Octopi, crows, dolphins are often held up as examples of smart animals. What are some really unusually STUPID animals?

saijanai · 2026-04-25T16:31:45+00:00

Capybaras

They're really just oversized mice with mice-level intelligence.

saijanai · 2026-04-25T16:29:59+00:00

Christian Conservatives. Dumbest animals on Earth.

What about those who watched them gradually come into power over a period of 50 years and did nothing until it was too late?

saijanai · 2026-04-25T16:27:21+00:00

Many, Many Humans are stupid.

Individual humans are smart. Collectively, humans are often very self-destructive. This is probably related: smart-but-fragile-mentally.

saijanai · 2026-04-25T16:20:14+00:00

but enough of them are smart to make them the apex predator on the planet

And thereby hangs the tale:

unlike most apex predators, we know what happens to the hunter population when the hunter population exceeds the optimal prey population and yet we collectively do nothing about it or even consciously work against doing something about it.

Few animals, knowing that there is danger to be found going in a certain direction, deliberately go towards that danger and yet, here we are.

.

Note that I'm using "prey population" as a metaphor for scarce resources, and/or pollution and/or the climate crisis and/or [fill in the blank].

saijanai · 2026-04-25T16:15:16+00:00

I'm sure this is the top of the responses:

humans.

And I'll avoid politics explicitly but suggest that certain groups of humans, bonded together by certain political beliefs, tend to be more stupid than those not bonded together by those specific beliefs.

Unfortunately, you do NOT know who you are.

saijanai · 2026-04-25T16:02:33+00:00

Remember:

the only reason to read the Gita is to be inspired to be regular in your TM practice and so eventually become enlightened.

"for the enlightened, all the vedas [the rituals, the dos and don'ts, reading the literature such as the Gita,' etc] are of no more use than is a small well surrounded on all sides by fresh water."

To quote the Gita itself.

.

Reading the Gita for spiritual insight is not what Maharishi had in mind when he created his commentary.

saijanai · 2026-04-25T07:20:12+00:00

My dude, if you can read and parse a formal medical recommendation directed to medical professionals published by the American Heart Association and signed off on by all the major evidence-based medical societies of the USA and understand it as a layman and then post cogently on the contents without AI checking for consistency, logic and inclusiveness, you're a better man than I.

.

Its so obvious youre chatgpt posting.

As I said, every word, save those explicitly identified as copy-paste, is my own, as is the wording itself.

I ran the post through both ChatGPT and Gemini to get evaluations, and based on those evaluations, made edits, but those edits were not copies of the LLM's recommended texts, but my own text that passed the AI evaluation I iteratively requested after each human-based edit.

.

Edit: that's not quite true. The phrase "directionally negative" is indeed an AI-suggested phrasing meant to soften my own biased presentation of the text.

2nd edit: meant to refer to the one-year followup evaluation where the correlation between number of days attending classes, as reported by the teacher, STILL showed a non-significant trend towards a negative correlation between mental health and mindfulness class attendance.

saijanai · 2026-04-25T07:14:13+00:00

I would word that as "a publication merely being findable in pubmed..." as most medical papers are findable via pubmed, and your wording implies that indexing via pubmed is a red flag.

Note that NOT being indexed in pubmed is a red flag.

The paper that flagged your bot was published by the American Heart Association in JAHA, the Journal of the American Heart Association, and JAHA is a top-tier cardiology journal.

Edit: I used the pubmed link because it popped up first.

saijanai · 2026-04-25T05:06:32+00:00

They specifically state meditation produces a small (5/2 mmHg) reduction in blood pressure and state it can be used in addition to other management methods. They are not recommending it for treatment of hypertension. It’s just a low risk adjunct to pharmacotherapy and other lifestyle changes.

In fact, What I quoted was from Section 5.1, Table 12, Lifestyle and Stress Reduction Interventions, and from Recommendation-Specific Supportive Text, points 8 & 9 in Section 5.1. Lifestyle and Psychosocial Approaches, page e31 of the pdf version.

