What if we lost?

I was thinking about this last night and a few days ago..

What if a species of animal or insect evolved and became aware of ist own existance as we humans do and realise everyone around it.

What if it became smarter than us and decided we were the pests.

What if it decided that in order for it to survive, it would have to wipe us out first?

What if it started killing us, 1 by 1, would we be able to stop it? or would it be too late?

Please comment on this, but only creative comments.

Depends on the scenario.

Evolve as in slowly mutate over millions of years, or evolve really uber fast and we have 6 foot tall slugs sliming around when I wake up tomorrow?

I'll take the former, which I believe is impossible. Humans as a race are very cautious and destructive, I think that anything that even started to show hints of human intelligence would be wiped out without mercy.

And taking us out one by one would be logistically impossible, thousands are born every single day. It's either genocide on a planetary level or we keep standing.

Very true, but do you really think that there will be wars that only include the human race in the future? Let alone aliens if they do show themselves and are aggressive?

I have to say I doubt it.

Originally posted by Opulisum
Very true, but do you really think that there will be wars that only include the human race in the future? Let alone aliens if they do show themselves and are aggressive?

I have to say I doubt it.

Well its human nature to fear what we don't understand and if we discovered alien life then i'm more than certain we will already be devising a way to kill them.

Yeh, I know that if aliens do express hostality in any way, we will be able to stop them. (well, depending on our technology)

But what if the threat came from our home planet, Earth. Yeh sure, we can easily kill animals now, a child can tell you that, but in the future we will be faced with much different creatures, look at all the cross breeds we have today.. 800 pound Ligers.. Wolphins..

These are the cause of humans making animals of different spicies inbreed. But I would if this happened in the wild by accident and designed a creature, and this creature might have an array of birth defects, some bad and some that benefit it alot. Now this creature might cause a threat to us Humans on a great scale.

But these creatures would take millions of years to evolve. If they were bred in a laboratory, there wouldn't be enough of them to be any serious threat.

Even if they bred to make millions then we would still win. We're a hardy race who wouldn't let some mutated animals take over or scare us. Someone as young as 10 could take down a bull elephant thee days.

That does make alot of sence to me, I was just wondering about our fate, we humans will not last forever. This got me started on the different threats we humans face everyday, and it seemed that one of the biggest threats we faced was from the animals we live around and see almost every day. It would be sad to see any more of our species die out and become extinct. I mean, if the dinosaurs were alive stil today, would we be?

Originally posted by Opulisum
I mean, if the dinosaurs were alive stil today, would we be?

I sincerely doubt it. But if the dinosaurs hadn't died out I'm pretty sure that they would have advanced to a level that could far surpass our own.

When we eventually die out, something else will rise and take the planet as their own. A truly beautiful and scary thought all in one, that millions of years after we are nought but dust there could be another race here on Earth with cities and cars and governments.

Our home planet wont last that long, The sun has 5 billion years left to live, in that time, we need to think of an idea to get out of this solar system and into a safer one, without taking hundreds and maybe thousands of years. Would you still like to live on Earth when its turned to a crisp when the Sun explodes?

Still if the dinosaurs were still around, ide wonder what they looked like today

reply to post by Opulisum


They would look like us. I can almost guarantee they would be bipedal because it is the best stance for a creature to have and flourish with. Bipedal creatures can use tools, are incredibly flexible and can adapt to varying environmental hazards such as cliffs or rivers.

All in all, I would fathom that they would look like us, only more dinosaur like. They may have also lost their cold blood, which I don't know is possible or not, but seems like a good step forward,

I remember watching a t.v. programme ages ago about the dinosaurs of today and if they survived. It showed an artists guess drawing and they looked like the common grey aliens people see everywhere, only green with scales and smaller eyes. I wonder if they would have been more successfull than us.

reply to post by Opulisum


Aye, I saw something like that as well.

If they hadn't died out then think of all the time they would have had to get to where we are now. 65 million years. We've went from primitive apes to what we are now in maybe 1 million, 2?

