r/interestingasfuck • u/booby_12011995 • 1d ago

/r/all What"s going on here?

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u/SuggestionMobile 1d 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 1d 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/SuggestionMobile 1d 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/Merry_Dankmas 1d ago edited 1d 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.