everyoneās hallucinating. Red guy is having a baby, yellow guy is doing a sick air guitar solo, blue guy is getting shot in slow motion and beige guy just got out of an imaginary divorce.Ā
You know, I love this comic dearly, but ever since Iāve put it out into the world, I realized that
I made a grave error in my script.
A lot of people in the comments have, understandably, tried to correct me on my choice of words, most specifically on this panel:
āAnd yet a chimp can not learn language the way a human can.ā
And Iām here to admit my mistakeā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦.
I forgot to put a disclaimer reminding people that I do, in fact, know what the fuck Iām talking about.
Alright, I know that thereās a fun little factoid that gets passed around a lot - that gorillas/apes/chimps can learn sign language, and therefore CAN do language as well!
And the thing is - no, thatās not actually true. Not in the way you may have come to believe it.
If you want the TL;DR of it:
most, if not all, projects involving great apes and sign language were started and largely led by people with no actual native OR near-native understanding of sign language. Even if the apes DID learn signs, they did not learn ASL in any meaningful way.
the tapes used to prove that the apes were effectively communicating in āsignā were heavily doctored and cut in order to make them seem more cohesive and convincing than they actually were
through a thorough review of the tapes, the apes (gorillas, chimps) involved were found to be effectively signing random things until the handler saw one that they thought was ācorrectā
the handlers were often incredibly close to the apes and were often giving their charge signals - sometimes signing things for them to repeat, and the apes were often determined to be only copying signs their handler threw up, which was counted as ācorrectly answeringā
many, many apes often signed in an extremely limited manner - although they had the ability to sign many words, they rarely, if ever, asked questions - one of the main hallmarks of ātrueā language use
human language is thoroughly agreed upon by linguists to be a specific ability, and it has been determined that current apes do not have anything similar, though - importantly!! - they are still able to communicate in a multitude of incredibly complex and effective ways!
For further reading, I would suggest the following:
Hereās some reading about Nim Chimpsky, one of the more famous chimps, whose life was pretty horrible and frankly tragic by all accounts, even human ones
Hereās a wiki article with an overview of various ape language experiments and their surrounding issues
And HERE is a very succinct podcast episode that neatly summarizes the entire issue within an hour and twenty minutes:
āItās interesting that we became enthusiastic about ASL in the process of teaching it to a population that couldnāt benefit from it.āMike te
I highly reccomend this Soup Emporium video on the subject, it covers most of the same stuff the Youāre Wrong About podcast ep does but he also talks about those dogs and cats that press buttons to ātalkā and specifically focuses on how this whole thing has a lot of fucked up ableist implications that should be acknowledged. Just be warned for mentions of animal cruelty, sexual harassment, and ableism. (I also reccomend his video about Helen Keller which expands on a lot of the ideas about ableism and language he brought up in the Koko one.)
"That should be long enough for me to jack off at least two more times. He'll stand no chance against my empty balls and desensitized dick. I'll be sure to win this session."
"If he were Kira, he'd likely to use this time to jack off again... No... Maybe several times. It would be wise to bring my stroker with me to the gym so I can get at least another load out between sets. Such a dangerous foe, one can never be too cautious."
My 2 year old son is obsessed with your Dino cube. When I showed him he audibly gasped and took my phone from me so he could zoom in and look at different parts of Dino cube. He looked at Dino cubeās face and turned to me and said āhappy!!!ā and I said yes, Dinosaur is happy!
He spent 5 minutes just admiring every part of Dino cube, he wouldāve spent longer if Iād let him lol. Picture saved so he can look more later.
my partner doesnāt use pet names nearly as much as i do, which is very funny because i will crack my gay little knuckles and say some shit like āgood morning my sun and moon, my loveliest boy, my baby my sweetheart my darling dearestā and he will reply āhello adrianā
i love how many people saw this post and invented a world where iām a sad little trans āguyā (aka confused woman) throwing endless love and affection at some loserly cisgender brick wall. first of all, my boyfriend doesnāt use pet names as often as i do because english isnāt his first language. our pet naming conventions do not come naturally to him. second of all, this is the t4t website. we both have vaginas
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