wtf

"He's running so slow...."

1 hour later

"How can he still be running like that?"

I mean, if animals engage in pretend fights and other forms of play, it seems that they can on some level grasp the idea of practicing or doing something for fun.

I mean, the ability to run long distances without tiring is kind of what makes humans an apex predator. We can out-endurance just about every other creature. Most ancient human hunting techniques involved just wounding an animal, and then literally chasing it until it got too tired to keep going.

Wolves are very similar, which is what made us such natural hunting companions. The co-evolution of humans and dogs is an extremely interesting rabbit hole, if anyone is looking for one.

All that to say, the wolf would understand the need to run more than just about any other animal. A bear would work better here. A wolf would just see us running and think 'game recognizes game', just like they already did eons ago :3

- I love this. Thank you
involved just wounding an animal
not even wounding. Just persistent tracking and following. Most prey animals can run away quickly, but need lots of rest.
Humans can just keep going. And going. And going. Until the prey just is too exhausted to run.
- Got it.
  I am prey.
- It's why the trope of an enemy that never stops/is endless is so terrifying, and thus common in media.
- Yes, very true! I almost added that when writing my comment, but didn't want to blather on too long in a comment about a meme haha
- I guess the Energizer Bunny was an evolution that came about, due to humanity's hunting style...
No, no I didn’t need that rabbit hole…
(spends the next hour reading about it)

Dogs do love a good jog though. Give that good boi a bit of kibble and then see how he feels.

So this is pretty neat:

https://www.science.org/content/article/born-run-early-endurance-running--may-have-evolved-help-humans-chase-down-prey

Humans aren't good at running fast, but we are good at running for a long time for long distances, so it's thought that we would just run after things until they got tired.

So like you know how people in horror movies would run and then look over their shoulder and Jason is somehow still there?

Back in my reddit days I wrote a long comment about the fact that zombies are scary because they are the ultimate persistence hunters.
- Zombies aren't scary. They're popular movie monsters because, while looking vaguely human, they're sufficiently "othered" that you can kill them without remorse (thus acting as a convenient stand-in for other groups that the audience wishes they could do that to) and because they represent an apocalypse that kills most of the people but leaves the stuff behind, meaning that you don't have to deal with society anymore but you'll still easily have a roof over your head and food on your table (albeit mostly canned food.)
- I mean, them being walking corpses might also have something to do with it...
- That is scarier to me than the fast zombies.
Funny enough there is another animal I know that can sweat, have more endurance than humans, and much faster than humans. Horses.
Imagine you fear getting caught by a horse or a human and then suddenly a human riding a horse shows up.
- humans can beat a horse in a marathon!
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon
  https://www.managainsthorse.net/result.html
- Horses sweat? Huh.
It’s a consequence of bipedalism, less energy consumption to run but also slower
- It's a few things that stem from bipedalism:
  We can run and breathe entirely separately. Most quadrupeds lack the ability to run and take breaths independently of the pace of each step. Watching cheetahs sprint, for example, show that they have no choice but to exhale every time their legs come together and inhale every time their legs push apart.
  Running on our hind legs only frees up our hands to be able to use tools and weapons, maybe even water containers for drinking on the go.
  We can see further by standing up, and can make tactical decisions based on terrain, while still running pretty much full speed.
  Combined with our unusual ability to cool ourselves by sweating, this gives us an advantage over pretty much any animal in the heat. Wolves and horses can still outrun humans in the cold, but lack the cooling mechanisms to maintain pace in the same heat that we can.
- Yea but also tools
  We don’t have to stop for water, we can bring some
  Same for food
  Our preys didn’t have such luck

Other animals get zoomies too.

Jogging is practice for how humans killed pretty much all the megafauna in the world: exhaustion hunting.

Also fire probably. Lots and lots of fire
- Pointy sticks.
- I think scaring them over Cliff sides came into okay as well, though you aren't wrong.

Jogging from the perspective of non-human animals

FTFY

“I don’t know why they’re running, but let’s chase them!”

Maybe the hairless ape will throw a stick!

