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To me, it is very saddening (but still it is reality) that organisms have been forced to evolve with a "kill or be killed" biological wiring. You'll see that o
by sushshshsh 6y ago
To me, it is very saddening (but still it is reality) that organisms have been forced to evolve with a "kill or be killed" biological wiring.
You'll see that on certain Galapagos islands, where no natural predators exist for the iguana, the iguana is completely docile to all other organisms around it. What's even cooler is that the iguana also only eats seaweed and algae, which means it does not need to kill other animals to survive. It has developed evolutionary adaptations to subsist on this diet as well, such as nasal glands that remove excess harmful salt from their bodies.
I am a firm believer that all of the war and crime you see in the world is driven by some biological wiring that most of us continental organism possess, from ants to humans.
If we had all evolved to be more like iguanas, I wonder if society would have made more (or less!) technological and societal progress, given that a lot of technological advancements come from the demands of war--
but war is not a necessary condition for technological advancement now is it?
Long live the Galapagos iguana!
- bananamerica 6y agoWell, good, evil and sad are human concepts that probably do not apply to the mental life of ants. We tend to ascribe deeper meaning to things, even when that is not reasonable.
- sushshshsh 6y agoIn some sects, I would imagine that sadness is seen as a bug and not a feature-- "why feel bad that you killed something to survive? you should be proud!" is a theme common in our human history.
- bananamerica 6y agoI might say: “why are you sad due to nature working as it should?”
- jostmey 6y agoMaybe if we had evolved to be more like iguanas we wouldn't even have society at all. We would just sit on rocks, seeking to stay warm, never striving for more
- curation 6y agoSince Global West "more" has delivered destruction of the biosphere, I'll also long for contemplative humanity not colonial.
- sushshshsh 6y agoI think I also prefer the docile society of technological backwardness, sitting on rocks in the warm equatorial sun and eating algae, none the wiser to the possibilities sitting around me involving smelting and electricity :) But the comment above us is probably right, it would seem that the iguanas have been "doing nothing" for tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Meanwhile humans have "accomplished a lot" in the past 10,000 years lets say, at the expense of many many many other things.
- cal5k 6y agoAh yes, the idea of the noble savage. Back when Zimbabwe was still Rhodesia, in addition to fighting the Mugabe-lead rebels the Rhodesian military had to routinely step in to stop rival tribes from slaughtering each other. The default state of humanity is tribal warfare, not some beautiful Eden-esque utopia. "Colonialism" wasn't the cause, this is just humanity. I don't know why people are so keen to deny this. Nature is brutal and yet still beautiful, and I don't see why humanity should consider itself to be special in that regard.
- WD-42 6y agoSorry, you can’t compare warring factions in an already war torn and exploited country to the normal behavior of humanity.
- 6y ago
- joeberon 6y agoWhy is it saddening? Only to us as social intelligent animals. Stop projecting your clinging to your continued existence onto nature!
- ganzuul 6y agoA billion years of instinct must lead to uncertainty and mixed feelings. We great apes are a strange apparition in the cosmos, capable of glimpsing the absurdity of our own existence. "What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?"
- 082349872349872 6y agoDomesticated animals are far less aggressive than the wild types. However, I believe Homo sapiens is already pretty domesticated. (neotenate, potentially herbivorous, able to breed in captivity, pleasant disposition, not prone to panic, willing to live in large hierarchically dominated herds)
- dheera 6y ago> Domesticated animals are far less aggressive than the wild types. Dogs are far, far more aggressive than their wild counterparts. Their wild counterparts, in general, are not territorial against non-canids, and pretty much only attack if they are hungry.
- 082349872349872 6y agoTIL. I guess that's another indication that Animal Farm's animal models were carefully chosen.
- z3t4 6y agoDogs and cats are basically their wild counterpart bread to not be aggressive/dangerous (to humans).
- dheera 6y agoNo. Cats, sure, they are inherently risk-averse. Dogs -- I disagree. Dogs are extremely aggressive to any human that isn't approved by their owner. There are nearly 5 MILLION dog attacks per year in the US alone, some 30-40 of which are fatal, which is several orders of magnitude higher than any wildlife attacks even if you account for the density difference. You can count the yearly wolf attacks in North America on one hand. Wolf-human interactions are incredibly rare. Wolves have evolved to optimize for their own survival, and although they are powerful predators, they are risk averse as well, and will not go after prey that they are unsure of -- you would be too if you had to use your strength to kill for every single meal or starve to death if injured. Dogs have been bred to fearlessly protect and attack the owner at all costs, including putting their own survival on the line, which is very much NOT how wolves think. I'd much rather be in wolf or coyote territory than a place with stray dogs.
- agumonkey 6y agoIt's a very interesting notion to me.. I spend my days thinking about the predatory environment of jobs in our 'modern' culture. I also believe that with a different seed, we could all have evolved job cultures very very much more iguanian.
