
Chimpanzees and monkeys use stone tools - Someone
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150818-chimps-living-in-the-stone-age
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boomzilla
Would it be better for them to get extinct, or to become advanced enough to
understand that there is a much more technologically superior race in the same
planet and that their lives and deaths totally depend on that race?

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tudorw
We depend on bees, how do you feel about that?

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boomzilla
I feel very good: they are tools and the only way they can intentionally harm
us is for all of them to collectively commit suicides.

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vtlynch
and what about all the ways they can unintentionally harm us, since they are
bugs without the mental facility to intentionally harm us? Furthermore, what
does the nature of the intent have to do with the effect... whether they all
commit suicide or are killed by our hand... we are in the same place.

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subliminalzen
_what about all the ways they can unintentionally harm us, since they are bugs
without the mental facility to intentionally harm us?_

I take it you've never been stung by a bee before.

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vtlynch
Not really relevant to the point, but...

While being stung by a bee hurts, I doubt the is deciding to intentionally
harm us. They are instead acting on instinct and defending against what they
consider to be a threat.

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mrinterweb
"chimpanzees have been using stone tools in the rainforests of Ivory Coast for
at least 4300 years." So is this a news title from 2315BC? I would have
expected the article to be written in hieroglyphics. Would have been a nice
touch if "Breaking" or "This just in" were prepended to the article title.

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tudorw
A tear for this, that they are running out of time because we want trainers
and cars and sofas and little plastic things you put in drinks then throw
away, given time they might be our friends, the way we act I'm not sure they
would choose to be :(

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masterleep
Chimps eat other monkeys alive, sometimes even humans, so no particular need
to be sentimental about it.

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tudorw
Alright, fuck em, oh hang on, we bomb the living daylights out of entire
cities, i'm lost in the moral maze

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JoeAltmaier
Have entered the stone age, 4000+ years ago.

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eric_h
By this definition of "Stone Age", sea otters have also entered into the Stone
Age.

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sombremesa
By the number of upvotes this kind of crap gets, HN has also entered into the
stone age.

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tudorw
Thank you and good night :) Sombre indeed!

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ars
This would be much more interesting without the "Stone Age" nonsense.

The hallmark of the stone age is _modifying_ the stone, not _using_ the stone.

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tudorw
I'll concede on this, frankly the least I was expecting was sticks with rocks
bound to the end, the reality turns out to be they worked out that heavier
rocks smash stuff better, it's going to be a few millenia before they can hold
down a decent conversation, let alone pick a good wine to go with fish...

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differentView
That'll never happen unless it's through the aid of human technology, in which
case, it'll really be humans entering a new age of advancing communication and
intelligence of non-human animals than any one species advancing themselves.

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Scriptor
Sensational title. The actual stone age was called such because humans were
actively modifying and creating new stone tools.

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forgetsusername
That process started somewhere.

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krapp
And until it started, it didn't deserve to be called the "Stone Age." Using
rocks to bash things doesn't really count. When they're making flint knives
and skinning their prey and using the hides to keep warm then maybe it's a
story.

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curiousjorge
so this makes me think, what made our species so successful if not our tools
since it seems quite common. Was it the discovery of fire?

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sampo
There are theories, not generally accepted in mainstream biology/anthropology.

One is that our ancestors lived in coastal areas, where seafood made it much
"cheaper" (in the evolutionary sense) to obtain the kind of fatty acids needed
for growing a bigger brain.

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/lives-the-
brain/201001/...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/lives-the-
brain/201001/was-seafood-brain-food-in-human-evolution)

