I stole this from somewhere:
We are the only superpredator known to exist. Our best friends are apex predators we allow to live in our homes and treat like children, and we are sufficiently skilled at predation that we have allowed them to give up hunting for survival.
We accidentally killed enough of the biomass on the planet that we are now in the Anthropocene era, an era of earths history that marks post-humanity in geological terms. We are an extinction event significant enough that we will be measurable in millions of years even if we all died tomorrow.
We are the only creature known that engages in group play fighting. Other animals play fight, but not in teams. This allowed us to develop tactics, strategy, and so on, and was instrumental in hunting and eventually war.
We are sufficiently deadly that in order for something to pose a credible threat to us, we have to make it up and give it powers that don't exist in reality. And even then, most of the time, we still win.
Orcas train in packs, and have been observed passing learned behavioral traits onto others.
I can only hope they one day rise out of the sea to destroy us all.
They also are the only apex predator that refuses to eat us. Orca overall will eat anything, but each individual orca pod has their own unique diet. This means that if a polar bear is found by the "wrong orcas," (from the polar bear's perspective) the polar bear gets eaten. Yup that's right. The largest and deadliest land predator is prey for orcas. That being said, if an injured seal is near the "right orcas," since seal isn't on their menu, they'll either totally ignore the seal, or maybe bump it towards the shore. Humans are off their menus, and we don't know why. The last recorded Orca attack in the wild happened in the late 1800s and if the records are to be believed, the human in question was doing everything they could to piss off that orca. The orca in question bit the human, tasted what it had bitten, and immediately let go. The human got a gnarly scar, but kept his arm. (This doesn't apply to Orcas in captivity that we gave massive psychological trauma to.)
My theory is that around 200,000 to 250,000 years ago, just as we were getting started as a species, an orca decided to kill a sick, injured, and or young human, and the response that we gave them terrified the orcas that saw it so much that they told all the other orca that you don't eat the hairless apes. They will kill everyone that tries.
They've been sinking boats off the Iberian coast (possibly for fun, possibly for vengeance) for a few years now, so at least some seem to be trying...
We are sufficiently deadly that in order for something to pose a credible threat to us, we have to make it up and give it powers that don't exist in reality. And even then, most of the time, we still win.
This is false. We already pose a very real, credible threat to us.
“Superpredator” is not a scientific term. It was used as an “overconsumer” in one publication, as far as I can find, but that meaning doesn’t fit the narrative of your copypasta.
And we definitely don’t maintain domestication of other predators through our predatory ability. On the contrary, domestication and cultivation of other species is what allows us to domesticate carnivores.We are omnivorous vindictive social apes. Don’t take that description lightly.
We also have two real superpowers:
- We’re the only animal on the planet that can scale stable social groups into millions while being individually complex. Some glitch of ours broke cranial limitations of the group size that other primates adhere to.
- We are the only animal to have developed languages with complex grammars. While other animals can exhibit complex signaling systems, and possibly learn grammars we develop, we effortlessly develop and learn grammars that allow us to express novel thoughts without waiting for evolution. Hell, our children develop throwaway languages as a side-effect of playing with each other.
Everything else is a consequence.
PS: Blue-green algae would like a word about that “extinction event” claim. PPS: Leave hydrogen unattended for long enough, and it will start arguing on the internet.
Sorry I wasn't scientific enough
Dislike this animal.
Been reading the Deathworlders book(s). Basically a FOSS series of novels. Sounds like it would devolve into bad fan fiction. 1,500 pages in and I'm still diggin' it.
Humans come from a "level 12" planet. Sapience isn't thought able to evolve on a level 10, too dangerous. Too serious on every front; Gravity, weather, temperature extremes, microorganisms, parasites, predators, radiation exposure, all that.
First chapter is a human on a space station trying to get processed through emigration when the baddest-ass aliens of all lock on and board. He beats one to death with its own arm. Basically like a chimp in a preschool of giant, soft children.
Gets hilarious when the same guy is finally back home bartending and, as Earth watches in awe, those same aliens invade a Canadian hockey game.
Epubs and such are readily available.
Humans are space orcs
Oi! Orkz ar' made for fight'n an' winnin', humies ar' juz choppa praktis'!
That's like The Damned series by Alan Dean Foster.
