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Comment by zrkrlc | Hacker News Reader

I like how their experiment was literally pitting ants against each other.

I can't help empathizing with animals in such a situation. It must be like getting teleported into an otherwise empty room with a tiger in it. (Turns out that humans with chainmail fare a lot better than those without!)

Ants individually are just happy to be of service to the queen. They should put a picture of the queen nearby as motivation.

Pheromones of the queen you mean.

We'll make it scratch and sniff.

Even wearing chain mail I doubt you'd have a chance much higher than zero against a full grown tiger.

I think the tiger would easily crush your neck, even if their teeth couldn't pierce the mail. I'd give better odds to a knight wearing a lot of plate armor. Still not very good odds though.

I don't know, properly made chainmail suit is bite and scratchproof. Might be able to wrestle the tiger into submission. Though the weight of the tiger is going to be a VERY HUGE issue. Give me a spear and I'll be willing though.

not bite proof, this is why they use cages to protect against really big sharks.

Sharks are larger and have larger teeth though. Plus, they have an advantage b/c they live in water and we don't. Bring them to land and we can debate a cage-less shark fight. The tiger situation seems more possible but I wouldn't try it.

I'm just saying that there's a limit to the amount of bite protection provided by chain mail.

Chainmail is bite proof in that it will likely prevent the tiger's teeth from puncturing your skin, but a tiger's jaw is strong enough to snap almost any bone in your body through the chainmail, so it's ultimately not going to do you much good.

Many cats kill by crushing the throat, choking the prey. I doubt mail would stop that.

You aren’t gonna be able to wrestle a full grown tiger it’s hard enough wrestling a Pitbull or Rottweiler.

I have seen footage of a tiger pushing down the head of a charging antelope with one paw.

Human has no chance wrestling an adult tiger.

There are accounts of people killing bears bare handed (though I don't know how adult they are), so it may not be as far fetched.

Two problems I think. First, the kind of bear and the age of the bear. The size and strength of bears range widely. Fighting a sun bear is somewhat reasonable. Fighting a grizzly, on the other hand.....

Second, video proof. I know this kind of things probably aren't taped, because the people are busy fighting for their life. But, still, I'd be skeptical before I see some proof, that a person fought and killed an healthy adult grizzly (or some other comparable types) without a firearm or trap.

> Give me a spear and I'll be willing though.

That should make for an interesting YouTube video.

On the condition that the tiger is a healthy adult in the wild, hungry, and has never been captive, and someone is standing nearby not to interfere but to hit the upload button after you’re slain.

I've seen a grown man turned into Filet American by an ordinary housecat with a grudge. A tiger is off the scale in terms of the damage that it will be able to do and no matter what body protection you wear short of a full body armor you will likely end up slightly dead.

Sigh

I should have seen it coming. This or Miles O'Brien himself chiming in and telling us that trace amounts of exotic substances in medieval chain armour would have interfered with the transporter's Heisenberg compensators.

Imagine an alien species that studies humans and a researcher discovers that some humans are wearing chainmail armor to battles. The researcher hypothesizes that wearing armor improves humans' odds in said battles. Of course this calls for a n=5000 study on human gladiator battles where some participants are provided chainmail armor and others are not. Ahh, science. Meanwhile, all the humans are like: uhh, yeah, 5000 of us died for this Sherlock?

I did this a lot as a child. Find some random insect (beetle, spider, earthworm), pop it into an ant colony and spend hours watching the ensuing battle.

Never thought of it as cruel, which is unsettling when I imagine what an alien species with superior intelligence might choose to do with us.

I did the same but I would not call it battle. It was like feeding lions with human slaves during Roman empire.

higher intelligence = higher ignorance?

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