I grew up and studied in a University town in Central India, not far from Majalgaon FTA. I've personally witnessed the rivalry of the monkeys and the pariah dogs. In one particular instance a youngish dog was chasing the monkeys and wouldn't let them get on the ground. The leader of the monkey gang made a sudden move, swooped down and carried the dog pup on the tree and just dropped it from there. The pup survived and the dogs never tried to attack the monkeys after that instance. It was such a surreal scene that me an my friends couldn't believe what we witnessed. Monkeys, esp Langoor monkeys are a fearsome force in India and not to be messed with.
I've been reading Mary Roach's new book (Fuzz) that has an interesting chapter on monkeys in India. Because macaques are afraid of langurs, some people would tie up langurs outside their houses for security. This was eventually deemed inhumane but it probably still happens in wealthy enclaves. Nowadays the Parliament building is protected by 40 humans who imitate langurs.
These monkeys are not fatally dangerous if that's what GP is saying.
But they cause heavy and serious nuisance.
Where I live, these monkeys invade gradens, agricultural fields, house rooftops at least 4-5 times a month.
The locals drop anything they do, and chase away these monkeys.
When chased by an adult male human, these monkeys don't fight back and are easily frightened. They don't mess with adult males or groups of humans.
A kid or a lone woman is not safe, though. When faced by them, monkeys gesture retaliation, and that is enough frightening.
An adult male cannot physically take on a monkey. It is impossible. Still they don't attack.
They steal bananas, mangos, guavas- all kinds of fruits, any food item not indoors, and destroy flowers and plants.
Thus, for families depending on these as their source of income have to always remain vigilant to monkey invasions. Common methods include- stone being thrown directly at them intending full harm, pebbles thrown by slingshots, and firecrackers. Banging metal objects loudly also seems to help.
We have mango groves that we lend on a yearly basis. The people who lease them from us establish outposts during the mango season which are always manned by at least one man with ready reinforcement in case of monkey invasion.
For those families not depending financially on tree products are also harmed. They make growing flowering plants difficult. They steal food from outdoors, and not to mention the awfully smelling solid and liquid excretion they leave on your rooftops.
(All rooftops are flat in the plains region, and they are important in our lives.)
By the way, I lost one pomelo (Citrus maxima) to a bunch of monkeys this very afternoon.
> An adult male cannot physically take on a monkey. It is impossible. Still they don't attack.
Are you positive?
A chimpanzee: yes. A guerilla: indubitable. But a monkey?
They seem like medium-sized dogs, that can move around quicker and more freely. They'll bite out your flesh, and perhaps maim you to a semi-serious degree (including infection), but I cannot fathom a monkey seriously killing a grown adult male human being.
These are 20-40lb, very aggressive racoons. If you shock them with anything, they're most likely going to flee for fear of serious injury.
Oh boy never test this out. They will attack violently and will not spare you. If they have enough numbers or have the pack leader(usually the one with the biggest balls) close by then they will retaliate.
I'm from south India and I have seen a lot of grown up men get roughed up by monkeys
I've been looking through monkey bites, and they're a lot more tame on human skin than they are on other monkeys.
Macaques have large teeth and strong jaw muscles (as do dogs); but unlike dogs (or say even piranhas), it doesn't look like monkeys rip and tear flesh like canids. Their mouths are a lot like human mouths: incisors in the front, two canines on either side, and a bunch of (pre)molars, indicative of omnivores. The two canines will definitely pierce the skin. The incisors, most likely as well; but the molars are absolutely useless here.
Whereas dogs (and more specifically sharks) have "saw-like" teeth, that combined with strong neck muscles (and a propensity to grab hold, and shake vigorously, as if they're literally sawing away flesh), make them a lot more lethal to most land mammals.
If we include monkey eating habits, I don't see any large mammals on the list (all the mammals they may eat are smaller than them); compare that to the canid family, that will hunt down mammals many times larger than them. I just don't see how the monkey is built to be able to kill a human being.
Granted, it's going to hurt a lot to get bitten by a monkey. But I just don't see how a 40lb mammal can do that much damage. If you can somehow restrain it by the neck, it's basically over for any mammal of that size without claws (or another means of escape) -- which monkeys don't seem to have.
Now, if we're talking a chimpanzee? I'm going to do everything in my power to get out of that situation. But a monkey? A large dog is more of a threat.
I feel after the first few bites, you'd be running on adrenaline.
At that point, I believe it's apt to start elbow-dropping, curb-stomping, and punting monkeys.
If for some unknown reason, 5 monkeys ambushed me on a regular walk, I'm confident I could throw enough of a fuss that'd dissuade them from trying to steal my lunch.
Now 10 monkeys? I don't know. That's a lot of monkeys.
I don't think I'm ever going to encounter 10 monkeys, all set on turning me into tartare.
However, if I were to have my jimmies rustled by 10 monkeys at the same time, I would put it at 2:1 odds that I survive without life-threatening injuries.
I would agree that you could dissuade a few monkeys from taking your sandwich. Animals don't particularly want to fight: even a "victory" could end badly if you live in a world without antibiotics, splints, or indeed any medical care.
