Who's the biggest Monster? Humans or non-Humans?

[Humility]

You can drop an ant from 8ft and it won't get injured, drop a human from that height an they will be injured. When it comes to physical endurance most animals can last longer than humans with far less. Take the arctic wolf for instance, they will go for a week without food on the move constantly looking for food. If I remember correctly they can go 3 weeks without food. The Yellow Fin Tuna can swim 1200 miles nonstop. The Monarch butterfly migrates from Canada to Mexico rarely stopping. The majority of nature out does humans on Physical endurance.

Humans can run at 20 miles per hour for close to four days and nights without stopping. No Animal in the world can do that. Ants could be dropped from ten-thousand feet and still not get hurt, they are simply too small to get damaged, their inertia is too low. Humans can live 4 to 6 weeks without food and still be able to move, so we outdo the Arctic wolf, though how long you can live without food doesn't really change dramatically from animal to animal. A lot of animals will outdo humans in specific areas, but if you look at every area of endurance and average it out humans outdo them all not counting long distance running, thats where we excel.

http://www.physorg.com/news95954919.html

Thumbs, intelligence and we are on the top of the endurance chart, the deck is stacked in our favor.

And really, if you want a monster, whats scarier then something that never stops, never quits and never tires until well after you do?

[abracax]

Humans can run at 20 miles per hour for close to four days and nights without stopping. No Animal in the world can do that. Ants could be dropped from ten-thousand feet and still not get hurt, they are simply too small to get damaged, their inertia is too low. Humans can live 4 to 6 weeks without food and still be able to move, so we outdo the Arctic wolf, though how long you can live without food doesn't really change dramatically from animal to animal. A lot of animals will outdo humans in specific areas, but if you look at every area of endurance and average it out humans outdo them all not counting long distance running, thats where we excel.

http://www.physorg.com/news95954919.html

Thumbs, intelligence and we are on the top of the endurance chart, the deck is stacked in our favor.

And really, if you want a monster, whats scarier then something that never stops, never quits and never tires until well after you do?

Humans can live for 3 days without water. Most doctors and nutritionist state that the average person can live about 4 to 6 weeks without food, but a week is a miracle without water. There have been numerous activists who have placed themselves into a starvation trance in order to prove a political or religious point. Of the twelve most infamous starvation oriented protests, two people lost their tongues, one lost their feet, seven ended up on dialysis at least for a short period of time, and two died. Their fasts lasted for between 4 and 6 weeks. At the 3 week mark moving is not an option and you begin to hallucinate and it starts the rest of your body on a shutdown process, this of course if you are healthy enough to begin with. Reptiles can go far longer without eating, and when animals hibernate they don't eat at all and my be in hibernation for 3-9 months depending on the animal.

As for a human being able to run at almost 20mph for 4 days, if you use 20 as the exact number that comes to a total of 1920 miles, but the fact is the average human can run at a top speed of 15mph. The record for longest distance run by any human is 635 miles in 6 days which equals 4.4 mph by Yiannis Kouros. And that's with stops. Dean Karnazes ran for 226.2 miles for 50 hrs, at a rate of 4.52mph and several stops. No one has ever run at almost 20mph for 4 days ever, I would like to see some sort of proof of that "fact". I have also read all the same studies that says man is built for marathons, compared to predators we are because predators are built for short runs.

Sooty shearwaters migrate nearly 40,000 miles. Monarchs migrate 2,500 miles. The humpback whale is known to travel over 5,100 miles from Central America to their feedings grounds in Antartica. The Arctic Tern migrates 43,495 miles.

Quite a few animals must sleep standing up, as much as we have all seen a drunk friend lean against a wall passed out for a few hours doesn't mean he was sleeping standing up. Man compared to most of nature is actually very fragile. We can't lose a leg and just keep going, if we chew off a paw we only have so long before we die, we also can't take a blow to the head and keep moving as most animals can. If a bear or lion rips it's claws into us we are almost certainly dead, while most other animals our size can run away and continue to live.

