Can we get a 'random ponderings' thread on the go?

[Black Mambo]

Like, you wake up in the middle of the night thinking, "I wonder what humans did before diapers were available" (I stole this from another KR thread, but it's the perfect example). Can we have a thread where we just chuck out our random ponderings and discuss them? Not like a Q&A, and not like where you could easily search wikipedia for the answer, but just pure randomness? I think it'd be amusing. I get these daft thoughts all the time, but don't usually feel like making a thread for each of them.

Anyway, it was the following pondering that prompted me to make this thread:

As humans, we're at the top of the food chain and, in terms of ability to control, we're kind of at the top of the animal kingdom b/c of the power that we can exert and the technology we have at our disposal. Without going too deep into whether animals are sentient beings or not, maybe even speaking on pure instinct, I wonder if animals know that we are the most powerful. I wonder if they fear us? Like, an antelope will run like the wind if it sees a lion coming for it. Mostly animals don't seem to do that with us (I mean, they do have the ability to maim and kill us, and they do use that ability) so maybe they're blissfully unaware of the fact that we could fire a gun or tranquiliser into them, and they're done. Did we become too advanced too quickly for animals to understand it? Does the distance between us and many animals make the difference? Er, discuss.

Or fire your own random stuff in here. I really enjoy it. Maybe this belongs in the philosophy section or something? Idk. It's not necessarily philosophical, y'know.

[kesh]

if you act like a predator around a horse that doesn't know you it's a lot harder to get close to it than if you act like another horse. i imagine they're just programmed that way

[staticsindy]

if an animal is around humans alot, like cats or dogs for instance, they wont fear them. i mean unless theyve been around cruelty. or up here, all the deer run at the sight or sound of humans. we are their only predator.

ive also heard that if you encounter an animal who hjasnt had much contact with humans (if theyre bigger or at least close in size tot he one they encounter) they wont run, but will actually be very curious about us.

[Zeke]

A Lion will laugh at us, and send one of the cubs in to slaughter us.

It's astonishing just how physically inept we are in comparison to most any other living creature.

I've always wondered how languages were started. Like, it all had to start from somewhere. Who was the one guy that said well "this word is going to mean that." And then suddenly, everyone seemed to know. And it was all recalled. Like seriously? How the fuck did that ever get pulled off? Some guy in another continent calls something a "plant". Then everyone else seems to know that is the english word for it.
Basically, the begining of all things puzzle me to no end.

Obviuously we had to come from the monkeys. Not adam and eve, cuz if that were the case, how did we get all these different races and cultures? Monkeys from africa were slightly different then monkeys from other places I would assume. We then evolved.

How did the very first lifeform even come about? How did anything come about? Gotta be a higher power.

Cuz if not, try imagining what a blank would look like, seriously. It's weird. But that's what we'd have now....instead of all this, it'd be a blank. Would the blank be black? White? What?

[Black Mambo]

Originally Posted by Zeke

I've always wondered how languages were started. Like, it all had to start from somewhere. Who was the one guy that said well "this word is going to mean that." And then suddenly, everyone seemed to know. And it was all recalled. Like seriously? How the fuck did that ever get pulled off? Some guy in another continent calls something a "plant". Then everyone else seems to know that is the english word for it.

Yeah, I sort of wonder too. I suppose the spreading of languages is purely down to emigration over the continents, but I always wonder quite how it all started. I guess it must have begun as just a series of various sounds for certain objects and actions, and people would maybe move around to other places where other people picked up on it and began to imitate the sounds.

What I really wonder is how the written word came about. I presume it was by the drawing of shapes to resemble objects, and then evolved from there, but it's amazing to think that something so primitive could come to be as precise as it is now, with accepted rules and structures and spellings.