• snek_boi@lemmy.mlOP
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      28 days ago

      I agree. The boundary can easily become diffuse or even silly.

      However, there’s a reason I asked what I asked. My ultimate purpose is to show that existence is not perfectly designed, that sometimes it is brutal and grotesque. Unfortunately, people often retort saying nature is brutal and grotesque because of humans. So, by focusing on non-human nature, I’m sidestepping the retort.

    • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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      28 days ago

      I always though the distinction between natural/unnatural is completely meaningless. We do not consider animal intelligence and its products “unnatural” but we somehow do this for humans.

  • snek_boi@lemmy.mlOP
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    28 days ago

    Here’s some I know:

  • HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml
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    28 days ago

    Some examples in no particular order:

    • Cowbirds lay eggs in other birds’ nests, and if the other bird kicks their eggs out, the cowbird will come back and destroy the nest.

    • You’ve probably heard of female black widows eating the male after mating, but did you know that this is so common among spiders that the males of some species are literally hardwired to automatically die during or after mating? Makes the whole process easier and prevents the male from getting away.

    • Toxoplasmosis mind controls mice and makes them seek out cats so they get eaten and the parasite can move on to the cat.

    • The hyena birth canal. If you think human childbirth is excruciating… you’d be right actually, we’re pretty high up there on the list of animals with the worst birthing experiences, but hyenas have it even worse.

    • There’s a parasite that goes into a fish’s mouth, eats its tongue, and attaches itself to where the tongue used to be and essentially becomes the fish’s tongue.

    • Hamsters eat some of their own offspring if they have too many to ensure they have enough resources to properly care for the rest.

    • Baby sharks try to kill and eat each other in the mother’s uterus.

  • Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    Pigs. Pigs take one generation to revert to feral state and are naturally pack hunting, intelligent, omnivores. Right now Texas and Florida is dealing with cases of hogs pulling apart horses to eat. There are cases where the hogs followed hunters home and trashed the place in retaliation.

    It’s a testament to our hubris that we’ve kept pigs and dogs for so long. Dogs won’t recover, but pigs only need a year to come back for blood.

  • 0x01@lemmy.ml
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    29 days ago

    Predators eating prey alive, like lions eating bison from their bellies first.

  • phantomwise@lemmy.ml
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    27 days ago

    Malaria. Cholera. The black death. Syphilis. I could go on but you probably get the point…

  • NONE@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    Any documentary that talks about the life of insects and smaller animals is a horror film.

  • fulcrummed@lemmy.world
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    29 days ago

    Jeeze, I’m an outlier - my first thought was the beautiful spiral of a pine cone. Anything that has the Fibonacci spiral, but picking up a pine cone from a quiet, rain-soaked forest path where every footstep is cushioned by fallen needles and leaves. There are many types of cones, but the hard ones that have spread all their seeds form the most beautiful and uniform spirals. To a non-believer, it feels like one of the greatest arguments for the existence of an intelligent higher power

    • snek_boi@lemmy.mlOP
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      28 days ago

      Pinecones are indeed beautiful. However, they are decidedly not one of the greatest arguments for the existence of an intelligent higher power. In fact, the whole claim about pinecones having the Fibonacci sequence is false https://youtu.be/1Jj-sJ78O6M

      Additionally, I wouldn’t think that cones having nice shapes are an example of nature being brutal and grotesque. But I suppose you wanted to make the opposite argument: that nature is perfect and beautiful.