[ExI] Humans are a uniquely dangerous species

[Stuart LaForge]

Quoting Rafal Smigrodzki:

> On Thu, Nov 21, 2019 at 11:58 AM BillK via extropy-chat  
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>
> Today we look up at the stars and wonder if we’re alone in the
> universe. In fantasy and science fiction, we wonder what it might be
> like to meet other intelligent species, like us, but not us. It’s
> profoundly sad to think that we once did, and now, because of it,
> they’re gone.
>
> ### Our ancestors actually met these other intelligent species and,  
> in their great wisdom, killed them (and probably ate them, too),  
> rather than just wait to be killed (and eaten).
> There is a rule in ecology that the presence of two or more species  
> in the same ecological niche is unstable and reliably ends with all  
> but one of them becoming extinct. Our niche is created by our having  
> general, social and technological intelligence, so long-term  
> coexistence with other intelligent species is by this rule impossible.
> It's often advisable not to look too closely at how sausage and  
> dominant species are made.

You speak of Gause's law or the competitive exclusion principle.  
Co-existence amongst niche-dwellers is unlikely but not impossible.  
Plankton somehow do it. Maybe human culture will figure it out too.  
Especially since we have the most general niche of all.

We have come a long way since when we ate those whose language we did  
not understand. Now people get upset at the thought of eating dogs or  
horses, let alone primates. At least in western democracies. Here is a  
recent article about the so-called "paradox of the plankton"

https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/article/71/2/236/777680

Stuart LaForge