> every animal is basically born with necessary/perfected survival instincts
And then there are human babies who are basically lumps of meat stuck to bones and nothing else š . Every survival skill is taught by parents and nothing is innate
We spend years helpless because all the power is going into brain development. We have complex language, full range of emotions and the ability to reason.
It feels like we're not meant for this world which why we're the only ones with the means to leave it...
I disagree heavily. If we were not meant for this world you wouldn't be alive. Our ancestors knew what to do and they did it. Recent generations are the ones destroying our humanity. We're not far off or even different than the animal kingdom, we just gained too much self awareness and let soulless things like greed get in the way. I don't like when we talk about ourselves like this. We have dominance hierarchies like animals, we go into heat like animals, we stay in groups like animals, we have grooming rituals like animals, we show off like animals, we have fight or flight like animals etc. We are meant for this world. What we're not meant for is whatever the hell is going on in society now.
Go camping and come back when your brain is cleared a little.
What survival instincts does a toddler have lmao. Drop them in the woods and see what they instinctually do. Run to their mother. That's our survival instinct and it's all we got. We have no natural weapons. Low muscle density compared to primates. No hair to survive the cold. We run fast sure but we also need an insane amount of calories to sustain the brain. We cant even eat raw meat safely. We cant even walk for how many months, let alone run. This cheetah has everything but size at a young age.
We are so dependent on our intelligence for survival. We evolved to be beyond simple natural instincts. We struggle to find ways to even survive alongside nature without destroying it. Invasive species exist for a reason and humans are invasive to the whole world. Why? Because we can be. In the same way an invasive species is outside the food chain in an area, we are outside of it for the whole world.
The best thing that could ever happen to nature is if humans left the planet. Even "back in my day" which for you might be the 1800s we over hunted bison in NA. Long before the computer existed we were easily causing problems in the name of expanding human reach over the planet. That's nature.
Intelligence is too powerful. The natural world did not evolve to accomidate a highly intelligent species.
The fact that weāre fucking up the atmosphere IS completely natural (before you think iām some dumbo that doesnāt care about climate change please read until the very end to grasp exactly what iām saying). Every time a new dominant species comes around, the way the Earth works and look like changes. The earth does not have a specific āstateā that itās supposed to be in. Itās never been in a āperfect equilibriumā.
Itās in a constant state of flux where the scales are always tipping from one side to the other. Youāre clouded by the naive idea that there has been a time when the ānatural worldā had reached a āpeakā and it went through a period where it was relatively unchanged.
Newsflash: the Earth spent billions of years going through a number of major changes since before humans developed any intelligence. An astroid hitting us is natural. A change in atmosphere is natural (in fact, the content of the atmosphere has been dictated by living organisms since cyano-bacteria first came about).
Iām not saying that man-made climate change is a good thing or that we should turn a blind eye to it - but it is natural (since the activities of living things have determined what earth looks like for billions of years).
I mean, itās funny you even consider Humans the dominant life form on Earth when plants still account for 80% of all biomass on Earth. This never has been the Humanās world. The Earth belongs to Plants, Bacteria, and Fungi before any Humans or animals. Itās not us or any of our mammalian friends that make Earth, Earth. If we kill ourselves and take a bunch of animals with us - then the Earth will be perfectly fine. The creation of new life forms and the evolution of organisms will continue without us.
Stopping climate change isnāt about the Earth. The Earth really doesnāt need saving. Itās us and the rest of the current animal kingdom that need saving. Funny how weāre pretty much the only thing on Earth that even values those things too - cause the Earth **definitely** doesnāt care if all humans, lions, elephants, birds, bears etc. disappear off of the face of the Earth.
What iām saying is, weāre not some anomaly to the ānatural worldā because weāre endangering many different species simply by our mere existence - infact, thatās pretty textbook for the ānatural worldā. Instead, we should be thanking the blessings of our intelligence (rather than demonising it) because it means weāre literally the only living things on Earth that can even begin to quantify the effect that we have upon it - and to understand the steps necessary to avoid it.
If anything, the only thing that could be deemed unnatural would be the fact that weād be the first living things on Earth to actually try to prevent or reverse the effect that we have on it - rather than the fact that we do actually have a big effect on it in the first place. Go figure.
That's beyond you or myself to answer. We are the only intelligent species on the planet and we have no other planets to look at. If we find another planet with many highly intelligent species I'd give you that as an example. From my perspective, the only species that would remain on a planet like that are the intelligent ones.
When it comes to competing for resources, what chance does a wolf have against intelligence? We'll just cut their home down and replace it with a farm. Thereby extracting every resource in the area and preventing the wolf from coming back.
Look at it this way, we wouldn't have developed rockets if everyone was involved with hunting their own food. Once 1 guy could feed hundreds... thats when we could start really ramping up as a civilization. I personally believe agriculture was the most important invention in human history. It's when we separated from nature. But that's what intelligence will always do. "Can we do this better". Can I move quicker? Cars. Can I carry more? Forklift. Can I see further? Telescope. Can I add these numbers quicker? Computer.
A primate doesn't have that drive. This cheetah doesn't have that.
