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?
I think we already won?
We won. Not even close.
I’m really pushing the limits of “No Stupid Questions”…
If they team up and act coordinated, animals should win pretty easy. You would be attacked immediately by thousands of insects and a lot of birds when you step outside. They could poison water and food sources and attack the electrical grid. Large mammals would be our smallest problem. Imagine coordinated moscito attacks and small bugs crawling into your home through every small gap by thousands. Thx for the nightmare. Reminds me of the Birds from Hitchcock.
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.
Mosquitoes are the only thing that kills more humans than other humans. In fact, if you look at the top 10 animals that kill humans and add up 2-9s per year totals they’re a bit less than mosquitoes. Also the list is very bug and parasite heavy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_animals_to_humans
If only motor vehicles were animals.
This is just like Maximum Overdrive!
Fungus comes in the outside challenger and
beats us allIt’s a stalemate with fungus. We can’t kill it and it isn’t capable of doing more than just sitting there. Menacingly.
It looks so delicious sauteed in butter but then again so do we
Long pig goes great with mushrooms.
See the Last of Us
Depends on the conditions. Is it a wall of death where both sides charge at each other and fight to the death? Do the animals communicate and strategize, or just gain a sudden bloodlust for humans and march at us?
If the animals were able to coordinate, I would worry about a giant ant golem stomping through cities.
Ant golem sounds epic.
If the bugs target our food supply we’d be done for
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.
Could you survive by going somewhere that bugs can’t? Can any bugs survive extreme cold?
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.
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since trying to get all 8 billion+ humans to agree on a plan of attack would be a near-impossible task.
We wouldn’t need even close to that many humans. Just a couple of million people (the size of a medium-large military force) with the proper funding could probably kill off all of the large to medium animals within a few decades.
Killing of all the arthropods would be more tricky and we probably couldn’t completley eradicate them just because we wouldn’t be able to find them all.
Of course that’s purley for winning in a direct confrontation. Without any animals we’d probably go extinct not long after, so it’s not really a win in the end.
Animals could fight a really good long game. Especially species that reproduce very quickly.
The mosquitoes
ha, one species defense/offense vs everything nature has in its current inventory for defense/offense?? and a biomass that makes us look like a rounding error?
on the other hand, were doin a dandy job killing the planet so maybe we will win a stupid prize
If weapons are allowed, we would win by a landslide. If no weapons are allowed, even then I would think the animals would just start killing each other before they even get to us.