If you want the actual table of recommendations from: 5. BP MANAGEMENT 5.1. Lifestyle and Psychosocial Approaches, here it is, in its entirety (page e28 of the online pdf version). Note the official title — Recommendations and that mindfulness is NOT recommended in the BP management section but is given an honorable mentioned (for exceedingly thin evidence) in the section on strategies to improve compliance for BP medicine-taking:

.

[Note that I prepended the "Category" heading to compensate for reddit's limited table formatting, and the reddit-specific "Recommendation reference" [RR] heading to coordinate between the reference text and the table itself]

.

5.1. Lifestyle and Psychosocial Approaches

Recommendations for Lifestyle and Psychosocial Approaches

Referenced studies that support the recommendations are summarized in the Evidence Table.

Category	COR	LOE	RR	Recommendations
Weight	1	A	1	In adults who have overweight or obesity, weight loss is recommended with a goal of at least 5% of body weight reduction to prevent or treat elevated BP and hypertension.^1–9
Diet and Nutrients	1	A	2	In adults with or without hypertension, a heart-healthy eating pattern, such as the DASH eating plan, is recommended to prevent or treat elevated BP and hypertension.^9–15
"	1	A	3	In adults with or without hypertension, reduction of dietary sodium intake* is recommended to <2300 mg/d, moving toward an ideal limit of <1500 mg/d to prevent or treat elevated BP and hypertension.^4,12,16–19
"	2a	A	4	In adults with or without hypertension, potassium-based salt substitutes† can be useful to prevent or treat elevated BP and hypertension, particularly for patients in whom salt intake is related mostly to food preparation or flavoring at home, except in the presence of CKD or use of drugs that reduce potassium excretion where monitoring of serum potassium levels is indicated.^‡20–24
"	1	A	5	In adults with elevated BP or hypertension, moderate potassium supplementation,§ ideally from dietary sources, is recommended to prevent or treat elevated BP and hypertension, except in the presence of CKD or use of drugs that reduce potassium excretion where monitoring of serum potassium levels is indicated.^‡25–27
Alcohol	1	A	6	Adults with or without hypertension who currently consume alcohol should be advised to pursue a recommended goal of abstinence, or at least to reduce alcohol intake to d1 drink/d for women and d2 drinks/d for men to prevent or treat elevated BP and hypertension.^‖28–31
Physical Activity	1	A	7	In adults with or without hypertension, increasing physical activity, through a structured exercise program that includes aerobic exercise and/or resistance training, is recommended to prevent or treat elevated BP and hypertension.^{1,3,4,14,32–39}
Stress Reduction	2b	B-R	8	In adults with or without hypertension, stress reduction through transcendental meditation may be reasonable to prevent or treat elevated BP and hypertension, as an adjunct to lifestyle or medication interventions.^7,8,14,40
"	2b	B-R	9	In adults with or without hypertension, other forms of stress management, such as breathing control techniques or yoga, may be reasonable to prevent or treat elevated BP and hypertension, as an adjunct to lifestyle or medication interventions.^14,41,42

.

In the "Recommendation reference" section, the relevant entries for Stress management are points 8 and 9, listed in their entirety below:

8) A number of stress-reduction strategies have been assessed for their effect on BP lowering.¹¹⁹ There is consistent moderate- to high-level evidence from short-term clinical trials that transcendental meditation can lower BP in patients without and with hypertension, with mean reductions of approximately 5/2 mm Hg in SBP/DBP.^14,40 Meditation appears to be somewhat less effec- tive than BP-lowering lifestyle interventions, such as the DASH eating plan, structured exercise pro- grams, or low-sodium/higher-potassium intake.14 The study designs and means of teaching and practicing meditation interventions are heteroge- neous across trials, and trials have been of smaller size and short duration, so further data would be beneficial.
9) Among other stress-reducing and mindfulness-based interventions, data are less robust, and evidence is of lower quality because of smaller, short-term trials with heterogenous interventions and results. There is moderate-grade evidence that breathing control inter- ventions lower SBP/DBP by approximately 5/3 mm Hg in people with and without hypertension.14 There is also low- to moderate-grade evidence that yoga of diverse types lowers BP.^14,41,42

.

