Again, that is false. People did not arbitrarily decide that "Oh, we're going to starve to death out here."
Why does not domesticating something equal death? Many groups of humans did very well without domesticating animals.
Elephants aside, though, are there any more domesticateable non-extinct animals that could've significantly influenced human history had they been domesticated? Or is this discussion entirely moot?
I believe it is moot, as we domesticate to fill a need, we perhaps would have domesticated something
else to provide us with milk, or eggs, etc.. but we only need so many different niches to be filled to supply our diet
Pets are a wim, a fancy. Sometimes simply tamed from the wild, others a now readily domesticated animal.. hamster? Corn snake etc?
Your quote goes to say how some pets are ridiculus..Hyenas, giraffes etc. Just because one person has the wim to have such an animal, it bears no relation that humans are going to as a collective try and breed such animals, such would the infrequency of keeping a pet be, I can fully see how few would become domesticated. There has to be a strong desire/need to domesticate something, and a "pet" does not supply that. Thus we have (by classification) many more pets than domesticated animals.
Ok, so we are back to the argument of ease/suitability. Why would humans persevere to domesticate an animal? Why did some cultures domesticate animals and not others? Why did once a culture successfully domesticate several animals.. it did not go on to domesticate them all!
Sure, some animals really are not going to be easy to domesticate.. so why bother? If you already have a animal that provides clothing, food etc.. why bother with another one that is not so suited. Sure with enough faffing I am sure you could over many many many generations breed cats you could eat, milk,skin.. oh wait.. we do in some cultures.. erm, wait ok.. but cows are better to milk, pigs to fatten and sheep to shear.
What I am essentially saying is that some animals were more suitable for domestication, and once they were.. where was the drive to domesticate others? Gone!
that is the main reason there is not innumeral domesticated animals. NOT at the foremost the difficulty in doing so, or unsuitability.
I don't see why it is inconsieveable in an alternative reality that other animals were domesticated.
So, if those animals weren't the animals we have, and some other, totally hypothetical animal that doesn't exist--which is a mechanism typically not employed in NESes set either on Earth or elsewhere.
No, other animals that do exist on this planet. The ones that sit there now, yet undomesticated. My sentence obviously means this.. are oyu really stooping as to
try and misunderstand me?
YES its unlikely that in a NES something like an elephant would become domesticated.
Except it's not "like" an elephant, in all these instances, it is an elephant. Which has not been domesticated in several hundred human generations, and which by your own admission would take several orders of magnitude longer to achieve.
So people get overly excited/confused about a domesticated elephant. What about North American cultures? There exist animals that potentially could have been domesticated had there been the incination and effort/pressue.
You either change the elephant so it isn't an elephant, or you ****** people such that they aren't people. No existent NES does either of these. Moot point.
Why do you have to change the animal in any way, and stop being fixated on the elephant! I mean choose a different animal to the elephant, and take the leap of faith that this time round (in the alt) humans attempted to domesticate animal
X.
What I am saying is that if a human today set it out to achieve it.. it would be possible.
Great, so once machines and advanced technology--things not around for most of humanity's history--are available, and those very same things nullify the need for such domestication then.
What a powerful statement.
I meant though our knowledge, not our technologies. What I meant was simply to provide the pressure to result in a domestication. Once man had the basic needs through the first few domestications.. what need was there to expand upon it?
It's not inconceivable that something would happen, just rather unlikely. Human history is volatile; it can change with a single death. States aren't stable. But evolution of an animal species is much more slow, much more gradual, and much less effected by randomness. Therefore while not impossible, it is highly unlikely that our alternate selves would be riding yaks into battle.
As for the second bit, that's utterly irrelevant and moreover not likely anyway. Sure, if we set out to do it right now, it would be possible, over the span of generations, with large amounts of funding, and a focused organization doing the domestication. With all those preconditions, why are we bothering to discuss it? This is like discussing whether or not it is possible that everyone in the world tomorrow will decide that war is bad and that they should all lay down their weapons and sing a rousing chorus of "What if God Was One of Us?" Yes, it's possible: very remotely so.
It's not plausible, however, and not at all important, so frankly this seems to be a waste of time.
What I was trying to highlight that it is possible to domesticate other species, but that once we had domesticated to satisfy our needs, we stopped trying to get new species, and instead concentrated (mostly) on selective breeding from those we had domesticated.
. So work is actually an outlet for gold. BUT: for highly nationalic high population but low gold country OR a high slave country OR a country with different seasons of work (dry seasons? WORK!) will give you free work. Thanks! Now I need a ruleset for my NES.
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