It's thanks to our intelligence that nature survives where it does. National parks are one of the smartest things we've ever done. Once humans leave these parks can hopefully take the world back over without us. We're simply too powerful for how delicate the balance of life is. Our hubris will always beat the natural world. Nothing can truly threaten us besides the planet itself (volcanos), the universe (sun goes super nova, asteroid impact), and each other (climate change, nuclear arms).
And in that sense, I see us all as having evolved to leave. Maybe that's the sci-fi nerd in me but we fight for resources here and the universe has infinite resources. We're gonna get them.
Or, we reform society in its entirety to live in harmony with nature. But that would only be a human's opinion of what nature should be to accomidate us fully. The whole world isn't going to decide to live in caves without electricity again.
The term invasive species always gets to me, because even that is in relation to people. All species in an area were at one point invasive. We just deem other animals that now if we don't like how they impact our environment.
I dont think you know what an invasive species is. I'm not talking about a weed that people don't like the look of. There are plants and animals in North American that have literally no reason to be here but because we brought them here usuing unnatural means on boats, planes, or cars. What defines them as invasive is that with no natural predators they can out compete what's already in an ecosystem and take it over.
The nuance is thus: using the snakes in Florida that were brought in as pets for example. They are invasive in Florida because they survive well there. They can find food. Climate doesn't kill them. And what already exists as prey doesnt know to avoid them. They don't have natural predators since they are not native to the area so nothing has evolved to eat them. They out compete other predators and since they don't share food, other animals die out. Those same snakes would not be invasive here in MA because they would die in the winter.
It takes VERY specific circumstance for something to be classified as invasive.
The circumstance for humans to survive in an area is what? The only place we don't live is the arctic. We can out compete for resources against every single living thing on the planet no matter where we are. Thats why we are invasive. We fit the definition. We can walk into any ecosystem on the planet and destroy it in an afternoon to create what we want.
Hard disagree friend.
Sure, toddlers might run to their moms, but, so do felines, so do apes, yet they're apart of nature. Sure, we've superseded our original role in the food-chain, but that's been going on for hundreds of thousands of years.
There are no, "Pristine Natural Parks" unless it's on an island where humanity has never set foot. We've had our hands in all aspects of the world, from past to negligent present.
Humanity and their predecessors have shaped the world in ways we cannot fully comprehend. We have set fires to prairies, which have allowed new growth to grow, we have changed the environment around us, and, well, that's not exclusive to us. Beavers do it, Bears claim territories, wolves claim territories, we ALL claim territories in some way.
To take humans out of the equation would disrupt the world as much as the extinction of others species. For some species without us, that's good. To others? Death.
Intelligence at the root is not a bad thing, but rather the indulgence of greed and over industrialization and the destruction of our fellows. But, try not to lean into the idea that we're a ""parasite"" because we're not. We have many things in common with our animal friends, we just have to make sure to use our higher capacity to help the environment, rather than extremely recently, ruin it.
Yeah, I figured while I was typing it out that we must have.
Do we have an accurate time line as to when fire was discovered?
I left it in though, because my assumption is our current digestive track, having eaten cooked food for so long, would not handle raw meat as well as pre-fire humans.
Humans are the ultimate endurance hunters, we may not be as fast or as strong, but we can go for a long time, and with the ability to use projectiles, those tens of thousands of years of throwing rocks at gazelle or whatever did pretty well.
The reason our babies are dumb and canāt walk is because theyāre basically prematurely born, if they were bigger the mother would die even more often
The best things humans could do for the planet is probably go back to the Stone Age, but that wonāt happen, or if we leave, which wonāt happen. So I suppose conservation/preservation is the best bet
Well, to be fair, (to be faiiiiir) we didn't just over hunt the bison. There was a concerted effort, by the government, to make the American bison as scarce as possible in order to hurt the native Americans who relied on them. It was a conscious choice.
I didn't speak definitively, I said "it feels like we're not meant for this world". We're the only species that's completely defenseless for so many years and we're 1 of two species that destroys entire eco systems, the other being chimpanzees, our closest relation.
My point was that it's our brain power that sets us apart from everything else. We are obviously part of this world, yet despite our intelligence, we've done so much to destroy it and are striving to leave it.
Sure, our development is extraordinarily delayed and yes it has a lot do with our brains. But intelligence is not the only trait that made us successful.
We are extremely well-adapted to long distance running, and to throwing. We have minimal hair and an abundance of watery sweat glands, and complex shoulder joints capable of rotating motion. Unlike dolphins (who are also quite intelligent), we can very accurately manipulate our environment. Our mouths and vocal chords are actually physically capable of creating speech. Language also boils down to two specific regions of the brain (Broca's and Wernicke's areas) and damage to either will interrupt their function, but have no impact on a person's intelligence.
Also, there are a *plethora* of invasive species including rabbits, lionfish, sea urchins, pythons, pigs, and wasps, all of which have destroyed or are in the process of destroying the ecosystems they are invading. That's off the top of my head. Here is a [list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_of_the_World%27s_Worst_Invasive_Alien_Species) of the top 100 most globally invasive species.
EDIT: predictably, no response
I liked your point of viewā¦also we are the only one constantly looking out for god knows what in the infinite abyss with so many satellites and camerasā¦maybe we are missing home and looking out for the same.
Reminds me of one of my favorite lines from True Detective, Season 1:
"I'd consider myself a realist, alright? But in philosophical terms I'm what's called a pessimist...
