Lex Fridman: belief

Transcript context

…Mountain lions, pumas, whatever the… There’s all different names for them. They’re distributed from, I think from Alaska down through Argentina. They’re everywhere. It’s extremely successful species. From deserts to high mountains, everything. I think you’re saying pumas have a curiosity, have a way about them where they explore, follow people, just to kind of figure out… Just that curiosity as opposed to causing harm or hunting and that kind of stuff. What is this about? I think it’s based in predatory instincts, but I also think there is a playfulness to higher intelligence animals that you don’t see in lower intelligence animals. And so something like a rabbit, for instance, you’re never going to see a rabbit come in to check you out. You can’t even think of it like that. A rabbit is just going to either eat or run away. There’s really two settings. When you think of something like a giant river otter or a tayra, which is, they call it manco here, it’s a huge arboreal weasel, and they’ll come check you out. I woke up at my house the other day and there was a tayra climbing up the side of the house, and he was looking down at me sleeping. And it’s like he came to check me out. It’s like they’re smart enough and they’re brave enough, here’s the important thing, they know that they can fend for themselves, they can fight, they can climb, they can run. And so they’re like, “I’m curious. I got time, let me check this out.”…

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