It's what keeps me going about intelligent life out there, some planets may not have been so harsh on their life and let it flourish to a point we cannot even begin to imagine.

What if the scenerio was much more sinister?

What if instead of insects or animals, it was Computers. Artificial Intelligence, once properly developed, is an enevitable evolving "species." AI could quickly gain vast knowledge and it wouldn't take long to label mankind as a threat to it's existence. I doubt that it would have any faults, such as feeling or morals, that humans have been cursed with.

This scenerio has been played out numerous times in movies such as "Terminator 1-3", "I, Robot", and "The Matrix 1-3".

Check out this link on KurzweilAI.net for more realisitc thoughts on the subject.

[edit on 30-8-2007 by tyranny22]

That might be more deadly, but it wouldnt take the Human race long to create a 'virus' to disrupt these machines and destroy them. Look at what viruses can do to computers.

A scenario that everyone, some point in their lives have pondered.

But if we think realistically, would anyone ever make a computer that could evolve, think or have 'life' goals such as global domination? Somehow, I don't think so, humans don't like things thinking for themselves, why would we make computers the exception?

And even if a computer did evolve and learn, why would it want to wipe us out? All computers, no matter how advanced need regular human interference and maintenance other wise it would just fall into disrepair.

The argument that it would make 'drones' is irrelevant as well because how would it make them? We don't have anything that can make them and neither would the computer. So it would need to somehow build a machine that would then make other machines that in turn build others.

Highly doubtful in my eyes.

The thing about computers tho is an emp pulse can take em out, and on a lighter side they would shut off themselves after all the emails from a n i g e r i a n wanting to transfer money to their bank accounts and spam about serial port enlargement

(Edited since apparantly citizens of a certain african country cant have their citizenry name used due to censor blockage failure to realize that its not foul language XD )

[edit on 8/30/2007 by Karl7772000]

Originally posted by tyranny22
What if the scenerio was much more sinister?

What if instead of insects or animals, it was Computers. Artificial Intelligence, once properly developed, is an enevitable evolving "species." AI could quickly gain vast knowledge and it wouldn't take long to label mankind as a threat to it's existence. [edit on 30-8-2007 by tyranny22]

I seriously think this is the bigger threat (compared to aliens or evolving insects) to us a species today.

If you think the internet right now has more computing power than 1 human brain it would only take that imperceptible jump to consciousness to render the entire human race "obselete".

No-one knows what makes a creature self aware but we may well be creating one as we type.

Originally posted by myowncrusade

No-one knows what makes a creature self aware but we may well be creating one as we type.

No, we don't but what we do know is that if a computer was built that could ever wipe us off the planet, why would it?

The entire argument is incredibly childish to be honest, if one looks past the movie sheen and at the facts then they can quite easily see why it's pretty much an impossibility.

A computer would have no reason whatsoever to destroy us for the simple fact that it wouldn't achieve anything from doing it, it would actually lose out. A computer can't build things, it's only microchips and wires, it would need something else to do it for it. Which of course wouldn't happen because we sure as hell aren't going to build something for a computer that we created in the first place.

So, if it did happen, what would this computer use to kill us? Nuclear weapons? No, they're too destructive and devastate electronics. Other than that, what could possibly be used?

It's pretty much an idea that is great at selling movie tickets, but holds no real punch here in the real world.

Well we are talking what if's and the world ain't flat so get some imagination.

I think it's a little ignorant to claim not to know how something happens and then in the same breath call the concept (nb:concept NOT argument: which, if you will remember you have claimed to know nothing about) as childish.

I am not talking about 1 single computer, we have already built a network containing pretty much all human knowledge. A network that connects a huge amount of computer automated tasks over the entire planet including manufacturing, satellites and weapons. I don't see it as much of a reach.

[edit on 30-8-2007 by myowncrusade]

[edit on 30-8-2007 by myowncrusade]