On the other hand, if you backed five desperate monkeys into corner so that they think they are fighting for their lives, I think you'd fare much worse. I'd bet "punt attempts" sometimes end with the monkey clinging to your leg instead, chomping away at whatever they can reach (and even the molars can do some damage given the tremendous bite force).
As an adult male, I’d rather not get my flesh bitten off or maimed. So I cannot engage in a fight with any monkey. The only fight that I would rather fight is one in which I have overwhelming odds of winning.
> An adult male cannot physically take on a monkey.
Really? I would expect that the inevitable injuries aren't worth it, but I'd expect this to be the case on both sides, with the monkey ending up significantly worse off if the human were to actually consider it a fight-to-kill-or-be-killed, not a "make the nuisance go away".
What I don't understand though: If the monkeys are such a nuisance, why are they tolerated? Is there a religious taboo against hurting them? Legal protection? Strict limits on what kind of weapons people can have?
I would say that at least in north east india, monkeys didn't seem to be a huge problem. There are langurs everywhere, but they mostly stick to trees or the jungle, or sometimes the outskirts of towns. I think it's probably because they have plenty of places to eat there relative to the more urbanized parts of the country.
If slingshots are used, would a pellet gun be effective? They are inexpensive and can be fairly powerful. (Some pellet guns propel metal projectiles at speeds around 1,000 fps, which can be fatal to a human if incredibly well placed.)
I understand but aren't we to be blame for this? We took their home, we took their shelter and what can they do? And they don't have enough wisdom to know who they should harm and who they shouldn't.
And many of monkey i know here are too friendly but yea after they starts to live with humans they learn to hoodwink people because many thieves are known to use monkey to snatch valuables from tourist by providing bananas as incentives to them.
There have been articles, probably also threads on HN, about monkeys enslaved and used to harvest crops or something. I don't remember all the details, but they pull out their teeth so they can't bite, and coerce them into working much faster than humans could.
Sounds pretty gruesome. However, the concept of it seems to be ancient.
The great Indian epic of Ramayana has a part that tells how they build Adam's / Rama's bridge to Sri Lanka with the "help" of monkeys:
It gets worse. A court recently ruled that Resident Welfare Associations are now legally obligated to feed and look after stray dogs in their neighborhoods.
>>Resident Welfare Associations are now legally obligated to feed and look after stray dogs in their neighborhoods.
The best way to stop stray dog menace, just stop throwing food/organic waste on the streets.
Stray dogs quite literally survive on this, and I remember my childhood stray dogs used to be all pervasive during the days of corner garbage dumps here in Bangalore, now that we have garbage picking up waste from homes in most areas, they are almost non existent in those areas.
> The best way to stop stray dog menace, just stop throwing food/organic waste on the streets.
I don't know to to respond to this. Garbage has nothing to do with it. There are now organized groups of people who literally drive around, feeding dogs in the streets: https://mylosrescue.com/feeding-initiatives/ In addition, the courts have imposed the obligation on RWAs to feed stray dogs if nobody else is doing so.
Just so I'm clear: You think it's a good idea to foist the responsibility of feeding and looking after street dogs onto resident welfare associations? Many of which actually want them removed? Their member are being asked to pay up for the privilege of being harassed by dogs.
To quote none other than Mahatma Gandhi on the subject[0]:
> It is a sin, it should be a sin, to feed stray dogs, and we should save numerous dogs if we had legislation making every stray dog liable to be shot. Even if those who feed stray dogs consented to pay a penalty for their misdirected compassion we should be free from the curse of stray dogs. Humanity is a noble attribute of the soul. It is not exhausted with saving a few fish or a few dogs. Such saving may even be sinful. If I have a swarm of ants in my house, the man who proceeds to feed them will be guilty of a sin. For God has provided their grain for the ants, but the man who feeds them might destroy me and my family. The mahajan may feel itself safe and believe that it has saved their lives by dumping dogs near my field, but it will have committed the greater sin of putting my life in danger.
> Sterilize them and let them live their lives out.
Sterilization isn't going to come cheap. This will only end up diverting funds from municipal governments that are already perpetually short on funds.
> This is going to be the humane way of ending this menace that will also be culturally acceptable.
Except that it simply doesn't seem to be working. ABC measures have been going on in large cities for years but from what I can tell, the numbers just keep going up. There's a reason the rest of the civilized world culls strays. This is what India did too until Maneka Gandhi got her grubby paws on the AWBI. There isn't some deep seated cultural opposition to culling, it's the the result of morality pushed by privileged animal lovers. There are an estimated 6 million dog bites in the county each year. Most victims are children from poor families.
indian kids throw rocks on dogs and monkeys when walking home from school to let off steam. i've personally seen a dog go after the kids for it. same with monkeys
Yeah I don't think the GP is correct, langoors are more passive and mostly mind their own business (at least in North India). Macaques are a menace everywhere.
As a general rule, animals never attack first. When humans encroach the traditional lands of the animals there are conflicts waiting to happen. Monkeys are smart and usually don’t bother humans, unless it’s a matter of food or threat to their group.
