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Would it be better for them to get extinct, or to become advanced enough to understand that there is a much more technologically superior race in the same plane
by boomzilla 11y ago
Would it be better for them to get extinct, or to become advanced enough to understand that there is a much more technologically superior race in the same planet and that their lives and deaths totally depend on that race?
- tudorw 11y agoWe depend on bees, how do you feel about that?
- boomzilla 11y agoI feel very good: they are tools and the only way they can intentionally harm us is for all of them to collectively commit suicides.
- tudorw 11y agoHow do you think they feel about that?
- tudorw 11y agoTurn the tree of life upside down and look again, we are at the bottom, not the top, our existence is only insured by the existence of other species, if we killed off every other species do you think we would thrive? We are dependent on them, subsequently they are not dependent on us, that seems quite smart of 'them', perhaps we should tread more carefully and respect that the intelligence they demonstrate is different, not inferior.
- boomzilla 11y agoThat's an interesting angle that I've not thought of. Yes ignorance is a bliss. However my original point was more in the line of: if the chimps had a choice of getting extinct, vs the option of getting conscious enough to realize their fates are very much on the hands of a more technologically advanced race, and there is absolutely zero chance to catch up, which option would they choose?
- tudorw 11y agoGood question, difficult, what if we met aliens that could destroy us, but they chose not to, that would be nice wouldn't it :)
- ZenoArrow 11y ago> "absolutely zero chance" It seems very unlikely, but it could happen. Humans haven't always been the dominant species, it's only our grasp of technology that keeps us where we are, a lot could happen in our future to shift the balance to another species (changing environment, animal evolution, virus evolution, etc...). Though we're more likely to kill ourselves off before that happens IMO, and not necessarily through war (we're living longer, and growing quite considerably as a species, I remember when I was a kid we used to say there were 6 billion people on the planet, and that was only back in the 80s/90s. We have to face up to population control at some point, despite it being political dynamite at the moment). Besides that, I don't think humans are really 'superior', the main thing we're good at is being adaptable, but there are skills that other species have that we do not or that they are far better at. Also, the notion of dominance is misguided, as another commenter alluded to we're all interconnected.
- vtlynch 11y agoand what about all the ways they can unintentionally harm us, since they are bugs without the mental facility to intentionally harm us? Furthermore, what does the nature of the intent have to do with the effect... whether they all commit suicide or are killed by our hand... we are in the same place.
- subliminalzen 11y agowhat about all the ways they can unintentionally harm us, since they are bugs without the mental facility to intentionally harm us? I take it you've never been stung by a bee before.
- vtlynch 11y agoNot really relevant to the point, but... While being stung by a bee hurts, I doubt the is deciding to intentionally harm us. They are instead acting on instinct and defending against what they consider to be a threat.
- notNow 11y agoWait till they become fully aware of the concept of death and their eventual demise and after that when they invent "spirituality" and conjure up silly rituals to distract them away from remembering their fate and the mental stress and anguish that come with it. Monkeys are in for one hell of a ride right there.
- ars 11y agoThey aren't going to become advanced enough (if they were going to, they would have already). But if that was an option it's certainly the better one. That race they [would be] dependent on is a pretty nice one for the most part.