- sushshshsh 6y agoI really like the way you think! The open source movement is really getting closer and closer to this organizational structure. When you stop thinking about "how do I sell this software to other people so I can buy the things I need", and instead move to a model of everybody building software that can help humans obtain the things they need, I think the world changes.
- agumonkey 6y agoI'm torn because I think the sales/survival pressure also avoids slacking off you see. Open source is not immune to false roads and mud.
- s0l1dsnak3123 6y agoYou seem to equate slacking off with failure, when there's plenty of evidence to the contrary: https://blog.trello.com/slacking-off-speed-up-productivity https://blog.trello.com/slacking-off-speed-up-productivity It's important to separate what we feel is productive work, from what will actually produce the most work on aggregate across society. I think we can build a world where those who feel they need downward or lateral pressure to get things done can have this, but not at the expense of everyone else.
- agumonkey 6y agoDon't worry I have a fairly broad measure of productivism that doesn't take into account transient fluff. I meant slacking off as endless debates, running in circles and dropping things. The art is the fine balance between progress and debt. oss doesn't guarantee that.
- looping__lui 6y agoOr another outcome could have been: all the seaweed and plants get eaten up, don’t regrow in time and we would have just vanished. Not sure how the seaweed would have felt about that either. Some organism would have realized that hunting down other stuff is easier and more nutritious than chewing on seaweed.
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoNot following. Iguanas did evolve. We also evolved. Those that evolved to be 'more like iguanas' actually happened - we call them 'iguanas' and they are lizards. Not doing too well. The fact is a certain brainy old-world ape has taken over the biosphere. Because evolution gave them the biological tools to do so. That's what evolution does. We'd have to propose something different from evolution, to get a different result.
- solidsnack9000 6y agoSome of the best features of people are the result of competitive evolution -- it's not just our worst features that come from the struggle for survival. The iguana's war on algae is definitely hell for the algae. Is not killing other animals such a great distinction, in the grand scheme of things? If all the animals were vegetarian and weren't getting preyed on, most of them would die of starvation. (Most birds, rabbits, &c die early -- it's not like people where surviving to adulthood is the norm.) The animals that killed the other animals to have more vegetables to eat would have more offspring and be more likely to survive. Killing others not to eat them but to eat their stuff -- that's war. The iguana situation is one where there's just not much evolutionary pressure. It doesn't generalize.
- lisper 6y agoAlgae doesn't have a brain, or even a nervous system, so eating algae instead of other animals really is a net win on the kumbaya scale.
- tommica 6y agoBut if everyone eats algae, then there is no algae left!
- lisper 6y agoAnd yet somehow there is still enough algae in the Galapagos for the iguanas to survive. Gee, I wonder how that could be possible.
- Volundr 6y agoThat's only true if algae is incapable of reproducing as fast as it's consumed. In my experience running an aquaponics system this isn't a concern.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- thisisauserid 6y agoYour ability to feel sadness evolved from the thing you are sad about.
- rzwitserloot 6y agoChanneling some heinlein here: If we were all galapagos iguanas, well, then one of us iguanas will find a way to swim or otherwise get to a larger landmass. Or find a way to live in the ocean. Then, one of us would find a way to breed faster. After all, there is infinite seaweed and algae available to me. Eventually then, this adapted iguana will be so widespread, even if it remains docile and somehow does not evolve some territorial behaviour for mating purposes (unlikely), that, docile and all, it eats all the seaweed. Some seaweed will likely mutate into something that is harder to eat for the iguana, or poisons them and iguanas learn not to eat that (why? Well, there are a ton of iguanas - whatever iguana just mutates their genes into recognizing the poisonous one by taste or smell and won't eat it, will survive where the ones without the mutation will start dying off in droves). And now we have our war back. It's just between iguanas and the seaweed, which is now in an arms race: The iguanas adapt to deal with the poison, the seaweed adapts to come up with new poisons or otherwise make themselves harder to eat. The rules have changed: There are so many iguanas, that if you are easy to eat by an iguana, you, as a seaweed, are just not going to survive, because there are so many. Or, if the seaweed does not manage to be an equal aggressor in this fight, then something else happens: First massive, MASSIVE die-outs of iguanas due to starvation, and then eventually, aggressive behaviour between iguanas: If I manage to find a stretch of beach with a bunch of seaweed, and I just had some kids? Well, I can just stay docile. Or, I adapt to be aggressive, I chase off other (docile) iguanas hungry and on the lookout for seaweed, and thus ensure that my children survive whilst theirs die of starvation. War is inevitable, unless the system grows into 'acceptance', a self-balanced status quo where opportunities to expand exist but for whatever reason a part of the ecosystem just decides not to do this. For example, what if the iguana's somehow have a break built in and do not adapt. It's that or find a lifeform that requires literally zero resources. The problem is, given that this is an utopic view where life is great and nothing needs to change and there are no external pressures to adapt, why would you invent anything? Until some external force shows up and changes things, life will continue stable forever, with iguanas doing iguana things and seaweed doing seaweed things. Heinlein's principle is that this can only hold if you are literally the only life in the entire universe (or all life is like this), because if not, one day one of the ecosystems that decided to 'war' and grow will obliterate you. They don't play by the same rules.
