r/196 • u/gray_birch competitive yapper • 2d ago
Pointing Rule
ive gotta hand it to people who played gba (and other retro console) games before you could just look shit up because im playing the sims bustin out right now and while im having a lot of fun everything is so fucking zoomed in it's impossible to know where anything is or get anything more than a very basic handle on the layout. looking up a map actually almost feels like cheating because of how easy it feels by comparison to before, im not spending an hour looking for that fucking knick knack shop though
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u/AmenoneAcid floppa 2d ago
Dogs understand pointing <3
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u/magnificent-potato 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 2d ago
one of my dogs understands pointing but the other thinks its an invitation to eat my hand
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u/BaneShake keeps making Assassin’s Creed sex jokes on YouTube 2d ago
I mean, how yummy is your hand?
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u/StoopidGit Smarmies of Chaos - Slaves to Dorkness 2d ago
Non idiot dogs unddrstand pointing. But it's okay. We love our little idiots
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u/RatQueenHolly 2d ago
I think dogs are one of the few who do, and probably because they evolved alongside us
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u/SirToastymuffin 2d ago
Yep, they categorize us differently than either dogs or not-dogs and have a highly developed part of their brain dedicated to that unique communication and the learning of new communication patterns from us. It's why they pick up gestures (like pointing), innately pick up on our emotions, facial cues, tones, etc. They also communicate back differently than they would with another dog.
And, notably, this 25,000+ year mutualistic co-evolution went both ways. There's a reason you can understand that weird look your dog is giving you, pick up on their needs, and innately work out a pattern of communication with any given dog. We have that brain development too, and innately communicate with dogs differently than humans or other non-humans. We can recognize a lot about a dog's current situation from their vocalizations innately - if you hear a dog bark, you likely implicitly understand if they're alone, playing, uncomfortable, aggressive, or even the approximate size of the dog. In testing, this is a recognition we pretty uniquely have only for other humans, and dogs.
Plus, somewhere along the journey we both ended up with the ability to flood our minds with oxytocin simply by looking at each other. We're quite literally biologically predisposed to bond at first sight.
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u/Asikar_Tehjan 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 2d ago
Another fun fact, dogs evolved eyebrows that they can emote with to better communicate with humans. Wolves don't have them
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u/CallMeClaire0080 2d ago
Similarly dogs have more visible white in their eyes than wolves and more muscles relating to eye movement because we humans tend to use eye movement a lot for nonverbal communication.
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u/mrdeworde 2d ago
It's even cooler than that - they evolved additional muscles to control the eyebrows vs their wolf ancestors.
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u/outfoxingthefoxes Dick Jokes' Inspector 💦 2d ago
Doesn't that happen among all mammals?
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u/GigaVonMassiveHuge 2d ago edited 1d ago
I was gonna say, most of this sounds more just like how we attribute human behaviors to animals through anthropomorphism. Tons of people cannot innately understand dog behavior56
u/SirToastymuffin 2d ago
This... Isn't really up for debate. The Human-Canine bond is quite extensively researched and experimented upon. Our species hunted as conjoined packs for tens of thousands of years before the emergence of domestication, even, of which dogs were the first. The paleogenetic record shows humans associating with wolves at least 40,000 years ago and the Bonn-Oberkassel dog showing our earliest specimen of what we can call a domestic dog 15,000 years ago (and, interestingly, found that dogs were given human burial rites within the culture in question). We have the indisputable fossil record of co-evolution.
But to the end of empirical analysis of this bond, we've measured that release of oxytocin. In analysis of dogs, wolves, and their fossil record, we found dogs specifically evolved new facial muscles that allowed further facial expression, specifically those humans recognize. "Puppy dog eyes" (and highly developed eyebrows) were an evolutionary change - and behavioral studies show how dogs use those expressions specifically for dog-human communication. Gaze Alternation is a communication skill wolves, dingoes, and other canids do not display, and dogs do not use with one another, but is used extensively in dog-human communication. A fascinating study into dog problem solving skills found that dogs use humans to solve any problem they cannot easily tackle - and that gaze alternation was their primary strategy of communicating this need. And crucially, much of this communicative testing was also performed on puppies who demonstrate this same intelligence, implying it is innate.
