WEBVTT - Don't Eat The Panda 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.840 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.160 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie. Uh, 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:19.160 you've seen a movie baby, right? You saw that as 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.040 a child. I did, yeahard by that right, Yeah, just 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:26.040 like everyone else. Um. Looking at Bandy, one can't help 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:28.520 but think this does not look like a real deer. 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:31.800 Its eyes are way too big. Like I would hate 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:36.519 to see the animal like a realistic bandy, you know, 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.239 because its eyes would just be enormous and like, if 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.959 it took actual shape, it would be monstrous and very 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:44.159 it would be kind of bizarre. It would look like 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:46.920 a like an alien, like like a little gray alien 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:49.360 with the giant eyes, except the in dear form, Yeah, 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:53.199 but illustrated quite cute, right, yeah, in illustrated form, it's 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:56.360 it's very adorable. Yeah. And some might even argue that 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.040 Bambi was the beginnings of what we know as kawaii, 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:06.679 which is sort of embracing of all things cute. Yeah. Yeah, 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:08.959 and in the age of like L O L cats 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:12.520 and you know, cute puppies sneezing or panda sneezing and 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:16.040 everything else that we're seeing on the internet. It's undeniable 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:19.880 that people have a connection to this cuteness that these 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:24.479 animals um and it kind of brings into question our 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:27.360 relationship with animals and the way that we treat them 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.240 and we think about them. Right, Like with Bamby, they 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:32.760 actually started off with real deer, right, they brought in 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:36.960 real deer. Yeah. Yeah, so so just so everybody knows 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.399 that the reason why we have this babyfied Bamby, this 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:45.440 this big eyed, doeyide fawn, is because Disney was such 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.639 a stickler for detail that that at first he said, okay, 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:50.840 you know what, we need to really make sure that 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:55.040 Bambi is rendered as a realistically as possible. So he 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.320 had a pair of fawns shipped in from Maine and 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.760 then he made his artists wat an autonomoust dissect the 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:06.320 carcass of a newborn deer that resulted from that pair, 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:10.000 and the sketches they produced were were really perfect, right, 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:13.840 they were very realistic. But Disney realized right off the 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.399 bat that this was a mistake. This wasn't gonna sell, 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:20.160 This was not didn't test well with audiences, right right, 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:23.400 This reality wasn't really gonna hook audiences the way that 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:25.840 he wanted them to be emotionally hooked from the storyline. 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:28.520 So he had his artists go back to the drawing 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:32.079 board and they made them more cuddly. Um. And this 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.880 is this is actually from how Herzog's really great book 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.079 called Some We Love, Some We Hate, and Some We Eat, 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:43.400 which looks at our tenuous relationship with animals and um 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.040 he says that Bambi was essentially morphed into a surrogate 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:52.119 human baby. Wow. Yeah, it's a I mean, and then 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:54.760 it just had It does make you really think about this, 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:58.080 this complex relationship that we have with animals, especially like 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:00.760 in this case where guys are sitting I'm thinking about 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:04.520 how these cute animals are gonna appeal to two children 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:08.520 even as they're dissecting their carcasses and planning out Bambi. 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:11.560 You know, you generally don't think of the various um, 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:16.440 well not Vivia sections, but dissections involved with with your 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:19.840 with your beloved Disney films. I'm hoping this was the 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.400 only one they really did that for who knows. You know, 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:25.320 you have to know, you start to think about all 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:28.320 the past films that they did and wonder that's where 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:34.360 that come from. Yeah, got to the bottom of that, 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.760 but I mean from hell Herzog's perspective in his book, 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:41.760 this is exactly the problem that we have here is that, uh, 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.240 you know, here's who's on the one hand, trying to 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:46.680 to make this animal really connect with people and make 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:48.960 it look more like a baby. On the other hand, 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.760 you know that Disney thinks nothing of uh you know, 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:55.560 taking the life of this little fawn in order to 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:59.400 create something like this just for our pleasure, right, And 