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Comment by WD-42 | Hacker News Reader

Why would you shoot any bird sitting on a utility pole, protected or not? There’s no sport in that.

The hunting urge runs deep. I've felt it.

The urge to hunt? Are you kidding? Plinking a bird off a pole is about as close to hunting as playing go fish is to catching dinner.

What you are describing is sadism and/or mental illness.

That’s not hunting. It’s target practice.

Our ancestors who evolved to hunt did not "play fair", they killed animals any way they possibly could. Running them off cliffs, into pits, setting fire to the forest to burn them alive. Might as well say guns and knives aren't hunting, that you have to use your bare feet and hands and that's it.

Our ancestors, although containing the equivalent or even greater intelligence as us, were unlikely to consider morality or ethics when it came to survival.

And neither does the evolutionary drive to kill animals consider those things.

Both comments above sounding much like Victorian era post Darwinian drawing room expressions of "Nature red in tooth and claw" and other aphorisms not sourced to either Darwin or Wallace, all running contrary to the actual considerations of actual hunter and gathers (Pintupi Nine, San Bushmen, etc) who repeatedly stress the importance of not killing off your food supply by over taxing breeding and regrowth abilities.

I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to regarding my comment, which was effectively addressing the non-comparative examples of hunter-gatherers killing for pure survival versus modern humans killing out of annoyance or so-called sport, where food is just around the corner, except in extreme cases of poverty and such.

It's also not clear whether the last bit of your comment is entirely accurate. Is there not plenty of evidence of ancient humans overhunting fauna? That was my understanding and a quick search seems to verify that.

No, a lot of animals kill for fun (not just "pure survival"), including early humans, some apes, and quite probably our common ancestors.

No to what? I didn't state that ancient humans only ever killed for pure survival, although it likely consisted of the vast majority, aside from warfare.

No to the notion that it was a "non-comparative example" of hunter-gatherers killing for pure survival.

Our ancestors didn’t have grocery stores…

Ah, the deep-seated caveman urge to hunt down utility poles, shoot the electricity out of your neighbors, I mean, enemies, and hear the lament of their melted ice cream ...

grouse are tasty, but hitting utility equipment can be quite expensive.

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