No, The Psychopathic Edge is not an unflattering nickname for the guitarist in U2. The guy who goes by this moniker is a pickup guru with several self-published books to his name and more than three times the number of Twitter followers than I have.
He likes to share his insights about men and women on Twitter. This is his pinned tweet:
He also tries his hand at memes, though he doesn’t seem to have realized that they’re supposed to be funny.
But mostly, he tweets. But going through his tweets I realized fairly quickly that he’s not necessarily as creative as he is prolific; a lot of his tweets simply repeat points he’s made in earlier tweets.
Also, he’s sort of obsessed with animals. Like lions:
And wolves:
And (more so than either lions or wolves) sheep. He’s really obsessed with sheep, especially when they are being eaten by lions or wolves.
How obsessed is he? Let’s roll the tweets. Lions first.
At this point it’s safe to say we understand the basics of his teachings. But it’s not clear he understands the basics of lions. Because lions don’t eat sheep. I mean, sure, they’re lions; when they get the opportunity, they’re happy to eat sheep or just kill them all in a frenzy. But they rarely get that opportunity, because they don’t live near large supplies of sheep. Mostly they eat tasty things like wildebeests and antelopes and other not-quite-fast-enough animals living in their territories.
But that’s not the only thing he gets wrong about lions.
Lions don’t actually live in jungles. They live on savannahs and grasslands. I mean, you’ve seen those Planet Earth shows right?
So what animals do eat sheep on the regular? In the US, coyotes and dogs eat more sheep than all other animals combined, but wolves are occasional sheep-eaters as well. So Psycho’s obsession with the eating habits of wolves makes a little bit more sense than his lamb-lion deal.
Dude, I hate to break it to you but that’s not a wolf. Or a sheep. It’s a tiger.
Dude, dude, that is also not a wolf. It’s a lion. Do you even know what wolves look like?
Ok, that looks like a wolf.
Sometimes Psycho can’t decide if he wants to be a lion or a wolf — so he goes for both.
Hey, it’s tough being the the NUMBER ONE APEX ALPHA PREDATOR in the room all the time; sometimes it’s hard to remember just what kind of APEX ALPHA PREDATOR you are. Not that it matters. Anything with lots of scary teeth and claws and eyes on the front of the head will probably do just fine. Let’s get out there and hunt those sheep!
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Not all sheep are weak. 🙂
https://youtu.be/Hhck0SLcA6I
@Gaebolga & @Dalillama
You’re missing some more things which make humans different/special compared to other animals. In no particular order:
1.) Eyesight. Only a handful of birds (mainly raptors), molluscs (mainly nautiluses), and crustaceans (mainly stomatopods, such as mantis shrimp) have better eyesight than humans.
2.) Throwing. Nothing can throw stuff as far or as accurately as humans. Granted, that appears to have only fully evolved after the invention of throwing weapons like javelins, spears, gimels, and slings, but even before that, we were already around the top end.
3.) Endurance. The only land animals with a comparable level of endurance to humans are canines and equines, which is part of the reason why we domesticated them. (I specified “land animals” because a lot of fish swim constantly, even while sleeping.)
4.) Poison resistance. Humans are highly resistant or immune to a wide variety of poisons; some of the plants we eat daily are poisonous. Even most of the poisons specifically meant to keep mammals from eating it don’t work on us. We just usually don’t think about that because we’re mostly concerned with the poisons which we’re not resistant to.
5.) Immune system. Only bats are better at virus resistance, only other unusually long-lived animals are comparable or better at cancer resistance. For that matter, long lifespans can be considered special in itself. (Most human-sized animals only live to be about 20, and even then only under near-ideal conditions.)
6.) Turning radius, and general movement flexibility. Sure, we can’t outrun most four-legged animals, but if we don’t panic we can make them overshoot. I have personal experience with being play-chased by dogs, and they can’t catch me easily for exactly that reason. Likewise, I can catch dogs when I play-chase them if I can trap them in a fairly confined area. And that assumes there are no corners to turn – we’re champion corner-turners. Also, with practice, we can perform a sharp kick-turn (or push-turn) off large solid objects, or grab thin objects and swing around, which really messes up anything chasing us and might even cause them to crash.
Combined with the endurance thing above, we can survive just by essentially stalling predators until they get tired. For that matter, we can jump, climb, and swim, and while we’re not nearly the best at any of those things, it can help a lot if whatever’s chasing us can’t also do at least one of those… and we can even jump, tumble, or throw ourselves sideways to avoid something charging straight for us. Hummingbirds and hoverflies can do similar lateral escapes by flying straight up or down, some moths can suddenly drop down in midair, and crabs move sideways by default, but not much else can do similar. Flexibility counts, sometimes for a lot. When humans die from predators or highly aggressive herbivores, it’s most often due to panic or an ambush (or significant injury/disability), not inability to escape.
7.) Carrying stuff. Two hands are way better for this than one mouth. That’s in addition to the fact that we can also use our mouths if we really have to. While there are animals who can pick up and carry more total weight at once (such as elephants), they can’t carry multiple things separately (or at all) and they’re much larger than humans. (Okay, most primates and a few rodents can technically carry things separately, but not very well.) In addition, the endurance thing also means we can carry heavy stuff for long periods.
