[eloff]

As far as I know people typically hid from predators at night, not hunted. And were more likely to be active during the light of a full moon rather than a dark night. We really rely on our eyes. And in Africa, where we come from, it's very dangerous to be about at night. That's when the big predators are most active.

Not to mention, not much blue light at night.

[jolincost]

I think you need to read the paper. The blue light they provided was noted as being "similar to a moonless night", and I'd bet that it's a blue kind of light you get under starlight.

Were you there tho? How can you substantiate that they hunted in the way you say? In my experience, humans have very good sight on a moonless night, a full moon is basically daylight and provides no cover, so I think your assertion is false, and you need to spend some time outdoors on moonless nights.

[eloff]

Obviously I was not there, neither were you. I said I think humans avoided the night based on the way other primates in the area are prey for the big cats and hyenas. I've also never heard of any recent hunter-gatherer cultures where they hunt at night. I think that's strong evidence against your claim.

You think humans would have risked the dangers to hunt at night for better cover but without evidence. Can you find an example of of a recent human hunter-gatherer group that did that? Any archaeological evidence? Obviously we're not evolved as nocturnal animals - so the evolutionary evidence goes against your theory.

[jolincost]

Just in context, you're arguing against a random point I made in tangent to the main discussion here, but OK. If you feel you need something to knock against, hello. So...

No, not without evidence. Simply just evidence that you don't want to see or don't think exists, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I get if you look at the same stuff and reach different conclusions. But you say you think not hearing about stuff is strong evidence against. I don't think so, that you've never heard of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

You want to ask for "evidence"...can you really provide any evidence either way? Can you give me like a study that compares hunter-gatherer groups and shows a majority of them do most of their hunting during the day? No. So don't try to talk about evidence as if you're backing up your claims with it. How ridiculous.

We're both just thought experimenting. So...Comparing humans to other primates it stupid. We're an apex predator. Our ancestors even more so re hunting. Just think about it. What will we eat? When will it be easier to catch that? How do other super predators hunt? At night. We were hunting experts. Our hunting behaviors would probably be similar to other hunting experts. "Hunt at night" describes every spec ops outfit ever, as well as big cats.

We're evolved enough to hunt at night in moonless nights I'd say your "evolutionary evidence" which you claim supports your idea, actually fully supports what I'm saying instead.

You don't seem like you're open to changing your mind or learning something new here, so I don't expect you to respond and go, "Oh yeah, I hadn't thought of that. Good point."

[eloff]

All that hot air and you didn't put any evidence forward. I'm open minded, but you're not giving me anything to work with here.

[jolincost]

Haha, i assure you the air is very cool. Did you give any either? No. We're both just thought experimenting. Just seemed fine to work with that until you got beat. Now your just pretending your don't get any evidence, when you never had any to start with. Don't a pretender! Own it, you lost.

[eloff]

I lost alright, I lost time and opportunity to learn something by arguing with someone of your caliber.

[scoutt]

I don't know... A human has no chance alone in the open, under low light conditions, against a big feline...

[jolincost]

Why respond to the weakest possible version of what I say? The version that requires almost a deliberate imagination against the likely interpretation. Besides being against the HN guidelines...Of course humans hunt in packs. What are you even thinking?

I'm sure you weren't trying to do that specifically, but this propensity of people to straw man everything to find a gap to then comment against, and pretend that their "successful" comment against a straw man disproves the real comment they're replying to (which of course it doesn't), lets me feel like commenting online is so different to talking in person. Almost like every comment needs to be written like a legal document covering every possible edge case and malicious misinterpretation...Ugh. People seem obsessed with being right and proving others wrong, rather than learning. So often pretending it's binary, rather than nuanced.

I guess this is the "game" of commenting online. We pretend it's about learning, but actually it's about "outwitting" others with these malicious misinterpretations (bad faith interpretations), malevolent reframings, ignoring data that contravenes your cherished beliefs (confirmation bias) and other dirty rhetorical tricks. Maybe everyone's day to day sucks so much they need to come online to feel they're finally smarter and more dominant than someone else...maybe it's just an outlet....Of course it's not. There's plenty of good discussions, but the bad discussions happen much more online than in real life.

I don't care to get good at such a "game". I want to be able to defend against that balderdash type commentary, rather than just tolerate or ignore it, but I also want to learn. I'm pretty certain I'm guilty of most of this stuff myself......I think this metacomment by me can serve as a reminder to myself to try to get good enough at this game so I can ignore it, but to not make that my focus, with my focus instead being learning. If I do bother to comment, I may as well create and get something good for myself and others.

[scoutt]

> Why respond to the weakest possible version of what I say?

If there was a rule somewhere, I tried to point out an exception. A feline has better sight at night than a human. Any north-pole-searching human that (hungrily) goes out in the middle of the night might be attacked by night predators.

No 'gaming' or 'outwitting' or anything like that. And I don't know much about 'games' you talk about. It was no my intention to 'game' you or to look smarter. But, please, if you need to, write a comment to this message to vent out anything you need to vent out. I promise I won't care.

[jolincost]

So what you're saying doesn't mean humans don't go out at night, they just go hunt in packs, like I'm saying.

Why respond to the weakest version of what I'm saying and pretend like the point I'm making is wrong? You get that I think. Language is not "rules", and "pointing out exceptions" is treating what I'm saying as "containing that exception", which is an overly literal interpretation, that assumes the weakest version, and seems to lead to bad faith readings of comments as their weakest versions.

Don't be so literal...this isn't programming. Assume the best/strongest version of what someone's saying. That's in the guidelines. I'm sure you already know (or can figure out) why that's a good thing to do.

So...if you don't care then why did you bring it up? Just to say you don't care? I think that's might be a problem you have. Not caring. If you're going to respond to someone, I think you should care for what they said, otherwise you might say something stupid. Like this case in point.

So you respond to that by trying to reframe it and pretend I'm "venting", and also that you invite me or "give me permission" to do that. Yeah, like I need your permission, of course I don't. And if you don't care, why do this reframing where you are like the one "giving permission" ... to give yourself more status? Which is obviously ridiculous, as you're of course not ever giving me permission to talk, and I don't ever need that from you, and I don't need to be "invited" by you in order to reply. You chose to make your comment, and I choose to make mine. Who do you think you are talking like that?

So...I'm not "venting", I'm just saying whatever I choose to say, which in this case happens to be a specific metacommentary criticism of you responding to the weakest version. So you (and your reframing) might want to pretend this is entirely about something other than you, and pretend that I must just need to "vent" about something entirely unrelated to you, but in fact what I'm saying is directly talking about what you did. I understand that might be hard for you to face, but I think reconsidering your pattern of "trying to point out" exceptions, will lead you to make better, more caring and more high value comments. I'm sure you can do that.