I’m thinking the animals would easily defeat us, since trying to get all 8 billion+ humans to agree on a plan of attack would be a near-impossible task. By the time we’d be done trying to coordinate a plan, I figure the lions and cheetahs would have already devoured us, not to mention the larger animals like the elephants.

Even so, I think we shouldn’t underestimate the smaller creatures like rodents and insects. Most of them carry diseases, so if they came in large numbers, they could easily wipe out a good percentage of humans.

However, if humans were allowed to use the military’s weapons, like tanks and canons, I think we might have a fighting chance. But if we went straight to using the nukes, it would result in no winner since the whole planet would die.

Would the animals win, due their sheer numbers and combined strength? Or would the humans win because of our combined intellect and vast knowledge of the animal kingdom? What do you think?

  • RBWells@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Killing all the animals would kill us, so we die either way; I don’t think killing all the humans would have a negative effect on animal life.

    So I am thinking the animals probably win. Certainly if they can strategize. But either way we lose.

  • RandomVideos@programming.dev
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    4 months ago

    I think humans would have a hard time winning if animals have homo sapiens on their side

    If the animal team wouldnt include humans, would anyone win? If nukes were launched, even if no human on Earth was able to live, there are still people in space that would at least be able to survive for slightly longer, but would that even kill all the insects? How could humans even kill every single animal? How would the animals kill all the humans? It would be easier humans to coordinate than for animals and if the goal for the humans is survival and killing, would the animals be able to counter any strategy humans try?

  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I think diversity is going to be the animals’ biggest advantage. Stopping a pride of lions is completely different from stopping a swarm of mosquitos. We’d die off faster than we could protect ourselves from EVERYTHING.

  • rsuri@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Humans would not be able to annihilate all the animals, given how many live underground/in deep oceans etc., and how integrated they are into our own lives leading to an unacceptable risk of collateral damage. However, the animals would be completely ineffective due to a lack of cohesion and ability to coordinate attacks. So basically humans would kill some of the animals and then it would devolve into a stalemate.

    • Bezier@suppo.fi
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      4 months ago

      I’m sure we could nuke the planet or something and leave a few survivors in space.

  • Paragone@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    We’re already IN the 6th great extinction: humans ARE exterminating the marine & terrestrial ecologies.

  • Psaldorn@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Ever seen ants disassemble a much larger animals carcass?

    Imagine trying to keep millions of angry ants out of your house, not imagine they have support from spiders, racoons, birds.

    Throw in dropping snakes down chimneys.

    Bees stop pollinating our crops, larger animals could take our dead and drop them in our reservoirs. Cities are done.

    You might like the TV show called “Zoo”, it looks at some of this and gets pretty crazy

    • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I take it you’ve never watched The Naked Jungle. I actually didn’t know that was the name of the movie until now. Not the best name. Anyway, it’s about millions of ants destroying everything in their path and a cocoa plantation owner trying to save his property from them.

    • AnalogyAddict@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      It’s not like bees pollinate for our benefit.

      There’s a reason animals run away from the monkeys with pointy sticks. We eliminated the ones that don’t until we got comfortable enough that we had the luxury of turning them into various forms of entertainment, and therefore had a reason to preserve some.

    • RandomVideos@programming.dev
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      4 months ago

      If our lack of cooperation and intelligence are mentioned as a disadvantage and an advantage, i dont think its fair giving the other team cooperation and the knowledge of how to defeat us

    • FUBAR@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Yep I read that the combined biomass of ants outweigh the combined biomasss of humans

  • Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    If this means that every animal immediately goes berserk and tries to kill all humans, and ‘animal’ includes bugs, then the animals probably win.

    Those people in relatively secure places without enough animals when it starts could survive, but there’s probably be 50% or higher casualties among the general human population in less than a day.

      • Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        I don’t think ‘going’ anywhere would be an option. If you’re in basically, most of the civilized world, and not in a very secure structure, you’re immediately fucked. I said more than 50% but I guessed that as a very conservative estimate. We don’t normally realize just how many living things are around us, mostly bugs, but also small rodents and the like. If every one of those within a significant radius of every human suddenly went berserk and wanted the humans dead, most people are not in areas where the number of attackers would permit much survival.

        Those who currently live in certain desert environments, in certain cold environments, and so forth, would probably survive the first day, and then might have a hope of making it longer. But most environments in which there isn’t enough animal/bug life around to immediately kill you present serious other problems such as food supply. If you live at McMurdo Sound Antarctica, you’re probably not going to immediately be killed. But you will soon have issues feeding yourself and keeping warm.

        People in Iceland or northern Norway and other similar places might have the best chances. Probably not quite enough things around to kill everyone immediately, but the environment is one in which they might be able to become self-sufficient, but in the long term I have my doubts even for them. If the bugs and animals and such are so focused on killing humans that they no longer perform their normal functions, then you’re looking at immediate and total ecological collapse. If they’re not, then the population of bugs and animals will increase in all areas other than the most extreme environments, and sooner or later what few humans survived in those extreme environments are going to have to attempt to emerge.

        If humans had prep time, maybe. Assuming we could get over our normal difficulties cooperating and actually prepare for the event. There’d at least be a lot of survivors. But if it came as a surprise, suddenly someone flips a switch and the entire animal kingdom is trying to make every single one of us dead? We’re pretty much fucked.

  • weariedfae@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    If you include insects and arthropods and everything suddenly turns into uberbloodlust-kill-all-humans then non-human animals win, hands down. I think people overestimate their ability, the effectiveness of weapons, and the sheer number of insects that are near you at all times. Insect biomass alone outstrips humans by an insane margin. Very few mammals or other animals would get a lick in, I think. There is no hermetically sealed bunker that would hold for long, and that won’t save you from the mites already on your skin although they probably can’t do a ton of a damage.

  • tate@lemmy.sdf.org
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    4 months ago

    After we win, we’ll all starve to death. I’m not even saying that we have to eat animals. I’m saying that without animals there would soon be no food of any kind.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 months ago

      I guess this guy’s never heard of humans being omnivores or that you can get protien from certain plants.

      I mean, it’s not like we’re in an open system powered by the sun and the only way any of us actually get energy is because plants can synthesize solar energy and then mammals and other types of animals then eat those plants taking the energy they have converted, and now these animals convert energy from the plant into energy for themselves.

      But yes, somehow, plants will cease to exist and functionally not be edible. /s

      • tate@lemmy.sdf.org
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        4 months ago

        The kinds of plants we can eat cannot continue to thrive without animals, especially insects around. The whole system is interconnected.