Edit: I'm surprised at the downvotes, isn't human-wildlife conflict in Indian forests well documented?
As a general rule that’s true but useless. Humans are relatively large animals that most creatures don’t want to mess with. But a hippo for example isn’t discouraged by this.
Also the deadliest North American wildlife is the deer almost entirely because they’re jumping in front of cars.
Are they particularly deadly in NA? I’m not downplaying the disease spread by mosquitoes, but I would have imagined that they’re significantly deadlier in less developed continents and that then acesss and quality of healthcare would make them less so in North America.
Depends on what you consider North America. Mexico down to Panama still have significant mosquito-borne illness and none of the access and quality of healthcare we enjoy in US/CA.
Mexico with a population of 130 Million only had 641 cases of Malaria in 2019, it’s not at great risk from mosquito-born illness. Central American countries are at a significantly higher risk, Panama for example has 4.4 million people and had 1,597 cases of malaria in 2019. Other diseases show similar trends.
Still in terms of total deaths from Mosquito born illness it’s likely lower than most assume.
I remember when I travelled in India there was a bus stop where monkeys had specialized on stealing food from women. They would leave men alone and only go after women’s backpacks. They were also really good at unscrewing the caps of water bottles.
If you are in doubt about this being revenge, because you think revenge is exclusively a human behavior, then have a look at the Gombe Chimpanzee War [0].
I am still in doubt about this being revenge. I'm not necessarily saying it isn't, but doesn't culling the dogs as a means of pest control also fit the hypothesis? I mean, if a baby in a human town was bit by a rat, we humans would react by trying to eradicate the local rat population. You could call that revenge I guess, but normally we wouldn't ascribe such a passionate motive to our behavior, we would say it was logical to eliminate a source of danger.
Logic and emotion need not be at odds. In fact, in a natural setting, emotions are almost always aligned with logical self preservation and advancement.
In Singapore last week, an older man was taking a morning walk in a park and spotted a pack of otters on the path ahead of him. At the same time, a jogger ran through the pack and startled them (some reports said trampled one of the pups). The reaction of the pack was to attack the nearest human - the older man:
As the runner ran past Spencer and disappeared into the distance, the otters instead set their sights on Spencer and "went crazy".
"I didn't move quick enough and they just jumped me and they [were] on me and severely bit my ankle, made me buckle, and they jumped on my bottom and pushed me. And these things like... massive... [these] things [are] like dogs."
Spencer said that the otters even tried to bite his face, but their teeth sank into his finger instead when he raised his hands to defend himself.
I believe they are aggressive only to the extent of defending their territory or defending their pups.
In fact, all carnivorous animals can be aggressive. They are not aggressive like how a lion or tiger is to humans. Their main diet consist of fish, invertebrate and shellfish.
Sea otters are known to be more aggressive than river otters but I do not think they view humans as preys. It is probably a territorial or mating reason in your case.
I have read different reports of what the OP mentioned. The official statement by the park is that he (as reported to them by himself) ran through the pack of otters because of poor visibility (early morning) and tried to get them to do something about the otters. That is quite different from what the OP claims.
My comment is getting downvoted but I still stand by my opinion that otters are not inherently aggressive like how a lion or tiger is.
Extra care should be taken when dealing with wild animals, even if they look small and adorable.
Running into a pack of wild animals is not something anyone should do.
I remember from a visit in Kenya that the way they control monkeys was to keep shooting the alpha until eventually their next leader forces the group to retreat and leave the human settlements alone.
When America was trying to install a “democratic” government in Iraq there were a series of assassinations. In that case however the situation eventually stabilized.
So that strategy is only as good as your opponents will. And it turns out there’s a lot of men who are willing to throw away their life in the hope of the power, money and prestige of being the top boss.
I wouldnt be so quick to say they're throwing their life away. Imagine being in a group with a tyrannical boss. Installing yourself as the boss may actually help save your life and ensure a future for you and your community/tribe.
Regardless, I wonder if there's a lot of men is the key factor here. Even if a reasonable fraction of a percent of the population isn't deterred by previous assassinations for a population in the millions, that's still a lot of replacements. The replacement rate of that subset of the population is almost certainly higher than the assassination rate.
I don't doubt that gambling it all for power, money and prestige is the most frequent motivation, but I think you do humanity a disservice when you don't also include principled... weirdos that believe things and count the cost do exist within the human race.
Don't know why people are so reluctant to admit animals are highly developed intellectualy. The cocncept of revenge is usually just denied, despite common observations. Wild animals, mostly, of course. Ask farmers - they'll have one or two stories of crows taking revenge. Even on humans.
The people commenting on the Newsweek page were saying exactly this, that there was a simpler instinctual mechanism to describe the monkey's behavior. Who knows why.
> villagers began attempting to rescue the dogs on their own. But some of them have found themselves subject to the monkeys' retaliation, and some have even injured themselves or fallen from buildings
how strong are these monkeys?
I mean I know monkeys are strong but can they really ambush a human, and push them over a ledge? can they kidnap a human, carry them upward and drop them over a ledge?
Strength doesn't come into the picture with monkeys. They attack by biting and scratching and often from hidden places like tree tops or rooftops. In many parts of India, the dogs are afraid to even bark at them.
That said, adult monkeys are pretty big (3.5-4 feet) and aren't all that light weight.
Anecdotally, a baby monkey fell into our neighbors house through bars on the roof and a group of almost 100 monkeys surrounded the house and took them all hostage till the baby was given back.
well, the anxious animals got the baby back.. I am certain the monkeys did not ask nicely! but let's look at it differently, the monkey pack acted together right away for the safety of the smallest one.. did they hurt the humans? the story does not say that; a more aggressive animal would certainly hurt a human right away for the sake of a small one.. but those animals have been hunted and removed.. +1 monkeys from me
We don't know the whole situation. Article says "villagers began attempting to rescue the dogs". But how? May be villagers tried to attack monkeys and they felt threatened.
But how do other monkeys know they participate to a legitimate cause? They don’t have language to express reason, facts, inferences or values.
Which strikes me, because they really did “ask nicely”, not attacking humans and behaving in a measured way. Where I’m coming from is:
Is language necessary? Human crowds are most often fair (doing a revolution is quite fair, even if individual events are a bit… messy. But crowds stuff up sometimes, ie Jesus vs Romans). Might we (humans) act about as fairly if we didn’t have language at all to express our griefs? All that bullshit that goes on in courts, sometimes fair sometimes not; all the bullshit that goes on in companies about metoo: Does it “average out” the same as a crowd of angry monkeys, or are we effectively more efficient at delivering justice? Is our language a vehicle for reason, or is it just a vehicle of feelings and anger that happen to translate itself into words that seem rational?
> But how do other monkeys know they participate to a legitimate cause?
The legitimacy of a cause depends on your value system, and who is to say what sort of value system the monkeys have. Perhaps their value system places "stick up for other monkeys" before other considerations like impartial assessment of guilt or blame.
> can they really ambush a human, and push them over a ledge?
I would say male adult monkeys in my village can (males are bigger and stronger), although they don’t. They are fast, agile and acrobatic. Except for well prepared adult humans, monkeys can throw everyone else off a ledge.
Reason so many monkeys exist in India is because they are sacred animals (to Hindus, 80% population). In our village, no one can kill them. The most one can do is throw a stone to scare them away.
modernity tends to change culture (and especially homogenization that the interwebs promotes), and india is modernizing rapidly especially cities. culture can change very rapidly.
that being said, hanuman (rama's monkey companion) is a important diety in hinduism, and has been worshipped for many thousands of years in india and other parts of southeast asia.
Yes, but (without being a scholar of religion) I had always assumed that Hinduism was far older than its oldest surviving texts, just as Judaism, in some form, is older than whatever year we date the Torah to.
it depends on what you call 'hinduism'. it's one of the world's most heterodox religions and has absorbed a huge amount of cultural tradition from at least 300 languages.
The rig veda is probably what most people agree is one of the foundational texts of hinduism, but it dates to about 1500 BC.
However, the vedas probably absorbed a lot of earlier cultural tradition from the indus valley civilization, especially worship of Shiva-like deities. How much is however, debated.
just like mesopotamia, there was a lot of syncretism.
I imagine that when your career is arts based, you've likely assimilated that society's labels are arbitrary and determined in large part by competitive interests, because there is less of a fundamental truth than they would imply once established. Since this is a software engineering forum, we tend to expect more objectivity in our labels. Ironically when you think about it because software labels are so obviously artificial.
My read is that it's the other way around. i.e. what one could reasonably call Judaism is a good deal younger than the Torah, Hinduism a good deal younger than the Vedas. There are of course traditions within the religions that go back to those writings and further, but take that to its extreme and they all presumably stem from some ur-religion.
All wild animals are stronger than they look. Humans are comparatively weak.. most of us can’t fight a deer. Monkeys are intelligent. They are aware of leverage and potential danger. They jump on people, chase, scratch and bite them
You hear that said but if you look at human prehistory whenever we encountered large animals they got wiped out and are mostly have to be preserved these days by conservation laws.
Trained humans working as a group with weapons, facing animals that have not seen humans before, is a completely different story. There is a reason African animals survived along humans while the story is different else where
Attack dogs have a lot of core body / neck strength that they use combined with strong jaws. Definitely dangerous to an unarmed human.
The only thing you have on dogs is that you're smart enough to move to an advantaged position that the dog doesn't understand. Like run through a door and close it, get in a car and run the dog over, grab a gun and shoot the dog, those kinds of options. If you have no options, you're fucked.
Elk and caribou/reindeer are both kinds of deer (so are moose for that matter... for him to speak of 1000 lb deer, he must be thinking of moose or be mistaken.)
And the little Key deer down in Florida, which are the smallest of the North American Whitetails, are typically about 40-50 pounds. One night when I was down in the Florida Keys, typing away at my laptop on the beech in the dark, I felt something cold and wet touch my elbow. I looked over my shoulder, and a little Key deer was sniffing my arm. I jumped a bit, and then the deer jumped a bit, and with one last curious look, she ran off into the dark. Very cute little thing.