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:01.680 of course that this this drawls right into the idea 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.480 of that like we're we're attracted to, say a cat 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:08.360 or a dog because it has been especially a kitten 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.920 where it has oversized eyes, or or a puppy it 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:16.280 has oversized eyes. And this, uh, this not completely humanlike face, 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:20.240 but still the snout is less less pronounced than dogs 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.640 generally when they're when they're smaller, and uh so it 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:25.880 looks a little bit like a baby. Like it calls 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.599 to mind an infant child. And therefore we have this 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.320 paternal instinct that's kicking in when we look at it. Yeah. Yeah, 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.080 we've talked about the parental instinct before. In fact, we 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.800 talked about it in Our Dogs podcasts and uh in 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:44.679 Nova's Dogs Decoded. Psychologists Morton Klingelbach put adults into meg scanners, 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.719 which are these really cool supercharge scanners or neuro imagers, 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:52.600 and then they showed photos to people while they are 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.760 in the scanner of unfamiliar adult faces, infant faces, and 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.520 puppy faces, and within one seventh of a second, the 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.360 medial orbital frontal cortex, which is involved in emotional responses, 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:05.760 lit up like a pinball machine when people looked at 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.960 infants and puppy faces. And this is what they were 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:12.600 calling the parental instinct, like you can't not respond to 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.840 these animals, um, and there's the here's the kicker though, 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:18.800 which I thought was really interesting. Even in people who 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.880 are blind from birth, they have the same areas activated 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.479 in their brains when they hear the names of animals. 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:28.839 So so it sort of points to this concept of 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:32.080 animals or how we've painted them in language, which goes 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:37.000 far beyond visual processing. Baby seal instantly, like it's sort 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:39.680 of light up, yeah, certain things. Yeah, And even if 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:41.640 you don't have a visual of that, if you've been 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:44.000 blind from birth, you have an idea of what a 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:51.039 baby seal means in our language into humans of scorpions, Uh, repulsion, 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:55.320 Yeah exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, um kitten kitten on a 0:05:55.320 --> 0:06:02.080 tricycle heart melting right now? Yeah, Um kitten farts erupting 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:08.320 from the kitten sitting here in the tricycle. Yeah. Uh so, 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:11.040 I mean it does kind of, you know, make us 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:14.000 ask this question of why do some animals elicit these 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:18.599 warm and fuzzy feelings while others illicit repulsion. They're they're 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.840 all beams right right? Yeah, Like how much of it 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.080 is has learned? Like you learned to say hey to 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:27.880 snake just because you hear people say, oh that's gross, 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.480 or you hear stories about it biting people and housing 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:35.520 a lot of swelling and death, or is if there's 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.400 something deeper? Is there something ingrained in us to be 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.720 wary of snakes? Right? Yeah? Well, and some scientists would 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:44.960 say that it's something we learned, and other scientists say 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:48.960 that we're hardwired to fear snakes. Snakes are a great example. 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.520 Lynn Isabelle of the University of California Davis posits that 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:57.039 the primate brain specializes in visually detecting snakes, and she 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:00.760 says that, um, you know our pastix variance shape the 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:03.360 brains that we have today. And then if you take 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:05.080 a bunch of kids and you ask them to look 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:09.800 at pictures, they're far more likely to pick out the 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:13.880 snake very quickly than say a flower or a caterpillar 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:17.840 in those pictures. So they're sort of hone in on 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:20.920 the snakes and that this is an instinct and it 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:25.320 does kind of, uh, it does bring up an interesting 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.240 question about whether or not you can inherit that. And 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:32.080 there was a Science Daily article called Epigenetic memory Key 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:36.320 to Nature Versus Nurture, and it says that organisms can 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:40.200 create a biological memory of some variable conditions like the 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:44.360 quality of nutrition or a temperature or something that, um, 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.360 you might need to be scared of, essentially, and that 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:52.440 this discovery essentially just explains why you would have this 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:56.160 pass down from daughter cell to the next generation. So 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:58.960 it's like a switch