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What we’re exceptional at is survival. To the point where as few as 1% of our species even needs to think about making food. Also, citation needed on the comple
by dgfl 1y ago
What we’re exceptional at is survival. To the point where as few as 1% of our species even needs to think about making food. Also, citation needed on the complexity of whale songs exceeding the complexity of human language.
But besides, this is not the point. What I question about this rhetoric is using human-developed moral frameworks to justify that we’re somehow a “disease” roaming the planet. As if a tapeworm that were to achieve total worldwide domination would stop and think “wait, I shouldn’t reproduce further because other creatures may suffer”. Same story with any other mammal.
The reality of it is that we are clearly among the most successful species. Keeping the environment safe from us is extremely important, but undermining our own achievements and romanticizing other species whose only virtue is being less successful at surviving than us is strange. With our own moral codes, no less.
- smitty1e 1y ago> What we’re exceptional at is survival. We've wandered pretty much the entirety of the planet and made it to the moon. Nuclear weapons. Controlling the scope of the conversation to exclude the counter-arguments, too, demonstrates the special place afforded humanity by the Creator.
- TheOtherHobbes 1y agoWe're exceptional at survival so far. The odds of continuing to be exceptional at survival are not looking great. And compared to species that have been around for multiple geological ages, our survival time barely rates a mention. The one thing we're truly exceptional at is influencing our own environment. The only creatures to have more of an impact were the cyanobacteria responsible for the Great Oxygenation Event, which literally transformed the Earth's atmosphere. As for the disease line - we're supposed to be intelligent, and terraforming our home planet to make it more dangerous and less inhabitable when we know and understand we're doing this is not the most convincing proof of that claim.
- account42 1y agoOh please spare me the doomerism. There is no reason to believe that humans will go extinct any time soon, whether you believe climate scare prognoses or not. And other species haven't been surviving on this planet any longer than us just because they didn't evolve significantly during that time while we did.
- latexr 1y ago> climate scare prognoses You do realise people are already dying of climate change, right? Not only directly from heat waves, but other natural disasters caused by the rapidly shifting climate.
- latexr 1y ago> What we’re exceptional at is survival. Don’t worry, we’re correcting that in record time. Though it would have been nice to not destroy so many species along with us. > To the point where as few as 1% of our species even needs to think about making food. And the rest would just die, unable to find food, if left alone in the wilderness. > What I question about this rhetoric is using human-developed moral frameworks The idea of exceptionalism is also human-developed, so as soon as you want to go that route no argument in this conversation matters. > The reality of it is that we are clearly among the most successful species. Successful at good things and bad things. Including bad for us. You don’t really see other species developing whole profit industries to knowingly market and sell cancer on sticks, for example. > undermining our own achievements and romanticizing other species That argument cuts both ways. It’s perfectly fair to say someone with your view is undermining the harm we cause and romanticising our achievements. > being less successful at surviving None of us can survive indefinitely under water, or in radiation, or in the vacuum of space. Yet we know of other species who do. Humans are exceptionally frail, considering. After we’re gone, other species will remain. We won’t be so impressive then.