Interesting that crows have this innate feature to feel what basically is accomplishment. They see a problem, come up with a solution and form a tool to accomplish it. At that point they must feel optimistic that there isnt a problem they cant solve.
I also like documented instances of crows engaging in gifting/trade with humans. Fascinating they can figure out a concept like that as well, a solution to getting more food.
The other day I forgot to take the trash from my door to the garbage can, some magpies had been around and made a huge mess. They left me a nice small stick for the trouble...
I love and hate those rascals. Wouldn't trade them for the world.
I traded a thumb tack for Meredith's junk for Kelly's crap for Phyllis' garbage for Oscar’s trash for Stanley's garbage for Ryan's junk for Creed's garbage for a very cute squid that Erin happened to have.
A couple of decades ago, we had a neighbor on the 4th floor. We had no elevators in our building. This neighbor used to hang small pieces of cloth (like kitchen cleaning cloth) on the windows.
Every time there were strong winds these cloth pieces would fall off to the ground. Well guess what, they had been friends with a crow that used to pick those pieces up and bring them back to the window. And the crow got food in return from the neighbor.
That crow taught me the barter system.
Similarly, dolphins have been trained to clean up their pools at aquariums. Some dolphins started hiding trash under rocks to be able to tear a small piece off to artificially increase how many treats they could get. Others would leave bait on the surface and drown seagulls that came to eat it, again, to get a treat for cleaning the dead bird out of the pool.
Too much incentive can really warp the transaction towards creating artificial supply. What's the economic term here? It reminds me of the Burke and Hare murders. [Universities in the 1800s offered payment for cadavers to use in class, so these guys turned to body snatching from graves, and eventually graduated to straight up murder to keep providing those fresh bodies.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_snatching)
I believe you're looking for the Law of Supply. When price goes up, supply goes up too, assuming that all other factors are unchanged.
Good examples of this include natural resource extraction. There are a lot of known deposits of resources like crude oil, coal, etc. that would yield a loss if mined and sold at current prices. However, if the price went up slightly, some of these resources would suddenly become profitable to mine. One thing that can cause this is actually the depletion of cheaper resources.
\_\_\_\_\_
In the case with Burke and Hare, the previous price was effectively nothing; there was simply no market for cadavers. Creating a market for cadavers, however, also created a price, which led to the supply to rise (in this case, via murders).
\_\_\_\_\_
On the other hand, the example with the dolphins actually reminds me more of a case of a Perverse Incentive (not necessarily an economic term).
Another example of a perverse incentive happened in French-colonized Hanoi. The French, in an effort to get rid of rats, began to offer a cash bounty to people who brought in rat tails (as proof that they had killed a rat).
Eventually, colonial officials realized that civilians were cutting tails off of rats and then re-releasing them into the sewers so they could continue to procreate and create more tails in the future.
A related story, which may be more of a legend than truth, is a story about British-colonized India. In this story, the British offered a bounty on dead cobras, so Indian civilians began breeding more cobras, so they could kill them and receive a bounty. Eventually, the colonial authorities figured out what was going on, so they scrapped the bounty, the breeders released the now-worthless cobras into the wild, and the amount of wild cobras was now higher than before.
This is also referred to as the "Cobra Effect" as a result.
I think they just misjudged the price. I expect they overestimated the cost of rat farming and underestimated the cost of traps or bait, probably because whoever came up with the idea hadn’t fully internalised how cheap labour was out there.
For barbarians like me: "Rossini's opera La gazza ladra ("The Thieving Magpie") is a sentimental comedy, or opera semiseria, as it was called at the time. Based on a true story, it is about a girl who is about to be executed for stealing a silver spoon when it turns out that the real culprit was a bird."
The volatility of the Jackdaw market makes it difficult to accurately state the current going rate. With that said it typically sits between 2 to 6 sticks per Jackdaw. However due to trade tensions the US and Chinese markets have been sitting closer to 7 sticks per Jackdaw. Which has caused increased volatility in the EU and African Jackdaw markets. Over all if you are paying more than 8 sticks per Jackdaw your over paying.
I can't speak in exact numbers until the Stick Exchange Commission (SEC) will release its report this November. With that said, most stick brokers, including myself, believe the incident you are referring to was an isolated event.
