When the eventual extinction of human beings, that ever so intelligent species comes, who is more fit to become the dominant species on earth?

I suggest these two groups since they are know for their intelligence, but it could be another candidate, such as the cockroach.. Anyway, here is a playing ground for your speculations.


Who do you think will supercede?

Well, first off, it's octopi. Secondly, as far as I'm aware, they have a comparable intelligence to that of dogs or cats. So I think we can rule them out.

When the eventual extinction of human beings

Pls don't believe the predictive programming. Thanks.

kyupol

When the eventual extinction of human beings

Pls don't believe the predictive programming. Thanks.

Same could be said for you, fundie.

Go, octopi! (Actually, squids). I saw this on an old Animal Planet special. It was pretty interesting, if vaguely farfetched. Dolphins had their chance, stupid flipper rejects.

Yeah and I believe the pigs will take over.

This is a more serious part of the forum here. If serious discussion is too hard for you, try WTH. We made it especially for pithy crap. -_-

-this regarding the two posts I just deleted. >_<

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Neither Octopi or dolphins have shown much ambition towards taking over anything. "intelligence" is irrelevant. Octopi are too short lived to achive much and dolphins are too well suited to their situation - no agitation or influence to get them to advance or change significantly out of their current mode.

If we;re thinking seriously of an animal to replace humans in their cities and towns, it has to be the humble dog. They can look after themselves right enough, they're cooperative, form large social groups and whenever a city dies out it tends to get full of wild dogs anyway.
Ravens as well. Plus, they're brighter than dogs, dolphins and octopi, live cooperatively, and have an affinity for the products of human society. So it's between ravens and dogs.

The intelligence of dolphins and octopi are a little talked up. They really aren't much smarter than most animals.
There is not place to be taken up by humans really, there doesn't have to be a dominant species. Besides, if there was a catastrophe large enough to wipe out the entire human race then most likely animals wouldn't stand a very good chance either. It would have to be bacteria, those things can survive anything.

We would probably have to wait for a good long time before something comes along that can replace humans and I'll bet that this creature will be totally different from all the current animal types. For all we know, It might turn out to be a descendant of the platypus.

Wow it sounds like a lot of you are taking this a little too seriously.

I believe the mighty Octopus will conquer the dophing when we are gone. Mainly because it actually has freakin' eight limbs to hold stuff while a dolphing has no ability to hold objects. And you're going to need to hold things when ruling the world like a glass of lemonade or a rock.

PPPchairman
Wow it sounds like a lot of you are taking this a little too seriously.

Because this is the debate and discussion forum. T_T

Jebus christo

Why do you guys even come into this part of the forums...

Here you go, go here instead:
http://www.drunkduck.com/community/view_category.php?cid=243&

I seecrap ahead for this topic. Sorry Hawk, I think I'd better lock it.
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Unlocked and moved to WTH ^___^
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Who will take over?
The big fat idiot morons of course! We all know that. Those poeple will be post-human.

The dinosaurs of course. See they haven't actually gone extinct they've just been gathering their resources beneath the earth's crust in a secret citadel while us humans invent all the spiffy stuff like television and fruit cake. When we reach the pinnacle of our civilisation they shall emerge, kill us off and take all our stuff!

given humanity's track record, i think the planet will be rendered mostly barren by their passing. so the preferable title for this would be "When Humans Become Extinct, who Will Survive us? Dolphins or Octopi?"

that that i understand what's with all the caps in there.....

Humans will just keep on evolving. There'll be Homo Superior (six fingers, huge head, looks like David McCallum) then the Eloi and Morlocks, then H.G. Welles' man in the year 1,000,000 a sort of octopus thing with a large head that lives in a tank of nutrients and looks like nothing so much as Cthulhu crossed with a grey alien.

But Homo Sapiens Sapiens "Man" will be long gone. The Year One Million thing probably won't be in the genus Homo anymore so by our current definiton wouldn't be any more human than a dolphin or Cephleopod.

Recommended reading "After Man" and "Man After Man" by Dougal Dixon.

bravo1102
Humans will just keep on evolving. There'll be Homo Superior (six fingers, huge head, looks like David McCallum) then the Eloi and Morlocks, then H.G. Welles' man in the year 1,000,000 a sort of octopus thing with a large head that lives in a tank of nutrients and looks like nothing so much as Cthulhu crossed with a grey alien.

But Homo Sapiens Sapiens "Man" will be long gone. The Year One Million thing probably won't be in the genus Homo anymore so by our current definiton wouldn't be any more human than a dolphin or Cephleopod.

Recommended reading "After Man" and "Man After Man" by Dougal Dixon.

I know about the two books you're talking about, although I much prefer after man.


Do you really think human beings will live that long as to evolve into all those forms?

