Poogona [he/him]

Naked mole rats are considered an example of a truly “eusocial” mammal analogue to ants. More evidence for the idea that social behavior/societal grouping, once established in a species, characterizes it more potently than just about anything else in its genetic history. Chimps might be our closest genetic relatives, but the way we live and think is probably much more similar to these guys.

Yeah the real issue in a way is that there’s just so much evidence of evolution happening that it’s hard to find a single shared pattern to study

Sometimes ants can’t smell ants either and you get supercolonies

Unto Others has a great section about this. In a bunch of studied tribes who live generally pre-industrial lifestyles, the anthropologists were interested in how they “organize” big projects like building a house, and when they watched them, wondered what made them so willing to just do it.

Long story short, they saw how the kids watched them and subsequently “played” at doing things like building houses, carrying things together, etc. They essentially concluded that the “work” they did was understood more like play–that without any coercion to labor beyond meeting their needs, they were surprisingly eager to do that boring stuff because they made it into the day’s activity rather than grinding “work.”

TL;DR unalienated labor schniff and so on

Nobody goes nutting any more huh

Aussie magpies are ridiculously smart, love them as an example of convergent evolution since they are not corvids but rather songbirds that have evolved to be more crow-like to fill a similar niche to corvids

One common test is the famous “mirror test” where an animal is given some problem that can only be solved by using its own reflection in a mirror for reference, such as a study involving an Australian ant. They put a blue dot made of felt (I think) on the ant’s head behind the antennae, and watched the ant clean itself once it saw that it’s reflection had a weird blue thing on its head. But I don’t know if there are other tests for “self awareness”

This is kinda what I said, good to know my instincts were reaching in the right direction at least. I still hate how insipid and simplistic an idea it is to say “the wall was to keep people IN” that these people treat like sage wisdom

I wish I knew more about east Germany because someone recently dropped the “if it was so good why’d they have to stop people from leaving?” line and I had no reply. I have failed the cause and I will take my place against the wall

Look this is true but AT LEAST it’s how politics is supposed to work, it’s not about choosing the most ethically and morally consistent person, it’s about having a person in the seat who will vote the way their constituents want, no more

Ohhhhh my god I don’t know who this chucklefuck is but IMAGINE SAYING THIS, HOLY SHIT. I really hope for his sake that he figures out how to distance himself from the fact that his father was apparently one of the Phalangist genociders, I want to believe people can escape the sins of their fathers (and boy what a sin)

Hoooooly shit I forgot about the bedbug meltdown

HE GOOGLED “JEWS AS BEDBUGS” what a classic

Yeah I suppose the OP says “opinion” but this here fact has put me in the situation in the picture more than once

Bugs are not just bugs

Bugs are a subcategory of insects and you are wrong almost every time you call any old insect a bug

Exactly, I know it could be worse. I am legitimately impressed at the mental fortitude of those of you with honest to God chud family members.

Feeling pretty mean and gross, I fucking hate arguing with people who love me.

Last two times I have spoken to my well-meaning family about Palestine it has ended with us storming away from each other. We’ll agree about 99 percent of the matter but whenever it comes down to “is hamas popular among Palestinians” things get fucking ugly and it’s freaking me out, they are otherwise perfectly rational people but they need me to agree that Hamas is actually taking advantage of Palestinians as a whole. (For clarity’s sake my position is that no I am not a fan of baby killing or whatever but I’m not letting things get framed as though this is a separate war between the IDF and hamas with the palestinians being caught in between.)

The thing is I know I’m in the right but unlike some of you brave posters I’ve got no experience with how to endure these huge arguments with family without feeling sick and depressed afterwards

He is a surprisingly fun writer to read, not just because he’s a pretty overt commie. He is really good with imagery; he can paint a picture in your head, which is useful for the pretty unique qualities of his kooky sci fi. Perdido Street Station was bursting at the seams with great pulpy ideas that refreshed a very stale genre for me.

(I have heard some unpleasant things about him being emotionally abusive to his ex though. If you don’t like having to separate the art from the artist you might want to keep that in mind.

A recent study about jellyfish found that even species that only have about a thousand neurons are capable of conceptualizing past experiences and adapting their behavior. These are animals that barely have a brain, and even they are entirely aware that they have a life and wish to live it comfortably. I like jellyfish, the little baby ones you can see at an aquarium are cute.

A human being has 100 billion neurons. We are like galaxies compared to that jellyfish. We hold emergent mental processes in our heads that can conceive of things beyond our own lives, beyond our own times, beyond time itself. And there are other humans willing to snuff all of that out by just firing a rocket, just to keep from feeling a little discomfort, to avoid some guilt.

Yeah it’s really awful when they know how to type/speak and yet have no information to share. Like they’ll write multiple paragraphs that boil down to “Hamas has bad vibes”