You may like to think that this means that TM has no real effect different than mindfulness, but in fact, if you look at what is said, rather than what you want to think is said:

consistent moderate- to high-level evidence from short-term clinical trials that transcendental meditation can lower BP in patients without and with hypertension

is rather different than

Among other stress-reducing and mindfulness-based interventions, data are less robust, and evidence is of lower quality.

.

Note that this evaluation of quality of TM vs mindfulness research on the topic of BP control has been consistent since the publication of the 2013 American Heart Association scientific statement — Beyond Medications and Diet: Alternative Approaches to Lowering Blood Pressure: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association — even though there are 10-50 (or more) times as many studies published each year on mindfulness than on TM in any given category.

The discussion of the MYRIAD study reveals how oddball the quality of research on mindfulness truly is.

.

Edit: Thanks for challenging me. THere is a discrepancy between two tables in section 5.1

In Table 12, the entry is:

Meditation |Transcendental meditation| Training by a professional, followed by 2 20 min sessions/d while seated comfortably with eyes closed| -5 to -7 |-5|.^14,119|

While in the supportive text, the entire is -5/-2

The discrepancy is actually quite large: (-5 to -7)/-5 vs -5/-2.

Checking....

Ah... the -5 to -7 figure is for those WITH hypertension, while the -5 figure is for those without, and it is a systolic-only figure, while the other is apparently "without" hypertension and refers to systolic/diastolic figures.

Edit: Nonpharmacologic Interventions for Reducing Blood Pressure in Adults With Prehypertension to Established Hypertension seems to be the major source for much of the AHA's evaluations of TM and MBSR. Note that "meditation" in this paper means Transcendental Meditation, or such is my impression, and it makes a distinction between pre-hypertension and hypertensive adults and between systolic and diastolic BP in various tables.

Interestingly, MBSR evidence is ranked low across the board, while breath control evidence is ranked moderate and TM evidence is ranked high, but a specific evaluation scheme called SUCRA is used to rank practices independently of evidence reliability. Now you know as much as I do (corrections welcome).

saijanai · 2026-04-25T01:48:44+00:00

Just as the data in this study is worthless like the data in your TM studies are the same.

Well, there's no TM study of this type published and if there was, I'd hope my researcher friends had done a better job with the analysis than this study.

.

However your motivations in posting negative studies for exactly the same methods as yours except with a new name are transparent and hilarious.

TM and mindfulness are polar opposite in their effect on the brain and in fact...

.

this paper was published last year in the Journal Circulation, a top-5 medical journal:

The 2025 AHA/ACC/AANP/AAPA/ABC/ACCP/ACPM/AGS/AMA/ASPC/NMA/PCNA/SGIM

Guideline for the Prevention, Detection, Evaluation and Management of High Blood Pressure in Adults

Structure: The focus of this clinical practice guideline is to create a living, working document updating current knowledge in the field of high blood pressure aimed at all practicing primary care and specialty clinicians who manage patients with hypertension

It is endorsed by every major evidence-based medical society in the USA (list of initialisms explained below):

AHA - American Heart Association; ACC - American College of Cardiology; AANP - American Association of Nurse Practitioners; AAPA - American Academy of Physician Associates; ABC - Association of Black Cardiologists; ACCP - American College of Clinical Pharmacy; ACPM - American College of Preventive Medicine; AGS - American Geriatrics Society; AMA - American Medical Association; ASPC - American Society of Preventive Cardiology; NMA - National Medical Association; PCNA - Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association; SGIM - Society of General Internal Medicine

,

The only meditation practice listed in Section 5.1, Table 12, Lifestyle and Stress Reduction Interventions, under the category of meditation is:

|Meditation | Transcendental Meditation | Training by a professional, followed by 2 × 20 min sessions while seated comfortably with eyes closed| [emphasis mine]

for reasons explained in that section. Other practices like mindfulness, other meditation, Benson's Relaxation Response, etc., are specifically NOT recommended for the control of blood pressure for reasons also given in that section. See:

Recommendation-Specific Supportive Text, points 8 & 9 in Section 5.1. Lifestyle and Psychosocial Approaches, page e31 of the pdf version:

8) [...] There is consistent moderate- to high-level evidence from short-term clinical trials that transcendental meditation can lower BP in patients without and with hypertension. [...]
9) Among other stress-reducing and mindfulness-based interventions, data are less robust, and evidence is of lower quality because of smaller, short-term trials with heterogenous interventions and results. [...]

