Orcas eat great white sharks. They hunt seals, dolphins, and baby whales. They have never killed a single human in the open ocean. Not once, in all of recorded history.
An orca's brain weighs up to 15 pounds. Yours weighs about 3. They have roughly double the brain cells we do in the regions that handle complex thought. A neuroscientist at Emory named Lori Marino put an orca brain in an MRI and found these animals can tell different species apart underwater. They do it by sending out clicks that bounce off everything around them and come back as a kind of 3D sound map (this is called echolocation). From 500 feet away, an orca knows you're a human and not a seal. It skips you on purpose.
The answer is culture. Orcas around the world are divided into at least 10 separate populations, each with its own food rules, its own language, and its own way of hunting. All of it learned from their mothers. One population eats only fish. Another eats only marine mammals like seals and sea lions. These two populations can live in the exact same water and never swap a single meal. A baby orca learns what food is from its mother, and that list stays the same for life.
In the Pacific Northwest, one population called the Southern Residents eats almost nothing but Chinook salmon. Scientists have documented them killing harbor porpoises 78 times over six decades, carrying the dead porpoises in their mouths, and never once eating them. Even when the group was starving. A 2023 study in Marine Mammal Science looked at all 78 cases and concluded it was play. These orcas would rather go hungry than eat something their culture says isn't food.
Researchers studying whale behavior in 2001 found that orca cultural traditions "appear to have no parallel outside humans." Each family group has its own dialect, its own version of the language. Calves spend about two years just learning how to make all the sounds their family uses. Mothers will slow down a hunt on purpose so their young can watch.
In 2005, a 12-year-old kid was swimming in Helm Bay, Alaska when an orca came at him full speed. At the very last second, the orca seemed to realize it was charging a human. It bent its entire body in half and turned back to open water. In captivity, it goes differently. SeaWorld's Tilikum killed three people during his life in a concrete tank. Research from 2016, published in the journal Animals, traced it to psychological collapse from being locked away from the family bonds orcas need to stay stable.
I think calling this a "mystery" undersells the science. Orcas decide what to eat based on culture, not instinct. No orca mother has ever taught her calf to hunt humans, so no orca hunts humans. Only about 75 of those salmon-eating Southern Residents are still alive. Their pregnancy failure rate is 69% because we've destroyed their salmon runs. They won't break their food culture to survive. Whether we care enough to protect theirs is the part that actually matters.
We are overstimulated and we don't even notice. Netflix while eating. Reels in the bathroom. Music while cooking. Podcasts on walks. We consume by default, not by intention. You keep filling every gap, then wonder why you feel foggy and unmotivated. Boredom and silence are the real growth drivers. They give you space to think and create. That's when solutions show up for problems that have been stuck for months. Leave some room.
@Jefzunig Eso o incluso mejor… Que no se vote por listas, sino por las personas. Conozco a varias personas que votaron por PPSO en ambas papeletas aunque no les gustara Nogui, pero preferían darle más diputados al gobierno para poder mover más sus propuestas
@allywooww Se llama pragmatismo. Es decir sí a algunas cosas pero hasta cierto punto, con control. Cuando uno crece se da cuenta que las cosas no son solo blanco y negro y que los “nunca” y los “siempre” no aportan para construir, solo para idealizar. Slds
When Dostoevsky Said;
“People don't want truth;
they want comfort dressed as truth.”
And Kafka Said;
“Yes, reality is too heavy,
so they rent illusions and call it happiness.”
Vieran que muchas personas coincidimos en el fondo con muchas cosas que ha planteado Chaves, no con las formas. Por ejemplo: eliminar ciertos privilegios del sector público, unificar régimen de pensiones, renovar la podredumbre judicial a la que llegaron querubines como el “excelso” ex-magistrado de la ropita de bebé y a favor de ponerle límites al gasto público.
No estamos a favor de decir pachucadas desde la presidencia, ni de pelearse con todos, ni de tratar de enemigo a quien lo critique, entre otras cosas. Tampoco nos gustan muchas cosas del PLN ni del FA.
Pero hay un grupo de fanáticos que apenas nos ven haciendo autocrítica de la oposición, coincidir con Chaves en algo o dialogar con perfiles afines al oficialismo dicen: “uy, usted es es chavista”.
Andan hablando de defender la democracia pero parecen ser incapaces de aceptar que muchos votaran distinto a como ustedes querían, y los siguen tratando de idiotas o irresponsables en medio de lágrimas que no sabemos si son reales o fingidas.
Ahora que los liberales prácticamente no tenemos representación, en sus manos está ser oposición, y si siguen con la misma tónica no se extrañen si el chavismo se fortalece más en 4 años.
@allywooww Pasa como cuando llegó Internet, muchas personas se quedaron sin trabajo pero muchos otros trabajos se abrieron. Está en buscar qué skills aprender para posicionarse en el nuevo mercado que, eso sí, está más cambiante que nunca
@JuanSchukin @Mente_estoico Muy interesante la ética del Gen AI. Te enseña como tanto la data como el mismo modelo de entrenamiento de la IA son hechas por el ser humano, entonces del sesgo no se escapan
“Si tu paz depende de que todo salga bien, no es paz: es control. Aprende a mantenerte firme en la incertidumbre. Eso es crecimiento real.”
- Arben Kanani