Basically alien societies naturally formed without the type of infighting and barbarism humans started with, so the entire idea of war to them was extremely foreign and uncomfortable until they were attacked. They formed an alliance to push back the empire trying to conquer them, but they lacked the will or martial ingenuity to really hold the empire back. Then they come across humans, and the first (random) human they come across accidentally severely injures their ambassador. So they offer humans heaps of technology and resources for soldiers. They don't offer membership (because we're absolute nightmares) if I remember correctly, but Earth is fine with that. People volunteer in droves to see the galaxy and fight in wars where they are so overpowered it feels like they put in a cheat code.
The series is about... well, what happens to our society when our main export is unstoppable death and destruction. Hence "The Damned."
The Undying Mercenaries series by B.V. Larson is kind pf similar. Humanity is basically given the choice to be useful to the galactic empire (forgot what it's called in this series exactly) and the only useful export product we can offer are soldiers. The minds of the soldiers are backed up before going into battle and can be put in a cloned body, hence undying mercenaries.
This premise and the HumanityFuckYeah is what originally brought me to Reddit. There's a lemmy for it, too, but it isnt as active
Maybe if we get more interest we can build it up!
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected]
FOSS series of novels? Is that another term for a web serial? A free novel or story posted in chunks online?
it means the story is published under a license that allows you to redistribute and modify the text, the only limitation is that you can't make a profit.
the specific license used is Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0
Fantastic link! I had started reading on Reddit, and I am happy to see this elsewhere.
This looks like it is right up my alley. Thanks for sharing Shalafi!
I won't spoil anything for you, but there are at least 3 other books that are not only set in the Jenkinsverse, they all took place mostly between chapters 2 and 3. Also they were written by three other authors, not Hambone
Salvage is canon up to chapter 70 something. You'll know you left canon when Adrian Saunders starts messing around with a black hole
The Adventures of Xiu Chang. The entire story is canon
Humans Don't Make Good Pets. While this is canon, it's a frustrating one as it's not finished at all, and the character has a lot of potential.
Also you neglected to mention that "Purveyor Kevin Jenkins" is a normal out of shape bartender.
After seeing It Follows, the idea of a slow predator that never stops is quite terrifying. I would never be at peace again.
Alternatively after seeing IT Follows - I am not whoring it up enough. That's the only way to stay safe.
Do you recommend this movie? I could use a good horror flick for the weekend
Yes. I enjoyed it.
The premise is good so if you're looking for something different, sure. Overall tho, it's decent, nothing amazing.
It's an allegory for STDs.
Was there any firm consensus on what happens if the follower catches them?
Death
I believe in nature, humans are regarded as persistence hunters. Which is to say we have incredible stamina and perseverance while hunting. Other creatures can run faster than us, but only for short stints, relatively speaking, as long as we can keep track of them, we can continue to pursue prey for hours or days without significant external assistance (food, water, rest, help from others, etc).
So regardless of what we may be trying to kill, if we continue to keep our focus on it, we can absolutely find and kill it, given a long enough timeframe.
This also explains marathons, quite frankly. I don't see too many animals just running for dozens of kilometers without a reason to do so. Many can't run that far, and those that could, generally never would... Unless they're running from us, I suppose.
Something like the cheetah, is very very fast in short duration, but after a few minutes of running at full speed, it's thermal regulation tends to fail and it is biologically required to stop or it will overheat and die.
Add to that our intellectual capacity for planning, the creation of tools to assist us, strategy, teamwork, and all the things that are associated with intelligence and we're basically a killing machine, if we choose to be....
Amazingly, we're also the only species that we know to exist that feels bad about eating our prey. I've never seen a lion have an existential breakdown after killing off a gazelle so it can eat, yet there's entire subcultures of people who refuse to cause any harm to their food. Have you people not understood the "circle of life"? Did you not watch the lion king?
Whatever. Go live your life. Weirdo.
The problem with eating meat is not the eating meat. I don't give a fuck if someone eats meat from an animal that hasn't suffered, that was free and in its natural habitat. I don't know if I would myself because after 15 years of not eating meat I don't think I'd still like it, but it's not unethical. The problem is the untold amount of widespread suffering and cruelty of beings with emotions and sentience and attachments and capacity for both physical and emotional pain that is industrial livestock farming.
Someday I have a dream that the ADA relaxes its guidelines for certification that need everything to be so industrialized and monitored. And then, we could start selling meat of the "problem animals" that we have way too many of, like deer and boars. As long as they can stop people from breeding them (Hanoi Rat Massacre problems all over again) hunting could be a somewhat lucrative activity, and we wouldn't be contributing to global production problems by eating meat.
