# Humans: an evil species of predator



## Brian G Turner (Dec 15, 2015)

Warning - some strong language. But an interesting series of views and comments about looking at humans at a species of evil. 

Thought this might be interesting especially from a writing perspective. 

http://cnt.likealaugh.org/120LongDong/20130905-050047-120-318.jpg


----------



## J Riff (Dec 15, 2015)

'We' are fragile little mammals like any other. Without tech we'd still be down the food chain where 'we' probably belong. Forming gangs and chasing down other animals is hardly a new concept, just ask the ants. * )


----------



## Nick B (Dec 15, 2015)

I actualy have a similar idea but went nowhere with it. That humans were harder, tougher and more vicious than any other inteligent race in the galaxy and had been quarantined, which was why no-one comds here. Until a war erupts with another race (maybe from further afield, or another plane) and the galactic community decide to bring humans into the fold to fight the war for them.

Never even got to making notes about it though to be honest, too busy with other works.


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Dec 15, 2015)

We have a FAR greater capacity for evil than anything else on the Planet.
We have a FAR greater capacity for good than anything else on the Planet.

Make the right choices with your own life.


----------



## Dennis E. Taylor (Dec 15, 2015)

Alan Dean Foster wrote a novel with just this theme. According to the book, Earth is an unusually hostile planet-- most planets have neither tectonic activity nor dangerous weather. Everything on Earth has evolved as some kind of super-adaptive devil-beast, relative to the average galactic species.

Unfortunately, the book kind of painted itself into a corner with the initial concept, then Foster had to start making the antagonists 'pseudo-aggressive'.


----------



## J Riff (Dec 15, 2015)

We have minds weak enough to be usurped and used by evil aliens, there's an excuse for all of it. Any giant insect could tear a platoon to bits, if their guns jammed.


----------



## Parson (Dec 15, 2015)

There are a lot of books like this. One of the better series with this premise is Tanya Huff's "Confederation of Valor." of which I've read the first 4.


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Dec 15, 2015)

"Out of the Silent Planet"
Lewis mused that the vastness of interstellar space is a good quarantine system.


----------



## BAYLOR (Dec 15, 2015)

Humans beings are fine so long as they don't engage in discussions about sports because such conversations, can turn sane people green eyed monsters.


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Dec 15, 2015)

BAYLOR said:


> Humans beings are fine so long as they don't engage in discussions about sports


or Politics or Religion (or if WOT or Game Of Thrones is better).


----------



## Stephen Palmer (Dec 16, 2015)

There's no such thing as evil. Like pure good, it's an invention of religion.


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Dec 16, 2015)

Stephen Palmer said:


> it's an invention of religion.


So Atheists have no difficulty with religion? If Evil and Good are only religious constructs they can't call Religion "bad". Bad is often a synonym for Evil (though good things for someone else you don't want to happen, you might call "bad").
That's a Niezschean philosophy. I'm not convinced that it actually "works". Without the idea of ultimate good and evil there is in the end no reason to dislike "bad" things  or encourage "nice" things.


----------



## SilentRoamer (Dec 16, 2015)

J Riff said:


> Any giant insect could tear a platoon to bits, if their guns jammed.



I always find this funny - "if an ant was the size of a human it could pick up a car in its jaws" - No it couldn't for many different physical reasons! The most obvious being that strength doesn't scale based on size because surface area and volume do not scale proportionately.

I think Ray hit this one on the head - Humans are capable of great goodness, selfless acts, beautiful art and deep devotion but we are also capable of war, murder and cruelty beyond most peoples comprehension.


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Dec 16, 2015)

SilentRoamer said:


> The most obvious being that strength doesn't scale based on size because surface area and volume do not scale proportionately.


More complicated than that. But you are right, an actual ant simply scaled to be 1.5m to 2m long doesn't work. It would need different breathing system, different circulation, different kind of way to operate legs and jaws. A scaled up coconut crab that looks like an ant is perhaps feasible, though it couldn't lift a car. There is also mass to consider. Something strong and lighter than a car might tip over a car, but has to get its centre of gravity close to under the car's centre of gravity to lift it entirely off the ground.


----------



## Vince W (Dec 16, 2015)

To paraphrase Forest Gump: Evil is as evil does.


----------



## hopewrites (Dec 16, 2015)

I'd like to see something done where our capacity as transreality travelers is vilified.

How many beings are stuck in the reality they are dealt? Where a humans ability to imagine, to dream, is the unknown and supernatural property.

There's plenty done where the dreamed or imagined reality becomes a factual reality, sort of subtly imploring people to "be careful what you wish for," but I'm talking about the next step from that. Where imagined realities becoming factual as an everyday event for humans is portrayed from the other side, like there's a dimension that we are drawing from when we imagine things and this dimension gets depleted or there is an uprising there over misuse on our end, or something along those lines.


----------



## J Riff (Dec 16, 2015)

If an ant came from a high-gravity planet - ... yes it could!


----------



## SilentRoamer (Dec 17, 2015)

J Riff said:


> If an ant came from a high-gravity planet - ... yes it could!



The cars weight is going to scale propoertionate to the gravity as well though...

There are upper limits to size and strength. An example is Elephants, with the current composition of atmosphere (a more oxygenated past naturally led to larger species) Eelephants are about as big as things can get and still be supported by legs. Elephants need four thick wide and well placed legs in order to move around.


