[HN Gopher] Chicken hypnotism
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Chicken hypnotism
        
       Author : jakogut
       Score  : 41 points
       Date   : 2023-11-30 18:53 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
        
       | jakogut wrote:
       | Here's a video of this phenomenon for anybody who's interested.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yo2UkL-n_Q
        
       | swalling wrote:
       | "The enormity of their stupidity is just overwhelming"
       | 
       | https://youtu.be/QhMo4WlBmGM?si=RLmmOCX43l0nOq_q
        
         | tbyehl wrote:
         | He's not wrong.
         | 
         | Source: Have around a dozen varieties of chicken.
        
           | swalling wrote:
           | Not wrong, but as a former backyard chicken owner myself,
           | they can be surprisingly friendly. His fear of chickens is
           | deeply funny in this context.
        
       | atleastoptimal wrote:
       | I wonder if superintelligent AI will discover a tactic that works
       | the same way on humans.
        
         | derac wrote:
         | Short form content?
        
           | atleastoptimal wrote:
           | Probably rage-bait with subliminal erotic/violence-inducing
           | undertones that succinctly imply some new outgroup/ingroup
           | stage-shifting drama that sends every layer of the
           | status/survival preserving brain into instinctive overdrive.
           | Fox news/MSM has tried it but get stuck on too many single-
           | order local maxima.
        
         | xeckr wrote:
         | Probably by placing a small glowing rectangle in their hand.
        
           | whatever1 wrote:
           | Placing in their pockets carefully selected amounts of green
           | sheets of paper.
        
           | mock-possum wrote:
           | yes kids these days and their / _checks notes /_ smart phones
        
         | Teever wrote:
         | It's called marketing and learned helplessness. Some other
         | keywords are doomscrolling and thirst traps.
        
         | noindiecred wrote:
         | RELEASE THE HYPNODRONES
        
       | marcellus23 wrote:
       | I was hoping there would be more details on why exactly this
       | happens, but maybe this is one of those things where no one
       | really knows?
        
         | jakogut wrote:
         | It seems to be a manifestation of tonic immobility [0]
         | triggered as a defense mechanism in response to a perceived
         | threat. As far as why drawing a line is perceived as a threat
         | is anybody's guess. Maybe it's the chicken's simple brain using
         | a flawed heuristic for recognizing snakes? It brings to mind
         | cats freaking out about cucumbers. [1]
         | 
         | [0]
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_death#Tonic_immobilit...
         | 
         | [1] https://youtu.be/RBrZsgy4-SQ?si=OXD65pDCd9hqaNuY
        
       | luca3v wrote:
       | The article ends with a reference to Trout Tickling,
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trout_tickling, that sounds like
       | some kind of Urban Dictionary euphemism, but is instead exactly
       | what it sounds like
        
       | ggambetta wrote:
       | You can turn off cats too [0], so it's not just about chickens
       | not being that bright.
       | 
       | [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9TmmF79Rw0
        
       | AriedK wrote:
       | Tonic immobility is a fascinating phenomenon. From the wikipedia
       | article on it:
       | 
       | " In an interesting eye witness case off the coast of California,
       | a female orca was seen holding the shark upside down to induce
       | tonic immobility. It kept the shark still for fifteen minutes,
       | causing it to suffocate to death."
        
       | praptak wrote:
       | Some orcas use this on white sharks to kill them with little
       | energy expenditure. They induce tonic immobility by ramming the
       | shark from the side.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_and_Starboard_(orcas)
        
       | M_bara wrote:
       | On another note, hooting continuously will make a chicken shake
       | its head. Use a tone similar to an owl.. (hoooooooo). Doing that
       | in a coop with hundreds... you'll have lots of chickens
       | disagreeing with you. Wonder if it has to do with standing waves
       | and chicken ears
        
       | eichin wrote:
       | Heh, I was wondering why this was on HN but then noticed the
       | multidude of Werner Herzog references on the page (apparently he
       | used this in several movies.) so that explains it.
        
       | akomtu wrote:
       | The chicken probably thinks, in its limited way, that the line is
       | a snake and the learned behavior is to lay still, hoping the
       | snake would crawl away. A cat would probably jump, if the line is
       | drawn with a bit higher quality.
       | 
       | Another example is birds avoiding vertical stripes, because
       | that's how cats and other predators typically look (two stripes
       | on the forehead).
       | 
       | How would you personally act if you found yourself in a dimly lit
       | room with something like a big snake on the wall? You'd stand
       | still for a minute, as movement would attract the snake, and only
       | after a "timeout" you'd assume the snake is fake.
        
       | InfiniteRand wrote:
       | Is this related in any way to the state of mind of a human under
       | hypnosis? Is there any way we can check whether or not this is
       | the case?
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-11-30 23:02 UTC)