Oldrac the Chitinous wrote:MTGradwell wrote:I personally think it stretches credibility that there could be another independently-evolved species anywhere in the universe as destructive as our own, but the point is that it works either way.
I don't much care for this kind of anti-human sentiment. We're the product of natural selection, a process that rewards ruthlessness above all other virtues.
Actually natural selection rewards genes that tend to exist in the next generation. This is why we tend to be altruistic/nice to people who live near us and close family members (they are more likely to be genetically similar, certain genes code for certain pheromones and behaviors that keep us from murdering each other for water and food).
In fact, human beings aren't particularly destructive, we are extraordinarily cooperative. Nothing we have achieved as a species could have been possible otherwise, particularly the existence of cities, scientific advancement, and even the artificial selection of other organisms (resulting in species or subspecies) groomed for particular purposes.
Also, humanity is not in its infancy, it is highly unlikely that humanity will have any genetic drift that will cause us to change as a species. Natural selection is an inherently conservative force, it operates under the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. E.g., sharks have remained relatively the same for many millions of years, far longer than nearly any other organism on the planet. Most trees and grasses have remained relatively similar to each other for far longer than other organisms. Humanity has nothing to adapt to right now, no evolutionary pressure that we do not overcome with science and technology, thus natural selection will tend to keep humanity genetically stable.
Anyways, the problem with the anti-human sentiment isn't that all life is ruthless and destructive, its that life in general tends to be cooperative and peaceful, otherwise it wouldn't really succeed (even diseases, which we tend to think of as made for the purpose of killing us tend to be kept in check by natural selection, otherwise diseases would kill all their local hosts and die out).