• wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    11 hours ago

    I don’t fully disagree, but the examples of non-human behavior could hardly have been chosen more poorly.

    Birds singing is communication. People don’t get particularly competitive over talking.

    Making a beehive is making a home or apartment complex, and we definitely expect a certain amount of skill in that from those who do it. If bees fail or do it poorly, the whole hive dies. Definitely not something they just do casually.

    • emeralddawn45@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 hours ago

      Human singing is also communication, and people also talk to themselves for no reason when noone else is around. I just saw a post the other day about an ornithologist who pointed a microphone at a bird on a wire that was totally alone, and he picked up the bird softly singing to himself at a near imperceptible level, so it definitely isn’t JUST for communication.

    • pooberbee (they/she)@lemmy.ml
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      8 hours ago

      I guess you’re assuming that singing and dancing are done for no reason. They’re innate, but they also serve social and psychological purposes. Humans need these things to live.

      • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        5 hours ago

        Didn’t say or assume anything of the sort.

        I was only commenting on the animal behaviors mentioned being poor examples of things other creatures just do for the fun of it.

        I agree with the overall statement that people need to accept that others can and should just do things for fun without pursuing deeper meaning, skill, or compensation. People need activities like that for a whole slew of mental health and emotional reasons. Hell, just to add some color to their lives.

        That said, saying humans need those to survive is a stretch. I know a handful of people who don’t dance even in private for fun, and a far far smaller number (but still non-zero) who don’t even sing in the shower or their car.

        • pooberbee (they/she)@lemmy.ml
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          5 hours ago

          I think we’re pretty close to agreeing. When you differentiate between “need…for mental health reasons” and “need to survive”, it seems like you’re ignoring the issue of suicide and it’s connection to mental health.

          If your takeaway from OP was about doing things for fun, then mine was how important fun actually is. Two sides of the same coin, I think, both very valid.

          I hope that makes sense. I’m not really here for the competitive talking, I guess.