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?

  • RBWells@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Killing all the animals would kill us, so we die either way; I don’t think killing all the humans would have a negative effect on animal life.

    So I am thinking the animals probably win. Certainly if they can strategize. But either way we lose.

  • Psaldorn@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Ever seen ants disassemble a much larger animals carcass?

    Imagine trying to keep millions of angry ants out of your house, not imagine they have support from spiders, racoons, birds.

    Throw in dropping snakes down chimneys.

    Bees stop pollinating our crops, larger animals could take our dead and drop them in our reservoirs. Cities are done.

    You might like the TV show called “Zoo”, it looks at some of this and gets pretty crazy

    • FUBAR@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      Yep I read that the combined biomass of ants outweigh the combined biomasss of humans

  • cheesymoonshadow@lemmings.world
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    5 months ago

    What if it’s a free-for-all? That is, all members of the animal kingdom attack us, but natural predation still occurs, so for example, if a bunch of insects swarm us, the birds and frogs will still eat them.

  • Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    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.

      • Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        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.

  • ArdMacha@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Given that the vast majority of animals in the world are now domesticated and cattle, we already won.

  • RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    You know that meme about having immortality but if a snail catches you then you die? There’s a snail out there in the real world that can actually kill you.

    Animals win.

    • Breezy@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Is a snail an animal? Because if this question put spiders and bugs etc into the animal category theres nooooo way humans survive a single month of fighting. Just imagine for example the deadly mosquito squad that could be sent all over. How could we survive against anything like that, mice might be hard enough, but small bugs you dont see, theres just no way.

      If we make it strictly mammals, we definitely have a fighting chance.

      • eightpix@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        If it’s alive and not a plant, not a fungus, and not a single-celled organism, it is probably an animal.