Of course, we'd need people to be aware that someday once those populations are under control, we'd have to change habits. And we know how people react to change...
Yeah, my last few statements were hyperbole. Sorry that didn't come across to you. I'm also about as weird as they come, so "weirdo" really isn't a jab, it's just a statement of fact, we're all different and weird from eachother.
The point, and fact remains that we're the only species on the planet that can rationalize rejecting meat due to ethical concerns. Give a cat some factory farm meat and it won't even think twice about eating it.... rinse and repeat with pretty much any animal on earth other than humans.
Regardless of that point, I'm not about to tell anyone how to live, eat what you want. What you eat doesn't affect or inform what I eat. I also want you to have options, so I don't have any protest to the creation of things like veggie burgers or tofurkey or whatever. The only time I would have a problem with vegetarians/vegans is if their choices affect my ability to make a choice. eg. I can no longer get beef because there's now a vegan law that forbids it (type of thing). It's extreme to think about, but it's along the same lines of laws forbidding LGBTQ+ people from getting married or something, or women getting abortions. Sally joe's abortion doesn't really cause any damage to your life, why do you care? if Jim and John want to get married, why do you care? It doesn't stop anyone else from refusing to get an abortion, or refusing to get gay married, they're just discriminatory laws that restrict people's action based on other peoples wants.... historically, vegetarians and vegans haven't even tried to cross that line, and I don't think that will change, which is good. The religious fanatics however, cross that line continually. I just want to live and be free to marry who I want and eat what I want and live where I want and how I want, with the understanding that those wants shouldn't impact other people's ability to do the same. On the same note, I want that freedom for mankind. Where everyone can do anything they want, as long as it does not impact others ability to do the same. If you take a look at most laws, that's how they're written, to prevent individuals from impacting others in a negative way; about the safety of the society as a whole. Don't drive your car at excessive speeds, which may cause you to lose control and potentially crash, possibly into someone else, which will injure/kill them, which impacts that persons ability to pursue their own goals (etc).
I am a humanist above all else. I couldn't give any fewer craps about who you are as a person (race, color, religion, creed, lifestyle, sexual identity, sexual preference, etc), as long as you're not negatively affecting others to live their lives how they want, then by all means, do the things, be happy.
I've also heard theories that our empathy is actually a hunting tool. If we were to lose our prey, say in the brush around a water source, we could put ourselves in its mind. From there, we could empathize and predict their actions, and so follow them, even without tracks. From the prey's perspective, they finally lost us and escaped, they are exhausted and overheating, but alive. Suddenly the predictor re-emerges, and the chase is back on.
Vegetarianism being a fairly unique human trait suddenly makes sense, from this perspective. A lion doesn't really need to get into the mind of their prey, and so empathising with them is actually a negative. For humans it was a critical tool. It's only secondary that we turned it on each other, allowing for super-tribes to function.
i mean that's more down to us being intelligent and social while also liking to eat meat, if elephants hunted they'd probably face similar moral quandries
dolphins are psychos though
I don't know if your second to last paragraph is a meme, but all humans reject immoral behaviors that occur in the wild, not just vegans. Lions also commit infanticide so their genetics carry on and competing male lions don't, it makes sense biologically. Yet humans don't commit this behavior because we know it's wrong. Dolphins rape other dolphins, which again for the furthering of your own genetics makes sense. You should implant your seed in as many helpless victims as you can, and yet again, humans don't do this because we know it's wrong.
Pretending like vegans are the weird ones because we're simply consistent about our morality is wild. Non-vegans even get upset at the idea of eating dogs or cats, so it's not even like they're universally in favor of torturing and slaughtering helpless animals, only the ones that have been objectified by whatever culture they live in.
Weird and wrong. These are extremely subjective.... Same with good or bad.
I'm sure the gazelle thinks it's bad to be killed and eaten, I'm sure they think it's wrong. The Lions who hunted it down and ate it think it's good and the right thing to do.
This is entirely subjective. The universe doesn't have an absolute of good, bad, right, wrong, weird, or normal. It simply is. Anything that is good/bad or right/wrong is a matter of opinion and perspective.
Only humans attribute their system of right and wrong to animals that may be entirely okay with the matters at hand. We don't impose our laws and values into animals just as they cannot impose their morals and values on us. To judge them for the actions that they take without being able to understand their thoughts and feelings on those matters is juvenile.