Whoever made this has never met a dog

Yeah, this post shows a tragic lack of familiarity with the concept of zoomies.

So apex that most of us outsource our hunting and farming, which makes us fat and slow unless we purposefully burn energy for no other purpose than to burn it.

I mean yes, literally... We were able to completely supplant the natural order. For better or worse.
So apex that even hunters need firearms because they're not fit enough to hunt without them nowadays, and unable to improvise and use self made weapons like the og hunters did.
I guess people that drive a forklift are "apex powerlifters" too.
- Smart apex hunters always conserve as much energy as they can during a hunt. Because you don't know when your next meal might show up. And firearms do make hunting a more sure thing. Hunting game, of any kind, is high risk-- higher reward effort. Most hunters go home empty handed or with little to show for the effort. But, if you do get it right, the effort can be handsomely rewarded.
  So if you are smart enough to develop ranged weapons, you eagerly use them to hunt supper.

I say this to myself when I see people jogging and I really just want to yell "what are you running from!?"

I know it's a joke. But would a wolf consider a human an apex predator? What about bears? Do these animals fear humans? I can't say I'm familiar with them. I figured they wouldn't, in most circumstances. I would think their default stance towards us is that we're their prey

We are certainly not their prey and without modern urban sprawl forcing animals into urbanized areas they would avoid humans as much as possible and this has been true for thousands of years.
Humans are the ones wielding fire after all.
Large predators have a species memory that tells them in general messing with a human scent can easily lead to a bad day for you. Because we have spent millennia hunting and killing them. So they have learned to avoid us directly.
This does not mean that that in certain instances, such as starvation or if they feel cornered and trapped, that you can't get hurt by them. So when I go out into the forest, and where I live we have black bears, wolves, and now permanent cougars-- and not the ones you might find in a bar on Friday nights either --the only one of those three I find a bit dicey to be around is the cougars. Bears and wolves really don't like people and make themselves very scarce very fast once they know you are there if there is an open escape route they can take.
Big cats, on the other hand don't appear to be the brightest bulbs in the box. And tend to be more of an issue for humans mucking about in the wilds where the cats are found. When I do venture out into areas that I have seen sign or even worse, spotted a cat, I do tend to carry a pistol for self defense in those areas. I've not needed to use it and very much hope not to ever need it. But being 'forearmed is to to be forewarned' so to speak.

One time, I was in the arctic doing some research. On a snowmobile, in winter, we crest a hill and see a couple of wolves pigging out on a caribou. I'm riding in the toboggan, and I start telling at the driver: "go go go!" They proceeded to chase our snowmobile for like a mile, with no hope at all of catching us, but running anyway. Like dogs chasing tires, I think they had no choice. Instincts are strong.

If an apex predator is running, maybe keep up.

Let's say it's part of a mating ritual. I know this is not true, but I believe it gets the point across.

I cannot stop laughing 😂

Personally I think humans run because they are a species with enough cognitive abilities to be masochists

As someone who started running last year because it's supposedly "good for you", I'm inclined to agree lol

They are running from existential dread.

So we are the prey?
- Always have been.

Conserving energy is not really our thing.

The thing is, humans are astonishingly good at conserving energy when running. We can literally run prey to death by just keeping on going when most animals run out of energy.
If I need more energy I'll just set something on fire

Animals understand play. Although not sure where the ball is.

You know where the balls are (⁠ ͡⁠°⁠ ͜⁠ʖ⁠ ͡⁠°⁠)

Here's to ya' blacksmith 🥃

My favorite is to shout out, 'What are you running from!' when people jog by.

"Therapy was also an option"
- I tried and even the shrink told me to exercise and eat better. It's so over bros

I also get confused when I see people jogging, don't they know lounging around eating snacks is way more fun?

Human zoomies feel great :)

They are animals and cant understand cause and effect. With nothing to chase or hunt you expire as a blob of fat

Stelthi

Depends on the animal, I suppose. A lion or a wolf would be too edgy and have rapey vibes, but a house cat or derpy good boy would be funny to me.
An octopus with Apex Predator under it while it is unscrewing a jar would own.

I can't see why anyone would down vote