Dragons and Todays World

[Lex]

Now thats not all entirely true. And whose to say the dragons would be any different?

You need to stop blaming humanity for absolutly everything.

[Tali]

You're right Lex, that humans can be pretty self-critical.
However...

"None of those have been sentient or use tools to make their lives easier nor do they create weapons.

We have never had a race able to beat us in war before, were the dragons able to time and time again, our attitude may change"

Whether other species are sentient or not is another whole argument, but suffice to say I don't believe we can assume they're not just because they don't do what humans do. However, many species have been known to use tools.

I don't think we can really say that no species has beaten us in war before, because there has never been another species that has waged war. Where humans gather together to fight a cause or another species, other animals don't do that. When they have a grievance or they're hunting, they fight individually or in small groups. There has never been an attack on humanity, only on one particular person, because a mother feels her cubs are threatened, because an animal is hungry, or whatever. But I can't think of any examples where animals (other than humans) have been engaged in war, mobilised an army, made up a cause etc, they have merely been individuals fighting back. And there is no cause for investing a lot of energy and resources into making weapons when as far as they are concerned there is no war and no army to use them.

It is possible that dragons would be different, but to be honest I would have a lot more respect for them if they were not.

[Haydena]

Well, I still feel that I can blame humanity for everything. Here's why.

We have millions of other species living on this planet with us. We should be living in harmony if nature was working it's course. We would hunt some animals, and some animals would hunt us, if we were any other animal that would happen. However humans evolved quicker and have begun to wipe out species, this is not natural and not the human way. We have grown greedy and feel we are above everything that we should have been living in peace with. So we feel it our right to hunt and kill them in mass for our own survival. To be honest we would survive just fine if we hunted just enough for us to live on. But again, that is not the human way, we are greedy.

What I am trying to get at is that humans have had a chance to live with superior beings (cavemen were inferior to almost everything around them) but we evolved past these superior beings and outlived them or driven them to extinction. So if Dragons were to be living on this world they would have to keep up evolution with humanity, which to be honest would be pretty difficult. Humanity would evolve past the point where they see the point in co-existing with another species and would hunt them either for game or for food.

And even if this didn't happen, and Dragons were in place as a superior being, there would ALWAYS be the few in humanity that would not be able to see this and use everything they have to bring them down, some people cannot see what they are doing in this world today and it is all out of hand if you ask me, these few people would be the end of Dragons if we did co-exist anyway.

Then there would be the few that people would try and make money out of, by putting them in cages at zoos or the like. Now this would cause it's own mountain of problems, as I'm sure that Dragons would not take kindly to their own kind being used as mere entertainment for the human race. They would be angered and then the peace between two species would come to an end.

In short, I still do not think that Dragons and Humans could co-exist at all. If the Dragons were superior, then humanity would evolve past this superiority and seek to gain what adaptions Dragons have, through the use of experimentation perhaps. If Humans were superior they would not respect the Dragon population at all, using it for all kinds of sick things.

It's just the way humanity works...

[Tali]

I don't really agree with the superior and inferior thing - if humans were superior to other species we wouldn't have ended up with the crises we have today.

I don't even believe the destructive side of humans is fundamentally part of their nature, it is part of our society. And it is natural for individuals of any species to be selfish, to look after our own survival, just as groups of meerkats fight each other over territory and foraging areas. The difference with humans is that we see ourselves as a species against other species, rather than a group of individuals. Humans are the only animals that have consciously set out to eliminate another species ('Ishmael' by Daniel Quinn poses some really interesting ideas on this, bit patronising at some points though)

Also, humans haven't evolved to be this way, their technology has evolved but humans have evolved no faster than anything else. It is the way that people have come to see themselves in the world rather than how they evolved.

[Haydena]

And it is natural for individuals of any species to be selfish, to look after our own survival, just as groups of meerkats fight each other over territory and foraging areas.