You simply cannot transpose human notions of right and wrong into situations where humans have no say, no context, and no understanding of the social constructs of those species.
I'm sorry that you don't like it, but I promise that the animals you're referring to, see it differently than you.
We don't understand it, and maybe we never will. Let them do their thing and if there's ever a time where we can adequately communicate with those animals and ask them how they feel about what's happening, then at that point, maybe we can take action for or against it as appropriate.
Until then, let them live the way they choose to live. Let them sort out their own problems as we have been trying to do for humanity.
Human hunters also have the distinct advantage of being able to carry water with them.
And (usually) the intelligence to do so.
To your last point, I think it's a natural progression of our species. We realize that we were stupid animals like them at one point, and look at us now? Technically they are just earlier in their evolutionary chain (some of them, some species due to the way evolution played out will never be a fully intelligent species like humans, but we know some of them are already well on their way) so are we really just eating what would just be babies in terms of intelligence?
Where does the line get drawn, how intelligent does something have to be before it seems like just as much of a crime as eating a human child? We already know there are species, that we currently eat, that have the intellgence and capacity to learn similar to that of Human toddlers! Is that not something that gives you at least pause? Do you not at least have the thought that: "This animal I'm about to eat scientifically seems like they are just as capable of cognitive thinking and complex emotions and attachments as a toddler, am I okay with this?" What's your answer to that question? For me, it's not black and white, it's not a simple yes or no answer, and I feel like most people who believe what they say about the intelligence of these creatures must be similar.
Then to top it off, through animal and plant husbandry, factory farming, and automation of food production we are rapidly approaching a point where we might not need to eat these intelligent species to survive, due to our ability to grow our own food, even meat now! One day in the future, we realistically can envision a world where everything we eat is grown in some capacity. When we reach that point, shouldn't we ask that question again? When the needs of our species can be met through technology, what is our responsibility to the lives of these creatures at this point? When does it become pointless killing of living beings? It's a genuine question.
Me personally, I don't think we are quite at the evolutionary point where we can sustain our society without the products of agriculture as they currently stand, so I think it's unrealistic to try to force everyone to stop eating animal meat in the short term. I think it's a great philosophical question we should keep asking and keep revisiting, because I think one day in the future the answer will eventually change to a world where we might change the way we view animals. And in the meantime, I'm all for legislation to try to make the process of cultivating animal products as ethical and harmless to them as possible, I feel like that's the least I can do for the species while we use them as a battery to fuel human evolution.
There is very little evidence for the idea of persistence hunting ever beeing a thing.
Despite the idea’s foothold in popular culture, however, there is no hard evidence that ancient humans were persistence hunters, much less that persistence hunting shaped evolutionary traits. In fact, what evidence there is doesn’t support the notion that early humans acquired their meaty meals through feats of running endurance; it flatly contradicts it.
https://undark.org/2019/10/03/persistent-myth-persistence-hunting/
Nice, I like you. You stick to the point. So many of these comments are just people getting butthurt about hunting in general.
I do apologize that I haven't done enough research on the topic and I can't really engage in the conversation further. I hope you have a wonderful day.
if we continue to keep our focus on it, we can absolutely find and kill it, given a long enough timeframe.
Though most modern humans would probably get eaten by the cheetah.
Not by a cheetah. They are easily scared and will run away even from smaller opponents.
Well yes, many of us are to slow and fat to run away or fight adequately not to die.
We did that to ourselves though.
We are pack hunters. That's what makes the difference. Cooperation and communication. No amount of running far will ever come close to compete with the power of making plans and communicating them to others.
Fun fact: The tables can get turned on us too. Moose and elephants have both been documented stalking humans who angered them for days trying to ambush and kill them for example.
In fact, the saying goes that you only need to make a stalking carnivore think you're too much trouble for the amount of nutrients you have to get away since they're just hungry, but if you're being stalked by a herbivore, that means they're genuinely trying to kill you simply because they hate you.
Yeah, also don't fuck with camels. Like, if you can't already see how they loathe your existence, and then aggravate them, you have only yourself to blame down the road.
My brother in Christ, we are the Terminators
Or the matrix robots, factory farming animals and not even giving them a chance to be free and hunted
At least they had the decency to create an artificial world for the human mind, we just let the animals suffer in misery waiting for death.
Turns out we were the snail all along!
You can run, but can you never escape us.
Unlike you fly that works pretty well.
Dogs: bark
A little like that robot guard dog from Black Mirror.
