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Comment by throwaway2245 | Hacker News Reader

My impression is that other animal species generally are in harmony with nature:

Non-human animals seem not to be inclined not to, in general, exhaust existing resources. They seem to have no interest in this, even where it would give them a monopolistic economic advantage over their competitors. You don't see animals hunting for sport.

On the other hand, bacteria and viruses will exhaust the resources given to them, and thus end up limiting their own growth. Humans are not so exceptional in this regard.

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> Non-human animals seem not to be inclined not to, in general, exhaust existing resources.

They certainly do, if given the chance. Boom-bust cycles caused by resource overextraction are common throughout the animal kingdom. The only reason that it isn't apparent to you is because you don't pay a lot of attention to animal resource supplies, and because over a long enough timeframe new equilibriums are sometimes formed until some other external impact comes into play.

Re:hunting for sport, cats are the most famous example as mentioned by the sibling commenter, but you also see it with other predators. Play is very common in the animal kingdom and its often violent. I've seen coyotes and foxes kill smaller animals and leave them uneaten many times.

Humans are simply better at resource extraction than other animals. The underlying behavior is not notable.

> The only reason that it isn't apparent to you

It is apparent to me that no other species (ever) has been implicated in a mass extinction event.

I notice both commenters referenced cats - a domesticated and invasive species.

> Humans are simply better at resource extraction than other animals.

Claiming that humans are 'better' ignores my point that bacteria will happily exhaust whatever resources are given to them.

> Claiming that humans are 'better' ignores my point that bacteria will happily exhaust whatever resources are given to them.

So will most other animals. This isn't something unique to humans.

> I notice both commenters referenced cats - a domesticated and invasive species.

Foxes and coyotes, which I mentioned, aren't. Most predators do this (gratuitous killing) to some degree or another. Even some none-predators engage in "pointless" violent aggression towards other species.

> It is apparent to me that no other species (ever) has been implicated in a mass extinction event.

Only because most other species (since cyanobacteria) are drawing from a more limited pool of resources. Other species certainly do radically transform their local ecosystems which leads to disruption until other species move in to fill the new niches. What makes humans different is that our "resources" encompass a much broader area and array of material than other animals.

There is no steady state in the absence of human intervention. I am not claiming that humans are 'better.' They aren't. They're just another animal, just one unusually adaptable thanks to big brains, language, and thumbs. I'm not assigning any more value to that. In the long run, it might be a 'bad' thing, in that, as the comments here show, we tend to be much too proud of those big brains.

> It is apparent to me that no other species (ever) has been implicated in a mass extinction event.

Not for lack of trying. Usually another species or the limited size of its habitable area will stop a species before it has a global impact, but if you focus on smaller ecosystems, you get the typical rabbit-and-hare boom-and-bust cycle resulting in extinction of both fairly regularly.

Cats commonly hunt for sport and have caused the extinction of a few species. Gorillas will go to war with other groups. Plenty of human traits have analogues in other species.

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