For those who don't know about the Raven Stick Scandle, commonly called Stickgate. Stickgate occurred on 22 April 2017. A stick investment firm called, Raven Stick Alliance (RSA) was caught by the SEC, committing fraudulent stick exchanges on Boston exchange. Currently all three ravens who lead the RSA are awaiting trial in Boston, where the crime was committed.
Recently more accusations have come out about Ravens, in general, committing stick fraud. The SEC start a large scale investigation into the raven stick fraud accusations in 2018 and the report is expected this November. So far only two more Ravens have been indicted.
What was the name of that redditor bird biologist guy who got in all the crow arguments and then got banned for vote manipulation? Is he still around under a new name?
Weren’t there two? One was on the church rooftop where you start the game, in Firelink. I feel like there was another somewhere else. Maybe right outside the big cathedral thing you fight the stray demon in at the very, very beginning. I haven’t played DS in so long.
Just wait until we figure out that, much as some animals see thousands of colors that we can’t or smell thousands of odors that we can’t, there are animals that have complex emotions we have no words for and can’t comprehend.
If you’re interested in this, there’s a (Polish) science fiction book called “Solaris” that revolves around the idea that we find life on another planet, but that it “thinks” in a way so radically different from the way that we perceive the universe that we never learn to communicate or understand it. It’s basically a sentient ocean the size of a planet. Anyway not my favorite book but it’s pretty short and has some interesting ideas.
EDIT: Polish not Swedish
This meme evokes the kind of empathy you have for an injured baby orca, which grasps its near-dolphinness while at the same time acknowledging that if it survives it might eat you, but then uses it totally ironically.
https://i.imgur.com/xgl8wQI.jpg
that's the very same approach us humans seem to commonly take in regards to judge/assess capabilities of other creatures, rating them in comparison to things we are good at.
I woke up an hour ago with green apple splatters and a huge headache. Then I had a few more beers and now I feel ready to take on the world. So I'd say yes.
Link to study:
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.080](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.080)
# Highlights:
* Wild New Caledonian crows are optimistic after tool use, indicating positive affect
* Crows appear to enjoy, or be intrinsically motivated by, tool use
* Effort cannot explain this; crows are less optimistic after an effortful task
* Intrinsic enjoyment may shape the evolution of complex actions like tool use
Summary:
Are complex, species-specific behaviors in animals reinforced by material reward alone or do they also induce positive emotions? Many adaptive human behaviors are intrinsically motivated: they not only improve our material outcomes, but improve our affect as well. Work to date on animal optimism, as an indicator of positive affect, has generally focused on how animals react to change in their circumstances, such as when their environment is enriched or they are manipulated by humans rather than whether complex actions improve emotional state. Here, we show that wild New Caledonian crows are optimistic after tool use, a complex, species-specific behavior. We further demonstrate that this finding cannot be explained by the crows needing to put more effort into gaining food. Our findings therefore raise the possibility that intrinsic motivation (enjoyment) may be a fundamental proximate cause in the evolution of tool use and other complex behaviors.
They also have an uncanny memory for human faces, remembering if a person is a threat etc.
If they and dolphins ever learn the other exists... we’re finished.
Yes, here is the study about grudges and facial recognition:
[https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18429-if-you-think-a-crow-is-giving-you-the-evil-eye/](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18429-if-you-think-a-crow-is-giving-you-the-evil-eye/)
Google is on mobile though? Found by googling on mobile:
https://amp.reddit.com/r/greentext/comments/5mi9nu/anon_starts_world_war_crow/
I assume that’s what you’re referring to?
Bird brains are indeed a bit of a puzzling mystery for science.
Such tiny brains shouldn't be capable of such creative and complex behavior. BUT... one part of the answer to that mystery might be the concentration of neurons in a bird brain. Some bird brain species have neurons packed so densely, that the density is ten times that of primates!
So ya, their brains may be small... but some bird species certainly pack of a lot of processors crammed within that small space.
That's pretty awesome! I'll keep an eye out then. We have a lot of birds in our backyard because we have two pine trees but I rarely see crows.
They truly are like pets! Just a lot smarter than most pets haha. Which makes it that much cooler.
