Elephants should have never let homo sapiens evolve?

[MajorMitchell]

Elephants have huge brains and ancient Elephants must have been more intelligent than primitive species of humans.
The failure of Elephants to become the apex predator that homo sapiens is was a serious strategic mistake in my opinion.
The lack of hands with proper thumbs was clearly a significant disadvantage for Elephants in becoming advanced tool makers.

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Tool use is a compelling explanation for human supremacy, but I wonder if it points to something deeper.

Intelligent animals all seem to accumulate knowledge ("culture") in a manner that extends their physical abilities. Dawkins calls this the "extended phenotype" because it works a lot like genetics — smart animals receive a cultural inheritance that improves their adaptability.

Human supremacy seems to be based on our unique ability to develop and pass on an extraordinarily complex culture. Tool use is one part of this, but it extends also to hunting and foraging techniques, new societal arrangements, the ability to sustain viable cooperating groups of ever larger sizes, etc.

The role of thumbs in this context is interesting. Maybe we only evolved this costly and complex cultural ability because our innate ability to make tools synergizes so well with it, but conversely our cultural abilities are a big part of what allow us to get the full advantage from tools — a quintessential chicken-and-egg problem.

In a counterfactual where elephants grew to match our linguistic and cultural ability but kept their current physiology I wonder whether the lack of thumbs would be an issue — maybe thousands of years of elephant culture and technology at this higher level could develop all sorts of tools that work well with trunks, and maybe the process of becoming tool reliant would feedback into selective pressures on elephants for improved foot and trunk dexterity.

[GuineaPig]

The failure of Elephants to become the apex predator that homo sapiens is was a serious strategic mistake in my opinion.

Regardless of the absence of thumbs or the presence of that long prehensile trunk, this stubbornness about remaining herbivores didn't help at all to turn into an apex predator.

Speaking of thumbs, a chimpanzee has twice as many thumbs as a human.

[Jamiet99uk]

Why is this discussion in the politics thread?

Is it because US Republicans are seen as being more pro-elephant than the donkey-loving Democrats?

[Octavious]

Why is this discussion in the politics thread?

Is it because US Republicans are seen as being more pro-elephant than the donkey-loving Democrats?

If you were being generous you could use it as a metaphor for the West's attempt to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons...

[Octavious]

Or perhaps he's mourning the missed opportunity the USA had to become the head of a global empire when it was the only nuclear power and could have conquered every nation on Earth

[MajorMitchell]

Dear Octavious, the notion that the rebellious colonies in north America should conquer every nation on earth is a blasphemous heresy imho

On Iran, it is good to see several of it's psychopath rulers be killed in a helicopter crash

[Octavious]

Absolutely. No man is an island, every bastard's death enriches us all, and all that. And I have to say that I found their funeral, in which their coffins were draped in the cheap plastic table cloths and laminated menus of the greasy spoon cafes of respect, deeply appropriate.

But as for American global imperial ambitions... They could have done it. Probably the only time that a nation has ever been tempted with such power. And they chose not to. America has a great many faults, but ultimately they passed the greatest test.