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Comment by bambax | Hacker News Reader

But why wouldn't they?? Most animals take care of their wounded peers, from ants to elephants, and often defend individuals from predators (not always! but often enough to be on countless documentaries).

This is an extremely natural behavior, not unique to humans or proto-humans, and not driven by interest or strategy. Compassion is innate.

Cruelty and contempt for the weak is a specifically human trait, and not only that, but a very recent one too.

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> Most animals take care of their wounded peers

Not really, no. Herd animals will regularly intentionally abandon wounded or elderly peers during an attack.

Sometimes they will even intentionally knock down slow members to make an easy meal for predators, ensuring their own survival:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ_7GtE529M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqyMw7udKtI

Social care is largely a mammalian trait, but only ever extends to in-group members. And if the pack or herd member is sensed to be the weakest link, it is quite frequent that the pack or herd will abandon them or intentionally sacrifice them.

Humans are unique in that they go through extraordinary lengths to rehabilitate members, sometimes investing years or decades or even caring for humans that could literally not survive on their own or without advanced technology.

Here's a video of a herd of buffalo attacking a whole pride of lions that are on top of a single buffalo, about to devour it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM

There are countless videos of bees fighting off wasps and in many cases killing them.

Likewise humans will abandon injured members of their party on Everest. They do the same in wartime. Given dire situations, humans also perform this behavior even in the modern era.

>Cruelty and contempt for the weak is a specifically human trait, and not only that, but a very recent one too.

just as there are countless examples of animals helping other animals, there are countless examples of animals abandoning weak young and leaving behind the elderly and infirm. if anything humans are far far more likely to be compassionate towards the physically weak, as physical strength is far far less valuable in human society than in nearly any animal society

> Cruelty and contempt for the weak is a specifically human trait

Is this true? I think there are many counter examples. eg birds tossing out offspring from their nest.

This isn't true. Also the book "Sapiens" goes a bit into how cruel ancient humans in the Americas would be to some of the weaker offspring. So it's not 'new' in the sense of last few thousand years either. I think there's been a lot of personalities and cultures over the last 300k years that approach this differently.

If you think human cruelty has emerged only very recently, you desperately need to study up on human history.

Not only that, I'd like to see some citations on "most animals".

I remember reading about tribes in Indonesia who when someone got too old/slow, they'd kill them. They were living on the edge of existence, and either everyone was on form, or the group didn't survive. In that context, it was presented as a caring act for the group. A bit different context to the original thread, but an example of why a group may do what outwardly seems a little surprising.

There is the idea sometimes stated that because child mortality was so high in the past parents had kids but avoided loving them - because odds were against the child living past 5 and if you love your kids you then have heartbreak when they die.

Historians disagree with that idea (at least for most cultures?). However I've heard it more than once. This just gives more data to the idea that humans loved each other enough to take care of injured.

Wasn’t child mortality only super high in dense population settings relatively recently? Like if you are a tribe in the middle of nowhere in Northern Europe 20k years ago, for example, you are probably not exposed to much contagious disease. Disease is a network phenomenon, and prior to modern medicine humans had increased network speeds and connectivity massively, but that wasn’t the historical norm, was it?

> Most animals take care of their wounded peers

The "most" part is not true. Some animals take care of wounded peers. Specifically social animals do. Ants, elephants, monkeys, whales are good examples of social animals and they do take care of their wounded peers.

Many animals are solitary. There is nobody to take care of a wounded polar bear, guppy, owl or c. elegans in the wild.

We can't even say that most animals are social. Perhaps by biomass, but definitely not by diversity.

> often enough to be on countless documentaries

That says more about what we humans find interesting and worthy of documenting.

> not driven by interest or strategy. Compassion is innate.

Something can be both innate and strategical. Having the innate drive to help wounded conspecifics can increase the surival of the whole species.

> Cruelty and contempt for the weak is a specifically human trait

Absolutely not. What does that even mean? When a lion takes over a pride they are documented to kill the cubs sired by the prior male. Is that "cruelty and contempt for the weak"? We would sure label as such if they were human males killing a dad and moving in with mom killing her babes. Should I find more examples of "cruelty and contempt for the weak" in the animal kingdom? There are tons. Cruelty and contempt for the weak is not a uniquely human trait.

> But why wouldn't they??

This is fundamentally the wrong question to ask.

> "Most animals take care of their wounded peers"

Citation needed. Here is a paper suggesting that the assistance of injured peers is rarely observed across taxa [1]. From an evolutionary standpoint, this doesn't pass the smell test due to costs to the helper, cheating/freerider problems, low probability of re-encountering the helper/helped (i.e. many species don't repeatedly meet the same animal of their species), and of course, the risk of the injured animal attracing predators.

> "Cruelty and contempt for the weak is a specifically human trait, and not only that, but a very recent one too."

History would suggest otherwise. All of documented human history is lousy with horrific cruelties like genocide, human sacrifice, slavery, war, etc.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5731505

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