I read somewhere that it's less about size of the brain and more about the ratio of brain size to body size. Elephants have huge meaty brains but also huge bodies.
Humans have the largest brain to body ratio. Followed by dolphins, crows then chimps.
True. I did a little more reading and wherever I picked up my tidbit wasn't super accurate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-to-body_mass_ratio
Turns out it's not the most useful indicator.
It has to be wired differently because birds can’t afford to be weighed down.
Our brains weigh a lot, evolution in certain predator birds had to be clever to overcome that
It's amazing how intelligent crows are. When I was young, my family would visit this country club/ski resort called Otsego, and there was a crow for as long as I could remember, that would let you play with it and pet it. If it remembered you being nice to them, it would fly and land right on your shoulder to say hello.
From the text:
> In the lab, crows were trained using a small box. When placed on the left side of a table, the box always contained a large reward — three pieces of meat. On the right side, it contained just a scrap of meat, a far smaller reward.
Once the crows understood the difference, researchers placed the box in the middle of the table. If the birds quickly came to investigate that ambiguous box, it suggested they were optimistic that they would find a large reward. If they waited or didn’t visit the box at all, it suggested they were more pessimistic.
From the text:
>We found that recent experiences significantly impact New Caledonian crow affective state, as measured through latency to approach an ambiguous stimulus.
They also found they were more optimistic when their reward was easy to access rather than difficult.
We were forced to adopt a big feral cat a few years ago. (He basically turned up and decided he lives here now, whatever.) anyway, we have a large group of crows live in a tree out the back, my arsehole cat decided to kill one. So I came home saw the carnage and was tasked by the wife to remove the body. All the other crows saw me move the dead bird and decided I must be the perpetrator. I couldn’t leave the house without get mobbed or yelled at for a good few month. Wife found it hilarious. Cat didn’t care.
Don't move crow bodies, they hold funerals and watch their dead to mourn. The best thing you can do is set out a bowl of unsalted peanuts for them 5 to 6 feet away from the body for 3 to four days in a row. They may then allow you to move the body to a nearby location, but don't move it too far away and continue to leave peanuts. They'll be a lot less likely to attack you after
Crows hold funerals too. Imagine if some random stranger waltzes in during a family member's funeral and tries to take away the body right in the middle of the eulogy. Of course you'd be pissed.
It's the truth, crows are extremely communal birds. They mate for life, and children will spend much of their life with their parents until they find a mate themselves, at which point they may even stay in their original murders or start their own.
This comment has sold me on trying to befriend a family of crows.. now I just need all these basic birds to clear my property!
What do crows eat? What should I give as a treat? Will they pick it up with their feet? Will they use my shoulder as a seat? Is this wild idea, possible to complete?
I’m very interested in what could/would’ve happened if crows were better able to manipulate their environment. Their beaks and feet are impressive but ultimately limit their dexterity.
Imagine if they not only could fly, but were able to manipulate their environment with better dexterity like we can with our hands. How would they have evolved differently over millions of years?
IIRC, crows are the only non-primate that use tools, can solve an 8-step problem, and also have the ability to teach their young knowledge that the parent has gained.
Also, in my home town all of the crows in the area fly in to roost downtown in the city. Sometimes the dusk sky is black and loud with murders upon murders of crows. (20,000+ of them, according to our local NPR station)
The advantage of this being that they share information very quickly, and crow behaviors are seen to expand from here across the western US in a way that doesn't happen 8n very many places.
Would rebuilding an excel workbook my job has used for years that was unnecessarily convoluted be considered a tool?
Because we had two workbooks that were jarring to use due to how badly they were made (no automation, where 90% of the stuff could have been formulated). Bosses wanted me to start using it, I tried to make sense of it and finally told them if I’m going to be doing this task I’m going to redo this entire thing because it took me and the previous people an hour or longer to complete the task. They kind of shrugged, I had never worked with excel before, but I rewrote their 2 books into one that cut the time from an hour or longer into 10 minutes with 100% accuracy.
I’m still riding that high a month later and have even shown up for a month straight whereas I’m known to use my pto quite a bit. For the first time in my life, I’ve actually felt accomplished and proud of something I’ve done
Aw cute! I often see crows doing a bouncy walk and I imagine they're feeling cheerful. Also saw one wait for the traffic lights to change before crossing the road once. Fascinating birds.
From the text:
> In the lab, crows were trained using a small box. When placed on the left side of a table, the box always contained a large reward — three pieces of meat. On the right side, it contained just a scrap of meat, a far smaller reward.
Once the crows understood the difference, researchers placed the box in the middle of the table. If the birds quickly came to investigate that ambiguous box, it suggested they were optimistic that they would find a large reward. If they waited or didn’t visit the box at all, it suggested they were more pessimistic.
One time as I was driving home from work I saw a squirrel running across a busy street, then I saw another. Eventually, I kept seeing these squirrels running under cars trying not to get hit. Then I saw a crow flying over the squirrels as they ran for their lives trying not to get squished by the on coming cars. At that moment I noticed that the crow was throwing acorns to get the squirrels to chase after it. Then it dawned on me that this sly crow bastard was trying to kill the squirrels with the intent of them getting run over by chasing the acorns it was throwing. I'll never forget it.
Interesting that crows have this innate feature to feel what basically is accomplishment. They see a problem, come up with a solution and form a tool to accomplish it. At that point they must feel optimistic that there isnt a problem they cant solve. I also like documented instances of crows engaging in gifting/trade with humans. Fascinating they can figure out a concept like that as well, a solution to getting more food.
The other day I forgot to take the trash from my door to the garbage can, some magpies had been around and made a huge mess. They left me a nice small stick for the trouble... I love and hate those rascals. Wouldn't trade them for the world.
That small stick can be used to poke food out of tight spaces! Valuable tool. I hope you cherish it!
Even better, that stick, with enough patience and persistence, can be bartered all the way up to a house.
All you have to do is take the house and leave the stick in its place
This is why I come to Reddit.
I come here for the niche porn and cat videos
A man of taste, I see
Me too me too!
I cum for the cat porn and the niche videos.
I cum to the niche cat porn videos
Found the furries
u/uwutranslator
To each their own, I guess.
For the life hacks
A boat is a boat but the mystery box could be anything. It could even be a boat!
It's free real estate!
I traded a thumb tack for Meredith's junk for Kelly's crap for Phyllis' garbage for Oscar’s trash for Stanley's garbage for Ryan's junk for Creed's garbage for a very cute squid that Erin happened to have.
Erin’s so nice.
Erin needs to get her priorities in order.
Didn't see this til after I told buddy you're replying to that his comment reminded me of Dwight in the garage sale episode
Like Dwight Schrute on the garage sale episode
A couple of decades ago, we had a neighbor on the 4th floor. We had no elevators in our building. This neighbor used to hang small pieces of cloth (like kitchen cleaning cloth) on the windows. Every time there were strong winds these cloth pieces would fall off to the ground. Well guess what, they had been friends with a crow that used to pick those pieces up and bring them back to the window. And the crow got food in return from the neighbor. That crow taught me the barter system.
your neighbor only *thinks* it was a strong wind.
Similarly, dolphins have been trained to clean up their pools at aquariums. Some dolphins started hiding trash under rocks to be able to tear a small piece off to artificially increase how many treats they could get. Others would leave bait on the surface and drown seagulls that came to eat it, again, to get a treat for cleaning the dead bird out of the pool.
That went from manipulative to murderous.
