His answer is the octopus. What say you?
As the documentary novel Children Of Ruin can attest to
There’s no such thing as a dominant species. Even if we used a questionable definition to elect one, humans wouldn’t be it.
I don’t think any species could beat my Revolution X top score so… we kind of do dominate sweetie.
Humans most certainly would be it by almost any intellectual qualifier you chose to use. Grading every species we have encountered with regards to intelligence and ability to control its environment humanity is a wildly insane outlier. To point of absurdity, to the point where we do not fit to such an extent that some agency other than organic evolution might be suspected.
Humans most certainly would be it by almost any intellectual qualifier
That’s not a biological definition of “dominant species”, that’s what you want to define it as because surprise, intellect is our most important trait. By that logic, an owl could define “dominant species” in terms of flying ability and they’d find you utterly incompetent.
Grading every species we have encountered with regards to intelligence and ability to control its environment humanity is a wildly insane outlier.
We don’t do that, at least not outside of pop science blogs.
to the point where we do not fit to such an extent that some agency other than organic evolution might be suspected.
That’s absolutely meaningless.
Intelligence is a qualifier unlike other physical qualities, it allows humanity to dominate its environment while not being physically superior to many of the species surrounding us. Intelligence is a quality we recognise and calibrate in other species and seek out in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and the development of artificial intelligence. Unlike flying or walking intelligence is universally accepted as a uniquely separate attribute, although not of course by you, so this is where I will end my discussion with you.
You are free to think of intelligence as this supreme trait above everything else and you can go nuts ranking life based on that. Won’t change the fact that this effort is meaningless from a biological point of view, and completely irrelevant to the way we classify species, record evolution or understand ecological relationships.
But again, go nuts with it if that’s how you want to spend your time.
Human beings can, of course, fly. We can fly much faster and further than any owl could even conceive. However we did it through intelligence, knowledge sharing, tool use, rather than physical evolution. Human flying dominates all other flying life, because of intelligence.
For pretty much anything most creatures have adapted to do, you could argue so can humans, but because of intelligence, not just narrow physical adaptation. Intelligence is a supreme trait
Yeah but we literally are changing the planet and affecting other species. We’ve developed nukes that could take out the whole world
Yeah but we literally are changing the planet and affecting other species.
Where does the oxygen in the air your breathe come from? How much biomass is moved every single day in the ocean war between bacteria and bacteriophages? How does the nitrogen you need to survive go from inorganic compounds into biological systems?
We are in no way special when it comes to impacting other species or the Earth as a system.
True but we’re one species. This is comparing one species to all the bacteria
Do you want to enter a discussion about the definition of species in rapid multiplying populations of bacteria? Or even viruses for that matter?
I mean, I could, but given how fantastically naive this conversation has been so far, I doubt it would go how you want it to go.
I think you should chill out bc this was supposed to be a fun discussion, but I’ll give you the same energy back. The fact that you brought up viruses, which aren’t even living organisms, into a debate regarding species tells me all I need to know about your so-called expertise. We can agree to disagree, that way you can save your arrogance for someone who’s impressed. :)
*This is MelonYellow. My server went down with fantastic timing!
We are in no way special when it comes to impacting other species or the Earth as a system.
We do it on purpose, with intent. Heck, we do it for multiple reasons! We also massively impact all parts of the ecosystem at the same time.
Congrats? I fail to see how “with intent” is somehow relevant.
Because it opens up doing so many different things that impact the world as a whole. Beavers instinctually damn moving water and build homes, but that has been their limited behavior for thousands of years. They don’t expand out and change things even more and more over time like humans do, because they don’t actively choose to do new things that continuously expand their impact.
That intent and conscious decision making by humans to change the world around them is what makes them special.
purpose, with intent
allegedly.
It’s unlikely an aquatic species can achieve technological breakthroughs needed to spread like humans can. It would be very difficult for them to build fires, smelt metal, and create the advances based off of those tools.
While they can be extremely smart and adaptable, it’s difficult to imagine how a species like that could develop machines.
Sure, there’s possible ways around it, like natural vents and geothermal power, but why would they utilize these resources without a benefit like cooking?
Shells or coral could serve as early tools, but (just my opinion) I feel it’s a little human-centric to assume fire and metallurgy are required to progress. Just because we did it that way, doesn’t mean another species would have to.
Fire and tools were what we needed to become the dominant species, as they gave us power to take down the larger megafauna.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this exact subject, and I dunno. As much as I consider it, as abstractly as possible, I have considerable difficulty finding an alternate route to significant human-like dominance. Fire and metallurgy are just so incredibly useful across so many domains. I challenge you to present a reasonable alternative route.
Route to what, though? What aspects of human- like dominance do you think octopuses would want to replicate? It’s not like they need buildings or air travel for example, because they can swim in three dimensions. What are the goals of octopus- style planetary dominance?
I’ve spent some time wondering that myself, and as a narrow- minded human the best I can come up with is consistent safety from predators (metal structures would be useful here but there must be alternatives) and maybe agriculture, although they seem to enjoy hunting their way.
