Please read the following part of the parent post out loud and tell me it isn't even a tiny bit ambiguous.
Just to clarify, paragraphs above include: - proposal for development of software, GUI and an alphabet aimed at apes.
Yeah, so? Have you never used photoshop before? Never edited/designed an icon? Mucked about with fonts?
As I've already referenced Kanzi, we'll stick with him for a moment. Yes, it is a simple matter to develop software that would work on a structurally fortified iPad. Hell, you could probably port it from existing software. Naturally more lexigraphs would need to be developed as each generation learned and adapted to a larger vocabulary, much as Kanzi did better than his mother at learning.
- describing equipping apes with 21st century entertainment technology as "worthy enough to hold sufficient merit".
As partially depicted by the video, and listed on several sites you can easily google, Kanzi understands a good bit of English, over 3000 words. He can also identify several hundred lexigraphs and understands complex sentence structure and embedded clauses. Granted, that is currently tantamount to the understanding of a 5-6yr old, but just because someone/something doesn't grasp your language, do you dismiss them as unworthy of regard and deny them the option of being taught despite their underlying intelligence? I should hope not. In the face of that, anything that doesn't work towards attempting to continue to overcome that barrier sounds like bigotry or egotism to me.
- inventing an "ape Esperanto", teaching it to apes - hoping it will catch on as their Lingua Simia,
- the following line: "Kanzi the Bonobo picked up some ASL from watching videos of Koko the Gorilla".
Kanzi learned lexigrams and speech better than his mother did. He also learned some American Sign Language from Koko. Generational improvements in learning/adaption have happened and are currently happening. There's nothing ambiguous about stating that B learned better than A did, while also learning something from C when there is quantitative and qualitative proof.
- and finally, suggestion that apes SHOULD aim for some not clearly defined position (Evolutionary? Cultural? Civilizational? Consumerist? Political?...) which is currently being occupied by humans.
I don't recall stating 'Votes for Apes!' specifically, but there is nothing ambiguous about anything I've said concerning a desire to see evolutionary progress. I'm all for it. I mentioned that Apes shouldn't have to come up the hard way. Your breakdown of that as an undefined position doesn't address my intent. Whether anybody else likes it or not, universities and private researchers all over the world are helping to teach great apes. This should continue as apes need not wander aimlessly for thousands of years like humanity did before eating some charred meat (or whatever happened to change our structural thinking) before magically grow smarter over a few dozen generations till they're building microprocessors. Given the sprawl of humanity that isn't even an evolutionary option for them given strictly delimited preserves and environments where they are only marginally protected.
Given these factors, I don't believe that reinventing the wheel is a necessary hurdle. I think that any capable body can live an enriched life by striving for understanding in any scenario. As there have been several high profile incidents of apes proving capable, I think devoting time and effort towards ape education is entirely worthwhile. Screw the SETI work and all the people chasing after aliens and sending out golden records on probes, we've got sentient life we can't fully communicate with right here.
...which is currently being occupied by humans.
Your position has been applied to many racist and sexist entitlements since the dawn of man. Have fun with that.
Can't tell if serious...
I'm serious enough that I'd vote for a 1 cent county tax to give more money to the local primate center down the street from my house (Yerkes NPRC) and vote against taxes aimed at giving money to the children/schools in Dekalb County. Too bad life and policy doesn't behave that way where I live, but I digress.
Allegedly Kanzi understands hundreds of lexigraphs, as well several thousand English words including complex sentences and embedded clauses. While some nay-sayers (often supported only by their religious dogma) still choose to believe that ape thought process and responses are merely tricks, Kanzi and other great apes over the last 40 years have demonstrated in numerous instances that they are thinking complex thoughts, expressing themselves cogently via the language "we've" taught them. In some cases it has been as simple as expressing the fact that they want to play with a particular toy, only to show regret through lexigraphs and signage at a later point in time that the play time they were told was going to happen was overlooked.
I don't profess to understand the minutiae that follows the progression of learning in non humans, but anyone who has ever even paid the slightest bit of attention to their own pets at home can relate to the fact animals aren't dumb. I've seen dogs that can identify over 200 independent items, fetch beer from the fridge, and many other simple tasks. Given the similar brain structure and opposable thumbs, if you put great apes into a safe, and more enriched learning environment than humanity had as we've evolved to this point, it is not entirely unreasonable to expect that adaption can occur.
Of course that would devolve into a whole new set of problems as we tried to get people in other countries to stop hunting apes for bush meat, secret remedies, sport and what have you. New debates would spring up regarding whether they qualified for the same rights and protections as humans, whether keeping apes in zoos is slavery, etc.
I'm not saying that I'm praying for the day we can communicate with horseshoe crabs, gila monsters and amoeba, but given our successes in the last 40 years in working with various apes I think we would be remiss if we didn't put more focus on trying to develop educational methods geared towards communication and structured learning.
P.S. - Let's end racism while we're at it. It's a win-win.
I think you might be going a little far here. If you watch the video, the apps they can actually use are things like "touch the screen and it changes color". And it's not like they can actually launch an app themselves, or pick a video and watch it. They're not about to open up a Skype phonebook and say "I want to call Ookokook", the trainer would has to do everything and then hold it up for them.
Just because these particular Orangutans haven't learned (or might not have the capacity) how to properly utilize an iPad in the way that humanity has, doesn't mean that given the opportunity and the funding of such research in regards to apes that such walls can't eventually be torn down.
It is a relatively simple process to program apps and change the icons of apps to lexigrams geared towards apes, and I find the idea of giving apes like Kanzi, as well as other apes that have worked extensively with primatologists, exposure to such technology as worthy enough to hold sufficient merit.
Much like learning a foreign language, if we teach all these exposed and inclined apes the same 'words' it isn't a huge leap to believe that in a few generations it could manifest itself as something that is passed on within the confines of each society of apes from generation to generation.
Even across species Kanzi the Bonobo picked up some ASL from watching videos of Koko the Gorilla. With a little determination on our part, this could be the start of something much greater.
Humans came up the hard way, but that doesn't mean that apes have to go that route.
Hackers of the world, unite!