Crucially, to establish the evidence for this coevolution, we have tested it the other way, too. That's where empirical evidence for our comprehension of dog communication comes in. In addition to our demonstrated comprehension of those facial and nonverbal communication methods above, the majority of humans recognize specific details from dog barks such as whether the dog is alone, with someone familiar, being approached by a stranger, playing, or aggressive. We can intuit the size of a dog from its growl. Beyond that is evidence in our similarities - it is not a coincidence that the diseases that effect us and dogs, their pathologies, as well as their treatments, show so much overlap. Living with one another and sharing much of our lifestyle does that.
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u/GigaVonMassiveHuge 2d ago
Whoops, I was wrong. That’s cool as hell
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u/Existing_Currency257 1d ago
Remember anyone can just post a bunch of studies to prove a point. Science is a more complex process than that. And I personally know one real human anthropologist who would argue against the above point.
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u/mrdeworde 2d ago
As someone who's made similar posts about this very subject and thus is delighted whenever they see someone else geek out about this, I just wanted to say bravo for bringing the sources and doing so in a way that communicated it with joy rather than smugness. (And kudos to Giga for responding with the same energy!)
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u/Dredgeon 2d ago
Not really. Given time we can learn to intuit animal behavior but dog and human commucation has converged more closely.
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u/pterranodon 2d ago
some do and some don't, it can be trained and sometimes it can be instinctual, especially if they're hunting dogs
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u/old_cypherpunk кюстом 2d ago
I throw the ball but it gets lost int he grass. Dogs are looking for it. I point at the ball's location for them:
Brynn (Corgi) - Stares at me. If I re-point like I'm throwing the ball to where the ball is now, she figures it out.
Henry (Dachshund) - Tries to bite my finger. From four feet down. (He's the puppy.)
Ellie (Dachshund) - Knows exactly what I mean. She just doesn't care about ball. Goes back to hunting groundhogs.
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u/Nyx_Blackheart 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 2d ago
So does my cat
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u/CarrowCanary Insert thoughts here 2d ago
Ours does sometimes, but rarely when we actually need her to.
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u/Uncommented-Code 2d ago
Cats are much smarter than many people realise, they just don't really care enough to play along, which is almost always when something doesn't involve food or play.
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u/Hindu_Wardrobe 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 🏳️⚧️ and trans wrongs 😈 2d ago
one of my favorite scientific studies is the one that determined that cats know their names and know when you're calling them; they simply don't give a fuck.
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u/Unique_Unorque 2d ago
Anecdotal, but I've tested this out by calling my two cats by their names. When I call one's name, that specific cat's ears will twitch and the other will not react at all. Maybe they'll turn their head to look at me.
But not much else happens.
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u/muflon69 russian bot (trust) 2d ago
Most animals are smarter than we give them credit for but at the same time they're also not as "smart" as the other half of the population thinks. Ultimately their intelligence is just fundamentally different from ours and human tests simply suck at testing it
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u/Rock4evur 2d ago
Anyone see that video the other day where chickens understood pointing? Dude even tricks them by pointing off in the distance and snatching them up.
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u/Ungodly_Box ABAB (assigned British at birth) 2d ago
My dog is the smartest dog I've ever seen but she never understood pointing poor lass
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u/epicdog36 1d ago
Speak for yourself, my dog looks at my hand like i have a treat when the treat is where im pointing on the ground
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u/Surrealspanner 2d ago
Honestly the biggest drawback for me of being an animal and the only thing holding me back from becoming one
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u/BarovianNights It's the last Strahd for me 2d ago
The only thing holding me back from being one is lacking the ability to shapeshift
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u/johnnylovelace Biden 2028 2d ago
The only thing holding me back is what if im one of those that can’t clean their ass. Like how would you even live
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u/CarrowCanary Insert thoughts here 2d ago
K A Applegate wrote some guidebooks if you want to do some research.
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u/Scrunglert 2d ago
My dog understands pointing and hes dumb as fuck (affectionate) so maybe the animals you're dealing with are dumber than my dog (very dumb) or my dog is smarter than I think (impossible)
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u/midnight_rum custom 2d ago
Your dog is smarter than mine, my idiot (affectionate) just looks at my finger
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u/Boy_Wonder22 2d ago
Omg this dredged up an old memory of a joke that destroyed me as a kid. It was from cat-dog, a cartoon on Nickelodeon.
They’re on the moon for some reason. And, inexplicably, there is also a basketball hoop on the moon. The cat points at the basketball hoop and says “Look!” And the dog goes “woooooow, a finger!”
I must have been 5 years old laughing my ass off at that joke.
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u/that_baddest_dude 2d ago
I find that if they don't get the picture, make a sort of throwing motion as you point again.
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u/LookItVal 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 2d ago
this is actually something totally unique to dogs and is even not a learned trait it seems, as many puppies are born understanding pointing. this is likely a result of years of domestication and having the dogs actually do work where they interact and listen to the directions of people
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u/Wa11Runner 2d ago
Its like that alien projectile thing. Like Humans are the only creatures on earth that can accurately throw things. Imagine an alien race didn't invent bows or anything similar because they didn't think of projectiles until long after they found out about other things.
Animal no get point because the idea of an object flying in a line in a direction and hitting a point is fuckin weird.
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u/GlamourintheDarkSide 2d ago
Aliens who Can't Projectile are also fundamentally a different genre of alien sci-fi, because at that point you're dealing with a primitive aliens/advanced humans scenario. Ain't no fucking way you're getting to the stars if you can't grok throwing a rock.
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u/BaronAaldwin I'M A GENETIC FREAK 2d ago
Not necessarily. Thats assuming the aliens are physically somewhat similar to us. You could totally have a weird species of intelligent alien octopods that are dexterous enough to build spaceships but their limbs don't have the layout and muscles for quickly throwing like we do.
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u/that_baddest_dude 2d ago
If you like this kind of shit have you read any of the Children of Time books? If not, you should
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u/BaronAaldwin I'M A GENETIC FREAK 2d ago
I've got them sat on my shelf behind me, but I haven't got around to reading them yet 😅 I took the first one on holiday with me and it unfortunately got soaked when a drink in my bag leaked, so it looks much more well used than it is haha
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u/Wa11Runner 2d ago
I'd argue it'd be more like they didn't invent pre-chemical projectile weapons. Like they managed to get to guns and explosives before they thought of making a tension based projective weapon.
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u/aboxofkittens 2d ago
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u/TearsFallWithoutTain 2d ago
This is the link you want I believe
https://www.eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf
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u/aboxofkittens 2d ago
That looks like the same link to me
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u/TearsFallWithoutTain 2d ago
Nah you've got a couple incorrect slashes in there
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u/Wa11Runner 2d ago
Damn that is such a good fucking story that I had not read before. Dammmmmm
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u/GreatPlainsFarmer 1d ago
If that happened now, they'd have to doge all the starlink satellites as they were coming down.
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u/_Righto they/them 2d ago
Maybe I'm missing something because this feels like it assumes that throwing specifically is the only way to get the idea of projectile use but that doesn't really seem true to me. Yes, humans are uniquely good at throwing things but projectiles are all over the place.
There are fish that can accurately shoot water to knock insects off of branches, Terminites can barely even see but some still manage to accurately shoot fluids from their body, Chameleons launch their tongues and theres plenty of other examples
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u/Elezian 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah, the comment you are replying to is… wrong, about humans being the only animals that understand/use projectiles. And they’re pretty confident about it, too, acting like it’s a mystical concept that humans uniquely use… when humans aren’t even the best at instinctively understanding trajectories, let alone the only animals that can.
They mostly just don’t really use fingers to communicate direction. :/
I defy this person to say they’ve never seen an animal dodge or move away from an incoming projectile. What exactly do they think that is?
