freeing them all the time, but that ship sailed when they were | taken from their habitat and bred in capitivity. Best we can do | is minimize the damage by dissuading ownership and reduce the | number bred for pets | | That said, I dissuade everyone that tells me they want a parrot | from getting one, not for the reason you gave, but because most | people treat them like cats or dogs and that doesn't work. | They're more like toddlers and approaching them like that | usually works better. | | I have several smaller parrots I rescued from someone that let | them go outside and didn't want them back (conure and some | budgies) and they're quite content. They're usually more | interested in interacting with my family than each other. I | love mine, but they require more attention than most people | want to give | | They get plenty of open space indoors to fly around, but not | every parrot likes to fly. Quite a few would rather climb, | because it's a lot of effort to get lift with a bulky parrot | body. | Reptur wrote: | I can't help but think of course video calls would help a | social animal that is solitary except for their human owner and | maybe another species of pet. Someday I hope we will rethink | how we live with animals and give them the compassion and | habitat that we would want for ourselves if we were in their | position. I would much prefer to visit a wonderful parrot | habitat I help conserve where I can view happy flourishing | parrots in the wild then own one and potentially give it | Zoochosis. | lusus_naturae wrote: | It is sad. Mainly our approach to other animals is based on | disregarding their right to self actualization. Merely saying | this makes one seem like a kook or zealot. But it's just | pointing out that taking a human-centric approach to other | intelligent organisms is easy to do because we are the apex | predator. I don't blame or judge anyone but it disturbs me all | the same. A thought experiment I really like is how I would | feel about doing something if I wasn't part of a group of apex | predators. It's simplistic, but personally I find it provides | clarity. | jmyeet wrote: | Wait til we teach parrots to deny prior authorizations and | insurance claims. | | Seriously though, parrot (and corvid) behavior is fascinating. | There's a known relationship between primate brain size and the | size of social groups. These birds are typically social creatures | too. It's kind of amazing what they manage with relatively small | brains. | xeonmc wrote: | I guess bird brains are on 3nm while primates are 130nm | realo wrote: | Very much so: | | https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bird-brains- | have-... | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | Remember where they came from: Dinosaurs. | | In fact, I have been told that calling birds "dinosaurs," | is actually accurate. The lineage is pretty much a straight | line. | | It also makes me wonder what it must have been like, back | then. A lot of speculation is that dinosaurs (especially | theropods) were extremely smart. | Toutouxc wrote: | That's right. Just like current macOS is not "Unix-like" | or a descendant of Unix, but an actual Unix operating | system, modern birds are actual dinosaurs. | | Wikipedia quote: Birds are feathered theropod dinosaurs | and constitute the only known living dinosaurs. | katherin_231 wrote: | [dead] | coldtea wrote: | > _A few significant findings emerged. The birds engaged in most | calls for the maximum allowed time. They formed strong | preferences--in the preliminary pilot study, Cunha's bird Ellie, | a Goffin's cockatoo, became fast friends with a California-based | African grey named Cookie. "It's been over a year and they still | talk," Cunha says._ | | It would be fun if they get some of the birds to actually meet | the birds on the other side! | greyface- wrote: | The paper: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3544548.3581166 | snitzr wrote: | Twitter for real | 77pt77 wrote: | But with video. | djaouen wrote: | I am sure the parrots get a lot of value out of this lol | Mave83 wrote: | Horrible Website, who likes this sh* | dang wrote: | All: I know the website is annoying but please follow the HN | guideline which asks commenters not to post about annoying | websites: " _Please don 't complain about tangential annoyances-- | e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button | breakage. They're too common to be interesting._" - | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | | The reason is that otherwise we get a thread full of comments | about website annoyances--which is even more annoying. There's no | good solution here but let's at least work on a local optimum. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-04-22 23:00 UTC)