Quote:
Originally Posted by shakran
The dams beavers build tend to be fairly ecologically sound. They don't heat up the water, they don't kill fish - in fact they create places for fish to live, and they're not made of gobs of concrete which leaches harmful chemicals. They don't have to form a committee to study the feasibility and cost/benefit analysis of building the dam, they don't have to deal with contractors, lawsuits from the Sierra Club, or other beavers jumping off the top of the completed dam to commit suicide. In short, they build the damn dam and do it much more peacefully, efficiently, and ethically than we possibly can.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by shakran
Why the hell would a bird need a skyscraper?
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Your ability to miss my point entirely, amazes me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shakran
Additionally, comparing intelligence solely on what something has built has some unfortunate implications - - "gee, I've built more stuff than you, and therefore you're a moron."
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A man who builds
more stuff than, say, a monkey, is not necessarily an indicator of mankind's higher intelligence. However, a man who builds stuff that is
far more complex than what a monkey can builds, is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shakran
I'm not positing that animals are smarter than humans by our standards. But, by the dolphin's standards, we're probably pretty fucking moronic. We run around scrabbling for resources, fighting each other over little green pieces of paper, getting fat because we sit in front of glowing boxes and argue with each other, shooting each other because we want something that someone else has, poisoning the air that we must have in order to live, destroying our food in contraptions that poison the air while conveying us to places where we either collect or divest ourselves of more green pieces of paper, and meanwhile the dolphins are messing around in the ocean, playing and eating, and only occasionally having to fight off a shark.
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Oh, if only animals were in charge of the world, instead of humans! Then the world would be a much better place. Oh, wait... There are no animals on this planet capable of taking and maintaining charge, like we humans are.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shakran
The fact that we got together and decided to create devices which can destroy us and everything else on the planet, points more to our abject stupidity than to our intelligence.
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Dolphins, if they were able to create and channel nuclear fission, would not use that for destruction, right? Because, unlike mankind, dolphins are
entirely peaceful and altruistic. Or are they... ?
Quote:
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Originally Posted by wikipedia
Dolphins are known to engage in acts of aggression towards each other. The older a male dolphin is, the more likely his body is covered with scars ranging in depth from teeth marks made by other dolphins. It is suggested that male dolphins engage in such acts of aggression for the same reasons as humans: disputes between companions or even competition for other females. Acts of aggression can become so intense that targeted dolphins are known to go into exile, leaving their communities as a result of losing a fight with other dolphins.
Male Bottlenose Dolphins have been known to engage in infanticide. Dolphins have also been known to kill porpoises for reasons which are not fully understood, as porpoises generally do not share the same fish diet as dolphins and are therefore not competitors for food supplies.
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