I'd bet a pair of them could pick up and throw a human; if they could get the co-ordination right.
50lbs of dog is a bad opponent for a human, 2 of them and humans lose that fight fairly often. Some of the dogs in the video I saw were that size and larger; so if the monkeys can harass and herd them effectively then I'd expect them to be able to do it to a human as well.
A human prepared to fight and ready to start killing things is a completely different matter; but I don't think these critters have encountered that yet. They're probably about to.
The article said the humans have "culled" about 1000 of the monkeys. It's interesting that we use different euphemisms depending on who's doing the killing.
We have different words for different types of killing. We say “slaughter” when we’re talking about killing a farm animal for food, and “cull” when talking about killing animals for the purpose of population management. Likewise we have “murder” for intentionally killing a person vs “manslaughter” for an accidental/less-culpable killing, and “euthanise” to describe killing something that is already dying so as to end its suffering.
What the article describes is accurately described as culling, or killing for population control.
culling actually means selecting out from a group on the basis of some criteria.
harvested lobsters with one claw have less commercial value so they are separated out. They are sold more cheaply and called "culls". A difficult entry level university course in an academic department like Chemical Engineering could be used to cull the class of students down to only those who are serious about pursuing the field; in such a case, the culls are not killed.
In Malaysia not in India. In India, laws don't allow killing of even rabis infested dogs forget about monkeys. Not to mention monkeys are considered sacred.
IMO they don't need to be "culling," which would imply more "humane" means of killing like rifle shots or poisons. They need to go out and kill some monkeys in full sight of the other monkeys, in a personal and ugly way that the moneys understand. Swords and clubs time. Hang bits of the victims where the rest of them hang out.
The same term is used for cattle. I guess species at the top of the food chain choose the terms of art. I wouldn't be surprised, though, to learn that the monkeys have their own sound/ utterance to mean the killing of people.
That's not precisely correct. With respect to cattle or any other domesticated ungulates, "culling" means removing from the herd. That might occasionally be slaughter, but usually means selling the animal. Of course the new owner might buy the animal in order to slaughter it, but we can't assume that.
I believe the right question is, how intelligent and distempered are these monkeys?
Intelligence > brawn
Strength is mostly immaterial once I (as a hypothetical monkey) understand that I can use my agility to rip your eyeballs from their sockets, which then effectively removes your ability to pose a threat to me.
> Strength is mostly immaterial once I (as a hypothetical monkey) understand that I can use my agility to rip your eyeballs from their sockets, which then effectively removes your ability to pose a threat to me.
Strength is material once you understand that this hypothetical human can use some kind of weapon or just something long and blunt to bash your brains out.
That's a silly way to think about it, strength just gives you more tools that you can work with if you're intelligent. If you aren't strong enough to rip eyeballs from sockets, how does being intelligent enough to know you can do that help you?
The stronger you are compared to your opponent the better Judo works not worse. The martial arts that use the opponents strength depend on the "opponent" being compliant.
> This result matches well with the few tests that have been done, which suggest that when it comes to pulling and jumping, chimps are about 1.5 times as strong as humans relative to their body mass. But because they are lighter than the average person, humans can actually outperform them in absolute terms, say O’Neill.
I certainly agree, you wouldn't have much of a chance against a chimp one on one without weapons. It's just that the article isn't about chimps, but about much smaller macaques.
We both are stronger and have more stamina than macaques. The biggest male adult macaques are 18kg. That’s probably more that the average adult can raise with one arm but not by much and I insist on average. That’s nothing exceptional for someone in shape.
Considering the weight and power in a human leg, a swift kick would seriously harm and probably kill an average macaque. The issue is not strength here.
If the monkeys start pushing people off buildings that seems like an escalation? If war breaks out between the monkeys and the humans - I’d think we’d have a decisive advantage?
Yes, as soon as humans start dying from monkey attack someone will call wildlife control and either capture and move the monkeys (hopefully) or shoot them all.
Pound for pound they are about 1.5X stronger than humans due to the density of fast-twitch muscle fibers. This also makes them quicker and more nimble.
If they attack from behind they can easily knock down an adult human. They use this tactic to attack motorcycle delivery drivers quite often and steal food. They would have no trouble nabbing a child.
With bigger humans, they don't need to throw them. It may be enough to drive them strategically by screaming and biting in a big enough group and with an unprepared enough victim.
The Langoor monkeys are really strong and I have personally witnessed their menace. There are countless instances I can recall where the monkeys attacked humans, pets etc.
Wow. It might be possible that our relation/domestication of dogs started well before we become sapiens. Because, why would the baboons pick a dog and not a tiger.
A relative who is a recent grad. from IIT Chennai/Madras has lots of monkey stories. They rule the dorms. No food in rooms, don't make eye contact.
It's not like don't make eye contact if you ever see one. The monkeys are sitting on the ledge all the way up on both sides of the stairs up to the second or third floor as you walk up to your dorm room!
