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Comment by carapace | Hacker News Reader

Crows are companions-to-hunters (wolves and humans mostly.) They interpret your behavior through that "lens".

If you set out food and then watch them that means (in crow) that you are a hunter, and a lousy one, and you're trying to hunt them.

Toss out some food and "forget" it and they'll think you're such a successful hunter that you don't even need to every scrap. Someone worth knowing.

In the old days, crows would go on the hunt with us and fly over hidden game in the bush dipping a wing in a certain way to let you know where it is, then you share the meat with them. They still remember even if most of us have forgotten. ;)

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I love this. Can you earn their trust, as in, become pals with them? Or is this more of a human desire. It's probably mostly food based priorities to them.

I had a pair of crows that I was somewhat close to. I could get within a couple feet of them, before they would back away.

It definitely seemed food based. But, observing how they interact with their (lifelong?) companion, I don’t think I’m able to perceive crow emotions.

I have tried, and over a fairly long period of coaxing with popcorn, and they remain extremely wary. Only once, out of a group of 15-20 crows, did I earn the trust of a single crow enough that he, or she, would come within 10 feet of me to pickup kernels I had strewn on the ground. The rest stayed far away.

> Can you earn their trust, as in, become pals with them?

It's a very human question.

All living things are friends (except sometimes at mealtime) because we are all part of one singular organism. The separateness and individuality of multicellular organisms is a perceptual illusion.

(This sound metaphysical, and perhaps it is, but it's very literal: all cells use the same chemical language, the same bio-molecular machinery of thought. Cf. Michael Levin's lab's work. Also "wood-wide web", etc. The way I sometimes put it is "We are Solaris". but that only makes sense if you've read the book or seen the movies...)

Anyway, all animals already trust each other. When you can understand how that's true and share that trust then you can "talk" with animals. Like Dr. Doolittle or some fairy tale princess, they will come up and hang out with you.

> It's probably mostly food based priorities to them.

Yeah, but that's the same for everybody? Don't you and your friends spend a lot of time discussing food? Cooking and eating together? "Com-pan-ions" are literally those who eat bread together: "com" is community, etc. and "pan" is bread.

Live long and prosper.

> "Com-pan-ions" are literally those who eat bread together: "com" is community, etc. and "pan" is bread.

Similarly, while plenty of people pan (pun intended, on multiple levels) American multiculturalism for being seemingly limited to food, it remains evident that food is a sort of universal language - a gateway to shared understanding even among those who share nothing else in common. Cuisine is a window into cultural tradition and history, and is a leading indicator of the formation of new cultures through the intersection of existing ones. To share food is to share what makes us human.

If we discover intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, I reckon this will be a key factor in whether we have any hope of ever truly understanding them and their motivations.

Dude! I think you just gave me a whole vein of sci-fi gold!

- - - -

Also, I clicked through your profile to your website and you mention you're a sysadmin, do you have any experience with OpenBSD?.

> do you have any experience with OpenBSD?.

I sure do! It runs my web and mail servers, and on my main laptop.

Excellent! I will send you an email soon. :)

(I'm starting a corporation, a little one, and I'm going to need some computers.)

Looking forward to it :)

Email sent. I've only had one cup of coffee so far, hopefully it's coherent.

That's one more than I've had, so apologies for any rambling :)

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