This opinion is based on reading people’s thoughts on the internet and remembering what I was taught in my own time in school (where they essentially stumbled into teaching that humans were some kind of ‘peak’ of the evolutionary process)

I think people have waaaaayyyy too much faith in human intelligence and it’s leading to the destruction of the world.

1- People keep thinking a scientist or a ‘rich entrepreneur’ is going to come up with some magic bullet to save the world, if we taught more about how other animals have tools, language, larger and older and more complex brain structures than us - People might realize it’s similar to believing that dolphin will arise from the sea with some idea to stop climate change

2- we keep participating in these systems that have been created under the assumption that we are ‘making progress’. I would argue that the minority of human invention represents real progress.

3- It leads to undervaluing the earth and taking it for granted. We worship ourselves as gods (literally). Almost everything you have wasn’t invented by humans. It was the result of billions of years of selective design. Yet we teach as if things we harvest from nature were ‘invented’ by humans. In reality, we often have no way to produce or even of conceive of these things without a natural example.

Thanks for reading

  • Wooly@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    And it’s not like dolphins could learn whale language. Animal communication is very basic compared to ours.

    I think it’s undeniable that we’re the most intelligent and capable species on the planet and not just because of apposable thumbs. Maybe some of the smartest animals are smarter than the dumbest humans, but we have a huge range.

    No other brain works the way ours does, other primates and some dolphins/whales come close with their ingenuity and stuff but obviously millions of years behind us.

    • 🐱TheCat@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      1 year ago

      Yeah this is the attitude I think is harmful. You essentially have no evidence of your claims but you just strongly feel superior to other species.

      ‘Animal communication is very basic compared to ours’ is just a blatantly false statement. We know there are named individuals, dialect, syntaxes in other species. I think some humans are just ignorant of these things, which is the opposite of intelligence

      Also none of you seem to consider the extra communication abilities many animals possess around scent a mark AGAINST humans. We may use the most complex vocal language to compensate for our total lack of smell communication