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Are Humans really the most evil/destructive/most selfish species on earth?
Topic Started: Mar 25 2017, 10:52 AM (1,224 Views)
tigerburningbright
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It seems to be a "Cool" or "Edgy" opinion to have at the moment among many people....That humans are the scourge/devil of the earth and the most selfish evil creature currently inhabiting the planet....and that maybe the planet would be better off if we all "went extinct..." blah blah blah.....because we are so selfish and destructive and cold hearted compared to every other creature.....

But I don't see any evidence for this at all looking at Human behavior vs Animal behavior....I mean the Natural World/Animal Kingdom is INCREDIBLY heartless and brutal....Ultimate kill or be killed environment..where altruism is unheard of and if any creature did exhibit any altruistic behavior towards another it would just make it an easy target for any predator......I shudder to think what would happen if many of these predators/creatures somehow evolved large enough brains to implement their totally 100% selfish nature/behavior on a larger scale (through I expect they would probably develop more diverse traits/altruistic/less destructive behavior just like modern day Humans....since clearly our intelligence/uniquely developed brain is directly related to most of the "unique" traits that humans possess....If you could somehow transplant a large Human Primate Brain into a Lion....who knows how it would behave...it wouldn't be the 1 dimensional killing machine that it is with the far smaller Feline brain)....But still that question remains....


Whenever some trophy hunter prick shoots a Lion...You always here a bunch of people ranting about how Humans are the worst thing in history and how the "World needs more Lions and less Humans" like somehow Lions are more noble and less destructive creatures....and that their presence on this planet is needed far more than the presence of those evil Humans....All the thousands of animals that Lions kill each year including helpless young/baby animals and including animals that they simply kill for fun/pleasure without eating which has been documented on numerous occasions gets ignored or excused away (Because they are "Simply doing what Lions are born to do!!!!") and Lions/other Creatures get trumped up as these mythical almost morally superior beings and its absurd.......

From a pure population standpoint....yes the earth "needs" more Lions (only 30,000 left) and probably "needs" less Humans....But imagine if their were 6.5 BILLION Lions on the planet....how much destruction they would bring to other animals and their environment....Obviously the laws of carrying capacity would apply....But considering our MASSIVE population numbers....I think Humans do a pretty decent job preserving the planet and caring for other creatures....We are not the "worst species" or the most cruel/destructive by any means where you consider what we are CAPABLE of compared to what we actually do....
Edited by tigerburningbright, Mar 25 2017, 10:55 AM.
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Grazier
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All animals are rugged mean cruel things, we just have the capacity to do more cruel and unusual things, and we also have the capacity to be reasoned with to hopefully minimise our cruelty.
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The All-seeing Night
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Trying to hold them other animals to human standards, really?
Edited by The All-seeing Night, Mar 25 2017, 11:55 AM.
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StoJa
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I want to slam my head in a car door after reading this. I mean this LITERALLY might be the stupidest thing I've read here. And that's saying a LOT.
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Taipan
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The concepts of evil, cruel, selfish, mean and to a lesser extent destructive, are human constructs that do not apply to other members of animalia. Their behaviours are evolutionary and functional. Only when fools apply our constructed moral culture to non humans do you get idiotic statements like the following:

Quote:
 
All animals are rugged mean cruel things


Edited by Taipan, Mar 25 2017, 09:56 PM.
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Thalassophoneus
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I would call us the least selfish. The selfishness we show is actually natural for living beings, even though it can become more damaging in our case.
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Jinfengopteryx
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I agree with your main sentiment because the claims of the world being better with out humans obviously stem from a romanticization of nature. However,
tigerburningbright
Mar 25 2017, 10:52 AM
where altruism is unheard of and if any creature did exhibit any altruistic behavior towards another it would just make it an easy target for any predator......
Well, I think pretty much all social animals exhibit some sort of altruism towards members of their tribe.
Examples of altruism have been documented (though I know that some examples in this list are unsourced):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_(biology)
Some species (e.g. dolphins) have even been documented of showing altruism towards members of other species, though it is disputed whether these are acts of genuine altruism or whether there are other explanations. Interestingly, dolphins have also been documented to be completely sadistic, so it seems like there are different personality types among them.
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LeopardNimr
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we do horrible things for animals
we burn cats hunt wild animals for nothing. starve them. make them fat so we can eat .swipe dogs until they bleed and simply assult animals.
heck . we make them fight. and we even do that faeces called "crush fetish" that swear wording whores who should be getting eaten alive
step in small helpless animals with high hills so we can jerk to that????
simply what the swear word?
we also cheat,steal,killing each other and making people kill themselves
we don't respect the other.
we are the most ugliest cruel annoying pieces of faeces.
no animal is cruel. it just want to survive. in thier harsh places they live
Edited by LeopardNimr, Mar 25 2017, 07:51 PM.
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Thalassophoneus
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Jinfengopteryx
Mar 25 2017, 07:16 PM
I agree with your main sentiment because the claims of the world being better with out humans obviously stem from a romanticization of nature. However,
tigerburningbright
Mar 25 2017, 10:52 AM
where altruism is unheard of and if any creature did exhibit any altruistic behavior towards another it would just make it an easy target for any predator......
Well, I think pretty much all social animals exhibit some sort of altruism towards members of their tribe.
Examples of altruism have been documented (though I know that some examples in this list are unsourced):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_(biology)
Some species (e.g. dolphins) have even been documented of showing altruism towards members of other species, though it is disputed whether these are acts of genuine altruism or whether there are other explanations. Interestingly, dolphins have also been documented to be completely sadistic, so it seems like there are different personality types among them.
I have heard about humpback whales attacking orcas to protect smaller cetaceans from them. This may be because humpbacks simply grow up hating orcas. That could be considered to be a form of spiteand spite has also been shown by other animals like vervet monkeys.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vervet_monkey#Spite
Spiteful actions are extremely rare in the animal kingdom. Often, there is an indirect benefit to the individual acting 'spiteful' or to a close relative of that individual. Vervet monkeys have been observed to destroy a competitor's food source rather than consume or steal it themselves. While energy is being lost on destroying the food, a competitive advantage is given to the individual due to an increase in competitive gain. This would be pertinent for a male which could be displaced within his group to immigrating males.[25]
LeopardNimr
Mar 25 2017, 07:49 PM
we do horrible things for animals
we burn cats hunt wild animals for nothing. starve them. make them fat so we can eat .swipe dogs until they bleed and simply assult animals.
heck . we make them fight. and we even do that faeces called "crush fetish" that swear wording whores who should be getting eaten alive
step in small helpless animals with high hills so we can jerk to that????
simply what the swear word?
we also cheat,steal,killing each other and making people kill themselves
we don't respect the other.
we are the most ugliest cruel annoying pieces of faeces.
no animal is cruel. it just want to survive. in thier harsh places they live
Orcas skin other whales alive, dolphins perform sport hunting on porpoises, chimps cannibalize the children of enemy chimp tribes and parasitoid wasps paralyze caterpillars and give birth inside them while the host is still alive, so the larvae hatch and eat the host inside out.

Crush fetish is indeed a sign of mental instability.

Animals do not "just want to survive". Egotism and survival of the fittest is a thing in nature. No lion will make sure to eat little of its prey and save the rest for other lions so that they won't kill too many animals.
Edited by Thalassophoneus, Mar 25 2017, 09:45 PM.
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Jinfengopteryx
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Thalassophoneus
Mar 25 2017, 09:37 PM
I have heard about humpback whales attacking orcas to protect smaller cetaceans from them. This may be because humpbacks simply grow up hating orcas.
Interestingly, I read an article about precisely that before writing my above post.
Thalassophoneus
Mar 25 2017, 09:37 PM
parasitoid wasps paralyze caterpillars and give birth inside them while the host is still alive, so the larvae hatch and eat the host inside out.
Hm, this example does not fit well to the others. Wasps are much dumber than apes or whales and hence behave more like automatons, having no clue what they are doing and they basically have no other choice, since this is their lifecycle. Not to mention that caterpillars probably also feel far less pain than the victims of dolphins and chimps do.
Edited by Jinfengopteryx, Mar 25 2017, 11:07 PM.
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Taipan
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Grazier
Mar 26 2017, 12:03 AM
Taipan
Mar 25 2017, 03:31 PM
The concepts of evil, cruel, selfish, mean and to a lesser extent destructive, are human constructs that do not apply to other members of animalia. Their behaviours are evolutionary and functional. Only when fools apply our constructed moral culture to non humans do you get idiotic statements like the following:

Quote:
 
All animals are rugged mean cruel things


If I just said they were "tough and uncaring" would you be able to disagree?
.


You clearly are a housebound urbanite, who sits in front of his airconditioner and computer/game console/TV allday and has absolutely no idea what the natural world is. Why dont you keep your grossly ignorant views to yourself, OR better LEARN!!! However you never learn, you simply regurgitate your moronic errors over and over, year after year.

Animals clearly are not mean cruel things. Dont ever post crap like that again.

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Finderskeepers
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Humans are not more of any of those things you said. It is simply the way we apply those things on a global scale that causes such destruction. Any animal, if you elevated it to sapience would even able to cause as much damage as we are doing.
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DarkGricer
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Whether a creature is evil or not is not related to its actions. It is related to the creature's capacity to understand its actions.

A parasitoid wasp may paralyze or essentially "mind control" another arthropod to let its infants feed on it while its still alive, but that does not make it evil. This is its natural lifecycle, and it does not understand the full implications of its actions.

When a human tortures another human being for fun, that human being possesses the full capacity to understand what they are doing to their victim. This makes it evil.

Humans are inherently among the most evil species on the planet, because we fully understand when something is evil, yet some of us choose to do those things regardless.
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Thalassophoneus
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DarkGricer
Mar 26 2017, 09:50 PM
Whether a creature is evil or not is not related to its actions. It is related to the creature's capacity to understand its actions.

A parasitoid wasp may paralyze or essentially "mind control" another arthropod to let its infants feed on it while its still alive, but that does not make it evil. This is its natural lifecycle, and it does not understand the full implications of its actions.

When a human tortures another human being for fun, that human being possesses the full capacity to understand what they are doing to their victim. This makes it evil.

Humans are inherently among the most evil species on the planet, because we fully understand when something is evil, yet some of us choose to do those things regardless.
Wouldn't other intelligent animals sometimes be evil also? I posted before that vervet monkeys often show actual spite.
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DarkGricer
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Thalassophoneus
Mar 26 2017, 10:15 PM
DarkGricer
Mar 26 2017, 09:50 PM
Whether a creature is evil or not is not related to its actions. It is related to the creature's capacity to understand its actions.

A parasitoid wasp may paralyze or essentially "mind control" another arthropod to let its infants feed on it while its still alive, but that does not make it evil. This is its natural lifecycle, and it does not understand the full implications of its actions.

When a human tortures another human being for fun, that human being possesses the full capacity to understand what they are doing to their victim. This makes it evil.

Humans are inherently among the most evil species on the planet, because we fully understand when something is evil, yet some of us choose to do those things regardless.
Wouldn't other intelligent animals sometimes be evil also? I posted before that vervet monkeys often show actual spite.
Exactly why I said we are AMONG the most evil species. There are other species that seem intelligent enough to understand evil, though it's a little hard to measure the "evil-ness" of other species.
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