6234364 6234367
Ok, fine, so 6234367 said a tautology. It wasn't a proper or good way to present his argument. Single liners rarely are. The end. Either of you present a good argument or start calling each other "no, you," on PMs. You've posted a dozen posts where you both say nothing.

6234376
My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.

6234378
.... I actually liked your side of the argument...

6234374
Europa is a flamer who seems to do nothing but find some thread to be a troll in.

6234378
Will miss you bby, , now where will I watch people get triggered by people pointing out flaws in their thought processes?

6234378
Every time I see you, you seem to be arguing with somebody. I dunno if it is your fault but its kinda got to the point where I avoid you when I can. i honestly prefer rational debates that aren't reduced to stupid squabbling...

you're working under the assumption that humans don't have their roots in a prey species

Never said I was an angel. I just pointed out that rational debate was seriously scarce in threads that try starting it because they become unnecessary arguments. I honestly refuse to start debate threads because someone who doesn't understand the difference between debating and arguing always seems to ruin the ones I've visited.

6234370

6234367
I don't know which is funnier the dick fighting competition or the fact that this thread is even a thing

6234384
I demand milkshakes!

6234548
I think both are pretty funny

6234548
A dickfight would be far less violent and far more rational...

6234158
You never spent even five minutes looking at horse history, did you?

There's a lot of records of meat-eating and murderous horses across history, including as far back as Greek mythology.

Here's a book for you: Deadly Equines
Also on Amazon.

A more immediately approachable article on horsetalk.co.nz: Horses as meat-eating killers?

For those that won't bother to view the links, I'll note that horses being docile can be partially explained by frequent and favorable contact with human handlers. