Medieval Icelanders were likely hunting blue whales before industrial technology(hakaimagazine.com)
hakaimagazine.com
Medieval Icelanders were likely hunting blue whales before industrial technology
https://hakaimagazine.com/features/how-viking-age-hunters-took-down-the-biggest-animal-on-earth/
80 comments
The blue whales had been investing their funds in industrial technology, and the Medieval Icelanders did not like that. This unfortunate event delayed the Industrial Revolution by centuries.
Per Occam’s Razor, this is the most likely explanation. The title can be fixed with a simple comma, instead of some multi-character, multi-syllable word like “before”.
Whales were so close to becoming the dominant species, but Icelanders fortunately stole their industrial technology in the last moment.
Long industrial technology, Short pre-industrial technology
Article's far-too-long-for-HN Subtitle:
> New research suggests that medieval Icelanders were scavenging and likely even hunting blue whales long before industrial whaling technology
> New research suggests that medieval Icelanders were scavenging and likely even hunting blue whales long before industrial whaling technology
But the actual title is not too long at all
"How Viking-Age Hunters Took Down the Biggest Animal on Earth" is far more clicky than informative.
Petty I know, but it actually bothers me that they took the whales up from the ocean, not "down".
Compared to English-language horrors like the right/rite/wright/write homophones, that is a fairly minor nitpick.
Doesn't matter. Its the title.
There's a missing comma, OP is telling us to buy stocks in companies that are in the business of industrial technology
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Yeah weird. If it was done for length-reasons, maybe better omit the "long" instead of "before"?
Look you can either have AI written articles or train wreck titles written by humans. Which one do you want? /s
Reminds me of the Oregon Trail game where one buffalo was way more than you can bring back.
"You shot 290,000 pounds of food, but were only able to carry 100 pounds back."
"You shot 290,000 pounds of food, but were only able to carry 100 pounds back."
Theres also cave painting "evidence" that people were hunting Sperm and Humpbacks whales and (to me more impressive) Orcas in Korea 8000 years ago:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3638853.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3638853.stm
I'd assume that cave orcas were much smaller than regular ones.
Interesting timing to see this since today/yesterday saw a headline about a cruise ship coming in to port with a dead whale stuck to the bow.
We’ve come from “losing 5 spears in a day and giving up whale hunting” to killing them accidentally.
From a purely historical lens whale hunting in a small boat is one of the most extreme things I can imagine. The closest I’ve physically come to whales is sailing and hearing a pod breathing while swimming past - I was scared since the unexpected sound was quite loud and deep.
Just spit balling here but interesting to think of whales “hunting humans” as we’ve seen them start taking out more pleasure craft around Europe (and elsewhere?) in the past few years. Would be curious to “hear” their side of history!
From a purely historical lens whale hunting in a small boat is one of the most extreme things I can imagine. The closest I’ve physically come to whales is sailing and hearing a pod breathing while swimming past - I was scared since the unexpected sound was quite loud and deep.
Just spit balling here but interesting to think of whales “hunting humans” as we’ve seen them start taking out more pleasure craft around Europe (and elsewhere?) in the past few years. Would be curious to “hear” their side of history!
I suspect they are just pissed off with us.
I did a whale watching tour from Húsavík last year on a cranky old boat. We found one but the poor thing was asleep apparently, just surfacing every few minutes to breathe. Immediately buzzed by about 5 boats full of people every time it surfaced, two pictured here: https://imgur.com/a/g4em6sc . I think I'd be in the mood to tip a fishing boat after that every day.
I did a whale watching tour from Húsavík last year on a cranky old boat. We found one but the poor thing was asleep apparently, just surfacing every few minutes to breathe. Immediately buzzed by about 5 boats full of people every time it surfaced, two pictured here: https://imgur.com/a/g4em6sc . I think I'd be in the mood to tip a fishing boat after that every day.