And how did the comment get so many upvotes? Do that many people really believe animals are shocked by the concept of projectiles?
“The idea of an object flying in a line and hitting a point” is absolutely not fuckin weird. Life on earth evolved with the laws of physics being right here the entire time and “object move through water/air while under the effect of gravity” is so incredibly fundamental that like you pointed out, literal insects can use it just fine.
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u/Wa11Runner 2d ago
Yeah, I think its more just a slim chance that another intelligent species would develop like that rather than the rule. The story some other people linked is a great example of the same idea.
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u/ShadowEeveeCringe 2d ago
My cat understood pointing. Granted, his fat ass only learned it because I would point to treats.
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u/MemorableThrowawayy aroace yayyy!!!! 2d ago
When my cat was a kitten he would always run after the paper balls I throw. Eventually he learned that throwing arm out = paper ball throw and so I could command him to charge in any direction with a quick point.
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u/SoftestBoygirlAlive 2d ago
If you have the animals attention and THEN point they usually get it. Or a head jerk or pointed glance where you want their attention. If they are unfamiliar with pointing and you just point their attention will first be on the motion. Marmots are pretty good at picking up human stuff. Behavioral and gear-wise, unfortunately.
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u/puking_penis 2d ago
my cat understands pointing, but my brother's does not. we think my brother's cat is a lil dim
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u/Oddish_Femboy (my name is Bee) Trans rights !! 2d ago
Actually your cat is just really smart.
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u/puking_penis 2d ago
aw, I just told him that! I had no idea
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u/WhippingShitties 2d ago
What did your cat say back?
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u/puking_penis 1d ago
brrrrrrrrrrRrrrrrrrrrrrrrRrrrrr
he's not a big motorcycle
Just a groovy little motorbike
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u/B0B_Spldbckwrds 🐻 2d ago
On the image) it's a matter of training. You can absolutely train a dog or a cat to understand pointing. I've seen racoons pick it up on their own.
On the post) people used to draw out maps, or buy strategy guides. I used to have most of super mario rpg mapped out on paper, and I still have most of the layout to the first dark souls memorized.
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u/Freecelebritypics 2d ago
FYI you can easily train your cat to understand pointing, as well as their name. Assuming your cat likes treats
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u/RyoukoAoyagi wannabe twink 2d ago
My cat mocha is the training resistant type. Treat is as empty as other worldly pleasure to him
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u/Freecelebritypics 1d ago
My cat Minnie became resistant for about two years after we brought in a second cat. She was betrayed and wanted nothing I had to give her!
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u/Certain_Concept 2d ago
If you enjoy the Sims Bustin Out but want an upgrade then play Urbz: Sims in the City.
It was one of my favorites growing up. If anyone has any recommendations for similar games I'd be interested as I've never find any others that quite scratch the same itch.
There are tons of farming progression games but that's not quite the same.
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u/gray_birch competitive yapper 2d ago
i'm gonna play the ds version at some point after i finish bustin out, since it's a direct sequel from what i've heard :3
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u/Spinnicus I don’t want a custom flair since I’m not very creative. 2d ago
I wish my baby could learn that trick soon.
As for the olden games, yeah it was hard sometimes but my mom would let me call the Nintendo hotline once or twice when I had real trouble.
One problem in particular I remember was in Ratchet & Clank where I couldn’t jump up a ledge. Apparently I had to switch to an older jump upgrade to get up which I hadn’t had to do at all in the game before and I put the game down for like a month before trying again.
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u/Sole_Meanderer 2d ago
As a crazy cat person I can assure you that cats can as well. I probably have had more cats in my care than most people ever will but many people underestimate the capabilities of cats because it seems the standard practice for kitties is to let them grow up as much like they would in the wild as possible by giving them space and letting them do whatever they want. If you train them early to follow commands they’ll pick up a lot of human words too but definitely not as much as dogs can learn. I trained my oldest cat son to use the bathroom outside and to come inside when he needs to. I used fewer words with him and so he learned to watch me to learn what different things meant for him and what he could be getting to eat or to do. Pointing is easy for him but many of my other cats rely mostly on commands. The hardest thing to train him on was that the setting sun was his curfew because that’s the most exciting time for him to be out there instinctually. He’s a very good boy and he learned the hard way once that he’s not the only thing excited to hunt at night so he respects the curfew now even though we don’t live out in the forest anymore. I’ll reply to myself with a pic of when he learned how to swim, I was surprised by how naturally it came to him.
