Some animals have to basically eat every waking hour to get enough calories. We made food so efficient that we basically have too much free time and then do things like invent new stuff.
One of my favorite? things is when an article starts gushing about how smart a species is and compares them to a 5 year old. Which is impressive for an animal, but if you said an adult human had the intelligence of a 5 year old, you'd mean they were EXTREMELY dumb.
Well we are no longer part of the food chain which counts for a lot imo. Jumping a bit higher would be dope but I would still rather not get eaten alive.
being on top of the food chain still puts us on the food chain. we're also only on top of the food chain as a species. as an individual, you can still very much get kicked right off that top of that ladder. go into the wild on your own with no equipment and see how you fare against a polar bear or something. you're definitely still going to be a part of the food chain.
polar bears live a pretty bohemian lifestyle. i don't think they usually marry. they lack typically lack the social culture that promotes marriage as an institution. but again, i can't deny that can-do attitude you have going there.
right, i'm just pointing out that our tools make us forget that being on top of the food chain is not the same thing being removed from the food chain, as the previous redditor suggested. all you need to be reminded is to go get lost without any tools.
well, i was trying to illustrate the point that a single human on its own is not an apex predator - its us as a group that makes us so successful and dangerous.
but, that said, even going out into the wild with equipment doesn't necessarily ensure you're still at the top of the food chain. plenty of people go out into the bush well equipped and never come home.
And I was pointing out that past achievements of lasting knowledge allow an individual human to beat any single animal in a fight, via the the fruits of the labours of our ancestors, AKA. Guns.
Every other animal could develop guns too, but we are just better, and therefore at the top of the food chain. Even as individuals.
And I was pointing out that past achievements of lasting knowledge allow an individual human to beat any single animal in a fight, via the the fruits of the labours of our ancestors, AKA. Guns
right, i understand that - that was entirely my point. we require the past achievements and knowledge to be a threat as an individual. most animals don't need any prior knowledge or achievements to maintain their place on the food chain. you strip humans of their tools, and we're suddenly a lot less impressive than we think ourselves to be.
Every other animal could develop guns too
no they can't.
but we are just better,
we're just more successful, we aren't "better" unless you define "better" in this case to be synonymous with "more successful". we're definitely not better in many ways. destroying the environment we rely on makes us quite a bit worse than any other animal.
They have the same opportunity we had. We did it. They don't because they are to stupid. Intelligence is what makes humans superior.
animals lacking the intelligence, abstract thinking, and dextrous hands necessary to conceptualize and then build them means that they very much don't have the same opportunity.
Intelligence is what makes humans superior.
intelligence makes us successful. not superior. again, our bias towards ourselves make us believe that we're "better" than other animals, but we aren't. we destroy the world around us when it's critical to our own survival.
Yes, you have to HANDICAP humans to give animals a fighting chance, by stripping them of advantages that are borne of their abilities.
no, you have to give a human an advantage by allowing it to access exogenous items to put it on the same threat level that many other animals have natively.
go into the wild on your own with no equipment and see how you fare against a polar bear or something
I get your point, but these aren't considerations in the food chain. It's like telling a lion to go out in the wild without claws, or a shark to prowl the oceans without teeth. Extreme hypotheticals aren't a factor.
We’re having this conversation, aren’t we? And any animal would be physically subpar if they lived as sedentary of lives as we tend to, but you could pick up running and very quickly surpass almost any animal on the planet
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u/Salihe6677 Mar 05 '25
I'm pretty sure the model I got assigned didn't get either of those things >_>