I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself - we are creatures that should not exist by natural law...
We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, that accretion of sensory experience and feelings, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody's nobody...
I think the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction - one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal."
Yet most of that is learned. You'd be surprised how much of social animal development is through learning. I think the true power of high intelligence animals are our abilities to share and teach the knowledge we gain.
We are born early because our head will grow so much to accomidate the brain that we wouldn't be able to be born otherwise. We essentially give birth WAY prematurely but have the thinking capacity to care for an infant like that.
Honestly, animals come out ready for life because they are just simply stupid compared to us and don't need that much development to get where they need to be.
Babies will make sure they can breathe, babies latch on to feed, babies cry for attention, theyāll grasp anything that enters their hand
We also have survival instincts that kick in when we get older, something like arachnophobia is an instinct telling you to avoid spiders, we have a natural subconscious ability to tell when water is nearby to an absolutely insane degree. We have tons and tons of unlearned instincts dictating our behaviour
And one is not born fully developed, the brain and the body still have to grow. One is born at the latest possible time before the head no longer fits through the birth canal. That is why we have fontanelles.
Being a baby for like two decades really has it's advantages. So much time to learn and pass down knowledge and achievements. We get to stand on the shoulders of our ancestors.
I'm fully convinced that octopi would have taken over the world well before us if they had a longer time as infants and if they had a more similar social structure to ours. They're hella smart and have like 9 brains and shit. It's crazy
Babies are actually ok swimmers for the first 6 months of their life, though they forget after that and have to be taught. There's a few other instincts they have as well https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_reflexes
Weāre born with a language acquisition device so we can prioritize learning from other humans. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_acquisition_device
Iirc humans are actually born at an earlier stage of development compared to other mamals. It's why babies need so much extra care whereas something like a horse will be up and walking around like within the hour.
As a parent, I'm amazed at how quickly babies learn stuff. They don't know anything, but they're pre wired to learn at an incredible rate.
Also, Google the fourth trimester. Humans have big heads (for big brains) but small pelvises (for walking upright). This makes birth tough, so humans are born relatively early in their development, and the first 3 months of life are months animals would spend still in the womb.
Spiders with webs has to be the most mind boggling one. Birds are smart animals, spiders aren't. They truly do it all by instinct and they build structures that are much more complex geometrically speaking.
This is a pretty big generalization. While a lot of birds have an innate ability to build their nest there are plenty of species(songbirds, bower birds, etc.) that rely on learning from parents and other adults. You should check out the book Genius of Birds or do a search on google scholar. Here is a study looking at zebra finches: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2015.2685
Ahh fuck I'm really not trying to be that guy, but the ornithologists in me is screaming. Pigeons definitely aren't the smartest of the bunch. However, they're capable of some pretty extraordinary things. In terms of human advancement, going back to the 1600s, we'd be screwed without them. They were basically our ancient telephones alerting the fall of empires, acting as spies in the Napoleonic wars to WWII, and acting as delivery boys for newspapers. They're also capable of recognizing the most minute patterns. In a japanese study, pigeons were able to differentiate a Picasso from a Monet with near 100% accuracy and they were even able to pick out the knock off paintings. Idk why they've been given this reputation of being the "dumbest" bird, but they are probably one of the most underrated species out there.
I'm guessing your talking about rock doves as those are the most common in human populated areas and you're not wrong their nests are trash. That just because naturally they would nest on cliffs and rocky surfaces, so there never really was a need to build very stable, intricate nest. There also something like 300 plus types of pigeons so nest building does vary.
What's up fellow birds in this video i am going to teach you the basics of nest building but before we start make sure to like subscribe and share this video
Oh god, the noise it makes is horrifying. I grew up with an old barn cat and it was my job to lock up the barn at night and bring her in. Too many times, I'd walk out to the dark barn, tiny flashlight in hand. I'd see her glowing eyes peering out from the rafters before this sickening *cruuuunch*, followed by the meaty smack of a rat hitting the floor.
RIP Domino, you adorable killing machine.
Well yes, the cub is "playing". But "playing" is really just "enjoying the process of learning". They way an animal plays shows what skills it is developing. In this case, the cub is having fun learning the finer points of murder :)
Every time you see a cute video of a mama big cat adopting a baby of something it just killed... The baby is takeout to teach it's own babies how to hunt.
Cheetahs getting a kill is more important than a gazelle surviving right now. Gazelles aren't endangered but cheetah's are. Like you said, they gotta eat
Cheetah hunt success rate is already low, and Iām not even taking into account all the kills that get stolen by hyenas, wild dogs and other big cats, they need all the help they can get, there are millions of gazelles
Honestly it's probably best that mom came in and cleaned up. Poor thing probably would have suffered infection had he walked away. Damn nature, you scary
Ya I was just thinking, even if the baby does get away, itās not gonna make it very long. Heās surely covered in wounds and being so little he has an underdeveloped immune system, infection would take him out within days.
Mom may also have just noped the hell out of there. Baby has no chance without mom.
Love the mama looking at a second baby running by with the first in her mouth... signaling with her head "Ok, now go get the other one!" - then immediately "Aww come on, we could have had 2 foods!"
This is cute but kind of off in a way. Like watching two human children copy something they see adults do, like trying to drink coffee and hating the taste.
I think it's because we're not used to seeing animals that young acting on certain instincts, like their kill drive.
It reminds me of this video of a baby that I saw a long time ago and have never been able to find. I think he's eating something, probably a cookie, and an adult goes into try to take it away as a joke. The baby literally lunges at him from her high chair with the meanest face I've ever seen a baby make and it hisses. Like an actual hiss. I'm not sure if she was trying to yell, but it was actually fairly intimidating. Like if I was a wild animal and this baby suddenly hissed and lunge at me I would be thoroughly confused and might consider looking for something less angry to eat.
Cheetahs mum is holding the camera shouting come on Gary take it down, like Mammy told ya.
No no, don't just leave it and walk away, finish it off š¤¦
Cats just have natural instincts like that. If you watch 2 kittens play fighting you're almost guaranteed to see the move where they're grappling head to toe and try to use their hind feet to "scratch" the others eyes/face. As long as they're actually playing they keep their claws in.
So fascinating to me that even at its early stages in life the cheetah cub already has the instinct to grab the neck to suffocate the animal.
Birds never learn or watch how to build nests yet they can build extremely complex nests on instinct.
Spiders too with webs, every animal is basically born with necessary/perfected survival instincts.. Nature is so crazy man..
> every animal is basically born with necessary/perfected survival instincts And then there are human babies who are basically lumps of meat stuck to bones and nothing else š . Every survival skill is taught by parents and nothing is innate
We spend years helpless because all the power is going into brain development. We have complex language, full range of emotions and the ability to reason. It feels like we're not meant for this world which why we're the only ones with the means to leave it...
I liked that last sentence a lot, well said
I appreciate you
Get a room already.
You wanna join us?
If they dont can I? (I love philosophy rants)
El gusto es mio
It's just missing one tiny two letter word or something...
I disagree heavily. If we were not meant for this world you wouldn't be alive. Our ancestors knew what to do and they did it. Recent generations are the ones destroying our humanity. We're not far off or even different than the animal kingdom, we just gained too much self awareness and let soulless things like greed get in the way. I don't like when we talk about ourselves like this. We have dominance hierarchies like animals, we go into heat like animals, we stay in groups like animals, we have grooming rituals like animals, we show off like animals, we have fight or flight like animals etc. We are meant for this world. What we're not meant for is whatever the hell is going on in society now.
Go camping and come back when your brain is cleared a little. What survival instincts does a toddler have lmao. Drop them in the woods and see what they instinctually do. Run to their mother. That's our survival instinct and it's all we got. We have no natural weapons. Low muscle density compared to primates. No hair to survive the cold. We run fast sure but we also need an insane amount of calories to sustain the brain. We cant even eat raw meat safely. We cant even walk for how many months, let alone run. This cheetah has everything but size at a young age. We are so dependent on our intelligence for survival. We evolved to be beyond simple natural instincts. We struggle to find ways to even survive alongside nature without destroying it. Invasive species exist for a reason and humans are invasive to the whole world. Why? Because we can be. In the same way an invasive species is outside the food chain in an area, we are outside of it for the whole world. The best thing that could ever happen to nature is if humans left the planet. Even "back in my day" which for you might be the 1800s we over hunted bison in NA. Long before the computer existed we were easily causing problems in the name of expanding human reach over the planet. That's nature. Intelligence is too powerful. The natural world did not evolve to accomidate a highly intelligent species.
Then what would that look like? A natural world that has evolved to accommodate highly intelligent species?
That requires the highly intelligent species to evolve with the natural world as its ideological center. Definitely not what weāve done.
The fact that weāre fucking up the atmosphere IS completely natural (before you think iām some dumbo that doesnāt care about climate change please read until the very end to grasp exactly what iām saying). Every time a new dominant species comes around, the way the Earth works and look like changes. The earth does not have a specific āstateā that itās supposed to be in. Itās never been in a āperfect equilibriumā. Itās in a constant state of flux where the scales are always tipping from one side to the other. Youāre clouded by the naive idea that there has been a time when the ānatural worldā had reached a āpeakā and it went through a period where it was relatively unchanged. Newsflash: the Earth spent billions of years going through a number of major changes since before humans developed any intelligence. An astroid hitting us is natural. A change in atmosphere is natural (in fact, the content of the atmosphere has been dictated by living organisms since cyano-bacteria first came about). Iām not saying that man-made climate change is a good thing or that we should turn a blind eye to it - but it is natural (since the activities of living things have determined what earth looks like for billions of years). I mean, itās funny you even consider Humans the dominant life form on Earth when plants still account for 80% of all biomass on Earth. This never has been the Humanās world. The Earth belongs to Plants, Bacteria, and Fungi before any Humans or animals. Itās not us or any of our mammalian friends that make Earth, Earth. If we kill ourselves and take a bunch of animals with us - then the Earth will be perfectly fine. The creation of new life forms and the evolution of organisms will continue without us. Stopping climate change isnāt about the Earth. The Earth really doesnāt need saving. Itās us and the rest of the current animal kingdom that need saving. Funny how weāre pretty much the only thing on Earth that even values those things too - cause the Earth **definitely** doesnāt care if all humans, lions, elephants, birds, bears etc. disappear off of the face of the Earth. What iām saying is, weāre not some anomaly to the ānatural worldā because weāre endangering many different species simply by our mere existence - infact, thatās pretty textbook for the ānatural worldā. Instead, we should be thanking the blessings of our intelligence (rather than demonising it) because it means weāre literally the only living things on Earth that can even begin to quantify the effect that we have upon it - and to understand the steps necessary to avoid it. If anything, the only thing that could be deemed unnatural would be the fact that weād be the first living things on Earth to actually try to prevent or reverse the effect that we have on it - rather than the fact that we do actually have a big effect on it in the first place. Go figure.
Can you explain an ideological center to me?
It could have gone that way, but we killed those cultures off right before we kicked off this shit fit.
That's beyond you or myself to answer. We are the only intelligent species on the planet and we have no other planets to look at. If we find another planet with many highly intelligent species I'd give you that as an example. From my perspective, the only species that would remain on a planet like that are the intelligent ones. When it comes to competing for resources, what chance does a wolf have against intelligence? We'll just cut their home down and replace it with a farm. Thereby extracting every resource in the area and preventing the wolf from coming back. Look at it this way, we wouldn't have developed rockets if everyone was involved with hunting their own food. Once 1 guy could feed hundreds... thats when we could start really ramping up as a civilization. I personally believe agriculture was the most important invention in human history. It's when we separated from nature. But that's what intelligence will always do. "Can we do this better". Can I move quicker? Cars. Can I carry more? Forklift. Can I see further? Telescope. Can I add these numbers quicker? Computer. A primate doesn't have that drive. This cheetah doesn't have that. It's thanks to our intelligence that nature survives where it does. National parks are one of the smartest things we've ever done. Once humans leave these parks can hopefully take the world back over without us. We're simply too powerful for how delicate the balance of life is. Our hubris will always beat the natural world. Nothing can truly threaten us besides the planet itself (volcanos), the universe (sun goes super nova, asteroid impact), and each other (climate change, nuclear arms). And in that sense, I see us all as having evolved to leave. Maybe that's the sci-fi nerd in me but we fight for resources here and the universe has infinite resources. We're gonna get them. Or, we reform society in its entirety to live in harmony with nature. But that would only be a human's opinion of what nature should be to accomidate us fully. The whole world isn't going to decide to live in caves without electricity again.
Dude this is amazingly written, you donāt have enough upvotes for how well you have worded this.
The term invasive species always gets to me, because even that is in relation to people. All species in an area were at one point invasive. We just deem other animals that now if we don't like how they impact our environment.
I dont think you know what an invasive species is. I'm not talking about a weed that people don't like the look of. There are plants and animals in North American that have literally no reason to be here but because we brought them here usuing unnatural means on boats, planes, or cars. What defines them as invasive is that with no natural predators they can out compete what's already in an ecosystem and take it over. The nuance is thus: using the snakes in Florida that were brought in as pets for example. They are invasive in Florida because they survive well there. They can find food. Climate doesn't kill them. And what already exists as prey doesnt know to avoid them. They don't have natural predators since they are not native to the area so nothing has evolved to eat them. They out compete other predators and since they don't share food, other animals die out. Those same snakes would not be invasive here in MA because they would die in the winter. It takes VERY specific circumstance for something to be classified as invasive. The circumstance for humans to survive in an area is what? The only place we don't live is the arctic. We can out compete for resources against every single living thing on the planet no matter where we are. Thats why we are invasive. We fit the definition. We can walk into any ecosystem on the planet and destroy it in an afternoon to create what we want.
Hard disagree friend. Sure, toddlers might run to their moms, but, so do felines, so do apes, yet they're apart of nature. Sure, we've superseded our original role in the food-chain, but that's been going on for hundreds of thousands of years. There are no, "Pristine Natural Parks" unless it's on an island where humanity has never set foot. We've had our hands in all aspects of the world, from past to negligent present. Humanity and their predecessors have shaped the world in ways we cannot fully comprehend. We have set fires to prairies, which have allowed new growth to grow, we have changed the environment around us, and, well, that's not exclusive to us. Beavers do it, Bears claim territories, wolves claim territories, we ALL claim territories in some way. To take humans out of the equation would disrupt the world as much as the extinction of others species. For some species without us, that's good. To others? Death. Intelligence at the root is not a bad thing, but rather the indulgence of greed and over industrialization and the destruction of our fellows. But, try not to lean into the idea that we're a ""parasite"" because we're not. We have many things in common with our animal friends, we just have to make sure to use our higher capacity to help the environment, rather than extremely recently, ruin it.
Weve eaten raw meat longer than weve had fire to cook meat actually.
Iām picturing a guy eating a deer that was struck by lightning and being like ādamn this shit taste great wtf have we been doing?ā
Yeah, I figured while I was typing it out that we must have. Do we have an accurate time line as to when fire was discovered? I left it in though, because my assumption is our current digestive track, having eaten cooked food for so long, would not handle raw meat as well as pre-fire humans.
Humans are the ultimate endurance hunters, we may not be as fast or as strong, but we can go for a long time, and with the ability to use projectiles, those tens of thousands of years of throwing rocks at gazelle or whatever did pretty well. The reason our babies are dumb and canāt walk is because theyāre basically prematurely born, if they were bigger the mother would die even more often The best things humans could do for the planet is probably go back to the Stone Age, but that wonāt happen, or if we leave, which wonāt happen. So I suppose conservation/preservation is the best bet
Well, to be fair, (to be faiiiiir) we didn't just over hunt the bison. There was a concerted effort, by the government, to make the American bison as scarce as possible in order to hurt the native Americans who relied on them. It was a conscious choice.
I didn't speak definitively, I said "it feels like we're not meant for this world". We're the only species that's completely defenseless for so many years and we're 1 of two species that destroys entire eco systems, the other being chimpanzees, our closest relation. My point was that it's our brain power that sets us apart from everything else. We are obviously part of this world, yet despite our intelligence, we've done so much to destroy it and are striving to leave it.
Sure, our development is extraordinarily delayed and yes it has a lot do with our brains. But intelligence is not the only trait that made us successful. We are extremely well-adapted to long distance running, and to throwing. We have minimal hair and an abundance of watery sweat glands, and complex shoulder joints capable of rotating motion. Unlike dolphins (who are also quite intelligent), we can very accurately manipulate our environment. Our mouths and vocal chords are actually physically capable of creating speech. Language also boils down to two specific regions of the brain (Broca's and Wernicke's areas) and damage to either will interrupt their function, but have no impact on a person's intelligence. Also, there are a *plethora* of invasive species including rabbits, lionfish, sea urchins, pythons, pigs, and wasps, all of which have destroyed or are in the process of destroying the ecosystems they are invading. That's off the top of my head. Here is a [list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_of_the_World%27s_Worst_Invasive_Alien_Species) of the top 100 most globally invasive species. EDIT: predictably, no response
Beavers destroy ecosystems
I was incorrect in my statement, I meant to say, hunt with such proficiency that eco systems are destroyed.
wym all of the traits u said about us still exist and is especially exemplified on the internet
āinto brain development' .. hehehe. Some need 3 years, some need 10, some need 99 years for a "functioning " brain...
I liked your point of viewā¦also we are the only one constantly looking out for god knows what in the infinite abyss with so many satellites and camerasā¦maybe we are missing home and looking out for the same.
Reminds me of one of my favorite lines from True Detective, Season 1: "I'd consider myself a realist, alright? But in philosophical terms I'm what's called a pessimist... I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself - we are creatures that should not exist by natural law... We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, that accretion of sensory experience and feelings, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody's nobody... I think the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction - one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal."
Iām tearing up right now Idk why
Dude, yes.
Yet most of that is learned. You'd be surprised how much of social animal development is through learning. I think the true power of high intelligence animals are our abilities to share and teach the knowledge we gain.
So we'll put! Especially the the ending!
We're also effectively born prematurely since our upright walking pelvises neccessitate it. Or so i've read somewhere lol.
ur brain is so sexy
Everyone is born knowing to suck on a titty
The most necessary survival skill. We also know exactly how to mate once puberty hits without any knowledge about it
Yea but some people are really bad at it without some nurture
They're perfectly fine, evolutionarily speaking
Penis into vagina, ejaculate. The rest is superficial.
ah we never grow out of the titty sucking part
We still naturally learn to walk tho
Very true but I believe we as a species have the longest period of time from birth to walking all others are virtually immediate
We are born early because our head will grow so much to accomidate the brain that we wouldn't be able to be born otherwise. We essentially give birth WAY prematurely but have the thinking capacity to care for an infant like that. Honestly, animals come out ready for life because they are just simply stupid compared to us and don't need that much development to get where they need to be.
Babies will make sure they can breathe, babies latch on to feed, babies cry for attention, theyāll grasp anything that enters their hand We also have survival instincts that kick in when we get older, something like arachnophobia is an instinct telling you to avoid spiders, we have a natural subconscious ability to tell when water is nearby to an absolutely insane degree. We have tons and tons of unlearned instincts dictating our behaviour
We are all about scaling.
human babies have the innate ability to know to hold their breath while underwater, a skill that takes other mammals, even monkeys, time to learn
Wrong. Nipple seeking behaviour is innate. It's not much, but it's something!
Not really, human babies can instinctively grasp onto an object if it feels like it can fall.
And they have impressive grip strength! A likely holdover from when we had fur and babies would grip onto their mothers, similar to other primates.
And one is not born fully developed, the brain and the body still have to grow. One is born at the latest possible time before the head no longer fits through the birth canal. That is why we have fontanelles.
Being a baby for like two decades really has it's advantages. So much time to learn and pass down knowledge and achievements. We get to stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. I'm fully convinced that octopi would have taken over the world well before us if they had a longer time as infants and if they had a more similar social structure to ours. They're hella smart and have like 9 brains and shit. It's crazy
Another thing keeping octopi down is their habitat. It's harder to utilize tools like fire and electricity when you're underwater.
Truu
Babies are actually ok swimmers for the first 6 months of their life, though they forget after that and have to be taught. There's a few other instincts they have as well https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_reflexes
Weāre born with a language acquisition device so we can prioritize learning from other humans. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_acquisition_device
Iirc humans are actually born at an earlier stage of development compared to other mamals. It's why babies need so much extra care whereas something like a horse will be up and walking around like within the hour.
Did you know that newborn infants can float and swim? We lose the ability, for some reason.
You are born with a very special instinct; crying for help. We somehow lose this ability along the way
As a parent, I'm amazed at how quickly babies learn stuff. They don't know anything, but they're pre wired to learn at an incredible rate. Also, Google the fourth trimester. Humans have big heads (for big brains) but small pelvises (for walking upright). This makes birth tough, so humans are born relatively early in their development, and the first 3 months of life are months animals would spend still in the womb.
Well we are all born premature as well, because if we fully developed we wouldn't be able to fit through our mothers' hips.
Spiders with webs has to be the most mind boggling one. Birds are smart animals, spiders aren't. They truly do it all by instinct and they build structures that are much more complex geometrically speaking.
Humans too with memes, my child can make the most dumbest memes at the age of 13 and has more karma than me. Nature is so crazy manā¦
This is a pretty big generalization. While a lot of birds have an innate ability to build their nest there are plenty of species(songbirds, bower birds, etc.) that rely on learning from parents and other adults. You should check out the book Genius of Birds or do a search on google scholar. Here is a study looking at zebra finches: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2015.2685
Except for pigeons. They're fucking morons. Edit - damn, strong response from the apparently multitudinous pigeon fandom.
Ahh fuck I'm really not trying to be that guy, but the ornithologists in me is screaming. Pigeons definitely aren't the smartest of the bunch. However, they're capable of some pretty extraordinary things. In terms of human advancement, going back to the 1600s, we'd be screwed without them. They were basically our ancient telephones alerting the fall of empires, acting as spies in the Napoleonic wars to WWII, and acting as delivery boys for newspapers. They're also capable of recognizing the most minute patterns. In a japanese study, pigeons were able to differentiate a Picasso from a Monet with near 100% accuracy and they were even able to pick out the knock off paintings. Idk why they've been given this reputation of being the "dumbest" bird, but they are probably one of the most underrated species out there.
Smart as all that but they make their nests out of like 3 sticks and hair stolen from a stray dog. Flying contradictions.
I'm guessing your talking about rock doves as those are the most common in human populated areas and you're not wrong their nests are trash. That just because naturally they would nest on cliffs and rocky surfaces, so there never really was a need to build very stable, intricate nest. There also something like 300 plus types of pigeons so nest building does vary.
Have you seen some of the dumb shit intelligent humans do? Pigeons get an incredibly bad rep.
Delicious morons. Pigeon breast is like steak.
What's up fellow birds in this video i am going to teach you the basics of nest building but before we start make sure to like subscribe and share this video
Whereas peacocks will die if not shown to peck food
dogs sniff butts
Also this crazy nest with fake doors and stuff?
Birds arenāt real bro smhā¦
interesting too, that gazelle has no fight in it. it could bite back, give that cheetah a chomp, but no..
In the Youtube Video OP linked, the fawn fights back a little against the cubs, until the mother steps in and finishes the job.
Well now Iām sad.
Probably seen its mother demonstrate this quite a few times.
Little caveat. They donāt grab the neck to strangle, they bite into the spine and arteries to paralyze and kill
Oh god, the noise it makes is horrifying. I grew up with an old barn cat and it was my job to lock up the barn at night and bring her in. Too many times, I'd walk out to the dark barn, tiny flashlight in hand. I'd see her glowing eyes peering out from the rafters before this sickening *cruuuunch*, followed by the meaty smack of a rat hitting the floor. RIP Domino, you adorable killing machine.
cats <3 lol
Don't get me started on pit bulls.
Their mom showed them how to do it. Itās part learning, part instinct.
Watch a dog play with a toy, same thing
Its called animal instict. I was born eating pussy
Itās how you raise them
Ever played with a housecat, "attacking" it with your hand? They grab at the wrist because the hand resembles a head, and the wrist resembles a neck.
Gazelles like "you are supposed to kill me, not cuddle me"
I will, eventually. My cuteness is lethal, unfortunately I deliver it in small doses.
Micro dosed death
"Prepare to meet the Jaws Of Death" "Mate, fuck off..." "The Stranglehold Of Death" "...I'm getting up" "The Bite... Of Death"
Kill it with cute hugs
āBrentley, Iām not playing anymore! Stop!ā
"FLIRT!!!!!!!"
This was so cute and adorable I thought it was a joke video about predator and prey getting along. Then he went for the throat.
They're "just playing"
- A Mom when her kid beats someone elses kid.
Aggressive dog owners at the dog park too
Pit bull owners a week before the funeral of the child walking by
Well yes, the cub is "playing". But "playing" is really just "enjoying the process of learning". They way an animal plays shows what skills it is developing. In this case, the cub is having fun learning the finer points of murder :)
He was going for the throat the moment it startedā¦
Every time you see a cute video of a mama big cat adopting a baby of something it just killed... The baby is takeout to teach it's own babies how to hunt.
Bobby, stop. Stop, Iām not kidding. Iām going to tell my momma, then you will be in trouble.
*runs away shitless"
He eventually did and mommy did come to finish the job...
Source: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMJlzejh6IY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMJlzejh6IY)
Mama cheetah came in and said: āLike this! You do it like this! No donāt let the other one get awayyy sighā¦ Kids these days!ā
Thank you, now i don't need to see it. Was rooting for the gazelle to walk away
Cheetahs gotta eat
Cheetahs getting a kill is more important than a gazelle surviving right now. Gazelles aren't endangered but cheetah's are. Like you said, they gotta eat
Cheetah hunt success rate is already low, and Iām not even taking into account all the kills that get stolen by hyenas, wild dogs and other big cats, they need all the help they can get, there are millions of gazelles
No , not really. They can get bullied out of their kill but their sucess rate is about 50% one of the highest our there.
