Wouldn't you say that humans in nature are like using a hand grenade to kill a gopher?

Question

Or is it just me?

Answer 1

Indeed. If you look around today at the vast technological and symbolic world humans exist in, it's hard to imagine how the faculties that are capable of creating something so advanced are just enough to survive. Do humans need airplanes or sky scrapers or computers to survive as a species? Why then are we capable of creating them? Why are we so intelligent?

I think when we look at the nature of what it is that humans have so much of, we can begin to see why it would tend toward excess. Firstly, nature does not just create only what is needed to get by. Take the plume of a peacock or the song of a lark. These traits do not serve a directly functional role, they help them procreate. Traits linked to sexual attractiveness can be over-emphasized in nature because in the mating pool, for a trait which is sexually attractive, it's no longer about just getting the job done, it's about being better than everyone around you. It seems no coincidence that human intelligence would become a trait linked to attractiveness because human intelligence is not just about building spears and fires, it’s about communicating and strategizing to achieve ones end... so to speak.

Secondly, communicative intelligence, once it is mature enough, extends beyond the limits of natural evolution. The ability to communicate intelligence allows one the ability to pass intelligence on generation to generation. No longer does the species have to press the reset button every generation, intelligence can accumulate in history symbolically, culturally, and technologically.

So yes, humans in nature do seem excessive in regards to how much communicable intelligence they have. However, communicable intelligence seems to naturally tend toward an “unnatural” excess.

Answer 2

Let me get this right: you are comparing humans to hand grenades; and nature to gophers?
We do not blow up into shrapnel, and gophers don't make laws of the universe.

Answer 3

Yeah, I see it all the time. When people have big machines, they like to use them... whether needed or not.

Answer 4

i agree, we tend to overdo everything! eating, clothing, our homes and gadgets,