Comment by rajekas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rajekas | Hacker News Reader

I like much of this list - doesn't strike me as first world problems at all (I am not from the first world).

Having spent the last two years building a climate action platform I have lots of climate change problems with startup worthy solutions, but the item that really struck me was the online zoo. As an animal lover, the very idea of zoos - even the most enlightened ones - is problematic. Instead, why not let the mountain go to Mohammed?

Who wouldn't want to be a blue whale for a day. Or an eagle? Or a tiger? What might it be like to be an Octopus?

These are questions I have researched as a scientist, but in order to truly revolutionize the science, we need data. Lots of data and the best way to collect that data would be to create interfaces that allow people to see/smell/hear the world from the animal's perspective. It's like anthropology but with other species.

That's where the digital is actually better than the physical - while I can go to a regular zoo to see a tiger pace up and down, I can't actually be the tiger.

I bet people would be willing to pay money to be a tiger for a day. And you don't want that tiger to be in a zoo when you're the tiger. Much better if it was out there in the jungle where it was meant to be.

We need an unzoo.

Seems outrageous, but it's the one project I can see in this list advancing the frontiers of knowledge, saving other species and creating a business.

I know that hacker news is a place for serious discussion and memes are not appropriate, but there really isn’t a sentiment more fitting than:

Shut up, and take my money

I will come for your money, but I might want your brains first :)

Brain zoo when?

Right after a brain rollercoaster and a brain brothel ;).

> Instead, why not let the mountain go to Mohammed?

Isn't this already fulfilled by nature documentaries?

> That's where the digital is actually better than the physical

I really disagree. While it would be neat actually be a tiger for a day, seeing and hearing what a tiger hears through your digital display is not the same.

I would wager that digitally experiencing nature from our comfortable cities does not raise that same connection to nature that one gets from actually being out there and experiencing it with _all_ of their senses.

Seeing a forest is one thing. Hearing, smelling and feeling a forest as your walk through is a completely different experience. Without that more complete experience I doubt people will form meaningful bonds with the natural environment to the point that they want to change their behaviours to protect it.

> Isn't this already fulfilled by nature documentaries?

Yes, a David Attenborough or Jacques Cousteau can make the natural world come alive. But an interactive digital platform will enable very different forms of storytelling.

> seeing and hearing what a tiger hears through your digital display is not the same

Of course not, just as being a Masai tribesman for a day or even living with them for three years as a peace corps volunteer is not the same as herding cows in Kenya. While stories never transport you into the real world, we all love the idea of platform 9-3/4. They serve different cognitive functions.

>I would wager that digitally experiencing nature from our comfortable cities does not raise that same connection to nature that one gets from actually being out there and experiencing it with _all_ of their senses.

Too broad a brush in my view. For example, there are things that you can do digitally that you can't do in person. However deep you go into a forest, you will never see it with a tiger's eyes because your bodies are different and your brain is different. Forget tigers and forests, you experience your home differently from a dog or cat that you have as a pet. Seeing your home through their eyes - however crudely - will be an act of interspecies empathy that you will never get through other means. It's possible some creatures are so different that their world will be incomprehensible to us even if we stream their senses 24/7. We won't know until we try. It remains an empirical question as to how much of that gap is bridgeable.

> to the point that they want to change their behaviours to protect it

I don't think we are at a point in human history when changing individual behaviors will save the planet, either from climate change or from ecological collapse. We need large scale political action with laws that have teeth and means of enforcing them at a planetary scale. The problem I am trying to solve here (or rather, claim as one needing solving) is a different one: how to transport ourselves into the bodies of other creatures? It's the animal equivalent of reading Dostoevsky to understand Russia - a problem very different from pouring billions into strengthening your computer systems because Russians are hacking your elections.

Could you expand on your climate action platform? I'm very interested in the idea.

Already been done: http://octodadgame.com/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com