- 6y ago
- katzgrau 6y agoI think it's somewhat inevitable that in times of scarcity, the most aggressive (either psychologically or physically) members of a species are going wind up surviving and passing on the traits that helped them survive, for good or worse. Were living with the reality of that, as much as I'd also like it to not be the case.
- timmytokyo 6y agoNature, red in tooth and claw.
- plasticchris 6y agoRacer snakes eat baby iguanas. Galapagos hawks eat full grown adults.
- grawprog 6y ago>What's even cooler is that the iguana also only eats seaweed and algae, which means it does not need to kill other animals to survive. It still needs to kill other organisms to eat. The only organisms that don't kill something else to gain energy are photosynthesizers and decomposers like fungi that consume dead organic matter.
- Turing_Machine 6y agoAnd, of course, even the decomposers depend on death to survive. Perhaps not directly, but if things stopped dying fungi would be in bad shape.
- DamnYuppie 6y agoAlmost all organisms evolved to kill or be killed. The entire universe is chaos and continual destruction and creation. By ignoring the innate human nature to struggle and fight you are not removing it or making it go away. You are merely making it more likely that your society will inevitably fall to another that is more aggressive, assertive, or war like. In all of history decedent societies continually fall to more barbaric and less advanced societies.
- kiliantics 6y ago> I am a firm believer that all of the war and crime you see in the world is driven by some biological wiring that most of us continental organism possess, from ants to humans. That is a very fatalist view that denies humans the agency we clearly have. We are obviously capable of devising social norms that go against our "biological wiring", whatever that even is. A simple proof is how varied social norms can be -- with respect to things like marriage/family, work, death, religion, etc. -- across different cultures in space and time. We have the power, collectively, to end the horrible practices that lead to war, exploitation, imprisonment/torture, climate change, and whatever else. These are not an inevitability. The idea that it is inevitable is more of a self-fulfilling prophecy that allows it to continue without any challenge. We have shown in many ways that we have risen above the determinism of many biological processes. We should realise that things can be different and change ourselves to be a part of that difference.
- FooBarBizBazz 6y ago> change ourselves "Pray the gay away." Lobotomies.
- delibes 6y agoHuh? I seem to recall watching the series "Planet Earth 2" and there was some tense scenes with iguanas and snakes: https://www.vulture.com/2017/02/planet-earth-ii-iguana-snakes-scene-story.html https://www.vulture.com/2017/02/planet-earth-ii-iguana-snake... Looks like they have a predator to me. You might have a point about war and in general consumption being a 'wired-in' behaviour. Then again assuming we have something like intelligence and free will, we should be able to choose to override some primitive behaviour.
- DenisM 6y agoAdversity is the mother of progress. You can see it everywhere - biological evolution, societal evolution, technology, economics. Perhaps a more merciful way to lose would be helpful.
- V-2 6y agoLong live indeed, since iguanas are considered vulnerable to extinction. In fact, they already went extinct once on Santiago Island (one of the largest of the Galapagos) - they've been reintroduced by humans as part of a restoration program. This shows limitations of their strategy.
- disown 6y ago> the iguana is completely docile to all other organisms around it. What's even cooler is that the iguana also only eats seaweed and algae Seaweed and algae are organisms as well. Plants don't want to be killed and eaten no more than animals do. I think Attenborough or BBC's documentary on plants showed the lengths plants go through to avoid being eaten and communicating danger to other plants. > I am a firm believer that all of the war and crime you see in the world is driven by some biological wiring that most of us continental organism possess, from ants to humans. It's not just continental, it happens in the oceans as well. It's not just animals, microbes/bacteria/etc also kill and eat. It's even happening all over your body right now. It's been happening millions of years before the dinosaurs. > If we had all evolved to be more like iguanas, I wonder if society would have made more (or less!) technological and societal progress, given that a lot of technological advancements come from the demands of war-- Probably less. The only reason galapagos iguanas exist is because they are isolated from competition and are adapted to a specific environment. Humans are more general while the galapagos iguana is specialized. It's like the difference between a computer and a calculator.
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- optimiz3 6y agoSociety's fundamental value is channeling the unpleasant aspects of our nature to create a net benefit for all. It is folly to fight the natural drive to compete. Instead focus on systems that channel that drive into innovation and production. There will always be haves and have-nots as long as there is evolutionary selection. My favorite metaphor is to think of humanity as gasoline. Left alone it explodes, but put in an engine it does useful work. Society and its laws are the engine that channels destructive force into useful output.
- amelius 6y ago> To me, it is very saddening (but still it is reality) that organisms have been forced to evolve with a "kill or be killed" biological wiring. It's the same for companies ...
- MarekKnapek 6y agoMost likely we would cuddle more. As explained in Minute Earth's video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=c6Ko0Hzi47U https://youtube.com/watch?v=c6Ko0Hzi47U