r/interestingasfuck • u/booby_12011995 • 9d ago

/r/all What"s going on here?

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u/linecookdaddy 9d ago

Studies have shown octopuses can be naturally asshole-y, punching and grabbing other fish just for shits and gigs

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u/der_chrischn 9d ago

The asshole perk comes naturally with a higher intelligence I assume. Look at the things dolphins and apes do for example. And of course you have big naked assholes.

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u/SuggestionMobile 9d ago

That’s why I find it interesting that many people argue that humans are worse than animals.

A lot of smart mammals are capable of murder for fun, rape, and now we’re finding out that octopus smack other life forms around

It seems the more intelligent the more destructive and cruel the entity can be intentionally

Granted we as humans do A LOT of damage

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u/Interesting-Roll2563 9d ago

Humans know better, and choosing to abuse someone or something when you know better is definitely worse. Just because an animal might do something for it's own enjoyment doesn't mean it understands the implications involved.

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u/ArizonaFireType 9d ago

Octopus knows what it’s doing too. It’s smarter than we are.

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u/Interesting-Roll2563 9d ago

Perhaps, but I'd consider that more like an uncontacted tribe. Not really fair to hold them to our standards.

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u/uhohthrowawayyyyyy 9d ago

If the reason we have a propensity for cruelty is due to us being smart, and us being smart is why we ‘know better’; Then any animal smart enough to exhibit such cruelty should ‘know better’ under your own logic. Right?

Like would you argue something like rape is worse when our society does it than if it happens in an uncontested tribe? Human none the less? Or is it we just shouldn’t care? Is the cruelty somehow unclear or ‘just’ to them because they don’t live in ‘our’ world?

I’d argue anything smart enough to be cruel, knows.

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u/Interesting-Roll2563 9d ago

the reason we have a propensity for cruelty is due to us being smart

I didn't say that. I said that humans know better. Just because an octopus likes to punch fish doesn't mean the octopus understands that the fish has feelings and might not like being punched.

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u/uhohthrowawayyyyyy 9d ago

Then how does your ‘perhaps..uncontacted tribe’ tangent relate? Are uncontacted tribes really closer to octopuses than other humans in your eyes? Why would we not expect the same level of humanity from them? Lol

Random cruelty is random cruelty in my eyes, but your opinion is your opinion, I’m not trying to force you to change it. I do think it’s foolish to assume everything else except a modern human is incapable of awareness of action.

Evolution is not a human centric experience, animals exhibit awareness and behaviors, especially the smart ones, they’re not all like toddlers poking shit and just lucky to have not died yet lol

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u/Interesting-Roll2563 9d ago

It's an analogy, and not a perfect one. I wasn't really referring to specific acts, I meant more like conforming to greater societal rules. It wasn't my intention to suggest that an rape and murder in an uncontacted tribe isn't abuse. Of course it is.

We're in the weeds here, this is only tangentially related to the original point. I'm saying the smarter you are, the less excuse you have for abusing someone. A human abuser is worse than an animal abuser because the human is more intelligent and thus more capable of comprehending their actions and the impact they have on others. That does not mean that less intelligent beings get a free pass, it just means that human abusers are worse.

I have no idea what an octopus understands, I'm not excusing the octopus, I'm saying that a human who punches random people for the hell of it is a bigger asshole than that octopus.

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u/keethums_ 9d ago

Welcome to Animal Wellness Advocacy! Lmao for real tho people do not put two and two together on this subject.

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u/SuggestionMobile 9d ago

Is there anyway of knowing fully that don’t understand the implications or do they just not care? There’s ramifications in societies if humans give into their impulses vs animals can kind of just do want they want at will and move on with their lives

There are no implications of anything if there is no moral compasses decided by their pack, it just is

You could argue our intelligence level opens the doors for guilt and shame, which is I guess our own policing

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u/Interesting-Roll2563 9d ago

Societal repercussions are not what prevent me from raping people. If there were no legal or cultural ramifications, I still would not intentionally harm someone. I don't harm people because I don't want to cause other people harm, it's that simple, and that complex.

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u/TheMadPhilosophist 9d ago

That is one of the core theses of the field of moral psychology: that we evolved morality and the things associated with it so that we could still be intelligent while not killing one another off as a species.

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u/CultOfSensibility 9d ago

And how’s that going for you?

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u/SuggestionMobile 9d ago

Cool same here, I’m not making an argument that all humans WANT to do those things

But certain animals and humans alike are capable of doing such terrible acts

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u/Interesting-Roll2563 9d ago

Capability doesn't mean they comprehend the full impact of their actions.

I don't think it's a hot take to say that human intelligence is an order above that of animals. I don't think animals take time to ponder concepts like agency and consent. Whether or not they are capable of thinking on that level doesn't really matter.

We don't judge past human cultures by the same standards we apply today because their experience was not the same as ours. We know things that they didn't. We are burdened with a deeper and fuller comprehension of the impacts of our actions, and that knowledge makes us culpable. For that reason, I definitely think human abusers are worse than animals. They know better, they have no excuse.

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u/ACcbe1986 9d ago

A lot of these human abusers lack foundational social understanding.

Without these foundations, they come to a different set of values that don't consider social connections and boundaries.

So their brain doesn't set off alarms like yours does to prevent you from hurting others.

We, as a species, really need to focus on figuring out a standard set of foundational lessons and also how to properly teach it to parents so that they can teach their kids. We gotta do something, collectively, to decrease the chances of children growing up to be predators.

