Watch this orangutan looking cool in a found pair of shades

Originally published at: Watch this orangutan looking cool in a found pair of shades | Boing Boing

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Ook!
Ook ook!
(Puts on sunglasses)
…Ook!

Yeeeeeaaaaaah!!

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Great video. Let’s hope it also makes small contribution to the cause of conserving some of our closest relatives from extinction.

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There are two things I love about this video.

  1. The way the orangutan sidles up to the glasses like they know they are up to know good.
  2. The way the orangutan redirects the baby’s hand away. A practiced motion for humans and our cousins.
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I can hear this. more specifically, I can’t un-hear this… I hate you. (not really, it’s just a thing I say when people stick things in my head)

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He got what he came for.

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Dr. Z.

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Indeed. Link in some Louis Prima whenever applicable.

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He’s a desperado

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This is one of my favorite videos. It’s so obvious that the emotional/cognitive response is similar to humans that insistence that such thinking is anthropomorphization becomes absurd.

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Wild? I was absolutely livid!

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I saw that episode.

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Ok… post removed.

I suggested that people will soon be dropping objects into the enclosures (perhaps even a weapon of some type) just for TikTok views.
Not saying I am crossing my fingers for this, or advocating this, I can just see it happening because humans are terrible.

Anthropomorphization can be a problem, but animals CAN hold up a somewhat smoky and distorted mirror to our own non-rational behaviors. The idea that animals don’t have real emotions is just silly. Their emotions may be different, and triggered by different things, but they are there. Just as our emotions pre-date our ability to use language and rational thought.

edited to add: Indeed our rationalizing brains can lead us astray when analyzing our emotions. We tend to ascribe “rational reasons” for our behaviors when they are based on pre-rational emotions. Which is why looking at animals can be helpful, but sometimes that too, can lead us astray because their evolved behaviors are different from ours. Emotions are kind of like the assembly language that the apps of our rational thinking are built over.

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Yep. The more we learn about the inner lives of animals that are close to us on the evolutionary tree, the less privileged our own position is. Clinging to the “specialness” of humans is just denial at this point. We’re unique, but we’re not special.

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I regard Orangutans as our more civilized cousins.
Chimpanzees are murderous bastards; of course they are our closest relatives.

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I saw a nature show which showed a chimpanzee war. We were first introduced to both troops. One was relatively peaceful, with only a few quickly resolved squabbles here and there. The other had a male who randomly beat females and babies, more than occasionally maiming or even killing them w/no reason. The latter invaded the former group’s territory, and the ensuing battle was so horrible I changed the channel. I felt physically ill.

It made me sad, and it also made me very angry that humans still haven’t yet evolved past beating women and children, and having wars.

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