There is a reason that despite hunting, pollution and many other influences by man most of the animals on our planet still survive. I hit a deer once at 50mph, it got up and ran away. If I were to hit some fat guy that weighed the same as the deer, he would be dead. And now it's come to the point where mankind is worried about our own extinction from weather changes, wanna bet the rest of the animals will survive?

[Soulstrife]

not going to give a essay response to this because it is obvious not including mythical creatures that humans are the monsters
we are the only creatures that kill just for fun
at the brutal end of the scale- murderers and the like
at the other end -- hunting just for recreation

all other creatures kill to survive even vampires we kill for sport

[FoxyBunny]

Not to drag this too far off-topic, but human beings are actually quite frail creatures. We are far from being the ones with the most endurance, no matter how you qualify that. Humans are very environment-dependent. In our natural form, we cannot tolerate extremes of climate/temperature, or go for any length of time without air/water/food/sleep, or defend ourselves against predators, or find food, etc. We are absolutely tied to having everything we need being easily accessible. What helps us to overcome this are the tools we've created. We make clothing and shelter to defend against the climate, because human skin and hair are pathetically unmatched for anything except tropical and the mildest of temperate zones. We create containers to take water with us because in some environments we cannot go for more than about a day without it. We create tools to hunt with because humans aren't fast enough to catch anything small and not strong enough to catch the slow things, in general.

The statement that man is the strongest or has the most endurance or anything else is patently ridiculous. We are mediocre in EVERY way. This is a physiological fact. Humans are frail. Our bodies are actually ill-conceived for survival and have only managed to take us this far because we have used intelligence to compensate for all of it. Please don't tell me otherwise: we've made an entertainment spectacle for all of recorded history out of people who can manage to survive with minimal tools. The current vogue involves men equipped with proper clothing and basic tools (knives, machetes, matches, a backpack, a canteen, etc.) having to *gasp* survive for a whole week out in the wilderness. A WHOLE WEEK! How long do you figure Bear Grylls would last if we dropped him out there naked with no tools? I give it two days max.

And let's not hear about survival skills being unused. Family pets, raised in a loving home for their entire lives and never having to think beyond smelling their way to the food bowl that gets filled regularly, manage to survive out on their own for weeks, months, or even years. I'm pretty sure that if you dropped Uncle Rich out into the hills and left him to figure things out on his own we could go retrieve his body in just a few days.

[japanpimp]

Am I the only one that have been thinking about this? Like when you see a Vampire Movie, and everyone thinks that Vampires are monsters that should be destroyed, just because they eat humans? Aren't we also hunting animals to eat so that we can survive? Who said that only Humans are allowed to survive?

Every living creature has a right to hunt and eat. That's nature baby, pure and simple. But bringing vampires into your line of thought in regards to this matter is kinda, um..... well, I thought of Blade. Half Vampire, Half human, who some call.... the Day Walker....

Hey, anything is possible. Just because we have not seen a vampire before or have no real evidence of them does not mean they do not exist. We are not aware of many things in the Universe or in other dimensions, and therefore have no evidence and thoughts of them have not even entered our minds yet. But that does not mean they do not exist. Let's just say I am very very open minded. More so than most people. But let's keep this line of thought to things we KNOW exist. So, non-humans that EVERYONE knows exist. Like animals, insects and so on. So my line of thought on that is: Prey always thinks that the predator is a "monster". I mean, if prey did not think that the predator was a monster then the survival instinct, as someone already pointed out, would not exist.
And hey, when a Lion turns into a man eater, when that Lion develops a taste for human flesh, guess what? It is a monster that must be killed. Heck, eat a human, become a monster. Simple equation. Eat human = monster that must be killed.