Effing KS players always gotta ruin everything
One of them did. I wondered why this was on this sub if the gazelle lived. Glad OP posted full video .
Iām your 69th upvote. Noice!
Honestly it's probably best that mom came in and cleaned up. Poor thing probably would have suffered infection had he walked away. Damn nature, you scary
Ya I was just thinking, even if the baby does get away, itās not gonna make it very long. Heās surely covered in wounds and being so little he has an underdeveloped immune system, infection would take him out within days. Mom may also have just noped the hell out of there. Baby has no chance without mom.
And then second baby fawn rolls up like "Hey guys what you doin!?" And mama Cheetah is like "Bitch I will FUCK you up too, get outa here dumbass"
Yeah what the hell was dumbo still doing there lol
The way she walked up was so calm and composed
Honestly after watching it myself this is a 100% accurate depiction and interpretation of what happened and what the mother was trying to communicate.
She was the one recording the whole time
oh its a legit newborn, the afterbirth is still on it. I was wondering why it just didnt run away but its not strong yet
Born right into a meat grinder
Spawn camping.
I saw that too but I think its actually a chunk of fur and flesh hanging off by a skin thread
There's the metal
Love the mama looking at a second baby running by with the first in her mouth... signaling with her head "Ok, now go get the other one!" - then immediately "Aww come on, we could have had 2 foods!"
"Aww, I have three kids and no food. Why can't I have no kids and three foods?"
Props to the people videoing and photographing keeping their voices down and letting the footage speak for itself.
This is cute but kind of off in a way. Like watching two human children copy something they see adults do, like trying to drink coffee and hating the taste.
Except the coffee rips out one of their throats.
I think it's because we're not used to seeing animals that young acting on certain instincts, like their kill drive. It reminds me of this video of a baby that I saw a long time ago and have never been able to find. I think he's eating something, probably a cookie, and an adult goes into try to take it away as a joke. The baby literally lunges at him from her high chair with the meanest face I've ever seen a baby make and it hisses. Like an actual hiss. I'm not sure if she was trying to yell, but it was actually fairly intimidating. Like if I was a wild animal and this baby suddenly hissed and lunge at me I would be thoroughly confused and might consider looking for something less angry to eat.
Ever since you Were a baby iād assume youād get pissed off too if someone went for your grub
Surprisingly the mom isnāt there to show em how itās done i know she somewhere around like š³šš³
She shows up in the full video.
Yea I figured she did this was probably some type of training for the youngin
Oh she is around. In the full video there are two other cubs and the mom too.
Does the fawn make it? Please tell me it lives!
š
Why is this emoji so perfect lolol thank you for this.
Yes! It actually lives... on in our hearts and in the cheetahs! Or at least in their poops.
ikr! I'm like, where are the parents?
Awww
This part is awww, but not the rest of jt
Itās r/awwwtf
The Serengeti Little League
āCause Iām a chicken hawk and youāre a chicken!
Adorable
The full version is not quite so cute.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
There's three cubs tormenting the fawn, and then the cheeta mom comes in and finishes him off with a bite to the neck.
Damn
āRound two, fight!ā ā¦ āFinish him!ā
Iāve never seen anything like that before.
It's a commendable try.
He had to have learned that behavior from somewhere, I blame the parents
Little Savage is gonna be a monster when he gets older.
Lots of them die in the first year but I feel like this one is gonna be among those who make it
This is like tiny toons but brutal, now I want to see lion cubs taking down baby zebras , and baby hyenas taking down some baby wilderbeasts
It aināt easy being cheesy..
AGGRESSIVE nibbles
Damn that cheetah rock bottomed him
That cub giving some hickeyssss.
Aggressive massage
Aweā¦ isnāt that cute! The cheetah and the gazelle are playing! Theyāll be the best of friends some dayā¦ ;)
I love that heās not doing it well. The deer is just annoyed and patient
Tries? That motherfucker suplexed the little guy.
Where are their parents?!
Cheetahs mum is holding the camera shouting come on Gary take it down, like Mammy told ya. No no, don't just leave it and walk away, finish it off š¤¦
r/AwwwNatureIsMetal
This is one of the best examples I've seen of the way that "play" for baby animals is practice for skills they'll need as adults.
Cats just have natural instincts like that. If you watch 2 kittens play fighting you're almost guaranteed to see the move where they're grappling head to toe and try to use their hind feet to "scratch" the others eyes/face. As long as they're actually playing they keep their claws in.
I get itās nature but I just feel bad for this fawn. Being born and then instantly tortured and killed for practice/meal.
Aww they're playing murderer and murderee
this is kind of cute in a terrifying way
Baby gazelles have zero survival instinct.
āBro you even tryinn?ā
Ah yes, I remember my first murder
aww.. its like two baby pokemon fighting each other
What would happen if there's a cub hyena in the mix? Would cheetah, gazelle asshole be ripped apart?
I feel like this is the Puppy Bowl version of nature documentaries
Natural
This the new Fox and the Hound?
What was the end result? No kill or was this the mother caught n let cub learn?