Cartoon 835: On the Menu

We bask in being the pentacle of creation. Our religion confirms this status. We are to have dominion over all creatures great and small. But with most of our assertions, it comes with an asterisk.

Undoubtedly man is the most successful creature on the earth after microorganisms and insects. He manipulates his earthly environment on a grand scale. Any creature can become his sustenance [food].

Intelligence and technology is not the ultimate reason man is at the top of the food chain. They are attributes derived from something else. The real reason is numbers of people. It allows division of labor. It facilitates everything else. The numbers of people are the result of human success with husbandry.

However, remove man from his secure domicile and things change. In many niche areas man is not the top predator. In the sea sharks rise higher. In the forest and ice lands bears rise higher. In the jungles, lions, tigers and some snakes rise higher. In the swamps it is alligators and crocodiles.

The illusion of dominance by man is perpetuated by how the story is told. We focus on our technological advantage in carefully crafted confrontations [hunting]. We recoil from encounters that do not go our way. We do not dwell on the thousands of people consumed each year by creatures that kill.

There is a hierarchy in the biological kingdom. It may be a universal truth. Each species is subject to be the prey of the species above it in dominance. We may one day get a very unpleasant awakening. It seems very clear with all the planets being discovered that statistically there must be alien life. It is also statistically likely there is advanced alien life.

The Aliens would likely be higher up in an inter species hierarchy than man. They would possess greater technology and intelligence to show up on our door step. It is possible we could find ourselves delectable [food] to the aliens.