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Comment by hdivider | Hacker News Reader

Every time I encounter resistance to your points here, I feel like an alien among humans.

I think it cuts so deep into people's psychology, and frequently religion. The very notion that we are not the apex of anything. And that we no longer need to eat other animals to live and be healthy. Too much to bear for many, so it frequently results in low-quality conversation, laden with emotions.

The fact remains, however. Non-human animals are not that different from us. Pretty much all mental behavior is represented in the animal kingdom. They, in so many ways, are us. And we are them.

Why should it be otherwise, after all? It would be strange to have a quantum jump in mental behavior with humans, and only primitive behavior in all other animals.

It'll probably take some centuries for humans to see other animals as inherently worthy of respect.

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I am in no way religious, and I don't think we are fundamentally different than other animals, but I don't think it is surprising that most of us (myself included) think of human emotions and intelligence as being on a completely different level than animals.

The complexity of human language, social structure, and technology is not even in the same ballpark as animals. Humans make iPhones and travel to space and write War and Peace. We dominate the world, changing its very climate and wiping countless species off the planet, and no other species even tries to stop us.

It seems a bigger stretch to think other animals have similar emotions to humans than the opposite.

> The complexity of human language, social structure, and technology is not even in the same ballpark as animals. Humans make iPhones and travel to space and write War and Peace. We dominate the world, changing its very climate and wiping countless species off the planet, and no other species even tries to stop us.

That's true only for a small subset of humans. 99.9% of humans achieve no feat as you describe.

You can easily make the case for attributing these feats to smaller subsets. E.g., Africans, Native Americans do not make iPhones, travel to space, etc. And therefore its ok to colonize them. I think that sounds familiar to history.

If you go by this notion, it would rather make sense to attribute these feats to a small elite and not humans entirely. And by that logic, this elite is siphoning money, creating riches for their own benefit. Which is probably what is happening in most countries (more so if they are authoritarian).

I think its simply about a feeling of superiority, might makes right. If you can, you abuse others for your own benefit. Whether they are a human or another animal.

> That's true only for a small subset of humans. 99.9% of humans achieve no feat as you describe.

You can have a conversation with 99.9% of humans, something you can’t do with any other animal. The other list of accomplishments is not even needed to surpass what animals can do.

You have to be intentionally being obtuse to suggest that the gal between humans and animals is not an order of magnitude away from the gap between humans and other humans.

Your point doesn't touch my argument. I'm saying if you are claiming superiority over other animals, you can also claim superiority over weaker humans, for the same reasons, with the same results.

By the way, you can't have a proper conversation with someone, if you don't speak the same language.

Even if someone doesn't speak the same language, we can communicate in a way that animals simply can't. I think the fact that different civilizations have been able to contact each other throughout history, and even when not speaking the same language at all, establish relations shows that it isnt just that we don't speak animal languages, but that they are fundamentally different in their ability to communicate.

To answer your other argument, there is a different fundamental level of 'superiority' over animals that you could never argue for over humans. Even the most 'primitive' of civilizations have been able to articulate their resistance to oppressors in a way no animal has ever even come close to doing. Again, the orders of magnitude difference between humans and animals makes it a completely different comparison than between humans and 'weaker' humans. It is insulting to humans to imply it is the same thing.

FWIW: I think your point is highly insightful. Very deep, and I'll be thinking about it for quite some time! It all comes from the same psychological place -- reminds me of autocracy vs democracy. In one, presumed superiority of the autocrat, leading to apparently justified mistreatment of all others. In the other, presumed equality of all, leading to agreed-upon consequences if others are mistreated.

Humans might not be able to converse with animals like one another. Humans can absolutely communicate with other animals, especially other mammals, to varying degrees. I believe such communication could argued as a form of conversation.

Are humans more intelligent than animals though? By human definitions and metrics? Unquestionably. However, I am not convinced that humans are truly superior in every facet of intelligence.

I have mental health issues, I breathe in toxic air, consume poisonous food and drink, wait in traffic to go to some miserable office, to be surrounded by miserable people, to do meaningless work. I do all of this so that I may survive and placate myself with the leftovers. Other "intelligent" humans give me concoctions that alter my brain chemistry in order to help me cope and distract myself from our Sisyphean existence.

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was punished for believing he was more intelligent than the gods. I sometimes wonder if we, too, are punished for believing we are superior to nature. Perhaps true intelligence is not defined by our metrics after all.

> We dominate the world, changing its very climate and wiping countless species off the planet

To add on to your argument in the context of this quote, I also think this is also an extremely compelling argument for not only the arrogance of mankind, but the true stupidity of mankind.

We treat our one and only planet -- source of survival -- like its rental. Hopefully within the next century, we can develop some method to eat those iPhones because we might not have many options left.

There is also the notion that we have evolved a empathy for humans over other animals because it is beneficial. So that the 99.9% don't hunt down the .1% for sport.

I sadly ascribe it to education.

People are wrongly taught when they're children that as a human they're special.

Mostly it's with good intentions (encouraging ethics and responsibility), but often the message is rudimentary or lost along the way.

never seen a dog using a computer

on the other hand, never seen a dog use javascript

you wouldn't, they tend to prefer Python

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