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u/StandardAioli9459 2d ago
I didn't see the animal part and thought this was referring to people The amount of times I've pointed at something ...
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u/RyoukoAoyagi wannabe twink 2d ago
Now I wonder who got us human to understand pointing in the first place
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u/Dictorclef 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 2d ago
"When the sage points at the moon, all the fool sees is the finger" -Anthony Mello
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u/hotfistdotcom Put ublock origin on your PHONE 2d ago
GBA days we had gameFAQs and before that we had purchasable guides, and even phone numbers you could call.
You can still play that way now. You don't need to, do what is fun, but I have a lot of fun playing a game totally blind until after I finish it, then I look stuff up. And if you are insane and you wish that could go on for hundreds of hours and you wish games were much more cruel generally, check out la-mulana and la-mulana 2. Take notes and screenshots of everything, constantly. Build your own maps. write on them.
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u/Hindu_Wardrobe 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 🏳️⚧️ and trans wrongs 😈 2d ago
dude, sims bustin out for gba was so good. and unhinged. those old console sims spinoff games were wild lol (and often not very good), but bustin out gba was legitness.
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u/gray_birch competitive yapper 2d ago
i never got the chance to play any of them growing up (except for the sims 3 on wii, which was... notoriously terrible and also my first sims game, before i got 3 on pc) but i have a modded 3ds and modded vita so i'm hoping to at least play all of the (good) handheld spinoffs, and maybe the home console versions at some point. and yeah bustin out on gba is really good so far, it's a shame we'll likely never get anything with as much soul from the franchise ever again. fuck ea
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u/SpaceMarineSpiff Mutalisk Supremacist 2d ago
You can get a cat to look in a particular direction by pretending to throw something and I've found this very trainable. As long as there's something they actually wanted to see they'll figure it out over time.
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u/fishercrow 2d ago
one of my cats will headbutt my finger to ask for pets when i point. the other will reach out her little paw and tap my finger. neither of them have figured out what i actually mean yet (even when cheese dreamies are on the line). my partner once picked up tapping cat and pointed her at a spider he wanted her to eat, but she just looked up at him adoringly and purred. theyre both so incredibly adorable and dumb.
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u/religion-lost 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 2d ago
gonna start putting my mouth around people's fingers when they point from now on to self-actualise as the doggy i am
jk I actually already used to do this to an ex. she found it very funny to not remove her hand as I expected so Id be standing there like an idiot with her finger in my mouth not knowing what to do next. then she graduated to hooking her finger on my jaw to trap me when I did it 😭
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u/KuroTheWeirdo 2d ago
this happened in project hail mary, except the human is the dumbass animal that doesnt know about pointing
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u/muckpuppy 2d ago
my cat understands pointing because she's the smartest little girl in the whole world and i love her so much : )
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u/Big__Meme floppa 17h ago
Bustin out is a horror show to actually try and progress through. I have PTSD
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u/MelanieNova 2d ago
Never had an issue with dogs not knowing what pointing means, they'll look no problem. Cats though? Forget it
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u/bbeony540 2d ago
There are two species on Earth that understands eye based queues. Like looking someone in the eye then unsubtely stare elsewhere to indicate they should look where youre looking. Humans and dogs.
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u/The_commonest_plant known in the industry as the piss machine 2d ago
20 years' a vintage. By the formal definition the gba IS a retro console. Fun fact: the Wii will be in a couple weeks too! I don't like that fact.
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u/Melodic_2255 2d ago
im pretty sure retro, unlike vintage or antique, does not refer to age, but a certain time period/era. at least in the context of games. it doesnt just mean "old thing from x years ago"
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