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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (55090)	8/23/2002 5:45:40 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 82486

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!

To: The Philosopher who wrote (55090)	8/25/2002 4:27:03 AM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I wanted to thank you for your polite response. I don't post much anymore and just check in once in a while when something tickles me. These days, I'm just too busy. I've seen some of the discussions of intelligences and what not. I don't see why people think of it as being so odd that things are coupled in such a way for others than ourselves. After all, why wouldn't they? If receiving information from others benefits you (defined: improves your efficiency), why would you or any other organism (or system, for that matter) turn it off? I'm an amateur naturalist and there are differences in spider intelligence which serve to illustrate some points. In general, any thing that is a predator has to be more intelligent than a browser. There are exceptions, but on balance it is true. As for spiders, if you ever compare a "hunting" spider like a wolf spider to a web weaver, you will see that the weavers rely upon a technology (a good one) as opposed to wit (in terms of latitude in their stereotyped behavior). If you approach a wolf spider you get a very different impression of spider behavior than you do from watching a spider in a web. The wolf spider is watching you - you move your finger forward, it retreats defensively. The webspinner is idle unless you touch its web and then it runs to the place to investigate, but only if it an "appropriate" disturbance. But the behavior is much more stereotypical than for the wolf spider. A yellow jacket spends some of its time defending its reputation. The warning of yellow and black would not be as effective if they "rolled over" when injured or assaulted. I advise novice outdoorspersons to leave them alone. Keep the attractants away and if worse comes to worse and you feel compelled to kill one, make sure actually do. If assaulted, a "switch" of some kind is thrown and for several minutes, these buggers won't "think" of anything else other than getting you back. They are programmed to spend some energy enforcing their reputation, out of proportion with any possible benefit to the individual because the genome benefits from such an apparently suicidal strategy.