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Comment by systemvoltage | Hacker News Reader

It is actually insane that there is so much violence in nature. Every minute, there are millions of living things dying – many with unimaginable pain. The evolutionary engine is absolutely merciless. If I want to be terrified, I think what if we, instead of at the top of the food chain, were just second. It terrifies me to no end.

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If you really want to be terrified, consider the possibility that most animals have no idea what a food chain is.

So by extension - if in fact we weren't at the top of the food chain, would we even know?

Okay HP Lovecraft. Hey you should write a story about that!

It writes itself... You could almost take the original study and just change the subject to people. It was very difficult for me to read.

Extending it further – what are the things that we currently do not understand well but its understanding would lead to panic of the scale we've never seen?

Cancer?

I think most animals are aware of their predators even if they don't have some complex understanding of ecosystems. Anything that may once have considered humans a part of its natural diet has long since been hunted to extinction, save for maybe some remote patches of wild at the various edges of the human inhabited world.

I'm guessing that just about every animal thinks it's immortal until it starts being eaten.

Bacteria, fungi

Attack on Titan certainly makes it seem less than ideal.

I get more freaked out about thinking of falling into the atmosphere of Jupiter, just falling and falling and falling, eventually getting crushed. Or maybe a giant tentacle grabbing me, being pulled into some unthinking Cyclopean maw lurking just under the big red spot...

The entire rest of the universe is even more terrifying if only because it's so much more inhospitable to life.

> [...] Or maybe a giant tentacle grabbing me, being pulled into some unthinking Cyclopean maw lurking just under the big red spot...

Any tentacle or maw belonging to a jovian lifeform would be about as substantial as a... well, let's just say that the image of a jellyfish trying to eat a crab comes to mind. The jellyfish doesn't fare too well.

I read an interesting article about squid once. Squid have super soft bodies but hard beaks, and they catch and devour prey that is similar to or even tougher than themselves in texture. Why don’t their beaks rip off?

Long story short, there is a gradient in flesh texture from their bodies to their beaks- there’s no clear line where the body ends and the beak begins.

I always thought that was fascinating.

"Top of the foodchain" is not where you think it is. Parasites that eat lions inside-out are at the top. Or the plague.

Viruses that eat parasites are actually at the top. And on top of that? Soap

> If I want to be terrified, I think what if we, instead of at the top of the food chain, were just second. It terrifies me to no end.

That’s a horrifying thought. Thanks :)

Boiling to death is pretty cruel even for nature. Getting eaten alive honesty doesn’t even sound as bad.

You'll die faster dropped into boiling water than watching over hours as bears eat your guts and then wander off once their sated.

I assure you, getting eaten alive is far worse than boiling to death.

Venturing into the wild without good weapon is not a smartest thing to do. The problem I'd that weapons that can quickly and effortlessly kill the bear are often unavailable to general public.

...ordinary medium-to-large caliber hunting rifles are unavailable to the general public?

Depends on the country, territory, season.

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