
If you were an elephant - Thevet
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/19/if-you-were-an-elephant-
======
whack
_" When the temporal glands near their eyes stream in circumstances that, for
us, would be emotional, they’re crying. When a bereaved elephant mother
carries her dead baby round on her tusks, or trails miserably behind the herd
for weeks, her head hanging down, she’s grieving. When other elephants sit for
hours around the body of a dead elephant, they’re mourning. When they cover an
elephant corpse with soil or vegetation, or move elephant bones, they’re being
reverential. When they cover a dead human, or build a protective wall of
sticks around a wounded human, they’re showing an empathic acknowledgment of
our shared destiny that we’d do well to learn...

If you were an elephant... be careful, though. You’re likely to end up dead
because someone wants a couple of your teeth._"

That was beautifully written.

~~~
refurb
_That was beautifully written._

That was ascribing human emotions and behaviors to animals without a lot of
evidence.

It reminds me of this photo[1]. People thought the male was hugging the dying
female in a fit of grief. So touching.

When they asked animal experts, it turns out the male was actually forcing the
female to mate. In human terms we call that rape.

[1] [http://www.couriermail.com.au/technology/science/dying-
kanga...](http://www.couriermail.com.au/technology/science/dying-kangaroos-
sad-goodbye-captured-by-hervey-bay-local/news-
story/1093d41f649c3a54fb509f84e27879f2)

~~~
pilom
Just because animals have rape doesn't meant they don't also have grief.

~~~
chordatum
Animals don't exactly have the same willpower and reputation requirements that
one finds in typically civilized human social order.

If animals have rape, it's a subset of human-on-human rape, and carries fewer
of the nuanced consequences of rape among humans.

Psychological trauma is probably not even in the equation when it comes to
rape among most animals below a certain level of intelligence, particularly
when considering untamed animals.

Due to the minimal psychological aspects, which assuredly are a hallmark of
human-on-human rape, and the bald fact that the very word "rape" itself
carries loaded connotations when considered as a concept by humans, I wonder
if it is appropriate to use the same word for variations of sexual intercourse
and related behavior among wild animals.

------
adamnemecek
Too bad they are getting slaughtered left and right. If the next 10 years are
as bad as the last, they will be extinct in the wild.

You guys should consider donating to the International Anti-Poaching
Foundation[0][1] which fights these poachers. The founder, Damien Mander[2],
is an Australian ex spec-ops sniper who is using his military experience to
train the park rangers since they, unlike the poachers, tend to be poorly
equipped and trained as well as understaffed. There is also the David
Sheldrick Wildlife Trust[3][4] which takes care of elephant and rhino orphans
(most of them are orphans due to poaching). For $50 a year, you can become a
sponsor of a particular animal and they'll send you photos and updates about
how your sponsored animal is doing. You can for example sponsor this little
cutie [5][6].

[0] [http://www.iapf.org/](http://www.iapf.org/)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-
Poaching_Fo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-
Poaching_Foundation)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander)

[3]
[http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/](http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust)

[5]
[http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphan_profile.asp...](http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphan_profile.asp?N=318)

[6]
[https://www.instagram.com/p/BPoboF8j84H](https://www.instagram.com/p/BPoboF8j84H)

You should also check out
[https://reddit.com/r/babyelephantgifs](https://reddit.com/r/babyelephantgifs)
for your daily dose of pachyderm based content.

