Slashdot Mirror
Former Slashdot Contributor Jon Katz Believes He Can Talk To Animals (amazon.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland got a surprise when he visited his local bookstore:
Jon Katz turns 70 this August, and he's published a new book called Talking to Animals: How You Can Understand Animals and They Can Understand You. Katz was a former newspaper reporter (and a contributing editor to Rolling Stone) who wrote for HotWired, the first online presence for Wired magazine in the mid-1990s, before becoming a controversial contributor to Slashdot during the site's early days. Katz left Manhattan in the 1990s to live on a farm "surrounded by dogs, cats, sheep, horses, cows, goats, and chickens," according to the book's description, an experience he writes about on his blog. His new book promises that Katz now "marshals his experience to offer us a deeper insight into animals and the tools needed for effectively communicating with them."
See, this is the type of shit that happens when you hang around this place too long..
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
I remember when everyone hated him for not actually knowing anything and writing heavily-slanted pieces on whatever bullshit stories people told him that flattered his politics. Little did we know then that the future of blogging was a world of Jon Katzes.
I just asked my dog if he wanted a hug. He gives awesome hugs.
mine gives me awesome tongue kisses.....deep deep tongue kisses.....
The title, "How You Can Understand Animals and They Can Understand You" needs an edit to:
How You Can Understand "domesticated" Animals and They Can Understand You.
This is because he's only dealt with such animals and none from the wild. If he's up to the challenge, I welcome him to the Sahara, where coming face to face with some of its four legged inhabitants [without protection], immediately invokes the question, "Could you be my next meal?" in the animal's mind.
My cat understands a great deal more English than that - she'll meow at the window to come in, and will wait until I tell her to "got to the door" - no other statement will send her off to the door. Similarly she has a distinctive "yes" and "no" meows, and we can play a belabored 20 questions when she wants something. Her vocabulary is limited, and it's usually easier to just tell her to "show me" and follow her, but that doesn't work for everything.
Just like with dogs, the trick is to use a limited and consistent vocabulary of words and phrases (and intonations - they're usually a lot more sensitive to pitch for recognition than English normally is) to communicate ideas so that they can understand you, and to take the time to learn at least their basic communications (and to clearly and immediately indicate your understanding, especially when starting out, so that they learn what noises/motions to use to communicate with you)
These are social animals after all, and you need only watch them for a while to see that they communicate at least basic concepts amongst themselves, and even between species. There's absolutely no reason we can't do the same with them. Well, except for the lack of a tail - that does give us a pretty severe speech impediment.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
The chickens I live next to talk to me all the time. Idiots on slashdot are free to call me names, but I do understand much of what they say. There isn't much to understand, really, they're rather simple-minded.
Usually they say, "I see you, I'm right here. I see you, I'm right here. I see you, I'm right here." That sounds like, "bok. bok bok. bok."
Sometimes they say, "I just laid the most wonderful egg, I'm so happy I laid this egg, it is the best egg ever because I laid it." That sounds like "bok bok baGOK, bok bok baGOK, bok bok baGOK."
Rarely they're having a crisis, like malfunctioning water source, and they'll say, "bagokbagokbagok? bagok? bagokbagok?"
If they're free range they also have a bunch of phrases relating to food, which mostly translate to, "dibs! dibs! hey, I called dibs you jerk! dibs! dibs!" They also have descriptive terms for the quality of food, but I doubt a human is going to translate that as easily as the above. But it is often obvious what the topic and general thrust of conversation is.
Mine are perverts.
If you listen carefully, they're saying, "Suck suck suck suck my cock."
They're hens! They don't have a cock. Sheesh.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."