Laughingman323 t1_iuc494o wrote on October 30, 2022 at 4:58 AM

I have a hypothesis that the massive pressure exerted by humans as an intelligent species on the rest of the animal kingdom will nurture a massive evolutionary jump somewhere. Could be wrong but I kind of think it would be a good thing if there were something to put our species in check.

Edit:

A lot of people seem to disagree. I’d love to see why you think this isn’t feasible in the comments.

To quantify my previous statement, I would consider minor changes in brain physiology /function to be ‘massive’. I don’t think this would knock humans off the top of the hierarchy by any means but changes like this I think would have the potential to shift how we interact with the world.

I mean if anything that existed in relatively large numbers (ants for example) developed even a small amount of intelligence, 100 times dumber than the dumbest human, their threat level to any other species would increase exponentially.

Insects probably unlikely, I think it would most likely be primates first or one of a few other mammals.

And I guess if you don’t believe in evolution, that would kind of make further discussion pointless since my assertion relies on it.

raoulduke12 t1_iucit1j wrote on October 30, 2022 at 8:09 AM

It’s gonna be the octopi isn’t it.

Octopi, if you’re reading this, I have never eaten you, please show me mercy.

nef36 t1_iucpl9r wrote on October 30, 2022 at 9:48 AM

All bow to the mighty octopus god. He is our lord and saviour

[deleted] t1_iud9h10 wrote on October 30, 2022 at 1:34 PM

[removed]

r-reading-my-comment t1_iudwa2m wrote on October 30, 2022 at 4:21 PM

They don't live long enough to do anything of note.

Laughingman323 t1_iuenohv wrote on October 30, 2022 at 7:22 PM

That is valid. I considered species would likely go extinct before a notable mutation would show up. The only exception might be if a species were already heading in a certain direction genetically for the last ‘X’ million years maybe it would accelerate. I’ve seen or heard several different things that made me start toying with the idea… orangutans using a spear to fish, deer behaving differently in more highly hunted areas over several generations, orcas learning to bait birds with regurgitated fish. There is still a huge gap before reasoning though.