~~~
13of40
I've got an aunt who insists on sending me $100 every Christmas, and I usually
spend it on those buy-a-goat-for-a-villager things. I guess this year I'm
sponsoring elephants...

~~~
adamnemecek
It's pretty great for kids, it introduces them to the idea of conservation.

------
cjauvin
I really found that read interesting and also quite moving. Elephants are
mysterious and noble animals, and it's very philosophically fulfilling to
ponder about their mind and the deep chasm that separates it from ours. I
sometimes have the idea that our notions of animal rights and the respect they
deserve will soon undergo some rapid and deep evolution, in parts fueled by
science and technology (AI for instance, which will necessarily transform our
view of the mind, and its essence). I've also been quite influenced in that
respect by the recent read of Yuval Harari's books (Sapiens and Homo Deus), in
which he beautifully discusses the mind of animals and its implication for us.

------
subjectsigma
To be honest, stuff like this really annoys me.

I'm incredibly interested in animal minds (I just started reading that book
that was posted a while back, Other Minds, about octopuses and consciousness,
and I'm really liking it.) And of course, I think that poaching should be
illegal and that we should protect and conserve the environment.

But...

> … the world would be a brighter, smellier, noisier place – and you would be
> a better, wiser, kinder person

No, I wouldn't be a 'better ... person', I would be an elephant! Elephants
have not created great works of art, literature, architecture, and poetry.
Elephants have no written language, cannot build complex machines, and have
not traveled to other worlds, or even explored their own. People have done
incredible things with their bodies and minds in a way that animals simply
cannot, period. This is (arguably) all a consequence of evolution being a
_competition_ , and humans being predators. People _like_ to fight and win, to
be better than something else. And while it would be great if human nature was
just competitive enough to produce results, but not make humans physically
violent, that would be fantastic! But I don't think evolution can exactly
fine-tune something like that.

This happens every time that animal consciousness is discussed: somebody tries
to claim that the animals in question have a completely different way of life
than humans, and that their way of life is 'better', usually because they are
peaceful, and that you are arrogant and ignorant if you don't agree. I think
that's horseshit.

This would be almost tolerable if it didn't have the subtle feminist jabs
hidden in there with the smug moral superiority - "As a boy, your function
would be to inseminate, and that's all. Government would be the business of
the females." As if being a walking pair of testes was somehow more noble than
fighting, struggling, learning, winning, like human boys do. Stop all those
pesky masculine behaviors, you "infantile phallocentric [nihilist]." Just be
good and dumb and stay where you are.

~~~
scalio
Have you created great works of art, literature, architecture and poetry or
built complex machines? That's precisely the kind of arrogance the author is
arguing against. Yes, as a species we create art and complex machinery, and we
write. How exactly does that make us better than every other life form on
Earth? What does 'better' even mean? How is an elephant supposed to hold a
pen? Elephants can be very agile with their trunk, but that's just one member.
We've got ten of them. We can physically do more nifty stuff.

Who are we to deem an elephant's mind inferior to our own? Its brain is three
times as massive as ours! Perhaps elephants have long solved questions we
aren't even considering, handing down knowledge from generation to generation.
Maybe their memory is more reliable than ours and preserves knowledge
perfectly. How can we know?

This human arrogance seems to stem from the fact that communication with other
beings is difficult at best. We have no practical way into their minds, and
they don't write, so they can't show us what they're pondering all day. That
does not mean they sleep, eat and fuck waiting for the coffin like the rest of
us. Make no mistake, humans are more physically sophisticated, but mentally?
Bar the rare individuals that advance our civilization, we're a bunch of
wildly destructive animals held together by a set of rules we can't actually
agree on. We're the only species that destroys environment and life just for
the heck of it.

I like humanity a lot. It has a great ability to transform its environment,
and writing things down certainly helps in enabling its intellectual progress.
As you rightly point out, we've only come this far through competition, but I
think we have reached a point in our technological development that enables us
to shed that character and refocus. We should turn inwards, because the
outside is reaching the limits of what it can give us. Our minds are something
we have no grasp of, and provide those who look with endless wonder and
discovery. If we want to be truly more advanced than any other life form on
this planet, we have to get our shit together regarding the mind, otherwise
it's all for nothing (i.e. will physically be blown to pieces sooner or
later).

~~~
cmdrfred
I'm sorry. It is preposterous to claim an elephant has greater level of
intelligence than a human being. Cooperative behaviors require little
individual intelligence (look at ants or bees). It is competitive and
predatory behaviors that require cunning and sophistication. We are more
intelligent because we have been constantly doing battle with the apex
predator on this planet since the dawn of our existence. Conflict is what has
shaped us into what we are today. Human technology and ingenuity does not
exist despite our tendency toward violence but because of it.

I for one am filled with extreme pride when I look at the works of my human
ancestors. We descended from the trees and will soon travel those distant
points of light that filled us with wonder so long ago. Billions of us have
died in that effort, your comment betrays their noble contribution.

Elephants are great. We should endeavor to protect them and show them
kindness, but the reason we are able to do so is because we are vastly
superior to them.

