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this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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Showerthoughts
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That's a cute line, but its not true. Animals regularly breed themselves into Malthusian collapse. Nevermind mammals, the earth was nearly rendered inhospitable because of too many trees. In fact, the fossil fuel economy of the modern day is predicated on this explosion in plant life that flooded the planet with excess oxygen.
Mammals follow similar trends, exploding through an ecological niche well past the point of sustainability. Species can - and have - overproduced to the point of collapsing their biomes and causing localized extinctions. Some mammals find an equilibrium, but that's a result of selection bias. The species that hit an equilibrium point are the ones that stick around long enough to become present in the fossil records and major ecological zones. Plenty more fail and die out.
The major distinction between a virus and an organism is that viruses cannot reproduce on their own.
This is particularly ironic given the premise of the Matrix movie. It is not the humans that are the viruses. Even in confinement, they continue to bare fruit and multiple. It is the AIs that exist parasitically which persist only with a steady new supply of human hosts.
Consequently, Agent Smith's genocidal plot nearly brings down the system that the AIs need to survive.
Absolutely. Any time I see quotes that extol the virtues of non-human animals compared to humans, I think that those animals would absolutely do the same thing if they had the physical and mental capabilities to. Life is "designed" to procreate with no end limit. Since there are finite resources, if they're too successful they start to become victims of their own success.
Definitely depends on the animal. Bonobos and Chimpanzees - our two nearest relatives - have dramatically different dispositions and cultural patterns. Go further back in history and you'll find six or seven other close ancestors to homo sapiens spread across the globe, each of which developed their own distinct behaviors.
Even to say "they'd behave like humans" requires a very broad brush, because human behavioral patterns are also extremely variable. The Columbian explores had a dramatically different social pattern than the West Indies neighbors they initially encountered.
This goes back to the infinite growth engine of solar energy. If you can capture more sun - either directly or by proxy - you can grow with fewer bounds. Organisms best suited to this task fruitfully multiple. But there are still evolutionary dead-ends - patterns that seem fruitful in the moment but only because of a temporary state of affairs.
The engine of evolutionary development is an erratic oscillation between environmental compromise and conflict, exploration and exploitation, production and consumption. Because the rules are always changing, there's no permanent winning strategy.