They also "adopted" a stray dog just to chase the monkeys away.
If an instinct or circuitry around revenge can exist in monkeys, I wonder if humans can ever fully escape that tendency, or if it is just built into who we are.
"Circuitry around revenge" is probably a beneficial social "skill" for facilitating group cooperation, there's all kinds of game theory (e.g. basic things like iterated prisoners dilemma tit-for-tat strategy) that suggests that knowing about the presence of revenge acts and a likelihood of punishing defection (even at extra 'expense' for the punisher) deters defection, and allows to reach a better shared result.
I.e. if we simply could abandon that at the flip of a switch, I'm not sure if we should, it's plausible that it would make all kinds of abuse less risky and thus more attractive, increasing the abuse happening in the world.
> When humans cull all the wolves in an area because they killed a child
Wolves normally don't do that. Not unless they have rabies. We should stop seeing the nature as if we were still in the XVII century.
The logical answer would be to direct the revenge against the real culprit, the rabies virus. Kill the rabid wolf and vaccinate other local wolves against rabies. Wolves learn quickly that must keep their distance with humans. Culling all the wolves in the area leads to more humans killed, by herbivores.
Animal control tries to do just that, control. If a written sign would be enough, those wolves would not have been culled (except maybe the ones which actually killed tje child).
Of course we can; the point of having such huge brains is that we can override our animal instincts if we want to. Same reason you can convince yourself to jump off a cliff into water even if you're scared of heights. Or how you can convince yourself to skip meals to get your work done. Or to not physically fight someone when you're in a disagreement. Or to not cheat when in a relationship.
Not being slaves to our animals instincts is kind of what makes humans human.
HG Wells speculates about this in The Time Machine. The futuristic humans lost their revenge instinct and are helpless against their subterranean tormenters.
I don't remember the loss of the "revenge instinct" being a part of that book. The future humans had optimized for comfort/happiness so much that they evolved to be more and more docile and childlike. They lost their intelligence and evolved into stupid beasts again because they had no evolutionary pressure to become anything else. They didn't lose their self-preservatory instinct -- they just lost the only defensive tool humans have evolved that lets us compete/win against all other animals: our intelligence. Kind of like those birds in a New Zealand island that evolved to be too fat to fly, because the island had no predators. And then cats got accidentally introduced to the island.
New Zealand has/had plenty of predators, they were just all avian [0], [1], which hunt by sight, and during the day [2]. Existing/nesting on the ground with good visual camouflage is a adaptation to avoid avian predators. Obviously it doesn't work that well against mammalian predators.
I've seen a version of this behaviour in Lopburi, Thailand and in some places around Bali. Make no mistake, these primates can get ferocious, they carry several diseases and can cause serious bodily harm to large sized human adults. Don't go near them, don't encourage them and for $DEITY's sake don't feed them. They are wild and potentially dangerous animals.
The incident I witnessed was described to me by a local as a war between two rival monkey gangs battling for food scraps. Things were getting dangerous, the monkeys would snarl at people just walking along the street, and sometimes lunge and attack people carrying any sort of food. I've seen people get scratched and bitten.
Philosophical question, assuming kt's not a fake news: are those monkeys "evil"? If they revenge is agains siblings of the aggressor or just dogs in general, I would say so. Looks like they are intelligent enough to be evil.
If it's evil for primates to kill 250 dogs after one primate infant was killed is it evil for primates to kill 17 million minks because they could get a virus and theoretically spread that to primates?
> Take into consideration though that these minks were bred specifically to kill them for their skin.
Is that not much more 'evil', to breed something specifically to kill it for its skin? If it's not, then why is it not allowed to be done by the same species to itself?
> Is that not much more 'evil', to breed something specifically to kill it for its skin?
That depends on what value/s you place on the thing being bred for its coat. Pretty much all cultures around the world are different, subtly or dramatically, on such issues.
> If it's not, then why is it not allowed to be done by the same species to itself?
The answer to that is: because the humans judge that the minks (and their existence) are not equals in value to the humans, rather, they're considered property, to be disposed of as the owner sees fit. And obviously that aspect (as the owner sees fit) varies by location/culture.
Your question - then why is it not allowed to be done by the same species to itself? - starts from the incorrect premise that values are objective, such as whether a mink should or should not be considered property (your premise requires starting from the notion that minks have protected rights and are equal to humans generally). Instead, those values are in fact subjective and will vary depending on which culture you're dealing with.
Probably yes. I think both are pretty bad. I eat pretty much vegetarian for this reason (not entirely because here in Spain it's impossible to be totally vegetarian especially when you go out for dinner)
Curious where in Spain you are. I'm vegan and was looking at spending some time in Spain (mainly Granada at one point because of low cost of living, location, and availability of vegan food). In the bigger cities, Happycow shows hundreds of fully vegan and vegetarian restaurants.
As of yet I haven't actually been to Spain, but from traveling around Europe I did learn that eating vegan can (sometimes) be incredibly challenging. In a smaller coastal city in Italy I remember one night where the only food I could find to eat was a tomato salad (modified by removing all the non-vegan ingredients from a salad menu item).
But overwhelmingly through my travels I've been able to find more options.
There are many vegetarian and vegan restaurants, yes. But when I go out for dinner with my Spanish friends they wouldn't pick those places. They'd always go for traditional places.
Which means you end up with exactly the kind of thing you mention "Uhhh yeah we might have a salad for you" :D
I'm not strictly vegetarian so it's not so much a problem but I had a colleague who used to come with us for lunch who got fed up with that.
But as a tourist you'l be fine yeah.
I'm from the Netherlands myself and the supermarkets there have a huge range of vegetarian and vegan foods. Here it's usually a corner of one of the fridges.
The problem you have here is that your conception of this requires the potentially-'evil' to be intelligent - your assumption seems to be that these monkeys are smart enough to 'know right from wrong' or some such.
But 'evil' is a human concept. I'm not saying some animals aren't capable of having a similar concept, but 'monkey evil' would not be rooted in the human evolution of societies, religious and philosophical traditions, etc.
Try this one out:
Are humans who kill monkeys for science "evil"? Not to (many) humans. But to monkeys?
Why are they evil? Or at least more evil than humans? Humans have eradicated wolves almost everywhere due to the danger they pose humans, particularly children. How is this situation different? The monkeys are even targeting the very same species that humans have long targeted.
To begin to answer that you would need to start out by defining what you mean by ‘intelligent’ and ‘evil’, since both are subjective concepts that only exist relative to your perspective.
To me it sounds more like a straw that broke the camel's back moment. They've had enough and they can't take it anymore and are lashing out in a madness of grief and rage
It depends on whether you view evil as something absolute or relative.
If evil is absolute, then an animal (or an entire species) can be seen as evil by nature. Another species may be seen as good or neutral by nature even if the animal itself has no sense of right or wrong.
It is indeed very philosophical and also up to your beliefs and values.
I doubt that. Try shooting an arrow at a crow (obviously not killing it) or throw a stone at a group of monkeys the next time chance presents it self. Not a good idea. One of my childhood nemesis were a group of crows from a tree nearby at which I shot an arrow with a home made toy bow (none were even hit). Those things harassed me for months before eventually forgetting (forgiving?) the incident :)
> throw a stone at a group of monkeys the next time chance presents it self
In places like the Monkey Temple in Bali that's exactly how you keep them at bay. In our local zoo where you can interact with lemurs, they can be chased away with a small water spray.
How would humans experience revenge differently? What makes you think revenge isn’t an instinct in humans?
I recall reading (the book escapes me), that just about all animals employ a Tit-for-Tat mechanism for dealing with other animals of the same species that cheat.
Revenge is a very useful social tool, especially against other species threatening their offspring.
> What makes you think revenge isn’t an instinct in humans?
An instinct is something you have no choice over, it's automatic.
Humans very clearly have a choice as to whether they pursue revenge or not. If someone wrongs me in a given way, I can choose how to respond, or to not respond at all; and I can spend as much time as I like (decades if I choose to) pondering on that. It's doubtful these monkeys function quite at that level.
It's unknown whether, for example, these monkeys have any choice in the matter. Their programming may be purely instinctual when it comes to a revenge response.
> An instinct is something you have no choice over, it's automatic.
I think this is a common but entirely wrong model, and I'm not sure why people hold it.
Do you think humans have no instincts? I would argue exactly the opposite, humans, like all animals, are driven almost entirely by instinct, whether it's prosocial instincts causing you to have a moral code much like those around you, inspiring guilt and shame when you break it, or causing you to feel a need to talk to people and comment on Internet stories, reproductive instincts driving you to seek a mate, or survival instincts to ensure a regular food supply.
I think it works exactly the same way in all animals. They are equally capable of making choices, because choice is a preconscious thing, not something that occurs as a result of careful, reasoned intellect. Obviously, humans are capable of making more informed choices, but "reason" is mostly a post-hoc rationalization engine.
My great grand uncle is known in my mother's family side for getting killed by a camel that he mistreated years earlier. He apparently was usually very gentle with his camel herd but at some point that particular male didn't want to move so he hit him with a cane, and years later when he was working behind that male again he just got stomped to death.
I'm sure the story has been "embellished" a bit though and there's probably tons of confounding factor but I've heard a lot of similar stories about camels and their famous penchant for revenge :).
Most animals are capable of revenge. Story: A family in Palestine were doing a routine cleaning of the house. They had a snake nest in the house and it was no pet snake. So to clean better they put the nest and eggs in a different corner.
The snake came back looking for the nest and could not find it. It looked around with no luck. It went to the family water vase (because there was no piped water supply) and spit inside. The mother saw this and told the other to put the nest back.
The snake saw the nest, went immediately back to the vase, coiled it and flipped the water over over to empty it.
It had spit poison in the supply to hurt the family for revenge of its nest. And then sought to undo that act.
I know a member of the family first hand through my workplace who told me and a few others. The guy was about 55 years old at the time (7-8 years ago) when he narrated the story. He was a Palestinian but in Jordan at the time it happened and was there before he reached age 18. (I should not have stated he was in Palestine.) I am not sure what other details I can provide beyond name for this narration.
But then wouldn't the similar brain structure between monkeys and humans point towards monkeys' qualitative experience being more similar than humans than the other way around?
I'm not trying to argue one way or the other, but a matter such as this seems plagued by uncertainty and it seems rash to me to be making such presumptions.
> But then wouldn't the similar brain structure between monkeys and humans point towards monkeys' qualitative experience being more similar than humans than the other way around?
I'm not sure what you mean. Did you forget a word?
The original post presumes that monkeys' experience of revenge is "just a survival instinct". I find it quite odd to make such a strong assumption about something as unknowable about conscious experience (perhaps wrongly if there is evidence to that effect I am not aware of).
Your reply pointed out that mammals have similar brain structures. To me, this would imply that humans and other mammals (particularly monkeys) should have more similar experiences of the world as a base assumption, rather than leading us to dismiss similar behaviours as survival instinct etc. Perhaps I missed your point?
I can see that this is quite hand-wavy topic, but hopefully this helps to clarify a little.
>Villagers reported that now there are barely any dogs left in the area but that the monkeys have not stopped even after a month of attacks. Now, villagers reported that the monkeys are targeting small children which has created a panic within the village.
That's when you start shooting these monkeys on sight. Cull their numbers a bit. I've been bitten by a monkey as a child and it sucked. I hope the village starts splitting their wigs. Do they have guns?
Why are people surprised and shocked by this? If a pack of stray dogs killed a human child, we would exterminate them without further thought, and we would call it "animal control." Even when an otherwise protected species like a bear in a national park kills a human, we make an exception and kill that animal.
Um, because it was monkeys that did it, not humans? And humans =/= to monkeys?
It's surprising because (a) we generally consider revenge to be a human emotion, so seeing it in animals is a bit surprising, (b) seeing a coordinated attack between two species that are kind of adjacent on the food chain isn't super common. Killing in the animal world is primarily done for hunting. The monkeys aren't eating the dogs, they're just killing them.
And neither would you see headlines about a human child learning to read, yet if a monkey were to do the same it'd be up here in no time. The noteworthy thing here is not the activity performed, but what entity the activity was performed by.
Once I was walking in the street in the north of India and sudenly I was surrounded by a pack of dogs and monkeys, they started to fight, with me in the middle... a dog was nervous and bit me as well. I went straight to the hospital to get the rabbies vaccine... apart from that I have very fond memories of India!
I'm confident humans will always win against monkeys. It's just not worth the effort at first. But when the situation escalates, like it seems to be when infants are at risk, those monkeys will eventually be captured or killed off.
This is about as relevant to most people as the "article" about "x86, X64 Instruction Latency, Memory Latency and Cpuid Dumps" that nobody will read and is yet also on the frontpage today.
HackerNews upvotes 2 kinds of content: interesting content, and content that makes HN readers look smarter than they are. Regardless of their relation to technology.
At least they punish the perpetrators... They over-punish whereas we under-punish. Under-punishment is worse because it implicitly punishes those who do the right thing by allowing perpetrators to get away with crimes; it encourages crime. Just wait 10 years and you will understand what I'm talking about. You severely underestimate how bad things have become. It will dawn on you suddenly like a nightmare from which you can't wake up.
Maybe this comment seems alarmist but I'm trying to help. Read it with an open mind and a grain of salt. Better be alarmist than sorry.
"We've seen that when an individual is attacked in some way, the likelihood of them attacking someone related to their aggressor is higher," Poindexter told Gizmodo. "Typically there's a preference for attacking a third-party associated with the original aggressor, as opposed to the actual aggressor...for the most part, these acts of 'revenge' take place shortly after the attack."
Poindexter also explained that groups of hyenas have been known to seek revenge on the aggressor's relatives instead of the actual aggressor.
I mean based on their intelligent behaviour it wouldn't be surprising to find out that they feel emotions like love towards their offspring (even if not necessarily in the exact same way as us) and they know how one feels at the loss of a loved one. So by extension, if they want to cause the greatest hurt to the opponent, hurting their loved ones would be quite effective.
I’d like to see these Monkeys try and capture my 54kg (129lb) Doberman. He is ridiculously strong, has broken a few collars and is impossible to move if he decides to stay put.
This sounds really condescending, Please lets don't do this here. Everybody is free to have exactly the dog that they want. Period.
I can't see the need to invoke the dusty ghost of Freud all the time with those dumb clichés. In the real life, not all is always related with penises.
> I’d like to see these Monkeys try and capture my 54kg (129lb) Doberman.
You're saying you would like to see a pack of monkeys attack your dog? Your post is either internet bravado or an injunction for someone to call and alert animal welfare about your conduct.
Is obviously an hypothetical situation expressing that the dog would strike back if attacked.
And yes, the dog could kill some macaques easily. Stray dogs are often malnourished and weak. A well feed dog of a respectable size in open field is a different situation.