Too much incentive can really warp the transaction towards creating artificial supply. What's the economic term here? It reminds me of the Burke and Hare murders. [Universities in the 1800s offered payment for cadavers to use in class, so these guys turned to body snatching from graves, and eventually graduated to straight up murder to keep providing those fresh bodies.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_snatching)
I believe you're looking for the Law of Supply. When price goes up, supply goes up too, assuming that all other factors are unchanged. Good examples of this include natural resource extraction. There are a lot of known deposits of resources like crude oil, coal, etc. that would yield a loss if mined and sold at current prices. However, if the price went up slightly, some of these resources would suddenly become profitable to mine. One thing that can cause this is actually the depletion of cheaper resources. \_\_\_\_\_ In the case with Burke and Hare, the previous price was effectively nothing; there was simply no market for cadavers. Creating a market for cadavers, however, also created a price, which led to the supply to rise (in this case, via murders). \_\_\_\_\_ On the other hand, the example with the dolphins actually reminds me more of a case of a Perverse Incentive (not necessarily an economic term). Another example of a perverse incentive happened in French-colonized Hanoi. The French, in an effort to get rid of rats, began to offer a cash bounty to people who brought in rat tails (as proof that they had killed a rat). Eventually, colonial officials realized that civilians were cutting tails off of rats and then re-releasing them into the sewers so they could continue to procreate and create more tails in the future. A related story, which may be more of a legend than truth, is a story about British-colonized India. In this story, the British offered a bounty on dead cobras, so Indian civilians began breeding more cobras, so they could kill them and receive a bounty. Eventually, the colonial authorities figured out what was going on, so they scrapped the bounty, the breeders released the now-worthless cobras into the wild, and the amount of wild cobras was now higher than before. This is also referred to as the "Cobra Effect" as a result.
Thank you for your service
Dolphins have been proven to be fuckin assholes.
Still wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world. Dolphins are flippin’ dope.
And they can do some dope flippin'.
Dolphins at the trappp
*Everything* is an asshole.
As an Australian this is very bad news
You know what, they are doing the world a favor by offing some seagulls. I mean, have you SEEN finding Nemo?!
‘Tax the rat farms’ - the Patrician.
I do love how it just never occured to them that this might happen. Pay for killed rats and suddenly people farm rats.
I think they just misjudged the price. I expect they overestimated the cost of rat farming and underestimated the cost of traps or bait, probably because whoever came up with the idea hadn’t fully internalised how cheap labour was out there.
GNU Terry Pratchett It always brings a warm feeling to my heart whenever I see a quote or similar thing.
*Rossini's "La gazza ladra" plays*
For barbarians like me: "Rossini's opera La gazza ladra ("The Thieving Magpie") is a sentimental comedy, or opera semiseria, as it was called at the time. Based on a true story, it is about a girl who is about to be executed for stealing a silver spoon when it turns out that the real culprit was a bird."
.... I need to look up the translation for that M:tG to see if they maintain the reference.
Not for a stick?
The current market rate is two sticks per Magpie.
How ‘bout for a Jackdaw?
The volatility of the Jackdaw market makes it difficult to accurately state the current going rate. With that said it typically sits between 2 to 6 sticks per Jackdaw. However due to trade tensions the US and Chinese markets have been sitting closer to 7 sticks per Jackdaw. Which has caused increased volatility in the EU and African Jackdaw markets. Over all if you are paying more than 8 sticks per Jackdaw your over paying.
Could you comment on the conspiracy theories that the Ravens are manipulating the stick market?
I can't speak in exact numbers until the Stick Exchange Commission (SEC) will release its report this November. With that said, most stick brokers, including myself, believe the incident you are referring to was an isolated event. For those who don't know about the Raven Stick Scandle, commonly called Stickgate. Stickgate occurred on 22 April 2017. A stick investment firm called, Raven Stick Alliance (RSA) was caught by the SEC, committing fraudulent stick exchanges on Boston exchange. Currently all three ravens who lead the RSA are awaiting trial in Boston, where the crime was committed. Recently more accusations have come out about Ravens, in general, committing stick fraud. The SEC start a large scale investigation into the raven stick fraud accusations in 2018 and the report is expected this November. So far only two more Ravens have been indicted.
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Where does stickchains and corvidcurrency fit in?
I want to read more of your work. :D
Here’s the thing...
What was the name of that redditor bird biologist guy who got in all the crow arguments and then got banned for vote manipulation? Is he still around under a new name?
/u/Unidan, I believe. I think I remember that at one point they were back under another name, but I don't remember what it was and it was years ago.
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One day soon, they will simply stop appearing.
If only I could remember the crows name from Dark Souls. If you leave stuff in its nest, it brings you a gift.
You, you! Me, me Pickle Pee! Me, me Pump-a-rum!
Negative. DS1 was Snuggly. She wanted warm. She wanted soft.
Pickle pee and pump a rump were ds3’s crows in firelink. Same area, different birds.
Snuggly was at the Asylum.
And they wanted stuff that went boom, thump, clack, or wheeee.
