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the phrase "the free rat would usually save at least one treat for the captive - which is alot to expect of a rat"...
it clearly isn't "alot to expect" if it's automatic normal behavior for their species. It actually implies it's the normal for a rat. It just isn't normal for those humans.
I think it means "chocolate chips are precious to rats" by that - ie that it is a big sacrifice.
now make the rats comprehend fascism.
Would be an interesting study if that was possible.
Another run of this experiment found rats free those with the same fur color faster or more readily
You don't see them fuckng each other over for a goddamn percentage!
The owners use their captured public education and for profit media to turn us on one another and make us monsters.
They tell us avarice/greed, a well known character deficit and social blight for thousands of years is instead virtuous rational self-interest.
They force us to compete against one another rather than cooperate with one another as the basis of our economy, when an economy is meant to be a lowly tool of society for the explicit use of maximizing the efficient, equitable distribution of goods and services for the benefit of the citizens of the society. Our tail wags the dog. We are slaves to economic growth/metastasis we as a society do not benefit from.
The problem is that the sociopaths, mentally ill people literally incapable of empathy, something most humans have a strong need to exercise, that are among us quickly game society using their mental deficit as an advantage to take more than they need and manipulate others into elevating them, then manipulate those below them into fighting one another perpetually to stay on top.
Humans are social creatures. We've been conditioned to act as monsters, condemning our fellow humans literally dying in our streets of exposure and capital defense force brutality as "lowering our property values."
This isn't natural. It's why our nation's mental health is basically its own apocalypse of mass depression, anxiety, and never ending trauma. We are strongly discouraged from supporting one another, as we're supposed to do the impossible, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, then claim we did it alone. That's the American delusion. 🇺🇸
This really resonates with me. You are an excellent writer.
The part about empathy is so real. A lack of empathy is a real advantage in today's world, unfortunately. I think empathy should be one of the most important values a society should strive for, and we decided to make a society that rewards sociopathy instead.
Thank you, sincerely.
I know my comment history is basically the same points rehashed over and over as applied to the symptoms of the day we're experiencing, but it helps me feel like I'm holding onto sanity in an insane society to describe the core rot as I see it, and I appreciate your kind words.
... which isn't news to me.
For a time it seemed that everybody wanted to shit on animals as being way inferior to humans in every way, including lacking empathy emotion feelings and stuff.
But that was always wrong. Who has ever worked with animals be it horses dogs or farm animals knows they have a soul. Well, but also a lot of them are just evil bastards.
After observing all of the animals I've ever lived with, I've come to the opinion (unsupported, I suppose, by any real evidence) that empathy is an important part of being alive. I think every living being has empathy, and humans just got quite good at beating it out of other humans to the point where displaying psychopathic traits became something culturally celebrated.
We've been trained to be this way, and we need to reverse that trend.
I'd say this is the case for mammals and birds, but I think other branches of the tree of life are more hit or miss since they're less social animals.
I'd be curious to see a study of empathy on octopi, the smartest non-social animal.
Altrusim is a good trait to ensure the survival of a species, while being a selfish bastard is a good trait to ensure the survival of the individual. It all depends on the situation.
The Washington Post still has the article up:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/a-new-model-of-empathy-the-rat/2011/12/08/gIQAAx0jfO_story.html
And here's the science article that prompted it:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1210789
and here's an old archive.org copy of it before the Washington Post started blocking the wayback machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140114012833/http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/a-new-model-of-empathy-the-rat/2011/12/08/gIQAAx0jfO_story.html
Meanwhile humans, when put thru the same experiment, realize they can make the human in the unpleasant box pay $ if it wants out. They then learn to create more boxes for more profit.
Meanwhile, humans are stuffing other animals into cages to see what happens.
and then murdering them. good point.
ironic that experiment on empathy done by scientists doing mouse experiments.
I dont believe this is inherent. It's not human nature. Its social conditioning as a result of living in a capitalist society.
In a capitalist society, yes. Absolutely a lot of people would do this. But even then, its not everyone.
I live in capitalism but i would certainly not force someone to pay me to let them out of a trap. Especially if they were suffering. And i would never befriend someone that would.
I would think they were a cunt.
you must suck at capitalism then and would literally never be able to chair a publicly traded company maximizing profits, no matter the cost, for shareholders then. (i say lovingly)
If I'm ever told that I belong on a board of directors at a company, I'm going to Luigi myself. I would have deserved it
Capitalism wants us to believe that it's the only stable solution, because it comes close to the natural order, and that in nature there is only selfish behaviour, eat or get eaten, homo homini lupus and so on. The truth is, this supposed natural state is completely made up and animals and human beings naturally behave much more selflessly than what is expected from us under capitalism.
A lot of animals are better at solving "prisoners dilemma" situations than us. Most animals would rather work together for the greater good but I guess they haven't heard of capitalism.
heathens!
Almost every creature that lives in a harsh environment understands about looking out for your buddies. The next day, it might be you snapped into the trap. Allies are a precious thing. A lot of people prominent in our society have forgotten, but the rats have not, nor many of the people, either.
Remember this when they start deporting your neighbors next year.
If a rat has a better developed sense of empathy than you do, then you've probably made some seriously awful life choices somewhere along the line.
I'm always mildly concerned about how shocked people are about animals being conscious beings with feelings. Do people really think we are mentally that different from other animals with brains?
I'm more concerned that people believe it's rare, in both humans and the animal kingdom
Predators will share territory if there's enough to go around, even forming close relationships across species, sometimes even raising their young together
Empathy is the natural state, unless there's enough scarcity. Humans are naturally generous, unless we're raised in an environment of eternal artificial scarcity...
Rats live like 2 years.
In two years, they learn how to be better to each other than a large part of the human race.
I think of it in another way: What these rats display is the natural behavior.
These rats live two years, so they don't have time to learn otherwise. Human greed is a learned behavior, and it takes a lot of time to learn that.
The rats don’t live in a system that exacerbates and encourages the worst excesses of the worst people. The rats that don’t help are our billionaires.
Yeah, pick any two humans and put them in a similar situation, and I truly believe that you'll see similar empathy 99.9% of time time. But that fucking 0.1%, they're ruthless and they're rewarded handsomely for that behavior.
Ok, but let's say they is a toy train and it splits into two tracks and put the rat at the lever.
I like the one where they gave rats a lot of food and space (rat paradise) and let them breed till they were crawling over eachother till there wasnt enough food for them all. When most of them died and food was available once more, the remainders stopped eating and all the rats died.
Rats are interesting but I think the guy that programmed them left in some bugs.
Even the creator of that experiment said it was deeply flawed, and that their colony broke down because there was literally nothing to enrich their lives in the habitat. They were essentially going crazy from boredom.
He then went on to design rat experiments that were designed to actually facilitate a fulfilling and engaging life for the rats, and they thrived, from what I recall.
I think we shouldn't underestimate human empathy. The problem is just that we build structures to avoid it. Rich people choose to not see poor people too much or they would feel empathy and be inclined to help them. If the poor are far away, merely an abstraction that is said to exist, then their existence is not felt strongly enough to trigger an empathy response. Surely there are exceptions to some degree, but I think humans are very empathetic and that's one of our great powers.
Rats. Can't use the term as an insult anymore considering they're more human than we are.
Seems that's an insult to the rat.