8.) Groups of humans can be scary, yo. If even a few humans stare at another animal right in the eyes and and advance on them evenly and unhesitatingly, most things will just bolt. (Most things. Occasionally this is a bad idea. Also, it helps if you’re upwind, so they can’t smell you.) Good way to get rid of lions, for example, or even steal their kills. Have you seen those creepy art and/or photomanips of human-like beings with distorted features and too-long limbs? That’s more or less what we look like to a lot of animals from a distance (remember, most things don’t have eyesight like ours), and you’d run too if a group of horror walkers suddenly comes marching right at you.
Conclusion: Even take away our high intelligence, complex language, and technology (the latter being not mere tool use, which many animals are capable of, but the ability to make specialized tools) humans aren’t weak. Hell, we’re not even entirely lacking natural weapons – our bites can tear out chunks of flesh and our bacteria-infested saliva can cause nasty infections, our hands can strangle or even snap anything with a vulnerable neck, and our kicks can break bones (granted, all those things require some practice to get right, and even then it’s not impressive compared to most predators, but good enough that humans in good shape can’t ever be considered truly unarmed) We’re both specialists and generalists, and our particular combination of specialties is extremely unusual.
TL;DR “Humans are weak except for our intelligence” is a meme which needs to die. Intelligence may be necessary to have gotten where we are, but it’s not anywhere near enough on its own. Humans are good and sometimes even impressive at lots of things.
So I’m thinking this guy has a… thing… for sheep.
Also doesn’t realize female lions are the ones that do the hunting. And female wolves are the leaders of the group.
Someone needs to sit him down with a grade-school biology video.
I agree with Moggie: BE THE CAT.
@Buttercup: Got it in one.
@Alan: That anecdote is NOT the plot of “The Sheep Look Up”.
I have some lamb chops in the freezer; maybe tonight we’ll EAT SHEEP.
@ gss ex noob
Aww, but she was cute!
@GSS:
Well, has a thing for cunnilingus & sheep.
@Snowberry
Re: your #8, I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve also heard that lions aren’t very good at recognizing that we’re walking on our hind legs and therefore that what you see is what you get; instead, they assume that we’re walking towards them on all fours, so they see a human walking towards them and think “OK, so that’s the front of the creature, which means… holy shit, it must go on for 20 feet behind that! No way I’m a match for that, I’m taking off.” Apparently this explains why people are more likely to be killed by lions if they’re sitting down (or, um, squatting, and when I go, I really hope it’s not “killed by a lion while taking a shit”) because it makes them seem smaller and also makes it likelier that the lion will be able to see that there’s no more to them. But as I say, this may be a myth.
Other than the fact he knows nothing about animals he’s a scary POS advocating for men to act like entitled, pushy and possibly violent pricks. It’s very rapey with all the crap about not worrying about how the woman/sheep/victim feels or what she wants. It depresses me that so many men flock to these ridiculous and often dangerous so-called alpha males (jokes on them, the whole alpha thing is based on faulty data) and taking away their aggressive approaches instead of simply listening to women about how we want to be treated and what we want. I’m sick of seeing “Alpha male” dating seminar ads everywhere I look. They ought to be banned, they help no one and they put women in danger of sexual assault and men in danger of prison or retaliation by an armed woman. If men can use the gay panic defense why can’t women use the creep a**hole defense?
Sounds like someone watched a few too many of certain Tex Avery shorts while growing up.
https://youtu.be/xEilRFdjV80
At least one of those gags involved an actual stripper who was rotoscoped into a lizard for her gag.
And while looking up who exactly Moon-moon was, I stumbled across this meme. Thought the dog lovers and Marvel movie fans would get a kick out of this:
@ Redsilkphoenix
They’re all worthy dogs Brent.
I would like to add that I chose the name “Snowberry” as a symbol of humans being more unusual and capable than we give credit for.
Those berries are toxic. Like, highly toxic. White berries are almost universally a sign of extreme danger. Pretty much every animal avoids them like the plague. But I’ve eaten them. Twice. They’re okay for humans in small doses, though not recommended for younger children because it makes them sleepy. Not that you’d want more than that, because they taste terrible. In larger doses, the only harmful effect is that it triggers the vomiting reflex. (It’s been used to make emetics in folk medicine for that reason.) If you could somehow suppress the vomiting and choke down the awful taste, only by going well beyond that would the poison exceed a human’s ability to neutralize it.¹
¹Everyone’s biochemistry is a little different, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there existed people whose bodies can’t handle it effectively and really shouldn’t be messing with them.
Humans aren’t evolved to eat snowberries. Only a few species of birds are. Doesn’t matter, our broad-spectrum poison resistance lets us safely consume some anyway if we’re desperate (or daring) enough. That doesn’t mean to get stupid with unknown berries, obviously, as “broad-spectrum” doesn’t mean “can handle absolutely everything”.