As the smartest beings on Earth (Hopefully...), I believe Humans have the right to devour other weaker, lesser beings, but Vampires, Werewolves, and other used-to-be-human beings should not, due to Canabalism.
To eat another person that is equal to you, I believe, is wrong. You could understand a Snake eating a rat, but a snake eating a snake? No. Lion eating a pig? Yes. Lion eating a Lion? No. It's nature. Humans have a natural instinct of thinking of Canabalism as morally wrong. When we smell rotting human bodies, we don't go to the source like Vultures. We feel disgusted.
That is most likely why Vampires and the sort are thought of as what you say "Monsters".

I have nothing further to add here Your Honor....

[abracax]

not going to give a essay response to this because it is obvious not including mythical creatures that humans are the monsters
we are the only creatures that kill just for fun
at the brutal end of the scale- murderers and the like
at the other end -- hunting just for recreation

all other creatures kill to survive even vampires we kill for sport

Gorrilla and chimpanzee teens kill for fun, it has been discovered that porpoises do to. And of course don't forget the killer whale, I have already listed this information and I don't think you read it before you made this comment.

But many predators also kill for sport just to keep their skills honed.

Man has become more civilized and does not kill as needlessly or often as nature. In nature if you like your neighbors house, you kill your neighbor and take it. If you are an alpha male you challenge other alpha males and either banish them from your territory or kill them. Same if you are an alpha female. When a member of your family becomes sick or weak, or disabled you would kill them to keep your family strong. Don't forget what most of nature does with babies. In nature if a baby is perceived as weak it's either eaten or discarded.

Nature is not forgiving at all and as Jack London tried to teach the civilized world with his writing, nature is eat or be eaten, kill or be killed. Man is no longer part of that nature and has created civilization.

[Professor X]

Gorrilla and chimpanzee teens kill for fun, it has been discovered that porpoises do to. And of course don't forget the killer whale, I have already listed this information and I don't think you read it before you made this comment.

But many predators also kill for sport just to keep their skills honed.

Man has become more civilized and does not kill as needlessly or often as nature. In nature if you like your neighbors house, you kill your neighbor and take it. If you are an alpha male you challenge other alpha males and either banish them from your territory or kill them. Same if you are an alpha female. When a member of your family becomes sick or weak, or disabled you would kill them to keep your family strong. Don't forget what most of nature does with babies. In nature if a baby is perceived as weak it's either eaten or discarded.

Nature is not forgiving at all and as Jack London tried to teach the civilized world with his writing, nature is eat or be eaten, kill or be killed. Man is no longer part of that nature and has created civilization.

No humans just kill out of greed. Take a 350 pound man eating a burger. Does he really need that extra portion of meat? And some humans also kill for fun and sport.

I would say that humans are the biggest monsters on this planet. We not only kill for fun and greed but we pollute the environment around us, eat our own kind, kill our own kind and are generally selfish and lazy beings.

However on a lighter note, we have achieved amazing feats and show great compassion at times.

[abracax]

No humans just kill out of greed. Take a 350 pound man eating a burger. Does he really need that extra portion of meat? And some humans also kill for fun and sport.

I would say that humans are the biggest monsters on this planet. We not only kill for fun and greed but we pollute the environment around us, eat our own kind, kill our own kind and are generally selfish and lazy beings.

However on a lighter note, we have achieved amazing feats and show great compassion at times.

Cows and termites create more air pollution than man does on a yearly basis. As for killing for greed, Chimpanzees often kill other groups out of greed. My example of ants going to war over territory, in my back yard there is enough resources to supply all the ant colonies with all the food they could ever need yet they still go to war, is this not greed? Dogs and large pack predators will also kill each other over greed. Animals often eat their own kind and kill their own kind and animals can be extremely selfish. Do you see Grizzly bears sharing their honey with other animals? Do you see a Robin offering up the worms it catches with other birds around them? Monkeys can be the most selfish creatures in the wild.

From many of the comments made about nature and things believed not to be found in nature I would have to urge some people to spend time in nature, study nature just a little bit closer.

