Are humans the only animals that commit suicide?

[Al B. Sure!]

The film event was staged with the intent of recreating something lemmings do in the wild: attempting to cross a body of water that is too big during migration and consequently drowning. For some reason it's hard to obtain authentic footage of this. Perhaps the film creators should have asked the lemmings about when they were scheduling the next quasi-suicidal migration.

Humans have drowned trying to cross a river. Does that mean it's something we 'do in the wild'?

Lemmings having a mass drowning is not a thing, no matter how you want to slice it or explain it, anymore than humans drowning in rivers is a thing because it has happened before. It didn't exist until the Disney film-makers made it up.

[giblets]

Lemmings became the subject of a popular misconception that they commit mass suicide when they migrate. It is not a mass suicide, but the result of their migratory behavior. Driven by strong biological urges, some species of lemmings may migrate in large groups when population density becomes too great. Lemmings can swim and may choose to cross a body of water in search of a new habitat. In such cases, many may drown if the body of water is so wide as to stretch their physical capability to the limit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemming#Misconceptions

Lemmings getting themselves killed en masse while attempting to migrate is a thing and I suggest you deal with it.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Humans have drowned trying to cross a river. Does that mean it's something we 'do in the wild'?

You know those Polynesian and Micronesian ancestors that ended up on just about every inhabitable island in the Pacific? The first ones didn't know there were islands X hundred or thousand miles away along such and such bearing. Nor did they know winds and tides outside their previous navigational range. Yet, in response to warfare, famine, population pressures and what-not, they sailed off into the unknown. How many of 'em do you think never made it anywhere and were lost at sea in the process?

Same thing with early human migrations across hostile terrain. Going across an unknown stretch of desert with no idea what's on the other end or how far away is a pretty high risk activity with no certain reward - or survival. Someone had to be the first.

So yes, it's something we've done in the wild.

Lemmings having a mass drowning is not a thing, no matter how you want to slice it or explain it, anymore than humans drowning in rivers is a thing because it has happened before. It didn't exist until the Disney film-makers made it up.

I didn't see leashes on the lemmings. You might trap a bunch and use beaters or noise to scare them, but their evasion behavior is going to be the same evasion behavior they'd normally demonstrate. It's not like they're actors who can read a script.

[MrFun]

Whales can beach, dogs can drown.

Isn't it almost impossible for any living creature that breathes air to willingly drown itself/himself?

I would think your instinct to swim furiously for the surface to gasp for air would overpower your intent to purposely drown oneself. I don't think I'd be able to keep myself underwater no matter how hard I wanted to drown myself.

[MrFun]

Isn't the dolphin brain both the only mammal brain larger than man's and, in fact, 2 1/2 times larger?

I thought the African elephants' brain was also larger than a human's.

[MichaeltheGreat]

In absolute terms, yes, not in relation to mass.

Whole brain mass isn't a very good indicator of anything - it's the state of forebrain development and mass of the forebrain compared to overall brain mass.

[Al B. Sure!]

I'm sure there are herds of deer that drown forging rivers, MtG. That doesn't mean anything to the point.

We all know where this lemmings commit suicide thing comes from. It comes from that Disney film that was a hoax. Pointing out that lemmings have died by drowning does not justify the intentional errancy of the film or the preservation of the myth.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Deer don't swim very well and they're not spontaneously migratory. They are pretty dumb, though.

The lemmings committing suicide thing is old. Way older than the film. The film didn't create belief - the film reproduced and popularized an already extant belief. That's why they staged it.

[SlowwHand]

You can't crucify Walt. He already passed. I guess you could hang Mickey or something.

[molly bloom]

What about martyrdom?

More fundamentalists should consider it as a career option, preferably in uninhabited parts of the Gobi Desert, the Takla Makan, or the Empty Quarter.

Sister Wendy Kenobi always seems to be just on the cusp of martyrdom following some hideously oppressive treatment by the well-known Hatchery Of Antichrists, Canada.

with lemmings it looks more like a poor sense of direction, or just poor direction.

That footage IS a Walt Disney fake:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004/04/27/1081903.htm

[Al B. Sure!]

Gobi Desert, the Takla Makan, or the Empty Quarter.

This is a perfect example of what everyone says. A normal person when saying what you said would pick some pretty obvious, well-known deserts: obviously the Sahara, maybe the Gobi, maybe the Kalahari.

No typical person in the West, even typical educated person in the West, would say the Taklamakan (whose name you separated for some reason) or the Empty Quarter, because even if said person is a geography buff and even had these deserts at the tip of their fingers (rather than googling the names of deserts), it would be silly and pompous to expect Westerners to know about the freaking Taklamakan. Yeah yeah it's a big ass desert but it has zero significance in Western culture or thought.

It's not that you chose deserts in the Muslim world either because you avoided the Sahara but mentioned the Gobi.

I am certain that you are a pompous try-hard who probably googled deserts because you wanted to sound intellectual even though the Sahara would have fit the bill perfectly for what you were trying to say.

[Aeson]

When I google "deserts" Taklamakan doesn't show up in the top 100.

[giblets]

This is a perfect example of what everyone says. A normal person when saying what you said would pick some pretty obvious, well-known deserts: obviously the Sahara, maybe the Gobi, maybe the Kalahari.

No typical person in the West, even typical educated person in the West, would say the Taklamakan (whose name you separated for some reason) or the Empty Quarter, because even if said person is a geography buff and even had these deserts at the tip of their fingers (rather than googling the names of deserts), it would be silly and pompous to expect Westerners to know about the freaking Taklamakan. Yeah yeah it's a big ass desert but it has zero significance in Western culture or thought.

It's not that you chose deserts in the Muslim world either because you avoided the Sahara but mentioned the Gobi.

I am certain that you are a pompous try-hard who probably googled deserts because you wanted to sound intellectual even though the Sahara would have fit the bill perfectly for what you were trying to say.

I've heard of the empty quarter. But yes, the average American on the streets of Philly doesn't know geography and can't name any deserts besides the Sahara.

[Al B. Sure!]

Taklamakan

Yeah let's all act like we don't know what molly bloom does...

[Hauldren Collider]

Alby is correct about Molly though. Molly is a poor communicator. He likes to throw in things he's certain that no one has heard of, because then he can go around claiming that people lacking his autistic obsession with minutia are uneducated, typically with words that he hopes they don't know either because of their obscurity. He's like a hipster.

What he doesn't understand is that if you fail to communicate ideas to your intended audience, it's not the audience that is poor, it is you. But he's not trying to be clear. He's trying to pretend he is smart. It doesn't work.