never feed a coyote pat macaroni

joleneparton:

leighalanna:

spcsnaptags:

creamsiclesquid:

rjzimmerman:

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Upworthy carried a story summarizing an experiment demonstrating that rats exhibit empathy. Why do I care about this? Because the graphics showing the experiment on Upworthy made me smile, and smiling is good. Here’s the link in case you want to watch the video embedded in the story.

Some scientists ran an experiment to demonstrate that. Here’s how it worked:

1. The scientists put a rat in water (which rats hate). Not enough to hurt the rat, but enough to annoy it.
   
2. Then they put another rat in a safer, dry area with a door it could open to save the first rat.
   

When the dry rat heard the damp, miserable rat get upset, she came to the rescue.

Still not satisfied with the result, the scientists ran a more complex test.

What if you bribe the dry rat with food? Will she ignore it to rescue the wet rat in the next chamber?

Scientists presumed it would be easier for the not-in-peril rat to take the obvious selfless route when it was given only one choice. But what if they gave her a delicious bribe (chocolate cereal) and then let her choose between saving her friend and a buffet?

The rats, by a significant margin, still usually saved their friend before getting their delicious bribe. What does that mean?

Rats might care more about each other than things like food, and that prioritization might be encoded in their DNA.

Why should we care about super-thoughtful rats?

It is often argued that humans are inherently selfish — that without guidance, we would all default to killing and stealing and an “every person for themselves” mentality. That we only help others if it helps us. That evolution can’t make us selfless; it’s something we have to force ourselves to do.

But if rats show human-like qualities (they laugh like us, they dream like us, they like to have selfless lovers) like altruism, that means it isn’t a human-learned behavior. It could be encoded in our DNA. It means humans could be empathetic and kind by default.

It also means that rats and humans have more in common than we think.

An adorable rat not spreading the plague and hugging a tiny teddy bear. Much empathy.

mauther

TINY WONDERFUL BABBIES

Not my usual content, but important because of how many oppressive arguments rest on the presumption that supporting the well being of others is an unlikely, unreliable and antithetical to our nature choice.

This is why I’m glad people are finally moving away from the super-rational assumption of classical economics. Behavioral Econ FTW.

(via princessnooooo)

12yearsaking:

merkkultra:

do men have resting bitch faces as well or do they not have negative characteristics ascribed to them for putting on a neutral rather than a deliriously happy facial expression

Yes, Black men in majority white spaces do. If I don’t smile every single second of the day my coworkers become in intimidated and start asking me what’s wrong, telling me to smile, make jokes about how I’m trying to be a thug/act hard, why am I angry, etc. And it’s not just white men at my job God FORBID I my large Black ass makes a white girl feel threaten because I’m sitting down with a neutral expression.

I’m not trying to take this post away from women and make it about Black men but I want to point out that wether it’s patriarchy or white supremacy; those who feel as if they have power over you HATE to see you not smile. They are so used to people like you smiling to gain their approval that when you don’t there’s a cognitive dissonance that makes them extremely uncomfortable.

That’s why “angry Black women” is a thing. They have to put on a smile for everyone (yes even feminist white women) or we all get uncomfortable.

(via thechocolatebrigade)

coveruncover:

I haven’t had a cigarette since february, I want to smoke a lot of the time but I never do because I convinced myself I only like the blue american spirits and you can’t buy them here, I bought two packs of something else in february… actually it feels like it must have been january, who knows. everything here comes in the same green/brown packaging with a big picture on the front of a brain cut in half with a burst blood clot, or an eyeball exposed from its socket with metal claws, or a man dying in bed with a respirator. and they cost $18 a pack so no matter how much I like smoking sometimes it is easier not to. I wanted to a few minutes ago finishing my first black coffee of the day.

I crave cigarettes like I crave the first black coffee or I crave strong whiskey or I crave someone specific’s cologne, or I crave the inimitable scents of a new season. it’s getting colder every day and I like it now. I bought expensive swedish boots and a less expensive swedish backpack, brought out my box of film. I used to only shoot slide film to cross process it, I guess it was nice to do something most people at school never bothered with, my favourite pictures were shot that way. it got harder when I couldn’t make picture dates so easily and it is always harder when its not green anymore because cold and green is what works best if you want gentle cross processed images (for me anyway). Shooting the city or the suburbs or the starkness of autumn looks awful cross processed. So I have endless regular film I was given at school two years ago, I never refrigerate anything, I never care how it comes out. And of course nothing is more important than how it comes out.

Last year I preordered some 120 and 35mm lomography film that imitates kodak aerochrome infrared film which was discontinued, like all film eventually is and it makes me slightly sicker every time. I sold my medium format cameras though so I sold the five rolls of 120 for about five times what I paid for them to a man in Germany. I haven’t touched the 35mm yet. The times I am least productive taking pictures are when I am too isolated or the complete opposite, when I am wrapped up in one person. I haven’t taken proper pictures for months for one reason and another.

I visited my grandmother yesterday, I filmed her talking covertly on my phone. I think about how much I’m going to hate myself for not being one of those kids in school who would have built a studio around her chair and interviewed her for some high definition vimeo short documentary and called it ‘Days with Josephine’. I also don’t hate myself, for knowing that you can’t force everyone into your premature grieving rituals. I was studying Max Dupain and Olive Cotton a few years ago and had the luck of being in a class taught by the woman who wrote the most important biographies about them, who had met and interviewed Cotton and who clearly appreciated my research into them. And I talked to my grandmother once and discovered she had worked for Max Dupain as a young woman in Sydney while he was working for the military, something to do with camouflage research, and he gave her one of his cameras, or maybe sold it to her for some price that seems impossible now, and she gave it to me, and it’s somewhere or other in storage. Maybe that means more when you’re from here and know who he is but I don’t care where the camera is as much as I want to remember her stories.

Autumn falling into winter is something I always find myself dreading but when I’ve settled I prefer it. Traditionally it means I’m about to go on my American summer trips, so I have some sensations wound into me that come loose with the cold, of smoking in my bathroom to avoid the chill outside, listening to Warpaint or Why? or my boyfriend’s band, idly looking in the mirror of my little blue bathroom. Sometimes I think I’m the worst kind of ‘artist’ because I let things fall gently to the floor, so much film I don’t take care of, so many cameras I don’t use, I bought a little videocamera for $600 something like 6 years ago that takes little dv tapes and I lost the charger somewhere so I’m not sure what is even on it, I bought it with the friend I spent all my time with back then because we had watched Four Eyed Monsters and wanted to recreate some of those ideas, of going on dates and outings together and only communicating through drawings or writing or videos but never speaking. we never did any of that though, preferring to drink my liquor cabinet between us (literally) and watching documentaries and quietly extinguishing each others’ loneliness and grief for however long we were friends for, I’m not sure. we always drift apart, I always have one person I focus all my energy on until we drift apart. it’s ok but I wonder what kind of impression I must leave on some people. I’m sorry to the boy I knew the year after my father died because I was in extreme denial about how fucked up I was and he put up with a lot of things and I have no idea where he is now.

So there’s a dv tape I haven’t watched in something like 6 years which I feel happy about because I tend to overdose on everything I do and it will be nice to see something for the first time in 6 years for a change. I’m happy about the cold because it’s bringing something out of me. I am hesitant to tell you too much about the present. I want to keep some things to myself to protect them. I am relieved though. Putting some sadness to rest I can see how beautiful my particular little life is.