
Juvenile social dynamics reflect adult reproductive strategies in dolphins - hhs
https://today.duke.edu/2020/07/young-dolphins-pick-their-friends-wisely
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dgb23
The article doesn’t explain well why the male mating strategy is so successful
or preferred.

Is male sociability a critical feature to be selected by females?

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pdpi
It does mention it — groups of males will corner a female and force themselves
on her.

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tux1968
I can't fathom how the need for young dolphins to lay the groundwork for what
is essentially a rape-posse, came to be the path to evolutionary success. It
would seem that consensual reproduction would be the norm in any successful
strategy, given the critical need for offspring.

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parsimo2010
There are many species that don’t care about consent. The ones that do have
consent tend to spend a lot of energy growing plumage and doing elaborate
dances to woo the females. It shouldn’t be that hard to understand that some
species evolution would land on rape as a way to save the time and energy
spent during courtship. Just because humans shun rape it doesn’t mean it can’t
work for other species, moral issues aside.

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adamsea
The very concept of consent or rape (as moral and ethical concepts - which is
why the article uses the word “coerce” instead of “rape”, I bet) are difficult
to apply to nonhuman species because they’re not human.

[EDIT: interestingly I think this all boils down to considering if dolphins
have ethics or “dolphin rights” within their own societies. A violation of a
right is logically impossible if the very concept of, or indeed, the right
itself, does not exist.]

I think it would be really interesting to talk about animal ethics and with
very smart mammals like dolphins moral imperatives like consent might be
appropriate in some way but I just don’t know.

But it’s inaccurate, imho, to talk about rape as a reproductive strategy for
animals if we are using that word in the way we use it when we are talking
about ourselves (humans).

Again not to say the concept is irrelevant to animal life but I think we do
both ourselves and animals a disservice if we aren’t careful.

If you are speaking with some knowledge of animal ethics but didn’t share it
my apologies :)

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CMCDragonkai
Your comment seems to imply that there's something fundamentally different
from humans and other animals.

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adamsea
Good point. I don't know, I'd like to learn more! I mean we aren't that
different from other animals, especially our fellow mammals. And we're all
part of nature and life. And it definitely seems like many animals have
varying degrees of what we call consciousness or intelligence (octopus!).

At the same time there is an obvious difference, though perhaps one of degree
and not of kind. The sophistication of our language, social structures,
capacity for abstract thought, and toolmaking abilities. Stuff like that.

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arkanciscan
TIL I would be a very unsuccessful dolphin.