that's flipped on depending on what 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:02.280 the conditions are for that certain for that organism. All right, 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.800 So if this organism grows up in snake country, then uh, 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:08.440 the epogen nake changes will take place to make that 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.239 person be wary of snakes. Where if someone is growing 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.560 up in a northern region or on or An island 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:18.400 where all the snakes have been driven out by a priest. Yes, 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:23.280 but again it gets tricky here because hell Herzog again 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:27.360 in the book, points to New Guinea and tribespeople who 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:31.080 have a high venomous snake population with further, snakes are venomous, 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:33.840 So you would think that they would fear snakes, they 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.680 would never touch them, But in fact, they're really good 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:38.640 at ferreting out the ones that are non venomous, the 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:40.120 ones that are venomous, and then the ones that are 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:42.800 non venomous they eat for dinner. Okay, well, I mean 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.120 that makes sense though they're living they're living there there, 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.120 they know the local terrain, they know the local animals 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:50.640 and uh, and they know exactly which ones they can 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:52.560 cook for dinner and which one need to be avoided 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:55.160 like the plague. So they have specifically adapted. But that 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.880 that doesn't explain why people in North America are so 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:02.640 fearful of snakes. You're far more likely to be killed 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:04.960 by a dog than from a snake, according to hell 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:06.760 Hers Well, yeah, but I mean we still have some 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:13.280 very poisonous snakes, cotton mouths, copper heads, rattlers, right, true, true, 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:15.520 And there's they're scary, folks, I get it. And dogs 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:19.360 aren't quite as scary unless they're coojo yeah. Yeah. Or 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.400 my neighbor's dog. My neighbor's dog is quite scary. Yeah, 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:24.800 what kind of dog. I don't know. I think it's 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:30.400 a pitpole. Sorry. Yeah, they can be a little less scary. Yeah. 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.280 See there, I am. I'm just I'm playing into the 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.320 whole risk thing here about whether or not the risk 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.920 is actually there. Um. But again, going back to this, 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:44.200 to this relationship with us and animals, hair Zog really 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.600 looks at this uncomfortable relationship with animals we have, and 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:50.240 it's uncomfortable, not just with snakes, So okay, they can 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.520 be a danger, this uncomfortable relationship and the fact that 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.280 we eat some of them, and we make these deliberate 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.000 choices to eat some of them and to keep others 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:03.280 as pets or just look at them. Yeah, mine, and 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:06.120 I guess that, yea. One of the things about about 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:08.600 this scenario that that fascinates me, of course, is that 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:11.200 you have you can look at like two extremes, like 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:13.160 the person who is like a diet in the wool 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:15.560 meat eater who is just one of those people that 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:18.960 maybe has like a really kind of annoying extremist attitude 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.640 about it, where it's like, yeah, kind of like everything 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.560 exists for me to potentially grill and eat, and if 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:26.280 I can't eat it, then don't waste my time with it. 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:28.400 And then on the other hand, you can you can 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.800 have the the equally annoying, like uber vegan kind of 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:36.600 stereotype where they fill this deep emotional connection with all 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:40.480 life forms and therefore aren't going to eat anything in 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.400 there that will fall Yeah, exactly so. But but the 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:46.720 reality is most people fall somewhere in between, and and 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:49.679 it ends up being this complex relationship of I mean, 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.880 to a certain extances, kind of pick and choose, and 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.640 then that is grafted into this world view we have 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.920 where it's okay to eat this, but not this this. 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:02.760 Animals are friends, this one is our ancestral enemy, uh, 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:05.000 the snake, and then this one, uh, this one's kind 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:06.640 of in a gray area, and we just don't think 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:08.320 about them as much. Well. And I think that the 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:11.760 reason why people are considering the question of eating meat 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.520 so much these days is when are resources right? We 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:17.840 don't have that much land left to to to raise 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:21.760 cows and pigs and everything else that's meat oriented as 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:24.480 we used to. And yet our consumption is at all 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:26.640 time high, right yeah, I feel like a lot of it. 