Comment by short_sells_poo
16 days ago
> the ones who behaved predictably and weren't willing to randomly hurt you for no apparent reason at their own expense, were eaten by our ancestors.
This doesn't make sense to me. Sure, an an animal that is generally a belligerent asshole will discourage humans from trying to tame it, but why would it discourage hunting? If anything, it would encourage hunting the bad animal to extinction, no? Humans successfully hunted Mammoths and other large game even in the stone age, so I don't see how having a bad temper would help.
My guess is that while humans are great hunters, apes aren't, and that our distant ancestors would be a lot more dependent on prey behaving as expected and not, say, suddenly charge at you suicidally.
Chimpanzees are decent hunters.