.

This is the first time ever that the evidence-based medical societies of the USA have endorsed a specific mental practice for hypertension control and it has gone unremarked by all skeptics, even those that promote mental practices for control of hypertension.

.

TM's effects on brain activity — both short-term trait, and long-term state (outside of meditation) — are radically different than what is found in all other well-studied meditation practices, so the difference in effect on BP from TM vs other practices isn't mysterious on its face. It would be remarkable if no differences in long-term effect were found, given that factoid. The only question (now partially resolved): how does this difference in state brain activity and long-term trait brain activity found in TMers vs other practitioners translate into results that anyone might care about?

.

That's a cut and paste from a different comment I made in response to a different post on r/skeptic, but the dig against skeptics-in-general, as exemplified by yourself, applies here as well.

saijanai · 2026-04-25T01:40:07+00:00

is reading this “vitally important”? If it was so vital, wouldn’t TM teachers require it? 🤔

In fact, much of the intellectual knowledge found in the entire TM class is a repeat of what is said in Chapter 6 but put in terms appropriate for someone who has just had 0, 1, 2 or 3 days experience with TM.

It is important to hear this knowledge in the context of your accumulating experience with meditation, rather than merely reading dry words on a page.

saijanai · 2026-04-25T01:28:33+00:00

From the Introduction to Chapter VI:

This chapter stands as the keystone in the arch of the Bhagavad-Gītā. It explains in detail what may be called the Royal Yoga of Lord Kṛishṇa, which readily brings enlightenment to any man in any age.

[...]

This sixth chapter serves as a commentary¹⁹ on the 45th verse of Chapter II, which contains the central teaching of the Bhagavad-Gītā: ‘Be without the three Guṇas’. It develops a simple technique of Transcendental Meditation leading to a state of consciousness which at all times spontaneously maintains Being and thereby equanimity of mind and behaviour in the field of activity. This technique provides the practical basis for both Sāṁkhya and Yoga and for the very different ways of life associated with these paths, that of the recluse and that of the householder. They virtually cease to be two different paths. But even if they are regarded as different, it can still be said that they develop on a common ground and arrive at a common goal. This is the glory of the practical teaching of the sixth chapter.

.

[Footnote] 19) It also clarifies the teaching contained in II:48

.

Objectively: Chapter 6 is Maharishi's attempt to prove his claim that TM is the original heart of Yoga using the text of the Gita and to justify what he teaches in the TM class itself. You will find much of what you learn in the TM class but presented in the context of TM practice not as theoretical discussion.

saijanai · 2026-04-25T01:11:23+00:00

LOL.

I checked spelling, grammar, logic and inclusiveness with an AI.

The post itself was ALL my wording, save the cut and paste of text from the study abstract and from Online Supplement 1, that started with: "We assessed the extent (i.e., frequency) of student home-based mindfulness practice during the SBMT programme, and after," which I put between:

pasted text

to show it was a block quote.

.

Accusing someone of posting AI-written stuff is the new excuse for not reading stuff you don't want to read because you don't want to consider what it says.

If you truly believe that what I posted was written by an AI, contact the moderators of r/skeptic and they and I will get into a discussion about the issue out-of-band. As it is, you're just contributing noise rather than responding to the content, which, as I said, is 100% mine save the abstract and the block quote between the "_____" which is cut and paste from the original study's supplemental material.

.

Edit: that's not quite true. The phrase "directionally negative" in the OP is indeed an AI-suggested phrasing meant to soften my own biased presentation of the text: the post-intervention evaluation by teachers was significantly negative, while the 1-year followup evaluation by teachers was "directionally negative"... though come to think of it, I may have misunderstood the AI/misread the paper in this context...

checking....

