The threads, by themselves, seem insignificant, but wind them around each other, twist a bit, and the strength is incredible.
On one thread, re immigration and Trump’s stupid wall, I made a comment (only half tongue in cheek)about how the U.S. would benefit from unlimited immigration because anybody coming in would be smarter than that stubborn 30% of Americans who believe the Earth is 6,000 years old, Noah’s Ark is a literal story, and global warming is a hoax. There was only one response, from a woman who said “Noah’s Ark is literal, global warming is a hoax and Jesus is Lord.” I suspected she might be responding in sarcastic mode, and checked her profile. Jesus all over the damned place.
Then, I was reading about octopus intelligence. There were several examples of how they could get out of their tanks whenever they felt like it, and how they could communicate with human beings. Pretty amazing stuff.
Anyway, one strange side effect of our current climate changes is that octopi are actually having a population explosion. It’s not hard to figure out why. Octopi lay hundreds of thousands of eggs at a time, on the evolutionary principle of massive numbers ensure a few survivors. Almost all of the eggs wind up as fish food. But, as so many other fish in the ocean are dying, huge numbers of octopi are being born and reaching adulthood. Of course, they may in turn succumb to starvation, but along the way they may become the dominant life form of the ocean, even of the entire planet, much in the way that after dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid, tiny mouse sized mammals began to evolve and eventually became us.
So, even if global warming wipes out the human race, it may just make way for some future intelligent octopodal species.
As a human being, I think we should avoid going down that road.
