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Turn 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 kill

by tudorw 11y ago

Turn 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 ago
That'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 ago
  Good question, difficult, what if we met aliens that could destroy us, but they chose not to, that would be nice wouldn't it :)
  - krapp 11y ago
    Not if they wanted us for slaves. Or livestock. Or warm hosts for their larvae. Or if their one condition on keeping us alive was that we all start worshiping the Great Old Ones.
    - tudorw 11y ago
      Thanks for that, now I'll sleep real soundly ;)
- 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.

by tudorw 11y ago

boomzilla 11y ago

That'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 ago
Good question, difficult, what if we met aliens that could destroy us, but they chose not to, that would be nice wouldn't it :)
- krapp 11y ago
  Not if they wanted us for slaves. Or livestock. Or warm hosts for their larvae. Or if their one condition on keeping us alive was that we all start worshiping the Great Old Ones.
  - tudorw 11y ago
    Thanks for that, now I'll sleep real soundly ;)
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.