The only thing that humans really can’t accomplish much of anything without is organized society, and octopuses don’t seem inclined that way. And what’s the point of planetary dominance without society anyway?
It’s a conversation about human-like dominance, which implies the ability to significantly alter the world and develop beneficial technology.
Yeah, but we did all of our discoveries as a land-based species. It’s totally possible some water-based species would find other crazy useful early techniques, then eventually discover stuff like “fire” much further down the line with access to more robust technologies. Their scientific roadmap would look very different from ours, but there are so many weird tricks and techniques that would eventually lead towards some of the dominating processes we have.
It’s totally possible some water-based species would find other crazy useful early techniques
Such as?
Even then, they are still short-lived, non-social animals who don’t raise their young. How do individual discoveries compound into robust technologies?
Every RPG has taught me that coral swords are a thing.
whatever comes after us will have to make due with whatever crap we leave behind. There wont be enough natural resources left for them to use if they want to do anything larger scale or advanced
A symbiosis between octopi and dolphins 🤔
But they
- Have extremely short lifespan so a limited capacity to learn (1-2 years)
- Don’t raise their offspring, in fact after mating/laying eggs they naturally die, so no knowledge sharing
- Are extremely solitary and don’t have social bonds or do anything socially, so little communication/passing of knowledge
On top of that, they might not even survive the CO2 and consequent ocean acidification. If humans were to get eradicated by some super plague, then octopi might still stand a chance. However, the points you mentioned mean that they are playing this game in hard mode when it comes to winning by intelligence.
I worked as an intern at a lab studying octopus vulgaris.
They are extremely sensitive to all sorts of things in the water. Keeping them well is very difficult. Although I would imagine if there are big but gradual changes in water environment, they would have a chance of adapting faster due to short life cycles and the fact that mating creates hundreds of thousands of eggs.
If we assume that they somehow survive all the way to the very moment when humans get a permanent ban to the Earth Server, then the changes should be gradual enough after that. The bad news is, humans love to play this game by recklessly exploiting every bug and glitch, so rapid changes (in evolutionary scale) are the norm.
See also: Peppered moth evolution
I’m not even convinced that intelligence is a requirement to be the dominant species. Intelligence is so expensive that nature rarely ever selects for it.
Trilobytes did pretty damn well for a hell of a lot longer than we have so far. I think we need a stronger working definition of “dominant” in order to judge any candidates.
But the reason he gives for them becoming the dominant species is their intelligence.
Octopi would rule the world if they had any sort of generational data transfer.
If anyone’s interested in this sort of speculative sci fi, check out A Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. 10/10 world building, 9/10 science backing, 6/10 writing.
Their lifespans are very short and that whole ocean acidification thing might be a problem.
They will evolve to have gills and walk on land
Then I hope they also dump copper for iron-based blood.
Their top guys are already working on it
Serious question:
How difficult is it for octopus to change via evolution so it becomes more like a primate?
They can already breathe on land for up to an hour.
I think they just need a few key mutations to live longer and nurture their young.
Fun fact: octopuses* respond to MDMA, and become social and cuddly. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/scientists-gave-octopuses-some-molly-heres-what-happened
I seem to recall a similar story where drug exposure reversed the octopus’s usual behavior of simply waiting for death after mating, but I couldn’t find a reference from a quick search so perhaps I am misremembering this story, about the biological mechanisms behind that behavior: https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-close-in-on-why-octopuses-tragically-destroy-themselves-after-mating
They are marine which makes fire impossible which severely limits industrial advancement. Similarly they are not social animals which negates a lot of the division of labour advantages of a society. While a species of octopus might advance intellectually to ponder its own existence I doubt it could achieve the infrastructure necessary to significantly control its environment.
They could use the underwater volcanoes to smeltle the meltle though, thought of that? Checkmate.
We have terrestrial volcanoes, how far would human civilisation advanced if they were our only source of fire.
Don’t forget that they only live 1-2 years. 3 tops. I think this is even more limiting than fire. And if evolutionary pressure leads to longer lifespans somehow, they must overcome the whole dying after mating thing.
True, also they do not raise offspring which means zero communication of non-instinctive knowledge between generations.
I think they could become dominant if they acquired language. Maybe do some crazy sign language with their 8 tentacles. Also their short lifespan could be overcome if they worked together as a group or a hivemind, like the way ants do.
Eighteen paragraphs of throat clearing to get to the point of the title.
It’s the new norm. Worse when it’s video format and, thus, hard to skim.
Sponsorblock and YT’s “relevant metrics” or chapters are life savers lol.
Ants. The hive mind structure will be hard to beat.
There is no hive mind. They use chemicals to communicate.
Ants are Fascinating
splatoon was supposed to be a warning, not a prophecy
Interesting way to spell Daleks. EXTERMINATE!!
He’s been saying that since before The Future is Wild and his Squibbons.
Why would even be a next “dominant single species”, like humans?
Out of the billions of alive organisms that had ever been on earth only humans have human intelligence. It doesn’t seem like a common trait for any organism.
I think that humans are just some weird anomaly. Once we are gone there will probably not be any other intelligent species for a while, if forever.
