I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this exact subject, and I dunno. As much as I consider it, as abstractly as possible, I have considerable difficulty finding an alternate route to significant human-like dominance. Fire and metallurgy are just so incredibly useful across so many domains. I challenge you to present a reasonable alternative route.
Route to what, though? What aspects of human- like dominance do you think octopuses would want to replicate? It’s not like they need buildings or air travel for example, because they can swim in three dimensions. What are the goals of octopus- style planetary dominance?
I’ve spent some time wondering that myself, and as a narrow- minded human the best I can come up with is consistent safety from predators (metal structures would be useful here but there must be alternatives) and maybe agriculture, although they seem to enjoy hunting their way.
The only thing that humans really can’t accomplish much of anything without is organized society, and octopuses don’t seem inclined that way. And what’s the point of planetary dominance without society anyway?
Yeah, but we did all of our discoveries as a land-based species. It’s totally possible some water-based species would find other crazy useful early techniques, then eventually discover stuff like “fire” much further down the line with access to more robust technologies. Their scientific roadmap would look very different from ours, but there are so many weird tricks and techniques that would eventually lead towards some of the dominating processes we have.
It’s totally possible some water-based species would find other crazy useful early techniques
Such as?
Even then, they are still short-lived, non-social animals who don’t raise their young. How do individual discoveries compound into robust technologies?
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this exact subject, and I dunno. As much as I consider it, as abstractly as possible, I have considerable difficulty finding an alternate route to significant human-like dominance. Fire and metallurgy are just so incredibly useful across so many domains. I challenge you to present a reasonable alternative route.
Route to what, though? What aspects of human- like dominance do you think octopuses would want to replicate? It’s not like they need buildings or air travel for example, because they can swim in three dimensions. What are the goals of octopus- style planetary dominance?
I’ve spent some time wondering that myself, and as a narrow- minded human the best I can come up with is consistent safety from predators (metal structures would be useful here but there must be alternatives) and maybe agriculture, although they seem to enjoy hunting their way.
The only thing that humans really can’t accomplish much of anything without is organized society, and octopuses don’t seem inclined that way. And what’s the point of planetary dominance without society anyway?
It’s a conversation about human-like dominance, which implies the ability to significantly alter the world and develop beneficial technology.
Yeah, but we did all of our discoveries as a land-based species. It’s totally possible some water-based species would find other crazy useful early techniques, then eventually discover stuff like “fire” much further down the line with access to more robust technologies. Their scientific roadmap would look very different from ours, but there are so many weird tricks and techniques that would eventually lead towards some of the dominating processes we have.
Such as?
Even then, they are still short-lived, non-social animals who don’t raise their young. How do individual discoveries compound into robust technologies?