• baguettefish@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    49
    ·
    16 hours ago

    there are social octopuses, like the larger pacific striped octopus. imo octopuses had 150 million years to rule the planet and they just weren’t good enough. skill issue. us humans only had 2-4 million years. i’d say we’re doing quite well comparatively.

    • scratchee@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      55
      ·
      15 hours ago

      They ruled the planet for 150 million years and didn’t ruin the environment once ? What are they even doing?

      We’re clearly superior, who else could speed run the mass extinction end game?

      • HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        edit-2
        9 hours ago

        They survived the K-T extiction event or K-Pg event which killed perhaps 75% of species in earth 66 million years ago.

        While we are already causing an extinction event which will probably turn out far worse, by causing temperatures to rise to a level higher than in hundreds of millions of years - far outside the range modern life has adapted to. And I am not so sure that we ourselves can survive that in the long run. Humans are incredibly adaptable, that’s right. But our food sources are not, not even things like grasses, wheat, or trees, let alone mammals, the great mayority of them (except perhaps algae and mushrooms) are far younger in an evolutionary sense, so it is unlikely they can adapt.

      • RobotToaster@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        edit-2
        12 hours ago

        They ruled the planet for 150 million years and didn’t ruin the environment once ?

        That’s what Cthulhu wants you to think.

    • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      62
      ·
      15 hours ago

      Maybe their version of “rule the planet” involved mostly just hanging out in their den and thinking interesting thoughts.

      • LadyButterfly she/her@piefed.blahaj.zoneOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        39
        ·
        15 hours ago

        Yep they just hang out and do wtf they want to do. They’re not going to work and having politics about whose turn it is to make coffee, or why Will should never have got promoted over Kay. Really they’re the smarter species

        • snoons@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          2 hours ago

          For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.

          Douglas Adams, The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy