Are we the supreme?
- Thread starter Gecko1
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skadistic
Caomhanach
If it's tasty I will eat it.
AngryZealot
King
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The focus is always on the organisms going extinct. What about the ones taking over?
We like to think we're at the top of the food chain. We like to think we're the most dominant species on the planet. Consider that there are more bacterial cells in your body than there are human cells. Everywhere humans go, others follow. Rats and crows are rarely found outside human settlements; their populations have increased even more rapidly than the human population. Corn has conquered the planet. Cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, etc. will exist as long as humans do. Where humans build homes, grass gets planted, and humans knock out every competitor to grass. Even our laboratory strains of microbes and animals are now guaranteed unlimited propagation and reproduction.
We're being duped
! Countless species have built themselves a niche into human society, and we often help them more than we help ourselves. That's not to say extinction isn't a horrid thing, but next time someone suggests humans are at the top of the food chain, consider the wider picture.
We like to think we're at the top of the food chain. We like to think we're the most dominant species on the planet. Consider that there are more bacterial cells in your body than there are human cells. Everywhere humans go, others follow. Rats and crows are rarely found outside human settlements; their populations have increased even more rapidly than the human population. Corn has conquered the planet. Cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, etc. will exist as long as humans do. Where humans build homes, grass gets planted, and humans knock out every competitor to grass. Even our laboratory strains of microbes and animals are now guaranteed unlimited propagation and reproduction.
We're being duped
! Countless species have built themselves a niche into human society, and we often help them more than we help ourselves. That's not to say extinction isn't a horrid thing, but next time someone suggests humans are at the top of the food chain, consider the wider picture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xALiBgzPzEI more or less agree, but I would probably feel a pang of guilt if I ate the last dodo.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
Only if it tasted bad. But I never feel bad about grabbing the last (whatever) at dinner time....
Damn, I'm not getting to you guys. Let's try a harder question.
If you are stranded in the middle of a large jungle and you know that a search party is bound to find you within a day, but your famished child is so starved that he will not last that long unless you feed him immediately. You spot a nest of bird's eggs, you also notice that this is the last nest of the species, and that if you feed your child these last 2 eggs the species will go extinct. No one will know you killed the species, your child is going to die within one hour so you don't have much time.
So do you save your child and kill the species or let your child die and let the species live another day?
If you are stranded in the middle of a large jungle and you know that a search party is bound to find you within a day, but your famished child is so starved that he will not last that long unless you feed him immediately. You spot a nest of bird's eggs, you also notice that this is the last nest of the species, and that if you feed your child these last 2 eggs the species will go extinct. No one will know you killed the species, your child is going to die within one hour so you don't have much time.
So do you save your child and kill the species or let your child die and let the species live another day?
Do you really think it's okay to cause an extinction in the pursuit of pleasure? Or am I reading too much into the comment?
Actually most animals killed at slaughterhouses are done so quickly and rather painlessly. Why? Animals that suffer taste bad.
Er, yeah. That's not a hard question.
Well if my child is going to die in an hour without food, two eggs aren't going to save him/her. Put more bluntly, someone puts a gun to my child's head and holds those 2 eggs over a rock and says choose, I choose my child and let the eggs break.
It's my child. I'd choose my child over 100 children I didn't know.
As an aside, if there's only 2 members of a species left, it's doomed anyway.
In practical terms, yeah, pretty much.
Better enough to make complicated decisions other species aren't capable of doing, for good or evil.
Hehe, no. You're reading too much into it. Though quite honestly if I was starving and had to eat the last of something to stay alive, well...
Uh. What kind of monster are you, that would let your child die?
I forget, you're still young. You don't understand what love is...
I'd kill any stupid animal for my child. I'd even kill people, if they were hurting my child or holding him hostage or whatever.
Perfection
The Great Head.
Yep. We rock, cows suck. Shoulda evolved intelligence first, bovine-chumps!
Well, I actually take your stance. I'm just looking to weed out those who do not. Trust me, I would kill a species for anyone, even you...
Perfection
The Great Head.
I wouldn't kill a species for you. Unless it was a bug, bugs suck.
There's no such thing as "higher" or "lower".
Humans are animals.
That should clear things up.
My Chinese ex-girlfriend said some of her former countrymen WOULD help cause an extinction for the sake of having eaten the last of such-and-such species. "I want to have one before they're gone!"
aronnax
Let your spirit be free
Humans won the evolutionary battle to climb to the top of the food change. As long as we are up there, we do not need to be compared to the same a dog or horse or bird.
Im pretty sure if a human was unarmed and vunerable to attack by an hungry tiger, the tiger would not see the human in the same way as another tiger but more of as food because at that point, the tiger is top dog(cat)
Im pretty sure if a human was unarmed and vunerable to attack by an hungry tiger, the tiger would not see the human in the same way as another tiger but more of as food because at that point, the tiger is top dog(cat)
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