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.320 You know, there's people reaching the point where they're they're like, whoa, yeah, 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:32.920 my family really ate a lot of meat. Was that 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.600 really necessary to eat that much meat all the time? 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:38.880 Because it grows from being a necessity or or or 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:40.760 something we just have every now and then. I mean, 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:45.080 studies have shown that as as country's populations become more prosperous, 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.240 they eat more meat. Well you see that in India 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.640 and China, right. Um. In fact, the same sort of 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.400 factory farming practices are beginning to be practiced there, which 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:55.720 as as a whole other podcast about the ramifications of 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:58.520 that our environment. But it does sort of drawn to 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:03.720 question this or actually sort of underscores this problem of Okay, 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:06.760 well we have so much at our disposal for the 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:10.880 most part people living in in um in industrialized nations. 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:13.040 And you have brought this up the other day that 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:18.439 you saw a chicken biscuit snack and you say, ridiculous thing. Yeah, 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:20.760 it was on a billboard at like a fast food restaurant, 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.480 and there you know, it's likes chicken biscuit snack, and 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:26.400 and that made me feel kind of weird because I'm like, 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:30.040 I really don't need an animal to die for my snack. Like, 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:31.880 for my snack, I can just do with some fruit 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.480 or some snack mix um, or just some gum and 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.280 some water or something. But but an animal doesn't need 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:40.360 to die for my for my snack. An animal doesn't 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:42.480 need to die for my breakfast. I think, you know, 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:46.840 maybe my brunch on a special occasion, sometimes my lunch 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:50.240 and dinner, you know, a couple of times a week, 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:52.200 if it's like a fish or something, I guess yeah. 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:54.440 And so that's the sort of environment we're living in, 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:56.360 is that we have so much at our disposal that 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.240 you start to back up and say, do we really 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.520 need to have a chicken skit as a snack? Um? 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:02.959 You know, back in the day, you should be that 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:04.560 you would kill a chicken and you would eat it 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.440 from you know, from head to tail right, you would 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:10.720 use every single part. And although there are some movements 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:12.840 that are getting back to that, for the most part, 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.360 Americans are getting a bucket of chicken and calling it 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:19.440 a day. Right. Um, So there's there's that sort of 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.839 looming out there, right, that's just an odd sort of 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:26.600 circumstance that we find ourselves in. But Hell's Herzog wants 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.920 to look at it even a little bit closer again. 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:32.640 Why do we have this sort of uncomfortable relationship when 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:35.920 we're looking at animals for for meat source or even 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.400 just killing animals? Um He writes about a game warden 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:43.160 in an African village where baboons destroy crops and raise 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:45.679 the hackles of the local humans because of course that 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:49.000 the babanians are threatening their food source right, their vegetables 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.440 and so on and so forth. It's so annoys them 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:53.480 that they actually trapped them in pits at night and 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:55.920 then they kill them in the morning. But they feel 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.120 bad about this and actually have a saying in Swahili 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:01.959 that is never look a bad boot in the eye. 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:06.679 It's it's a good idea general, because they're yeah, they're 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:10.880 I find bad Boom's rather creepy and fearsome, you do 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:15.199 is the well their hignees are are certainly add to it, 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:16.679 because it's like, but I mean the front of them, 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.360 they tend to be pretty fearsome, and then their behinds 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:21.520 are just kind of gross. But it's it's like all 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:23.720 rainbow in the back and then yeah, you're right, a 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:25.440 little bit fangy in the front. Yeah, I mean they're 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:28.440 they're fascinating animals, but yeah there and then you see 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:31.480 videos of them. I mean I've watched a lot of 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.560 like Discovery, BBC Nature documentaries over the last few years, 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:40.880 and yeah, like edinburrow hanging out, watching bad boon's like 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:46.440 run down livestock um and eat things