@Big Titty Demon
I’m so sorry that happened to you. Congratulations on fighting back and winning.
An octopus incel doesn’t show his true color at rejection, mainly because octopuses don’t have a “true” color.
@Snowberry
The endurance is the only one of those that specifically helped make us into near-apex predators. There’s a huge, huge difference between “can reliably not die when chased by things that might want to eat us” and “can deliberately pick one on one fights with whales, and have a strong expectation of winning.”
@Rabid Rabbit
Apparently “eaten by a jaguar while taking a dump” is the leading cause of death for sloths. They can’t crap unless the do a little dance to shift their bowels, and they have to climb down to the ground to do it. Usually only once a week, but if you had to worry about jaguars in the crapper, you’d probably hold it as long as possible too.
Various kinds of large mammalian predators are said to avoid attacking humans, except in desperate hunger they can do it and then turn into habitual “man eaters”. I’ve long assumed this is about individual predators accidentally finding out that humans are actually surprisingly easy to kill.
In addition to looking big, our forward looking eyes allegedly make us look like a predator, and therefore presumably a better fighter (and more likely to attack you to eat) than a similar sized herbivore would be. Of course, large herbivores tend to be rather dangerous too, if you force them to fight you for their life. They are strong due to their sheer size, and tend to have hooves and moderately sharp teeth and often also horns.
In the dolphin thread, Dalillama noted that (bottlenose) dolphins could easy kill a human swimmer by drowning or with a tail slap – though they rarely do. They are considerably bigger than humans, and vastly more agile in water. They are also predators, though this may not be relevant since they normally hunt much smaller prey than human size. Orcas often hunt human sized prey, but for some reason they don’t easily attack humans either.
@Dalillama:
Really, now? You mean that the ability to carry multiple harpoons, and throw them effectively, doesn’t help kill whales? Granted, the bigger ones are like the size of a barn, so you don’t need throwing accuracy if you can position yourself properly, but even there, throwing power still counts. And for smaller things, the accuracy really helps.
Also, lions can’t forage while they’re looking for prey. (Wolves can, but only to a limited extent. While doing this, they mainly eat fruit.) The fact that we can eat poison means a wide variety of things are available to grab on the go, and the fact that we can carry it with us to eat later means that we can keep our energy up while on the move even better than our high endurance levels would suggest. Hell, we almost certainly brought a bit of food to begin with…
That’s four of the eight things, five if you count horror walker kill-stealing (admittedly, most human groups didn’t/don’t attempt this, as it’s not an intuitive tactic) and I wasn’t even focusing on the apex predator aspect. I’m just pointing out that humans have a lot more going for us than most people think. Even if we were just another ape, in terms of intelligence, language, and tool use, we’d still be able to hold our own against anything nature could throw at us. With those things… we’re using computers to communicate with people all over the planet, how cool is that?
So, what are the sad sacks who “follow” this asshole, metaphorically? By definition, they couldn’t be “alphas” if they’re following.
[yawns] Do tell me when(and how) this useless, boring asshole dies, and don’t let it take too long.
@ dali
Although, I can see how being pounced on by jaguars might be quite the laxative.
An octocell.
@Snowberry
Keep in mind that I am championing the pointy sticks, and you are the one who specifically dismissed tool use.
@LollyPop
I think dating becomes easier for men when they get older is because when you get older you start caring less what other people think about you. You don’t worry so much about the small little things and become more comfortable with yourself and rejection. That makes you more confident and more likely to approach more people, meet more people, and ask out people. Also the women a man would be dating when he’s older, are also older. they are also more comfortable with themselves, know what they want, and more sure about dating.
Well, that’s true; sheep don’t talk. Unless you take “rambling” to mean wandering around, or maybe a pun on the word “ram”. But otherwise he’s very, very wrong about multiple species. Including humans.
As for wolf-related animals, it’s (semi)confirmed that my mom is getting a dog! But it won’t be until the winter, in January or February.
@ snowberry
As seen here.
Don’t try this at home.
Oh yeah, @Snowberry, you make good points about human adaptability and agility. But I think one area where we’re vulnerable is temperature – at least for a warm-blooded animal. We’re pretty dependent on clothing and shelter.
But then I live in Montreal, which usually has really hot summers and really cold winters. Some places are pretty much the same temperature year-round.
@Alan – When the lion came to take away the rest of the carcass at the end, I could imagine it grumbling, “Okay, better move this so no one else tries to mooch!”
ETA: @gijoel – I laughed at the part in the trailer that was like (deep voice) “Get ready…for the VIOLENCE of the LAMBS!”
@Dalillama:
Wait, what?
I’m not dismissing tool use, I’m dismissing the common idea that intelligence, language, and tool use are the only things which matter. Unless you’re referring to the part where I said that technology is more than just tool use, it’s making tools themselves. Pointy sticks are, with rare exceptions, made tools. Of course that’s important. I’m not even sure what you’re trying to get at.
@Alan: Shari Lewis regularly ordered lamb chops in restaurants, just to see the waiter’s reaction. (And because they’re tasty, too.)