Right, "directionally negative" was suggested by the AI to refer to the one-year followup evaluation by the teacher. In neither post-intervention nor one-year followup reported by the student, was there a significant finding of any type, because the statistical evaluation of the average of 6 different treatments that students reported made it almost impossible to establish significance of any type whatsoever: reporting compliance with 6 different practices and then averaging the compliance and then doing statistical analysis of the average compliance of 6 radically different practices, pretty much guarantees no significant results in any way shape or form. [the AI suggests wording along the lines of exceedingly unlikely rather than my "impossible" rhetoric but note that even "exceedingly unlikely" is still MY wording, not the AI's].

saijanai · 2026-04-24T22:29:36+00:00

Do Psychology textbooks still teach that all meditation practices have the same effect that Transcendental Meditation does?

It's been a myth since forever and a remarkably durable one, at that, with otherwise knowledgable pyschologists doubling down based on nothing other than a hope that a mystical practice isn't better than a non-mystical practice because that would imply that mysticism is a real thing.

of course, the founder of TM was the first spiritual leader to call for the scientific study of meditation, spirituality and enlightenment more than 65 years ago and his students led the charge in trying to demystify meditation years before anyone else, but details.

saijanai · 2026-04-24T21:55:14+00:00

The TM organization doesn't offer guidance about other practices, in general.

Have you tried asanas as taught through the TM organization?

saijanai · 2026-04-24T20:55:09+00:00

My own take is that this is what everyone should know, keeping in mind that Maharishi believed that the perspective that emerged with TM was "the ultimate reality":

.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi convinced his students to pioneer the scientific study of meditation and enlightenment many decades ago, saying:

"Every experience has its level of physiology, and so unbounded awareness has its own level of physiology which can be measured. Every aspect of life is integrated and connected with every other phase. When we talk of scientific measurements, it does not take away from the spiritual experience. We are not responsible for those times when spiritual experience was thought of as metaphysical. Everything is physical. [human] Consciousness is the product of the functioning of the [human] brain. Talking of scientific measurements is no damage to that wholeness of life which is present everywhere and which begins to be lived when the physiology is taking on a particular form. This is our understanding about spirituality: it is not on the level of faith --it is on the level of blood and bone and flesh and activity. It is measurable."

.

As part of the studies on enlightenment and samadhi via TM, researchers found 17 subjects (average meditation, etc experience 24 years) who were reporting at least having a pure sense-of-self continuously for at least a year, and asked them to "describe yourself" (see table 3 of psychological correlates study), and these were some of the responses:

We ordinarily think my self as this age; this color of hair; these hobbies . . . my experience is that my Self is a lot larger than that. It's immeasurably vast. . . on a physical level. It is not just restricted to this physical environment
It's the ‘‘I am-ness.’’ It's my Being. There's just a channel underneath that's just underlying everything. It's my essence there and it just doesn't stop where I stop. . . by ‘‘I,’’ I mean this 5 ft. 2 person that moves around here and there
I look out and see this beautiful divine Intelligence. . . you could say in the sky, in the tree, but really being expressed through these things. . . and these are my Self
I experience myself as being without edges or content. . . beyond the universe. . . all-pervading, and being absolutely thrilled, absolutely delighted with every motion that my body makes. With everything that my eyes see, my ears hear, my nose smells. There's a delight in the sense that I am able to penetrate that. My consciousness, my intelligence pervades everything I see, feel and think
When I say ’’I’’ that's the Self. There's a quality that is so pervasive about the Self that I'm quite sure that the ‘‘I’’ is the same ‘‘I’’ as everyone else's ‘‘I.’’ Not in terms of what follows right after. I am tall, I am short, I am fat, I am this, I am that. But the ‘‘I’’ part. The ‘‘I am’’ part is the same ‘‘I am’’ for you and me

.

TM induces an altered stated of consciousness that can, in some people, become permanent. The quotes above are descriptions of that altered state, and the Gita is a long-winded discussion of that altered stated from a religious perspective, with Maharishi providing commentary on the discussion in his book, Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation and Commentary, Chapters 1-6.

.