There was an orca (technically not a whale) on the west coast of canada that famously ripped fishfinders off the bottoms of boats. Evidently it didn't like their noise. But it wasn't just the active ones. It found and ripped them off parked boats too.
Technically yes, a whale. Orcas are the biggest dolphins, and dolphins in turn are the smallest whales.
Very similar experience, it was cool seeing & hearing a whale up close, but man that must be annoying for the whale.
I did the same in Husavik some... 8 years ago in wintery conditions (april iirc, inland was completely inpassable and even ring road had heaps of snow) and they were fine, we saw plenty of them and pretty active (mostly mink whales). Maybe bad luck or they are quite seasonal?
I'd say medieval icelanders did everything before industrial technology
Pretty cool story; but I'm pretty amazed by the detail in the Italian map of the area.
It's a very cool map, but it is actually scandinavian in origin (Swedish). I also noted the "italian map" remark in the article.
It is in latin tho, and created in Rome. It is the oldest "complete" map where scandinavia is depicted with any kind of accuracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carta_marina
It is in latin tho, and created in Rome. It is the oldest "complete" map where scandinavia is depicted with any kind of accuracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carta_marina
https://archive.org/details/map-1539
.
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The map is truly a historical marvel. Especially at higher resolutions, can see many country details around the Baltics and Scandinavia, down to Poland, and part of Scotland and England.
Strange animals and details of different warfare.
It's so cool, made it my new wallpaper.
Folks will probably enjoy Matt Lakeman's series on whaling https://mattlakeman.org/2021/06/01/everything-you-might-want...
About the female whale whose dorsal fin was punctured: "Ólafur appears to have developed a personal kinship with the whale"
A macabre kinship that involved spearing her calf. And eventually, killing the female whale herself while trying to kill her calf again.
A macabre kinship that involved spearing her calf. And eventually, killing the female whale herself while trying to kill her calf again.
That is a partial quote:
"Ólafur appears to have developed a personal kinship with the whale, choosing not to try to kill her again. But he had no problem shooting the whale’s calf. One summer, when he raised his spear and took aim at the calf, his spear went askew, hitting the mother instead.
With that, he’d had enough. That was the last time Ólafur speared a whale."
"Ólafur appears to have developed a personal kinship with the whale, choosing not to try to kill her again. But he had no problem shooting the whale’s calf. One summer, when he raised his spear and took aim at the calf, his spear went askew, hitting the mother instead.
With that, he’d had enough. That was the last time Ólafur speared a whale."
A mother's love is unconditional like 99% of the time regardless of the species and humans are more or less the same across culture, time and space 99% of the time :(
does anyone ever think about a less vicious world? like I know evolution / survival of the fittest all that is a thing but did it have to be like this? Could we have evolved without killing?
does anyone ever think about a less vicious world? like I know evolution / survival of the fittest all that is a thing but did it have to be like this? Could we have evolved without killing?
> A mother's love is unconditional ...
There are many people whose personal experience is decidedly not like that, so "citation needed".
There are many people whose personal experience is decidedly not like that, so "citation needed".
Haha valid I could tell you stories but trauma comparison is not a healthy thing they tell me I don't even speak to mine but idk the pain of giving birth should get some credit?
I feel like when I was growing up this statement would have been accepted as a near tautology perhaps a cultural thing? or maybe a testament to the trauma-centric times we live in?
I feel like when I was growing up this statement would have been accepted as a near tautology perhaps a cultural thing? or maybe a testament to the trauma-centric times we live in?
I don't think it's a "sign of the times" thing, I think it's an internet thing. If you made that claim outside IRL today it would be well received by nearly everybody, including people with bad personal experiences (if only because most people prefer to believe that good outcomes are the norm instead of wallowing in pessimism.)
But the internet? The internet is packed with people who focus on the negative, even people who resent their mothers (who may love them and treat them well) because they're so miserable they wish they had never been born.
Always remember that talking to people online doesn't give you a representative sample of what people at large are really like. There's a selection bias in play; people who have problems with "real life" have a tendency to spend more problem online.
But the internet? The internet is packed with people who focus on the negative, even people who resent their mothers (who may love them and treat them well) because they're so miserable they wish they had never been born.
Always remember that talking to people online doesn't give you a representative sample of what people at large are really like. There's a selection bias in play; people who have problems with "real life" have a tendency to spend more problem online.
The internet often carries a reverse of a normal distribution in terms of sentiment of opinion.
> ... the pain of giving birth should get some credit?
Sure, up to a point. If the treatment of the children later on is massively detrimental though, then that "credit" is well and truly expired.
Sure, up to a point. If the treatment of the children later on is massively detrimental though, then that "credit" is well and truly expired.
Testament to strong social tabboos that kept poeple quiet about their as abusive families.
Why is there credit due? It's hard for me to accept the fact that children owe their parents for giving birth to them. I would say credit is due how the parents treat their child afterwards is what matters.
It's rather common in rodents that they eat their offspring, as many parents that kept hamsters for their kids know.
In sheep it's somewhat common for first-time mothers to not want their offspring and refuse them the early ('raw'?) milk, which is pretty much a death sentence. A slow, painful death unless culled by a human.
The term mother isn't very clear in itself. Who is the mother in an anthill?
In sheep it's somewhat common for first-time mothers to not want their offspring and refuse them the early ('raw'?) milk, which is pretty much a death sentence. A slow, painful death unless culled by a human.
The term mother isn't very clear in itself. Who is the mother in an anthill?
> Who is the mother in an anthill?
Except the queen, all the other ants are the daugthers of the queen.
IIRC thermites have many "queens" and "kings". I'm not sure about social wasps.
Except the queen, all the other ants are the daugthers of the queen.
IIRC thermites have many "queens" and "kings". I'm not sure about social wasps.
Right, so the queen lays the eggs, and there her care stops. Is she the mother since she made the eggs, or would the drones that care for them be the mothers?
That's an interesting question. In principle intelligence could evolve as a fitness indicator. That is, a species of herbivorous apes could select mates for ability in music, art, and story-telling, and then you get a gentle tribe of orangutan-like creatures with human-like culture. However, unless they specifically settle on non-killing as the fitness indicator, I don't see why they'd be consistent about it. Even an orangutan may eat a slow loris from time to time. It's more morality's business than evolution's.
Assuming a high dimensional multi-variate search space I guess that leads to the question what the role of killing is in calculating fitness is right?
In my head the more humans / beings have known about their world the better the have survived so it makes sense intelligence would be a fitness indicator that speeds up the search algorithm. But there's no intuitive answer to why killing as many people as possible would be a fitness indicator like population wasn't a factor until recently so it's not like resource scarcity was the issue
In my head the more humans / beings have known about their world the better the have survived so it makes sense intelligence would be a fitness indicator that speeds up the search algorithm. But there's no intuitive answer to why killing as many people as possible would be a fitness indicator like population wasn't a factor until recently so it's not like resource scarcity was the issue
Resource scarcity has always been the issue. Even ignoring water (still an issue), foraging and agriculture are both incredibly hard ways to supply food.
even if resources were highly limited it seems intuitive that the evolution algorithm would prioritize acquiring knowledge for efficient resource gathering over killing long term wouldn't it?
Let's say cave person a figured out how to dig a well cave person b not so much. cave person b kills cave person a to get the well and uses it for x years then dies because they didn't acquire the knowledge to dig another one. so cave person c will be like "protec well digger hooman". same for foraging let's say cave person a killed cave person b who was extremely good at remembering where trees are in a given area sure cave person a got a meal for today but is gonna die out unless they develop the skills cave person a had
sorry I'm a homeless dropout maybe I'm missing something super obvious I'm still not seeing the how killing leads to an optimum solution. Maybe a local maxima for sure but not the most optimal solution in the search space and as civilized as humans have become killing still persists I've seen some brutal stuff by some insanely rich folk (at least to me) that had absolutely nothing to do with resources so maybe that's coloring my viewpoint but idk even for inter species stuff some species have been hunted to extinction which is like a dairy farmer killing everything instead of planning for multiple generations it doesn't make any sense
Let's say cave person a figured out how to dig a well cave person b not so much. cave person b kills cave person a to get the well and uses it for x years then dies because they didn't acquire the knowledge to dig another one. so cave person c will be like "protec well digger hooman". same for foraging let's say cave person a killed cave person b who was extremely good at remembering where trees are in a given area sure cave person a got a meal for today but is gonna die out unless they develop the skills cave person a had
sorry I'm a homeless dropout maybe I'm missing something super obvious I'm still not seeing the how killing leads to an optimum solution. Maybe a local maxima for sure but not the most optimal solution in the search space and as civilized as humans have become killing still persists I've seen some brutal stuff by some insanely rich folk (at least to me) that had absolutely nothing to do with resources so maybe that's coloring my viewpoint but idk even for inter species stuff some species have been hunted to extinction which is like a dairy farmer killing everything instead of planning for multiple generations it doesn't make any sense
Sure, it's not optimal long-term planning. Evolution doesn't plan ahead at all, its only super power in that regard is being very slow and gradual. If species A gets better and better at eating the abundant species B, and this continues for a million years and species A specializes and evolves to be unable to eat anything else, and the population of A increases to a point where B's population suddenly plummets, they could both go extinct. But usually A doesn't get that effective at killing B (before the crisis), and what happens is a repeating population cycle, the old boom and bust.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_cycle
Weirdly, Olaus Magnus (Big Olaf) was involved in this one as well, the same person who did the map in the article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_cycle
Weirdly, Olaus Magnus (Big Olaf) was involved in this one as well, the same person who did the map in the article.
>it seems intuitive that the evolution algorithm would prioritize acquiring knowledge for efficient resource gathering over killing long term wouldn't it?
By what mechanism do you suppose evolution would implement long-term planning?
By what mechanism do you suppose evolution would implement long-term planning?
I was thinking (but forgot to say) that hunting is usually said to be what drove the evolution of intelligence. Humans needed tools, plans, and at least the ability to yell words if not grammar, in order to kill large tasty animals, that's the usual idea for how it happened, more commonly mentioned than intelligence as a fitness indicator (aka pure showing off).
Beautiful idea, but of course people have thought about and wished for an alternative and less viscous world for thousands of years. The current paradigm is the worst possible, except all others.
> less viscous world
This would be no land of milk and honey. Maybe just the milk.
This would be no land of milk and honey. Maybe just the milk.
Killing is the easiest way to get lots of calories and building materials. Plants do it, too.
I think about this a lot does that explain intra species killings? cave person A see sabertooth cave person A dead cave person B also see sabertooth cave person B dead cave person c gotta kill sabertooth before cave person c dead. cave person eat sabertooth like sabertooth eat cave person A & B I understand but not cave person A kill cave person B cause caveperson different / new its not like humans eat humans haha unless you're a wendigo ofc
Two possible reasons why humans don't eat humans (except when we do):
We're hardwired to have empathy for our own kind, e.g. the "selfish gene" theory, stronger for kin than for strangers but nonetheless strong enough to create an almost universal taboo against eating people. Note however that many other animals do seem to be wired to eat some of their own children: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_cannibalism
"The most dangerous game." People are very resourceful, and furthermore have friends and family who hold grudges. Eating people is a bad strategy because people who make a habit of it tend to get killed for it sooner or later. Hunting nearly anything else is safer than hunting other humans.
We're hardwired to have empathy for our own kind, e.g. the "selfish gene" theory, stronger for kin than for strangers but nonetheless strong enough to create an almost universal taboo against eating people. Note however that many other animals do seem to be wired to eat some of their own children: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_cannibalism
"The most dangerous game." People are very resourceful, and furthermore have friends and family who hold grudges. Eating people is a bad strategy because people who make a habit of it tend to get killed for it sooner or later. Hunting nearly anything else is safer than hunting other humans.
Just to say, that second one also explains why almost no other animal likes to eat people either.
Eating one's own species is a fairly complex topic, and there are many local optimas. For a detailed read on this topic, see "The Red Queen" by Ridley.
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/0...
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/0...
Interpunctuation would really help making your comment understandable.
>A mother's love is unconditional like 99% of the time regardless of the species
That's just BS. In many species, the mother never has any interaction at all with the young. In some species, it's not particularly uncommon for a mother to eat her young.
That's just BS. In many species, the mother never has any interaction at all with the young. In some species, it's not particularly uncommon for a mother to eat her young.
> "mammal mothers eating their young are relatively rare and usually occur under extreme stress or adverse conditions"
perhaps i meant to say just mammals? would be cool if neuroscience advanced enough to figure out what makes mammals specifically different but alas like Moses won't live long enough to see that day
perhaps i meant to say just mammals? would be cool if neuroscience advanced enough to figure out what makes mammals specifically different but alas like Moses won't live long enough to see that day
Generally, a tendency for a type of animal to eat its young correlates to a strategy of producing a lot of them. Rabbits, for instance. I'm blanking on the name of it but this is one of a pair of strategies where the other is to be long-lived - like humans, or at the extreme end, the greenland shark, which has a very low metabolism. That's the alternate way of persisting as a species: do nothing, and especially don't die.
That's the one! My mind was polluted with "A/B testing".
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Not only mammals, birds seem to have it from the same origin.
Also, some reptiles and fish care for their children. Some arthropod too. So it looks like reasonably easy to evolve.
Also, some reptiles and fish care for their children. Some arthropod too. So it looks like reasonably easy to evolve.
That proves it, they love their offspring so much, they could just eat them all up, hair and nails.
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This is another of this latest historical or scientific news that look a lot like created by AI.
> Over half of the bones came from blue whales.
This claim just does not made a lot of sense.
> Spectroscopy, which reveals the chemical makeup of bones by analyzing collagen proteins found in bone fragments, is cheaper and faster than DNA analysis.
And much more inaccurate, it seems. Again, we have big claims (that people will repeat for decades) supported by dwarf proofs or subpar methods.
I want to play this game also: "Scientists discover that spears make whales autistic".
> Over half of the bones came from blue whales.
This claim just does not made a lot of sense.
> Spectroscopy, which reveals the chemical makeup of bones by analyzing collagen proteins found in bone fragments, is cheaper and faster than DNA analysis.
And much more inaccurate, it seems. Again, we have big claims (that people will repeat for decades) supported by dwarf proofs or subpar methods.
I want to play this game also: "Scientists discover that spears make whales autistic".
What's a "dwarf proof"?
It's been an open secret in the industry for a long time that autism in whales is caused by harpoons, but big plankton doesn't want it to become public knowledge. In fact many believe that smaller harpoons can have the same effect in humans as studies have shown (2023, Ishmael et al.)
It's been an open secret in the industry for a long time that autism in whales is caused by harpoons, but big plankton doesn't want it to become public knowledge. In fact many believe that smaller harpoons can have the same effect in humans as studies have shown (2023, Ishmael et al.)
This is a bogus claim. The Ishmael guy just starts the paper by proclaiming his name. That's no way to start a rigorous dissertation. The publishing year is wrong too.
> What's a "dwarf proof"?
A proof with a stunted development obviously, so it never grow as tall as the other proofs and can be spotted as dubious from a mile even if it wears high soles to hide it.
A proof with a stunted development obviously, so it never grow as tall as the other proofs and can be spotted as dubious from a mile even if it wears high soles to hide it.
"Medieval Icelanders were likely hunting blue whales long industrial technology"
Seems they were trying to hunt industrial tech from whales. I guess a "before" went missing before "industrial"?