Well yes, but with Humans it is far more dangerous that fighting each other for foraging areas. Because some of these humans have the power to bring down the world. The problem is that these humans with all this power usually do not see the bigger picture, and seeing Dragons as a threat to themselves would seek to destroy it with the power they have behind them.

I suppose basically everything I said there has just been torn apart, you're right with what you said, but I am still maintaining that Dragons would not survive today. It's a threat to humanity is all that some people will see, it would be inevitable.

[Lex]

tali said:

I don't even believe the destructive side of humans is fundamentally part of their nature, it is part of our society. And it is natural for individuals of any species to be selfish, to look after our own survival, just as groups of meerkats fight each other over territory and foraging areas. The difference with humans is that we see ourselves as a species against other species, rather than a group of individuals. Humans are the only animals that have consciously set out to eliminate another species ('Ishmael' by Daniel Quinn poses some really interesting ideas on this, bit patronising at some points though)

Also, humans haven't evolved to be this way, their technology has evolved but humans have evolved no faster than anything else. It is the way that people have come to see themselves in the world rather than how they evolved.

Thats why she is my co researcher

However i often feel that just because humanity has made mistakes (time and time again) several people needlessly blame humanity for things which just isnt its fault.

Were any other species to have mentally evolved as we have i doubt very much that they would be different. Almost all creatures that move in groups are territorial. Therefore with the invention of bigger weapons and with writing and language comes the comes the obvious result of mass war.

Humanity is still in its infancy and has much to learn. Perhaps one day we will learn the lessons of evolution or we will kill ourselves trying. But it is not correct to say are to blame.

All other creatures do what we do, they just dont have guns.

In regards to actively seeking out to kill a species, very fewhumans have done that. So a very small percentage of us are of that frame of mind. There are other creatures (cats for example) who hunt for sport. We just do so on a larger scale resulting in the demise of some species.

However, on the flip side, there are many of us who are aware of the dangers of our population and actively seek to prevent the consequences.

Recycling, healing, preserving, and many many more different ways of saving people, the creatures and even the planet. There arent many animals out there which try this.

So our mental evolution really cant be blamed for everything and infact, if you do blame humanity for many of the wrongs in the world, then on the same breath you should thank it for the great things it has done.

We are really no different from the animals (or dragons) mentioned earlier in this thread.

[Tali]

Dudes, I'm not trying to say everything is the fault of humanity (just most of it...). But you're right Lex, in that peope have been acknowledging that what humans have done in the past has been destructive, and some are trying to do something about it. Thats the great thing about the type of intelligence that humans have, we can do a lot of negative things, but we also have the power to understand that and change it.

I am a conservationist at heart, thats what I studied for years, thats what I'm passionate about, so you've got to be forgiving of my rantings on this one! Talking of rants...

"Therefore with the invention of bigger weapons and with writing and language comes the comes the obvious result of mass war. " - Lex (sorry still can't do quoting thing)

Weapons were invented specifically for war, they didn't come accross guns and nukes by chance. So humans were fighting long before they had the power to do such damage in war.

Haydena, I do agree with you in that either dragons would become exploited by humans or one would wipe out t'other, I just had to argue a few details before.

I think it is important to mention aliens here (I am going somewhere with this...). Every Hollywood film involving aliens is the same, the humans fight off the aliens and save the world. Usually the aliens are evil or are assumed to be. But when have you seen Sigourney Weaver inviting a face hugger for a cup of tea to find out what its all about? Ok so it might just be the formulaic sensationalist nature of Hollywood, but its also true that humans as a group feel threatened by anything they don't know that they can control. I suspect that Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum would be sent to kick the dragons proverbial botty.

[Balsiefen]

I doubt dragons would develop complex weapons due to the lack of opposable thumbs. A main question is not how the humans would react to dragons, but how the dragons would react to humans. If they so much as killed a couple of humans they would quite possibly be looking at their own extinction. If they were peaceful they would have a better chance of surviving although humans would never accept a creature as superior to them.

This is if they had suddenly appeared in modern times. If this was say, back in medieval times they would be mass hunted as evil creatures, peaceful or not