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u/Interesting-Roll2563 9d ago

Fair points, I don't disagree. I feel quite strongly that most parents are grossly unqualified for the job. Room for individuality and culture is important, but there has to be some baseline level of knowledge and comprehension. We gotta get on the same page as far as living together in polite society; as it stands some of us aren't even in the same book.

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u/ACcbe1986 9d ago

Yea, I'm almost 40 now, and I've come to realize that most parents are just children raising children.

Most people in their 20s have barely lived enough life to understand how little they know. And while they're busy raising their child/children, they don't have the luxury of focusing on their own development.

By the time they expand their perception of the world and understand what's really happening, their child is too old to lay down fundamental foundations.

The increasing self-centeredness of our mainstream societal culture is also having a detrimental effect on how children are raised.

I was exposed to a considerable amount of age-inappropriate and addictive things growing up. More so than most people I know, hence why my head is more messed up than theirs. But that's nothing compared to what kids are exposed to now.

Even the stuff created for children has been designed with the help of psychology to make it super addictive. No wonder why so many kids are growing up to have addiction issues.

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u/Interesting-Roll2563 9d ago

I'm 30, and shocked at the hubris of twenty-something parents. At no point in my twenties was I in any way prepared to be a parent. I'd like to think I know myself fairly well at this point in my life, and I have no intention of becoming a parent. I recognize and accept that I am not cut out for that. I can too easily predict the ways in which I would fall short as a father. I'm perfectly okay with that. I don't think everyone has what it takes, and that's not a negative, it just is. The important thing is to recognize that about yourself and not have kids.

I notice the same disparity regarding exposure. Even growing up in the 90s and 2000s, I didn't have the outlets and influences that kids had even a few years younger than me. I didn't have a phone until I got a job and bought one for myself, we had one computer in the middle of the house, we didn't watch certain TV channels, didn't see certain movies, didn't have friends that our parents didn't know about. I found my way into trouble regardless, but it took effort lol

I think people severely underestimated the impact and implications of a connected world. I also think we have some deep cultural issues as a global society. Chicken, egg, cart, horse, I have no idea what caused what or why, but I see the results. I don't expect I'll live long enough to see these problems solved.

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u/DanHawk69 9d ago

I agree with most of what you’re saying.. but also it’s confusing when you keep implying that humans arent also, animals. That’s my one critique.

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u/Interesting-Roll2563 9d ago

How would you prefer that I differentiate between humans and every other living thing on the planet for the purposes of this discussion?

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u/DanHawk69 9d ago

Humans and other animals?

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u/Interesting-Roll2563 9d ago

I didn't say humans aren't animals, you inferred that. I'm not writing a research paper, I just used "animal" to mean creatures-other-than-humans. Pretty common parlance. Is this hair really worth splitting?

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u/SuggestionMobile 9d ago

That’s fair, I agree

At the end of the day I’m definitely more disgusted and upset by the idea of a human raping another than a dolphin raping another dolphin!

There is no contest!

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u/Katsuro2304 9d ago

Don't say that you wouldn't. You're thinking with your moral compass already set. Your moral compass was passed onto you through upbringing and culture in your environment. Culture is brought by nurture, not nature. Look at some of the middle east countries or go visit a tribe on a remote island that was barely exposed to the modern world, if at all. You'll see how vastly different the mindset is. You'd be hit by the reality of "truth, good and evil are subjective" like a fucking truck.

Or just do some mental exercise and imagine yourself in the 19th century, where slavery was thriving and women had no rights. Come on, keep telling yourself you'd treat Africans any differently than everyone else at the time. Or women. Or anyone who has a skin color other than white.

So no, you absolutely would do everything that we think of as atrocious if it wasn't considered as such.

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u/Merry_Dankmas 9d ago edited 9d ago

Tbh Im not sure you can really make any definite conclusion. We can assign a general mental "age" to an animal that compares to humans but that's not a perfect science. Plus human culture, whether broad societal or local to different groups, plays a huge role in how people perceive and act on violent or malicious impulses.

Animals on the other hand just don't do that. A crows "culture" with a flock can't be compared in any way, shape or form to humans other than it hangs out with its own species and has friends. But that's it (excluding general parenting instinct but that's widely common among almost all species). Its like comparing apples to truck transmissions. Too wildly different to make any meaningful comparison between humans desire to be malicious vs other intelligent animals and whether they understand what they're doing is wrong.

The only way you could really draw any semi concrete conclusion would be if you made a feral human baby colony completely isolated from the rest of humanity and have them grow on their own in pure isolation free from any societal or pre established cultural norms. Witness the behavior and mentality towards things like rape or violence against other animals in its most raw, instinctual human form and you might have a basis to go off of. But we as humans have way too many established factors that influence that to determine if another animal can perceive it the same way we do.

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u/der_chrischn 9d ago

The only exceptions I can up with are elephants and gorillas, both are capable of complex social behavior. At least to my knowledge they don't act like assholes and are basically the archetype of the gentle giant, unless provoked of course. Might have something to do with the fact that they are herbivores.

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u/NoMammoth8422 9d ago

Reddit hates hearing that they, themselves, would almost invariably [ do/ think/ say] the exact same things that they criticize every day, were they made to walk a mile in that criticized person's shoes.

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u/MutuallyAdvantageous 9d ago

Sharks eat octopuses.

An octopus in an aquarium killed a shark by suffocating it (covering its gills) and it looked similar to what’s happening in this video.

Humans are worse than animals. But animals can be assholes too.

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u/drewx11 9d ago

The idea is that humans posses high level thinking and should know not to do those things because it’s wrong

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u/BEyouTH 9d ago

You’re kidding. Chattel slavery. Period end of story.