----------



## BAYLOR (Dec 17, 2015)

J Riff said:


> We have minds weak enough to be usurped and used by evil aliens, there's an excuse for all of it. Any giant insect could tear a platoon to bits, if their guns jammed.



I for one would welcome our new insect overlords.


----------



## Stephen Palmer (Dec 17, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> So Atheists have no difficulty with religion? If Evil and Good are only religious constructs they can't call Religion "bad". Bad is often a synonym for Evil (though good things for someone else you don't want to happen, you might call "bad").
> That's a Niezschean philosophy. I'm not convinced that it actually "works". Without the idea of ultimate good and evil there is in the end no reason to dislike "bad" things  or encourage "nice" things.


 
To me, there's inhumanity and humanity, and all stations in between. Good and evil are abstracts with a proven lack of ability to do anything useful in the real world, except instigate terrific plots for Tolkien, George Lucas et al - which, I admit, is a tiny problem for folk like me.


----------



## Dan Jones (Dec 17, 2015)

Stephen Palmer said:


> Good and evil are abstracts with a proven lack of ability to do anything useful in the real world, except instigate terrific plots for Tolkien, George Lucas et al -



But isn't creating an ideal toward which we can strive to attain, despite our many flaws and imperfections, a worthy goal? Even though we are bound to fail in attaining that sense of goodness, isn't the attempt to do so just as admirable a way to live one's life?

It might be unfashionable to create such extreme black-and-white canvases nowadays, but the Star Wars / LOTR juggernauts don't seem to be doing overly badly right now, do they?


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Dec 17, 2015)

Even in ages when the people or government were often immoral, you find that people knew what they ought to do even when they didn't! Yes, good and evil are abstracts, as are love, hate, justice, mercy... sieve the universe and you can't find an atom of them. However it doesn't mean they don't exist or don't matter.


----------



## hopewrites (Dec 18, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> sieve the universe and you can't find an atom of them.


yet...

remember, there was a time when germs where mythical devils to be placated with potions and prayers


----------



## Stephen Palmer (Dec 18, 2015)

DG Jones said:


> But isn't creating an ideal toward which we can strive to attain, despite our many flaws and imperfections, a worthy goal? Even though we are bound to fail in attaining that sense of goodness, isn't the attempt to do so just as admirable a way to live one's life?



Indeed, but why create random whites and blacks according to primitive tribal customs when you can get off your backside, _think_ about what a human being is, then strive to attain a humane life? There is only one human condition. There are any number of abstracted goods and evils invented by crazy men.


----------



## Nick B (Dec 18, 2015)

Stephen Palmer said:


> Indeed, but why create random whites and blacks according to primitive tribal customs when you can get off your backside, _think_ about what a human being is, then strive to attain a humane life? There is only one human condition. There are any number of abstracted goods and evils invented by crazy men.



I think the vast majority of us know what is right and wrong, we just have to try and live by that as best we can. I believe in freedom, but it must be freedom where you do your best to not harm others.


----------



## Parson (Dec 18, 2015)

Quellist said:


> I think the vast majority of us know what is right and wrong, we just have to try and live by that as best we can. I believe in freedom, but it must be freedom where you do your best to not harm others.



I would say a bit more. I would say the ultimate freedom is to be free to actively help others. Humans were not created for isolation but for community. And community is best when each serves the other.


----------



## Mirannan (Dec 18, 2015)

There is a fact that is poorly explained by most theories, and that is the fact that most predators avoid humans and humans are most definitely not preferred prey for most of them; this is why "maneaters" among lions and tigers, for example, are rare. This despite the fact that humans are weak (much weaker than chimps, for example), slow over any distance less than a half-marathon, and have a very poor sense of smell.

I think the reason why lions (for example) don't normally hunt humans is fundamentally that humans have the intellectual capacity to bear a grudge - and we often do. Which means that a lion with a taste for human flesh is probably not going to breed, at least after it has indulged the urge. Other prey animals, even those which have decent natural weapons (such as various antelopes and buffalo) don't hunt down a lion that kills one of them. We do.

On a somewhat more SF note, ETs might well be put off communicating with us for various reasons. Just one of those is that a large proportion of the population spends many hours running combat simulations - for fun (eek!) - and a fairly large part of the economy is connected to programming them and also making the hardware to run the sims better.


----------



## mosaix (Dec 18, 2015)

Mirannan said:


> humans are weak (much weaker than chimps, for example), slow over any distance less than a half-marathon, and have a very poor sense of smell.



Can't remember the name or author of the short story but basically the hero escapes from a laboratory where a mad professor is manufacturing a variety of robots to take over the world. The professor sends his army of robots in pursuit...

The hero climbs a wall - some of the robots can't manage it.

The hero runs through a muddy field - some of the remaining robots can't manage it.

The hero swims a river - some of the remaining robots can't manage it.

There's more stuff but I think you get the picture by now.


----------



## Ray McCarthy (Dec 18, 2015)

They spoiled the Daleks by upgrading them. The originals were stuck inside their special environment.


----------



## BAYLOR (Dec 20, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> They spoiled the Daleks by upgrading them. The originals were stuck inside their special environment.



I did like the new color coded Daleks because they can go with any style of furniture .


----------