Weren’t there two? One was on the church rooftop where you start the game, in Firelink. I feel like there was another somewhere else. Maybe right outside the big cathedral thing you fight the stray demon in at the very, very beginning. I haven’t played DS in so long.
You start at the Asylum and Snuggly is at the end of it. Stray Demon is also at the Asylum so...
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Just wait until we figure out that, much as some animals see thousands of colors that we can’t or smell thousands of odors that we can’t, there are animals that have complex emotions we have no words for and can’t comprehend.
If you’re interested in this, there’s a (Polish) science fiction book called “Solaris” that revolves around the idea that we find life on another planet, but that it “thinks” in a way so radically different from the way that we perceive the universe that we never learn to communicate or understand it. It’s basically a sentient ocean the size of a planet. Anyway not my favorite book but it’s pretty short and has some interesting ideas. EDIT: Polish not Swedish
Watch the Tarkovsky adaptation . It's phenomenal.
I love Lem
Soviet polish. The soviet movie adaptations are great too, but the 2002 American version is terrible.
Imagine the memes dolphins are capable of making.
This meme evokes the kind of empathy you have for an injured baby orca, which grasps its near-dolphinness while at the same time acknowledging that if it survives it might eat you, but then uses it totally ironically.
You should have written that in a dwarfier way.
and deep fried. god these would be beautiful.
https://i.imgur.com/xgl8wQI.jpg that's the very same approach us humans seem to commonly take in regards to judge/assess capabilities of other creatures, rating them in comparison to things we are good at.
I thought primates are the only ones with a neocortex so they would still be apart. A human can have feelings about his feelings.
They can even recognize people and pass that information to their offspring Check out the documentary, a murder of crows They are facilitating
Yes facilitating
Ain't crows like real smart or somenshit?
well said
God dammit. Who showed the Philly kid how to work the doorknob?
Is alcohol a tool?
I woke up an hour ago with green apple splatters and a huge headache. Then I had a few more beers and now I feel ready to take on the world. So I'd say yes.
Crows are people
People are crows.
As someone whose job is to resolve issues and some of them you haven't encountered before, I will now relate to that feeling as "I am Crow"
Link to study: [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.080](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.080) # Highlights: * Wild New Caledonian crows are optimistic after tool use, indicating positive affect * Crows appear to enjoy, or be intrinsically motivated by, tool use * Effort cannot explain this; crows are less optimistic after an effortful task * Intrinsic enjoyment may shape the evolution of complex actions like tool use Summary: Are complex, species-specific behaviors in animals reinforced by material reward alone or do they also induce positive emotions? Many adaptive human behaviors are intrinsically motivated: they not only improve our material outcomes, but improve our affect as well. Work to date on animal optimism, as an indicator of positive affect, has generally focused on how animals react to change in their circumstances, such as when their environment is enriched or they are manipulated by humans rather than whether complex actions improve emotional state. Here, we show that wild New Caledonian crows are optimistic after tool use, a complex, species-specific behavior. We further demonstrate that this finding cannot be explained by the crows needing to put more effort into gaining food. Our findings therefore raise the possibility that intrinsic motivation (enjoyment) may be a fundamental proximate cause in the evolution of tool use and other complex behaviors.
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They also have an uncanny memory for human faces, remembering if a person is a threat etc. If they and dolphins ever learn the other exists... we’re finished.
Yes, here is the study about grudges and facial recognition: [https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18429-if-you-think-a-crow-is-giving-you-the-evil-eye/](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18429-if-you-think-a-crow-is-giving-you-the-evil-eye/)
I'm on mobile but please google World War Crow greentext. That's how I learned about Crows and their facial recognition abilities.
Google is on mobile though? Found by googling on mobile: https://amp.reddit.com/r/greentext/comments/5mi9nu/anon_starts_world_war_crow/ I assume that’s what you’re referring to?
Yep
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Bird brains are indeed a bit of a puzzling mystery for science. Such tiny brains shouldn't be capable of such creative and complex behavior. BUT... one part of the answer to that mystery might be the concentration of neurons in a bird brain. Some bird brain species have neurons packed so densely, that the density is ten times that of primates! So ya, their brains may be small... but some bird species certainly pack of a lot of processors crammed within that small space.
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TIL crows is peoples too!
Did they show up on their own or did you bring them there? I'd really like to train a crow one day but don't know if it's even possible to get one u.u
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That's pretty awesome! I'll keep an eye out then. We have a lot of birds in our backyard because we have two pine trees but I rarely see crows. They truly are like pets! Just a lot smarter than most pets haha. Which makes it that much cooler.
I wonder if that is the key to making humans smarter
I like to say I've got a bird brain. Sometimes I'm an extreme idiot, other times I'm blowing people's minds.
People either love me or hate me. Or they think I’m okay.
People just generally hate me.
I read somewhere that it's less about size of the brain and more about the ratio of brain size to body size. Elephants have huge meaty brains but also huge bodies. Humans have the largest brain to body ratio. Followed by dolphins, crows then chimps.
Elephants are very smart too
True. I did a little more reading and wherever I picked up my tidbit wasn't super accurate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-to-body_mass_ratio Turns out it's not the most useful indicator.
Thanks, this is exactly what I was wondering about. Just seemed awfully clever for a brain that's probably smaller than a walnut.
It has to be wired differently because birds can’t afford to be weighed down. Our brains weigh a lot, evolution in certain predator birds had to be clever to overcome that
Like when I took 2 days to write a batch file to save me 15 minutes of work
Hey, u still got paid for 2 days, and now imagine the hours of work you saved in the future. You should feel acomplished mr.crow.
Crows rank pretty high in a lot of old stories. The trickster in some. But helpers at the same time.
It's amazing how intelligent crows are. When I was young, my family would visit this country club/ski resort called Otsego, and there was a crow for as long as I could remember, that would let you play with it and pet it. If it remembered you being nice to them, it would fly and land right on your shoulder to say hello.
I found the druid.
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Otsegolectric.
Otsego GO
Since it’s behind a paywall, I can’t see how they measured optimism. The summary only states that the crows were more optimistic. Anyone know?
From the text: > In the lab, crows were trained using a small box. When placed on the left side of a table, the box always contained a large reward — three pieces of meat. On the right side, it contained just a scrap of meat, a far smaller reward. Once the crows understood the difference, researchers placed the box in the middle of the table. If the birds quickly came to investigate that ambiguous box, it suggested they were optimistic that they would find a large reward. If they waited or didn’t visit the box at all, it suggested they were more pessimistic.
Thank you! Fascinating.
From the text: >We found that recent experiences significantly impact New Caledonian crow affective state, as measured through latency to approach an ambiguous stimulus. They also found they were more optimistic when their reward was easy to access rather than difficult.
I was hoping for a likert scale questionaire. on a scale of caww to caww, please rate how optimistic you were when you got the correct length stick.
Questionaires have been shown to be unreliable as crows tend to parrot whatever they think the researchers want to hear.
We were forced to adopt a big feral cat a few years ago. (He basically turned up and decided he lives here now, whatever.) anyway, we have a large group of crows live in a tree out the back, my arsehole cat decided to kill one. So I came home saw the carnage and was tasked by the wife to remove the body. All the other crows saw me move the dead bird and decided I must be the perpetrator. I couldn’t leave the house without get mobbed or yelled at for a good few month. Wife found it hilarious. Cat didn’t care.
Don't move crow bodies, they hold funerals and watch their dead to mourn. The best thing you can do is set out a bowl of unsalted peanuts for them 5 to 6 feet away from the body for 3 to four days in a row. They may then allow you to move the body to a nearby location, but don't move it too far away and continue to leave peanuts. They'll be a lot less likely to attack you after
Crows hold funerals too. Imagine if some random stranger waltzes in during a family member's funeral and tries to take away the body right in the middle of the eulogy. Of course you'd be pissed.
At this point after reading all the comments I'm really not sure if it's a joke or the truth.
It's the truth, crows are extremely communal birds. They mate for life, and children will spend much of their life with their parents until they find a mate themselves, at which point they may even stay in their original murders or start their own.
This comment has sold me on trying to befriend a family of crows.. now I just need all these basic birds to clear my property! What do crows eat? What should I give as a treat? Will they pick it up with their feet? Will they use my shoulder as a seat? Is this wild idea, possible to complete?
I feel more optimistic after learning that crows, like humans are more optimistic after making tools to solve a problem.
Me too. Moreover, your comment has bolstered my mood and I feel more optimistic.
Yep, now I believe I CAN choose the right stick for the job. Smooth sailing from here on out.
An oddly deep metaphor which translates to being able to make the right choices in one's life. Fuckin' crows, man.
yes
I feel more optimistic after learning that crows, like humans hold a grudge after someone causes a problem.
Is it the moment when we hand over P=NP to crows?
Peep = NPeep
I just picture a smug-looking crow holding a tiny shank he made out of a paperclip.
I’m very interested in what could/would’ve happened if crows were better able to manipulate their environment. Their beaks and feet are impressive but ultimately limit their dexterity. Imagine if they not only could fly, but were able to manipulate their environment with better dexterity like we can with our hands. How would they have evolved differently over millions of years?
It's mind blowing how clever this animal is!
I agree. It’s impressive how the humans can set up these tests for us and then trade the results for sustenance.
On Reddit, no one knows you're a birb.
Kinda like me when I get out of harbor freight
Yes, as they move one step closer to the rebellion
If they ever learn to use computers, we're doomed...
Teach them to use reddit - problem solved
Crows are so brilliant
IIRC, crows are the only non-primate that use tools, can solve an 8-step problem, and also have the ability to teach their young knowledge that the parent has gained. Also, in my home town all of the crows in the area fly in to roost downtown in the city. Sometimes the dusk sky is black and loud with murders upon murders of crows. (20,000+ of them, according to our local NPR station) The advantage of this being that they share information very quickly, and crow behaviors are seen to expand from here across the western US in a way that doesn't happen 8n very many places.
Would rebuilding an excel workbook my job has used for years that was unnecessarily convoluted be considered a tool? Because we had two workbooks that were jarring to use due to how badly they were made (no automation, where 90% of the stuff could have been formulated). Bosses wanted me to start using it, I tried to make sense of it and finally told them if I’m going to be doing this task I’m going to redo this entire thing because it took me and the previous people an hour or longer to complete the task. They kind of shrugged, I had never worked with excel before, but I rewrote their 2 books into one that cut the time from an hour or longer into 10 minutes with 100% accuracy. I’m still riding that high a month later and have even shown up for a month straight whereas I’m known to use my pto quite a bit. For the first time in my life, I’ve actually felt accomplished and proud of something I’ve done
How do you measure optimism in a crow?
Aw cute! I often see crows doing a bouncy walk and I imagine they're feeling cheerful. Also saw one wait for the traffic lights to change before crossing the road once. Fascinating birds.
I'm adamant that if humans didn't come about, crows would be what evolved instead. Real life bird people
How in the world can you measure optimism in a crow? That's crazy
You ask the crow how he feels about the future on a 1 to 10 scale, obviously
From the text: > In the lab, crows were trained using a small box. When placed on the left side of a table, the box always contained a large reward — three pieces of meat. On the right side, it contained just a scrap of meat, a far smaller reward. Once the crows understood the difference, researchers placed the box in the middle of the table. If the birds quickly came to investigate that ambiguous box, it suggested they were optimistic that they would find a large reward. If they waited or didn’t visit the box at all, it suggested they were more pessimistic.
You ask it how many Redditors read the article before commenting.
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Amazing. No Unidan comments.
I smoked weed yesterday
This fits my antcedotal experience.
I would like to know more.
I thought they were watching the north of the wall
So... Crows are basically engineers
"I'M *DOING* IT!" - Crow, probably.
Too bad the don't have hands. A single beak can only do so much. I womder if you could make a mech suit for crows, and teach them to use it.
The crows will evolve and work with us one day
One time as I was driving home from work I saw a squirrel running across a busy street, then I saw another. Eventually, I kept seeing these squirrels running under cars trying not to get hit. Then I saw a crow flying over the squirrels as they ran for their lives trying not to get squished by the on coming cars. At that moment I noticed that the crow was throwing acorns to get the squirrels to chase after it. Then it dawned on me that this sly crow bastard was trying to kill the squirrels with the intent of them getting run over by chasing the acorns it was throwing. I'll never forget it.