Chimpanzees and monkeys use stone tools | Hacker News Reader

Chimpanzees and monkeys use stone tools

bbc.com

82 pointsSomeone42 comments

Would it be better for them to get extinct, or to become advanced enough to understand that there is a much more technologically superior race in the same planet and that their lives and deaths totally depend on that race?

We depend on bees, how do you feel about that?

I feel very good: they are tools and the only way they can intentionally harm us is for all of them to collectively commit suicides.

How do you think they feel about that?

Turn the tree of life upside down and look again, we are at the bottom, not the top, our existence is only insured by the existence of other species, if we killed off every other species do you think we would thrive? We are dependent on them, subsequently they are not dependent on us, that seems quite smart of 'them', perhaps we should tread more carefully and respect that the intelligence they demonstrate is different, not inferior.

That's an interesting angle that I've not thought of. Yes ignorance is a bliss. However my original point was more in the line of: if the chimps had a choice of getting extinct, vs the option of getting conscious enough to realize their fates are very much on the hands of a more technologically advanced race, and there is absolutely zero chance to catch up, which option would they choose?

Good question, difficult, what if we met aliens that could destroy us, but they chose not to, that would be nice wouldn't it :)

Not if they wanted us for slaves. Or livestock. Or warm hosts for their larvae. Or if their one condition on keeping us alive was that we all start worshiping the Great Old Ones.

Thanks for that, now I'll sleep real soundly ;)

> "absolutely zero chance"

It seems very unlikely, but it could happen.

Humans haven't always been the dominant species, it's only our grasp of technology that keeps us where we are, a lot could happen in our future to shift the balance to another species (changing environment, animal evolution, virus evolution, etc...). Though we're more likely to kill ourselves off before that happens IMO, and not necessarily through war (we're living longer, and growing quite considerably as a species, I remember when I was a kid we used to say there were 6 billion people on the planet, and that was only back in the 80s/90s. We have to face up to population control at some point, despite it being political dynamite at the moment).

Besides that, I don't think humans are really 'superior', the main thing we're good at is being adaptable, but there are skills that other species have that we do not or that they are far better at. Also, the notion of dominance is misguided, as another commenter alluded to we're all interconnected.

and what about all the ways they can unintentionally harm us, since they are bugs without the mental facility to intentionally harm us? Furthermore, what does the nature of the intent have to do with the effect... whether they all commit suicide or are killed by our hand... we are in the same place.

what about all the ways they can unintentionally harm us, since they are bugs without the mental facility to intentionally harm us?

I take it you've never been stung by a bee before.

Not really relevant to the point, but...

While being stung by a bee hurts, I doubt the is deciding to intentionally harm us. They are instead acting on instinct and defending against what they consider to be a threat.

Wait till they become fully aware of the concept of death and their eventual demise and after that when they invent "spirituality" and conjure up silly rituals to distract them away from remembering their fate and the mental stress and anguish that come with it.

Monkeys are in for one hell of a ride right there.

They aren't going to become advanced enough (if they were going to, they would have already). But if that was an option it's certainly the better one.

That race they [would be] dependent on is a pretty nice one for the most part.

"chimpanzees have been using stone tools in the rainforests of Ivory Coast for at least 4300 years." So is this a news title from 2315BC? I would have expected the article to be written in hieroglyphics. Would have been a nice touch if "Breaking" or "This just in" were prepended to the article title.

A tear for this, that they are running out of time because we want trainers and cars and sofas and little plastic things you put in drinks then throw away, given time they might be our friends, the way we act I'm not sure they would choose to be :(

Chimps eat other monkeys alive, sometimes even humans, so no particular need to be sentimental about it.

Alright, fuck em, oh hang on, we bomb the living daylights out of entire cities, i'm lost in the moral maze

Humans too.

How was this behavior induced? By primatologists who set up unnatural and hostile situations for chimpanzees to see what they would do? Because that is NOT normal behavior. Don't insinuate that it is.

Are you posting this from a wooden computer in a tree fort?

I'm hammering it out by hand on a 1950's typewriter while wearing an alpaca hat with ear flaps, I hand the unbleached recycled parchment to a well dressed gent who rides like the wind stopping only to sup ale and change horses who crosses the channel then joins a train of merchants heading east, on successfully crossing these dangerous lands the parchment finally lands in India where it is transcribed by and posted on my behalf, because.

sounds like something that soylent guy would do!

Are you under the impression that you can't understand something is bad while still being part of the problem?

Have entered the stone age, 4000+ years ago.

By this definition of "Stone Age", sea otters have also entered into the Stone Age.

By the number of upvotes this kind of crap gets, HN has also entered into the stone age.

Thank you and good night :) Sombre indeed!

Great reply.

He's having a go at the otters now.

Do sea otters customize/enhance/improve their tools or just use them?

Love it.

This would be much more interesting without the "Stone Age" nonsense.

The hallmark of the stone age is modifying the stone, not using the stone.

I'll concede on this, frankly the least I was expecting was sticks with rocks bound to the end, the reality turns out to be they worked out that heavier rocks smash stuff better, it's going to be a few millenia before they can hold down a decent conversation, let alone pick a good wine to go with fish...

That'll never happen unless it's through the aid of human technology, in which case, it'll really be humans entering a new age of advancing communication and intelligence of non-human animals than any one species advancing themselves.

Sensational title. The actual stone age was called such because humans were actively modifying and creating new stone tools.

That process started somewhere.

And until it started, it didn't deserve to be called the "Stone Age." Using rocks to bash things doesn't really count. When they're making flint knives and skinning their prey and using the hides to keep warm then maybe it's a story.

so this makes me think, what made our species so successful if not our tools since it seems quite common. Was it the discovery of fire?

I think the gist of it is our increased brain capacity let us acheive more with the tools, and more importantly to propagate knowledge of developments over generations because we lived in interconnected groups, societies, better communicators perhaps.

There are theories, not generally accepted in mainstream biology/anthropology.

One is that our ancestors lived in coastal areas, where seafood made it much "cheaper" (in the evolutionary sense) to obtain the kind of fatty acids needed for growing a bigger brain.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/lives-the-brain/201001/...

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