[derg]

I don't necessarily completely disagree here, but I'm always thinking of the Douglas Adams quote in Hitchhiker's Guide on this:

"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons."

[Aperocky]

Dolphins have a rough start, it's so hard to build anything in the ocean other than just have it biologically.

It's just so unfair. Just imagine if our brain is the same but we are fish and swim. How will civilization ever develop? Everything from bronze age up is pretty much impossible. That and we'd have no hands.

[zanny]

It's tool use and language that differentiate us. Other species have one but not both. Learning is much more efficient when communicated rather than done in an isolated vacuum and all the knowledge in the world is useless if you lack fine motor control manipulation to take advantage of it.

[mdavidn]

How do you know crows and dolphins lack language? Because they don’t use a syntax like ours?

[minerjoe]

A theory is that dophins communicate by transmitting 3D information. They see with sonar and can use the same mechanisms to transfer 3D information. Probably vastly superior to the grunts of us apes for many tasks.

[easygenes]

I think the implication was dolphins have language but not tool use.

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

But this type of reasoning went out the window, as soon as humans started killing dolphins in large numbers (see tuna nets), and the dolphins had no way to defend themselves or otherwise dissuade humans from doing that.

This is one of the big lessons in history. The civilizations that use their intelligence to make tools and weapons end up screwing civilizations that "muck about, having a good time".

[Eyas]

That's uncomfortably close to Eurocentric claims of superiority that point to their colonization and exploitation of other countries in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century.

I don't necessarily buy it. A pacifist civilization might be "dominated" by a violent civilization, but they might still choose death over becoming violent themselves.

[teucris]

I agree with your post but it’s worth noting it does not apply to dolphins. Dolphins are not pacifists[0].

[0] http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160204-cute-and-cuddly-dolp...

[kyuudou]

They can be pretty brutal to sharks and themselves. Also on a more bizarre note they can get rather rape-y esp. on hallucinogens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prmx0lYBTko

[worldsayshi]

I do not read that the previous poster meant that the superior one was morally superior. Only superior in terms of violent power.

You're not buying it but they're not selling it?

[notahacker]

The nets aren't a plot to subjugate the dolphins though; for the most part humans would rather not have dolphin bycatch. They're just something that dolphins haven't collectively figured out how to avoid.

[jychang]

That’s like saying humans aren’t intelligent because they can’t avoid car accidents in the rain.

Even if you were super intelligent, i bet you’d get fucked up in a net if you had low visibility in the water, you were traveling at high speed, and you didn’t have opposable thumbs to untangle yourself.

[notahacker]

If I was an sonar-equipped aquatic mammal that was also superintelligent, I'd expect generations of losses might have taught my civilization not to swim near boats.

(Unless we're positing that running the risk of being trawled is an essential part of mucking about and having fun, or a scientific experiment, or dolphins having enough imagination for some of them to speculate warnings about boats are a conspiracy to keep them from the best fish :D)

[pilsetnieks]

Boats go where your food is. Avoid boats and you'll have to avoid the most plentiful food sources. Either starve or run the risk that you might stumble upon a boat and someone from your group might get tangled.

[jMyles]

> humans aren’t intelligent because they can’t avoid car accidents in the rain

A reasonable exhibit one for the presently observable limits on (at least collective) human intelligence.

[IggleSniggle]

Where did anyone say anything about superiority? If anything, the implication is that the humans are stupid for not mucking about and having a good time, and that even though the dolphins may be “superior” in this regard, it’s a race to the bottom since the more violent species wipes out the fun-loving one.

[jmull]

Well, species success is measured in periods of time orders of magnitude larger than recorded human history.

It’s an open question whether our aggressive strategy will be successful past anything but the very short term. (Currently it’s not looking that good.)

[nullc]

> (Currently it’s not looking that good.)

I dunno. There is a real, if dwindling and not that large, possibility that mankind breaks free of earth and establishes itself elsewhere.

You can't say that for any other species except perhaps some microscopic extremophiles.

It's only so easy to be cynical about this because of how close we are to something greater, because of how much we are poised to lose.

[angst_ridden]

Exactly. There are species that have been successful for millions of years.

Modern humanity has certainly impacted the ecology dramatically over the past couple hundred-thousand, but calling us successful is premature. When we're as old as bluegreen algae (or hell, even Araucaria araucana), I'll happily revise my position.

[fao_]

Aha, so when an interstellar empire comes around and fucks up our planet -- if not outright just sending an asteroid our way, it's justified because we are of a lower technological level?

The humans and proto-humans of the past weren't 'stupid'. And even if they were comparatively, 'stupidity' isn't a justification for committing harmful actions, degrading, or otherwise treating the recipient as lesser. This sounds like a philosophy that encourages "well I'm going to hurt you and it must be right because you can't stop me or dissuade me".

[filoleg]

> it's justified because we are of a lower technological level?

No, it isn't. Just like killing dolphins isn't justified. But it probably means that the interstellar empire in question is very likely to be more intelligent and/or advanced than us.

[pdonis]

> even if they were comparatively, 'stupidity' isn't a justification for committing harmful actions, degrading, or otherwise treating the recipient as lesser

I don't think the GP was saying it is. I think he was trying to look at it from the dolphins' point of view: he was proposing that the fact that they didn't use any of their intelligence (assuming they have it) to construct ways to defend themselves from other intelligent species, like humans, was a mistake on their part.

[worldsayshi]

Why are you assuming that previous poster aimed to justify that behaviour? I don't see that that was implied.

[summitsummit]

what would be the next trump card above intelligence for survival/evolution/procreation/whatever the "goal" is?

[aeternum]

I think the ability to 'reprogram' oneself. We are currently more or less stuck with the genetic code we receive at birth. A species which is able to modify their code at will would be incredibly adaptable and would likely surpass us very quickly.

[summitsummit]

your comment reminds me of something that I secretly do which I personally used to think was kind of bizarre. when i stumble upon evidence or signs that a certain way of my thinking is incorrect, i like to confirm that suspicion and dedicate time to go into a meditative state where i take my findings and effectively attempt to reprogram my mental algorithms/principles. this takes anywhere from 15m to several hours depending on how fundamental and low level the change is. obviously, the perceived roi is immense.

for instance, this is how i converted from religion to atheism (arguably still a religion)... a product of my nurture that i decided to shed. other examples include my interaction model with others which included tenets such as curbing my decidedly unjustified high level of empathy for all others, controversial as it may be.

1. reprogram in the sense of mental models and thoughts or in a literal cells and atoms sense?

2. potentially depending on your definition and scope of `reprogram`, wouldn't that be a subset of intelligence, as opposed to something higher order or different?

3. what kind of behaviors/habits do you think humans (like you or I, not high-funded corporations) could employ now to get as close to achieving your second sentence as possible?

[novok]

hey we might be there in a couple hundred years

[eternalban]

Self knowledge and self control.

[armatav]

Omnipotence. Or something approaching it.