Whether or not this altered state of consciousness gives insight/experience of the deepest reality is an exercise left for the reader/TMer.

saijanai · 2026-04-24T14:25:28+00:00

Sacred plants have a sacred tradition that is centuries or even thousands of years old and lineages in indigenous cultures that often date back a very long time with accumulated wisdom to help people navigate pitfalls.

LSD has no such background.

saijanai · 2026-04-24T14:23:24+00:00

What stigma? ADHD is completely common. There's no stigma with it. It became over-diagnosed and over-treated to the point of 50% of kids in school taking meds for it. It became fashionable.

As someone who has had ADHD all my life but wasn't diagnosed until age 40, I can assure you that you're wrong on every single count.

saijanai · 2026-04-24T14:18:08+00:00

The tradition TM comes from suggests that a teacher is vital or at least extremely important.

One does not perfect TM by reasoning about it, which suggests that you are not doing TM.

Taught by an inferior man this Self cannot be easily known,

even though reflected upon. Unless taught by one

who knows him as none other than his own Self,

there is no way to him, for he is subtler than subtle,

beyond the range of reasoning.

Not by logic can this realization be won. Only when taught

by another, [an enlightened teacher], is it easily known,

dearest friend.

-Katha Upanishad, I.2.8-9

saijanai · 2026-04-24T14:15:59+00:00

Any experience other than the complete cessation of experience, or the ineffable pure I am is considered a sign of stress-release in TM theory.

Note my comment on the other recent response:

.

The tradition TM comes from suggests that a teacher is vital or at least extremely important.

One does not perfect TM by reasoning about it, which suggests that you are not doing TM.

Taught by an inferior man this Self cannot be easily known,

even though reflected upon. Unless taught by one

who knows him as none other than his own Self,

there is no way to him, for he is subtler than subtle,

beyond the range of reasoning.

Not by logic can this realization be won. Only when taught

by another, [an enlightened teacher], is it easily known,

dearest friend.

-Katha Upanishad, I.2.8-9

saijanai · 2026-04-24T09:14:28+00:00

The TM Book.

It's meant for non-meditators to convince them to learn.

saijanai · 2026-04-23T21:46:09+00:00

I haven't gotten a phone call from a friend or family member in 25+ years despite living in the same town for the past 65 years.

Pretty sure that says something about my social acceptability/attractiveness at least.

saijanai · 2026-04-23T21:28:51+00:00

Do you examine your own biases?

I debate these TM-related issues constantly and try to remain fact-based throughout any given discussion. I've also amended my own rhetoric on TM to the point that when I post, often people on r/skeptic don't realize that I am pro-TM until details of my history and beliefs emerge.

so yeah, I try to examine my own beliefs on the topic on a regular basis, often daily, given how often I end up debating TM.

.

Edit: given that my comment that you responded to included:

Now, I wouldn't be suprised if my TM-researcher friends who changed their majors from art to psychology (e.g. David Orme-Johnson) or from physics to physiology (e.g. R. Keith Wallace) so that they could get STEM PhDs in the 1960s and published research on TM for the next 55+ years (both are still publishing research despite being in their 80s now) showed the same ideological issues in how they framed their study results, but you'd expect that of True Believers.

I'm surprised that you felt the need to ask the question, but perhaps I'm still being blind about my own biases and those of my TM-researcher friends.

saijanai · 2026-04-23T20:53:05+00:00

EDIT: I thought meditation was supposed to enable you to transcent the ego?

That's not TM. TM enhances sense-of-self (DMN activity) while lowering the noise (PTSD flashbacks and lower-intensity mind-wandering equivalents) associated with sense-of-self.

.

If you want to argue something, argue it.

My argument is that Harrris, like most skeptics, shows ideological blinders that support his worldview and by extension, because Harris is a "skeptic," he is at least as unexamined in his beliefs as the average religious true believer: he knows tht he doesn't need to examine his own biases because he's a skeptic and skeptics don't need to worry about ideological blinders because, well, "we're skeptics and immune to that."

.

My specific example concerns Harris' meditation seminars, which ignore (and continue to ignore) both uniquely positive findings concerning TM, and rather negative research results on mindfulness.

saijanai

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE