skylestia

dang i guess whatever data i have left that hasn't been sold by google and microsoft is gonna be sold by whoever makes these guys cuz i think they're cute

it was me using simpler phrasing in part because i couldn't remember the details very well

but i was referencing an experiment where researchers wearing "threatening" and "non-threatening" masks interacted with and marked crows, and other crows in that area who they had not interacted with recognized them later. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347209005806 (however that crows tell stories is, as far as i know, only a popular interpretation, their official conclusion, at least of this experiment, is that crows are capable of long term memory retention and fine-feature discrimination)

and simple observations suggesting prairie dogs may have a very advanced language - which went viral in my online circles with people joking that they gossip about us, which probably just stuck with me because i think it would be very cute

i personally believe that animals most likely do communicate among each other and the complexities of their languages just varies, even if most are not obviously very complex. my personal beliefs are that communication is complicated and can happen through more than verbal/vocal language, animals are clearly capable of feeling complex emotions and pain which is enough for me personally to consider them sentient, and (again this is just my personal belief) i believe it's probably better to treat them as if they are sentient until proven otherwise than the opposite. and just to be upfront and honest with others and myself about my possible biases, i believe in the Buddhist concept of Saṃsāra, and believe that that we're all a part of the same cycle of death and rebirth

edit found some more info:

prairie dogs: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/prairie-dogs-language-decoded-by-scientists-1.1322230

Researchers noticed that the animals made slightly different calls when different individuals of the same species went by. ... so they conducted experiments where they paraded dogs of different colours and sizes and various humans wearing different clothes past the colony. They recorded the prairie dogs' calls, analyzed them with a computer, and were astonished by the results.

"They're (prairie dogs) able to describe the colour of clothes the humans are wearing, they're able to describe the size and shape of humans, even, amazingly, whether a human once appeared with a gun," Slobodchikoff said. The animals can even describe abstract shapes such as circles and triangles.

Also remarkable was the amount of information crammed into a single chirp lasting a 10th of a second. "In one 10th of a second, they say 'Tall thin human wearing blue shirt walking slowly across the colony.'"

crows: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-interesting-thing-that-crows-do-when-they-see-one-of-their-own-dead/2016/03/18/78d97a9e-ec48-11e5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html

“They know your body type. The way you walk,” Dyer said. “They’ll take their young down and say: ‘You want to get to know this guy. He’s got the food.’ ”

Scientists have known for years that crows have great memories, that they can recognize a human face and behavior, that they can pass that information on to their offspring.

that article also mentions that crows have been observed to make and use tools, which is something i knew but forgot to mention and is interesting and feels relevant to this conversation

Sorry for the confusion then! I suppose I place some value on life itself (or maybe more fitting in this discussion, on awareness itself)

Which is to say that for me, ending the life of a being who is aware is at least one of the worst things you can do. Like, if I were forced to choose between millions of years of suffering or immediate death, I'd probably pick the millions of years of suffering because at least I'd still be aware. Of course I might regret that decision later on but that's where I'm at right now. But also I couldn't imagine being tortured for millions of years and the toll that must have on someone. So torturing someone for millions of years has, for me, very similar moral weight to genocide. Again I don't feel able to quantify them personally, and for me deciding which is ultimately worse is probably not possible. I'd guess the answer would vary from person to person based on how they weigh life itself vs experiences in life, and whether the conscious experience of being tortured is worse in their opinion than not existing anymore. I consider life valuable because I consider my life valuable (valuable to me, not necessarily to anyone else), and I consider my life valuable because I really enjoy the ability to think about and experience things. One of my favorite thing about us is that we look up into the sky and wonder, look down into the ocean and wonder, look forward in our future and wonder, look back on our past and wonder, that we can look at other people and wonder. That we can look at any of the above and love and write and sing. sentience might as well be magic lol. Having that taken away from me is the worst thing I can imagine happening to me, which might skew my perspective in conversations like this one. And idk if most people would agree with my reasons for valuing life.

i edited my comment a few times because i didn't feel like i was making sense and being too rambly, it's 6am (well 6:30am) and i haven't slept (and cuz after i initially posted i read other comments and realized other people had said what i had said but better x3)

i didn't mean to imply i thought you were saying genocide is worse than bullying a robot, it's just that i was thinking about things that could be comparable or worse to me than torturing someone for millions of years and came up with genocide

i took crime to mean something morally bad

i mean i think this is a fun conversation, it's something i think about a lot, i'm glad to talk about it with other people, sorry if i came across obtuse or pedantic or negative/hostile or anything

yeah! prairie dogs gossip; crows tell stories, have communities, and some of them even seem to understand money; whales mourn the deaths of other whales

sentience is trippy, and it's always been questionable to me that we decided we're the only sentient life on the planet

i already get emotionally attached to, like, roombas and those suitcases that connect to your phone and follow you around, i can't wait to have a robo buddy

"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings." - Optimus Prime

I don't know if I'd consider it the worst crime ever committed in the history of the universe, but I would consider it very bad personally. I would personally value the life of that AI the same as I would value the life of a human, the same way I would value the life of anything sentient, so I would be against anyone treating an AI that way. Is it worse than genocides? idk maybe i don't feel qualified to quantify the moral weight of things so big, but ya i'd definitely care x3

a cutie

relatable :3

Thanks, yeah, I gave all the headphones I couldn't take with me away to friends, though, so they went to good homes :)

The 7506s did have very clean sound! That's my preference which is why i liked them so much :3

The Exodus' don't sound bad, they just have too much bass for my tastes but I'm pretty happy to eq it down in software. I just really like the wood look of them

well my bf is catholic so that gives me an in

i'm similar but for me i prefer physical books because if i'm reading a physical book i'm probably not sitting near any of my devices so there's less chance i'll get distracted lol

but audio book is a strong second because ya i can do other stuff while listening to it, the same way i listen to podcasts and stuff

why does it make me uncomfortable

it's like an uncanny valley fork