[Humility]

Humans can live for 3 days without water. Most doctors and nutritionist state that the average person can live about 4 to 6 weeks without food, but a week is a miracle without water. There have been numerous activists who have placed themselves into a starvation trance in order to prove a political or religious point. Of the twelve most infamous starvation oriented protests, two people lost their tongues, one lost their feet, seven ended up on dialysis at least for a short period of time, and two died. Their fasts lasted for between 4 and 6 weeks. At the 3 week mark moving is not an option and you begin to hallucinate and it starts the rest of your body on a shutdown process, this of course if you are healthy enough to begin with. Reptiles can go far longer without eating, and when animals hibernate they don't eat at all and my be in hibernation for 3-9 months depending on the animal.

You forgot to take into account that a good many people are already half-starved as far as our bodies are concerned. No store of fat is a bad thing. You got enough fat you can live for months as long as you have water.

As for a human being able to run at almost 20mph for 4 days, if you use 20 as the exact number that comes to a total of 1920 miles, but the fact is the average human can run at a top speed of 15mph. The record for longest distance run by any human is 635 miles in 6 days which equals 4.4 mph by Yiannis Kouros. And that's with stops. Dean Karnazes ran for 226.2 miles for 50 hrs, at a rate of 4.52mph and several stops. No one has ever run at almost 20mph for 4 days ever, I would like to see some sort of proof of that "fact". I have also read all the same studies that says man is built for marathons, compared to predators we are because predators are built for short runs.

You can't use an athlete for comparison and especially not an average human, athletes actually care about their health. But the runners, the guys who are supposed to run hundreds to thousands of miles, to deliver a message and then drop dead, those guys do that. History is full of tales of it and both the reliable historians and less reliable historians account for it, you can't train an animal to do that. Horses will overheat and drop dead well before that mark. But even ten miles per hour over just a half a day is more then most animals can muster.

If humans weren't better, why would they use runners instead of riders to begin with?

Sooty shearwaters migrate nearly 40,000 miles. Monarchs migrate 2,500 miles. The humpback whale is known to travel over 5,100 miles from Central America to their feedings grounds in Antartica. The Arctic Tern migrates 43,495 miles.

Get something that doesn't fly or swim, because they spend more time gliding then flapping. You know how a bird flies? It flaps its wings until it gets high, then glides on forward until it needs to flap again. Butterflies don't even have to fight that hard against gravity and they don't fly non-stop and humpback whales move at a leisurely pace.

Thats not endurance thats cheating.

Quite a few animals must sleep standing up, as much as we have all seen a drunk friend lean against a wall passed out for a few hours doesn't mean he was sleeping standing up. Man compared to most of nature is actually very fragile. We can't lose a leg and just keep going, if we chew off a paw we only have so long before we die, we also can't take a blow to the head and keep moving as most animals can. If a bear or lion rips it's claws into us we are almost certainly dead, while most other animals our size can run away and continue to live.

Sleeping standing up is not a sign of endurance. We can't lose a leg and keep on going, but a splinter in our mouths or a thorn in our foot won't kill us either, and our legs are a lot more difficult to tear off then most animals, our leg bones are thicker and we have a lot more muscle mass there. Kinda makes up for it.

No we can't take a blow to the head and keep on going like thicker skulled animals, but we can take a fall much better then those same animals. And what other animal is our size? A large dog is our size and I know they can't, what animal our size can do that? Most of the smaller deer are our size and they can't.

There is a reason that despite hunting, pollution and many other influences by man most of the animals on our planet still survive. I hit a deer once at 50mph, it got up and ran away. If I were to hit some fat guy that weighed the same as the deer, he would be dead. And now it's come to the point where mankind is worried about our own extinction from weather changes, wanna bet the rest of the animals will survive?

If you were to hit a 550 pound fat guy, he would almost certainly be fine, except for the fact he is so fat he can't stand up.

[abracax]

You forgot to take into account that a good many people are already half-starved as far as our bodies are concerned. No store of fat is a bad thing. You got enough fat you can live for months as long as you have water.
Medical fact, an obese person can last 3 weeks without food as long as they have water.


You can't use an athlete for comparison and especially not an average human, athletes actually care about their health. But the runners, the guys who are supposed to run hundreds to thousands of miles, to deliver a message and then drop dead, those guys do that. History is full of tales of it and both the reliable historians and less reliable historians account for it, you can't train an animal to do that. Horses will overheat and drop dead well before that mark. But even ten miles per hour over just a half a day is more then most animals can muster.

Who ever ran thousands of miles? The Greek historian Herodotus, the main source for the Greco-Persian Wars, mentions Pheidippides as the messenger who ran from Athens to Sparta asking for help, and then ran back, a distance of over 240 kilometres (150 mi)[10] each way. It does not mention the time it took, so he may have ran at 4-5mph the whole time. So please show something to back up your claim, because you still haven't shown that a man can run for 4 days at almost 20mph the whole time.

If humans weren't better, why would they use runners instead of riders to begin with?
The Horse was not domesticated for as long as you may think and the horse was the equivalent of today's electric cars, not everyone could afford one. So messages were delivered on foot, whole armies had to move on foot until recently. Again with many stops along the way.


Get something that doesn't fly or swim, because they spend more time gliding then flapping. You know how a bird flies? It flaps its wings until it gets high, then glides on forward until it needs to flap again. Butterflies don't even have to fight that hard against gravity and they don't fly non-stop and humpback whales move at a leisurely pace.

Thats not endurance thats cheating.

How long do you think you can hold your arms out? How many days? The majority of birds that migrate from the arctic to the tips of the antarctic maybe stop twice the whole way. So for a distance migration of 43,000 miles they basically hold their arms out the whole way, could you do that? Could any human do that?



Sleeping standing up is not a sign of endurance. We can't lose a leg and keep on going, but a splinter in our mouths or a thorn in our foot won't kill us either, and our legs are a lot more difficult to tear off then most animals, our leg bones are thicker and we have a lot more muscle mass there. Kinda makes up for it.


en-dur-ance
   /ɛnˈdʊərəns, -ˈdyʊər-/ Show Spelled[en-door-uhns, -dyoor-] Show IPA
?noun
1.
the fact or power of enduring or bearing pain, hardships, etc.
2.
the ability or strength to continue or last, esp. despite fatigue, stress, or other adverse conditions; stamina: He has amazing physical endurance.

Run a marathon then sleep standing on the legs you ran on, spend a whole week doing nothing but standing on your legs. This is a sign of endurance.

No we can't take a blow to the head and keep on going like thicker skulled animals, but we can take a fall much better then those same animals. And what other animal is our size? A large dog is our size and I know they can't, what animal our size can do that? Most of the smaller deer are our size and they can't.

Learn some anatomy, most animals of 160+ lbs can survive higher falls than humans can and take far more trauma and survive than humans can.



If you were to hit a 550 pound fat guy, he would almost certainly be fine, except for the fact he is so fat he can't stand up.

Again anatomy says, no. If you were to hit a 550lb person with a car at 50mph they would die. Human bones are slightly more brittle than most animals, most animals have somewhat flexible bones that keep them from breaking so easily. Also just because you think layers of fat might protect someone of that size does not make it true. A person of that size would suffer from bruising of the internal organs, internal bleeding, possibly a broken neck, quite a few broken bones and hemorrhaging of the brain. Unlike a deer they would not be able to continue to live a long life.

Please study some of the claims you make before you make them, as you are being stubborn and sticking to what you believe instead of what science can actually prove. Saying you are being stubborn is not an insult to you, nor is it a personal attack on you, sometimes stubbornness can be good. It means you will keep trying.

The article you used as an example was about endurance running, this one expands more on that issue. http://www.futurehead.org/futurehead...an-outrun.html It explains the reasons why humans can do endurance runs. Long distance running is not about speed, just ability to keep moving. In every way the animal kingdom out does humans on endurance in some way. How about we get back to the topic of "Who's the biggest monster" and off the endurance part?