that there. And 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:49.720 I also with monkeys, I mean, monkeys can often walk 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:53.960 that that line between the adorable and the grotesque because 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:56.480 because on one hand, you look at a baby monkey 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:58.320 and you kind of see a baby infant. You see, 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.520 like some you see some positive spects of humanity wrapped 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:05.000 up in that child infant. But I mean if you 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:08.000 see like this ferocious looking monkey with a weird foul 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:10.880 us chasing down an animal and then ripping into its throat, 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:14.240 it still calls to mind some some very human qualities, 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:18.080 but not the ones you want to see magnified. Oh yeah. Yeah. 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:20.160 And and to your point too about baboons, they're not 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.880 so cuddly right there. They are a little bit scary, 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.800 and yet they're saying, don't look the baboon in the eye. 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.160 The reason is that the villagers can't help but see 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:31.680 themselves in the baboon, right and eye kind of something 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:34.400 that there is that connection. It's and it's one of 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.440 those things like hanging out with our with one's pet. 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:39.840 There are aspects of it that never get old, like 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.400 you never stopped finding your pet adorable. But but I 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.240 find myself, especially since I only came into that really 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:48.160 having like an indoor pet in the last few years, 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:50.640 like I'll look into the cat's eyes and the cat 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:53.240 will be looking into my eyes and I'm it's, you know, 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:55.680 kind of an outrageous overstatement of the obvious, but it's 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:58.960 it's just kind of mind blowing that we're connecting on 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.240 some level. I mean, we can't talk killing a connection 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:04.640 for sure. Yeah, well, I mean, but she's connecting with 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:07.120 me because she's looking at my eyes. She's she's she's 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:10.160 looking to you know, to my sight center. She's saying, 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.120 give me more tuna. Well, yeah, I'm not I'm not 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.160 saying that you know that we're having a deep spiritual 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.560 thing or that we're talking about book, but but yeah, 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:20.120 so I can totally see why you would want to 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.320 avoid looking into the batman's eyes because then you're there's 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:26.720 that that brief moment of connection and with this, uh, 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.440 this this thing that looks very human in many ways, 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:32.240 and then you're about to kill it. All right, we'll 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:34.000 be back in a moment, and we're going to discuss 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:37.600 pigs and we're also going to discuss Amazonians in their 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:43.520 odd relationship to my keys. This podcast is brought to 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:47.160 you by Intel, the sponsors of Tomorrow and the Discovery Channel. 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:51.760 At Intel, we believe curiosity is the spark which drives innovation. 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:55.720 Join us at curiosity dot com and explore the answers 0:16:55.800 --> 0:17:00.760 to life's questions. And we're back. Before we get into 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.160 some more interesting animal relationships, I want to point out 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:06.800 that that there have been some studies that have shown 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:08.760 that there are some portions of the brain that light 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:12.280 up when we see animals, but not human faces or objects. 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.000 So it really underlines that the brain has evolved to 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.280 specialize in processing information about animals. And this is that 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.320 parental instinct we were talking about. We again, you know, 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.720 when you're looking at your cat and you guys are connecting, 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.280 there's something going on there, probably for both of you. 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.240 Because we've talked about this exchange of oxytocin before too, 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:34.200 particularly with dogs um and oxytocin being that feel good 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:39.320 hormone that you usually associate between moms and new babies. 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:43.760 So that's there, there's that's all underlying that. But again, 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:46.560 why why don't we look at a pig which is 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.960 far smarter than a dog and say, ah, that that 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.520 pig is so smart and um, such a great fella 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.639 or gal. You know, we should spare them the acts, 0:17:57.359 --> 0:17:59.679 you know, why why them? Yeah? Why is there this 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:04.479 in net bacon phenomenon that refuses to die? Uh? Like, 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:07.000 why why is that? Okay? Why is that that hip? 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:09.920 When you know the pig is smarter than the cat 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:12.920 and and you know, probably smarter than the dog too, 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:15.440 and uh yeah, we're a lot of us are totally 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.600 fine with that becoming breakfast. Well, because somewhere along the 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:22.840 way someone discovered bacon, right, and that's it's delicious. That's 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:25.560 what everybody's thinking right now, and not everybody. They're gonna 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:27.600 I guarantee this, some people out there that are just 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.560 a little over bacon. Well, I don't know. A full disclosure, 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.879 I'm a vegetarian, and I will say that bacon is delicious. 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:36.920 I do recall this, and I've actually heard of studies 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.879 before that say that bacon is like the gateway drug 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.960 to meet. Really. Yeah, so you could tempt anyone into 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:46.280 meet if you were to, I guess put a couple 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:50.840 of strips before someone's nose. Oh, I don't know about that. 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:54.000 I don't know. I'm not as big on bacon these days. 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:58.000 I mean the interest in here for bacon eaters or 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:03.720 actually for a former bacon eaters. Former bacon eaters, yes, reformed. Yeah. 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:07.280 So let's talk about these amazon Ians. Um, yeah, there's 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:11.040 a tribe in the Amazon. They are the Awa garage 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.760 tribe that they're They were covered in the recent BBC 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.879 Discovery co production Human Planet. If you haven't seen that, 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:20.240 I highly recommend. It's a fascinating show. The show itself 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.880 goes around the world looks at different human old human 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:27.800 customs that are still practiced, uh for the not for tourists, 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:29.639 but for the act itself or the you know, the 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:32.320 benefit of the act and this particular tribe. They will 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:34.520 they will go out and they will hunt monkeys like 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:36.240 monkeys are a huge part of their diet. They will 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:39.080 catch some monkeys of very species, bring them home, chop 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:42.560 them up, put them in the stewpot. Everybody's watching. Everybody is, 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.320 you know, dipping into the pot and eating some monkey flesh. 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:48.040 And you know, there's the most natural thing in the 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:51.000 world for the great source of protein. But they'll find 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:54.080 themselves some positions where they've killed a mother monkey. It 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:56.880 would be these baby monkeys. So they'll bring them back. Uh, 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.520 and they will care for them as pets and uh 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.040 and and even in a way more than pets, because 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.800 if there's an infant monkey that needs needs breastfeeding, a 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:09.640 human mother will actually breastfeed the monkey. Okay, so that's 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:11.920 that's just weird. The pet part I kind of understand. 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:16.040 But the actual like taking the monkey into the family 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:19.520 and then giving it nourishment from your own breast, well 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.040 they're but they're they're making that connections, that parental connections. 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:24.600 It's just kind of like the next step, right, But 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:27.000 how could you have that in this you know, how 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.960 could you have a slaughter of monkeys, but then I 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.200 have the nurturing of monkeys. That's the interesting part about 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:35.600 it because and it's important to note too that these 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:37.719 these monkeys they raise, they don't like raise them up 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.359 and then eat them. These monkeys have are once you 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:42.760 take them home, once they grow up, when they've grown 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:45.359 up with you, they have sort of privileged status. And 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:47.960 it's not just monkeys, they're just they're just like an 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:52.880 animal loving tribe. They they love like their their their villages, 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.320 just like crawling with animals of various descriptions there. They're 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.840 they're like the crazy cat lady, except uh, not limited 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:04.119 to two felines. All right. There's actually another group that 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:08.159 they cover on their the bish Bishnoy women. This is 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.280 in India, and they actually breastfeed orphan gazelles and bishnoy 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:13.800 if I'm saying that correctly. This is a Hindu sect 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:18.679 of vegetarian vegetarians and really hold nature and high esteem. 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:21.400 It's kind of a kind of an echo Dharma kind 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:24.280 of thing. But yeah, the the Amazonian tribe those the 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:27.480 most interesting one because because they're they're they're not vegetarians. 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:30.639 They will eat they eat monkeys regularly as part of 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:32.600 their diet, but then they also raise them as pets. 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:35.000 They so they on one level they can connect with 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:37.520 them with with the same they'll have the same species 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:39.760