I truly doubt it, considering our destructive tendencies. I wouldn't give humans another half a million years even.

da_kasha
The dinosaurs of course. See they haven't actually gone extinct they've just been gathering their resources beneath the earth's crust in a secret citadel while us humans invent all the spiffy stuff like television and fruit cake. When we reach the pinnacle of our civilisation they shall emerge, kill us off and take all our stuff!

lol

I'm inclined to believe that, if there's a type of creature meant to "replace" humans it would be some kind of octopus. They've got limbs that are better suited to "creation", which is what I really see as the hallmark of human achievement. Whether or not they're actually all that "intelligent", however that is measured, they certainly have a level of problem-solving capabilities that other species (such as dogs) lack.

Humans won't survive to evolve? After the most horrid nuclear war imaginable there will be survivors. Our species is too talented at survival for it be otherwise. The great extinctions of the past didn't have an intelligent tool-using species to improvise its own survival by making stuff. (at least we don't know of any. ;) )
If Inuits and Kalahari Bushmen can adapt to and survive their enviornments I give our species pretty high odds at surviving to evolve. Cultures have survived destroying their own enviornments before (Downfall by Jared Diamond). Destroy the enviironment won't mean extinction of the species.
There are many more historical examples of adapt or die decisions made by cultures where they changed and survived. Humans are just too talented.
We've been around 35,000 years or so, do you honestly believe we haven't created and then destroyed a technological civilization before in all that time?

bravo1102
We've been around 35,000 years or so, do you honestly believe we haven't created and then destroyed a technological civilization before in all that time?

Of course. Humans, especially superstitious and religious ones (there's a difference?), are rather .. retarded. You give people too much credit. It took how long to build civilizations?

wiki
Until c. 10,000 years ago, most humans lived as hunter-gatherers. They generally lived in small nomadic groups known as band societies. The advent of agriculture prompted the Neolithic Revolution, when access to food surplus led to the formation of permanent human settlements, the domestication of animals and the use of metal tools. Agriculture encouraged trade and cooperation, and led to complex society. Because of the significance of this date for human society, it is the epoch of the Holocene calendar or Human Era.

Shears 25,000 right off that 35,000 you gave us.

wiki
About 6,000 years ago, the first proto-states developed in Mesopotamia, and in the Sahara/Nile and the Indus Valleys. Military forces were formed for protection, and government bureaucracies for administration. States cooperated and competed for resources, in some cases waging wars. Around 2,000–3,000 years ago, some states, such as Persia, India, China, Rome, and Greece, developed through conquest into the first expansive empires. Influential religions, such as Judaism, originating in the Middle East, and Hinduism, a religious tradition that originated in South Asia, also rose to prominence at this time.

Oh well for crackpot theories about Atlantis and other pre-history technological civilizations.

I like crackpot theories. ;) There would be a ton of stupid religious sheeple who would do all kinds of amazing stuff designed by a small group of really smart guys.

Do you honestly think that some religious moron designed the pyramids? He was the guy who could convince everyone else to do such amazing feats.

Of course you used Wiki as opposed to the actual finds of archeologists. :) Many will admit that there are huge holes in those findings and not a little bit of faith in the established timeline and that humans are a lot smarter than you give them credit for. Did Wiki mention the recently postulated existence of hunter-gatherer cities? There's the city and not enough cultivated farmland or the remains of cereals. Hmmmm.

A 21st Century Christian fundametalist is not a typical example of the species. He/she's seriously dumbed down from even his/her mid-19th Century forebearer. Most people can't even read a common 18th-19th century newspaper. "It's too hard" Yes, it actually has sentences with semicolons in it. There are still a few are considerably smarter and resourceful and they'll pull the rest of the stupids through it. Besides he/she wouldn't be the survivor of the horrid catastrophe. It'd be that Bushman. He'd wander into what was and start all over again. After all how do you think humans got from a little valley in Africa to cover the entire planet?

Never assume that the average person was always the media hypotized twit he/she is today. Just compare Andrew Jackson and George W. Bush. lol!

Pffff...humans will only become extinct because we evolve into three different kinds of animals in five areas of the world...I mean, that's what they keep saying happens with species

bravo1102
I like crackpot theories. ;) There would be a ton of stupid religious sheeple who would do all kinds of amazing stuff designed by a small group of really smart guys.

Which shows what a crack pot sheep you are to believe those people who claim it wasn't made intelligently and/or people who claim 'religious morons' believe it was made for a small group of really smart guys. Not even the Bible says so, but, go ahead and believe what you will. Seems to give you a nice smug sense of superiority.

Crackpot theories are fine and all, but like a lost pair of underwear, they aren't worth dwelling over.

Someone
Do you honestly think that some religious moron designed the pyramids? He was the guy who could convince everyone else to do such amazing feats.

Far be it from me to generalize about the average commoner and their beliefs, but I'm sure the elite were all religious. Where else did they get that "Divine Right" thing that's important to their power?