~~~
scalio
You're right, we've come this far because intelligence is a competitive
advantage. However, we do not fully understand the mechanisms of evolution,
and I thus find it hard to categorically deny all other beings' ability to
think extensively. Their intelligence probably wouldn't be competitive ("how
do I get there before that guy"), but maybe there are other kinds of
intelligence. Kindness and compassion is not a human invention, and may well
be an evolutionary advantage under some circumstances (grouping is needed for
survival, and the group survives better by sharing), leading to intelligence
based on kindness and not focusing on any single individual.

------
bergoid
The writer ruined it for me at the end of the article by casually arguing for
the existence of telepathy with a couple of vague anecdotes.

~~~
awfgylbcxhrey
The article it links to higher up (the part about the tribe knowing what the
hunters killed from 50 miles away) is a fascinating read about telepathy that
vacillates between vaguely scientific analysis and outright fantasy. I enjoyed
it from a "well, that's a fun perspective to view the world from" standpoint.

~~~
pavel_lishin
The specific Kalahari example in the linked article makes a claim without
presenting any evidence; I was bummed, because I was really curious about
their methodology. (Turns out there isn't any; it's just a 'synthesized'
personal account of one author.)

Elephant "ESP" can be explained by infra-sound, however:
[http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp/elephant/cyclotis/language/...](http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp/elephant/cyclotis/language/infrasound.html)

------
NoGravitas
In the grand thing of things, we're not _that_ distantly related to elephants,
so it's not _that_ surprising we can relate to each others' minds, and imagine
what it would be to be an elephant.

I'm trying to imagine some harder ones; animals that we can tell are highly
intelligent but are more distantly related. If you were a crow. If you were an
octopus.

------
xutopia
This is a worthwhile long read. If you're done reading it consider for a
moment how they feel their environment quite differently than we do. Their
eyes aren't their most important sense. Their trunks is how they sense most
things.

Consider how our own bodies are capable of sensing so much from our
surroundings with touch alone and how little we make use of it.

~~~
evincarofautumn
Do people generally consider sight to be our most important sense? I certainly
don’t—but I have synesthesia, so maybe I have to rely on more senses to get a
clear picture of things. For example, I might fill up a glass by sound,
identify one of my shirts by feel, or recognise a person by smell. I bet
neurotypical people do this too, but if asked, they would _attribute_ it
mainly to sight.

~~~
kbutler
View sight as most important? yes - it's the window ( _ahem_ ) to the world,
including highest bandwidth information delivery.

Fill up a glass by sound? yes, but except in rare cases, it's supplemental

Identify shirt by feel? Only if I didn't turn on the light - Yes, I can
recognize the shirt I'm wearing by feel, or can tell what shirt I've grabbed
out of the laundry basket while watching TV, but I definitely choose the shirt
to wear by sight.

Recognize a person by smell? Almost always see them first.

~~~
evincarofautumn
That’s interesting, thanks. I guess I don’t bother to turn on a light if I
don’t intend to spend much time in a room, like if I’m just getting a glass of
water, or grabbing something whose location I know. (And I’m actually pretty
bad at looking for something with my eyes if I forget where it is.)

> Recognize a person by smell? Almost always see them first.

Haha, of course. I was thinking more along the lines of “Somebody left a
sweatshirt at my apartment after the party—whose is it?”

------
stcredzero
_A nearby human would throb like a bodhran as subsonic waves bounced around
her chest._

If only that were more typical. What I see in the western parts of the US are
lots of beginner players who are afraid to tune their strident, high pitched,
pingy drums. (Also some good players.)

------
davidcollantes
What a lovely piece! It would be interesting to read a series, each with a
different animal.

~~~
kej
You'd probably enjoy the author's book Being a Beast[1], then:

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Being-Beast-Charles-Foster-
ebook/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Being-Beast-Charles-Foster-
ebook/dp/B0158PV7VM)