Someone
Of course you used Wiki as opposed to the actual finds of archeologists. Many will admit that there are huge holes in those findings and not a little bit of faith in the established timeline and that humans are a lot smarter than you give them credit for. Did Wiki mention the recently postulated existence of hunter-gatherer cities? There's the city and not enough cultivated farmland or the remains of cereals. Hmmmm

Maybe you could check out the Wiki instead of dismissing it out of hand, especially when the article in question is well-sourced. I generally ignore people who do that. You said: "hunter-gather cities?" That doesn't sound very technologically advanced to me. (which being advanced seemed to be the big point) Were they, say, 20,000 years old? or source it? I'd believe you without it, but you seem big on superior sources.

I'm still saying religious people are .. lesser in intelligence from the rest. You could see for yourself from here or here. Mouthbreathers.

Now when I say people are retarded, I only generalize because even today you have those stupid people who should know better (talking on cell phones while driving, drunk driving, 2012, etc.). I suspect it was the same back then. Not that I don't think they innovated back then, it's just they could only innovate so much before they started metalworking, which you can't do as hunter-gatherers.

Can someone tell me what Croi said? I saw a series of words and letters that individually made sense, but when put together in sentences was just a bunch of gibberish. Although a sense of supriority when deserved is fantastic.

it's those damn dirty apes. Have none of you seen that documentary with Charlton Heston in it?

Seems each of you read the first two sentences and then dismissed everything else I said. Didn't you catch the emoticon? A nod and a wink? I find them entertaining. I like crackpot theories; I don't believe in them just the possibilities they represent. Ask yourself how do we know what we know and do we know everything? Our answers have been wrong before. After all there was no real Troy, the lost tribes of the Jews created the Mound Culture, the Bible is historical fact, Egypt was the first civilization, Sumer did not influence Egypt or Mohenjo Doro...

As for the hunter gatherer city, study about the unliklihood and step down in nutrition that relying on agriculture brought about. One definition of civilization is building cities. My point was how they get their food was immaterial to building the city and that hunting/gathering is not inferior somehow to agriculture. City-building infers social organization that once upon a time was believed unachievable by a hunter/gatherer culture. It opens up possiblities that civilization could predate agriculture.

Croi Dubh your arrogance is not a little of an annoyance. ;) My feeling that Homo Sapiens is superior? Only that what the species has achieved is unique and remarkable. Humans change their enviornment. (good or ill) Humans are the only species to have spread to all the habitable continents and even distant islands on foot or in simple boats. Makes them just a little remarkable. Superior? No. Just remarkable and unique.

As for the few smart guys; how do you know they didn't just create religion to control the ignorant masses? How do you know that the engineers weren't privately agnostics and served the prevailing social dynamic to convince the religious twits in charge to do amazing things because the religious twits in charge were so gullible? You may be aware of facts and figures but you may not be as aware of human nature as you think. There are huge holes in our records and engineers were often deified. All the better to manipulate those who believed in such things? For every Jerry Falwell there may have been a Richard Dawkins (or Freeman Dyson?). Depending on the culture you can keep your mouth shut and make the others dance to your tune.

On the off chance they get humanoid upper bodies, it becomes a war of 'pretty tails' versus 'utility'.

... Wait, did I just type out the spoken part and speak the typed part?

In humorously spoken seriousness, if/when extinction happens to us, I just wanna know something cool does step up.
Dolphins? Cool.
Octopi? Cool.
Hamsters? Cool.
Squid? Cool.
Chairs? Cool.
Scrapherthix from the planet Brakfethula? Cool.
Monkeys? Redundant and cliche.

Mutation
Monkeys? Redundant and cliche.

ouch.

ParkerFarker

Mutation
Monkeys? Redundant and cliche.

ouch.

Your avatar looks more like a chimpanzee, brobot, so I think you can escape uninsulted.

Also it actually is octopuses. BAM [en.wiktionary.org]
But I do believe that octopuses will take over the world, they have a billion superpowers! If it's a question of which animal, not just octopuses and dolphins, I'd say the godzillas are the most likely to take over.

If it's a question of which animal, not just octopuses and dolphins, I'd say the godzillas are the most likely to take over.


please, we're trying to keep the conversation serious here. =P

It is only Octopi if the Octopuses decide they want to be called that after they have become lords of the earth, as they clearly will.
Eight arms, each delivering a resonding pimp slap to all those species who wasted time growing skeletons and back bones instead of more ability to pimp slap!

Mutation- I agree entirely! Planet of the apes was retarded! Super smart monkeys rule the earth? THAT'S WHAT WE HAVE RIGHT NOW! (Take that, creationists!)

YEEEEAAAAHHHHHHHH.

Jellyfish

I reckon Cuttlefish.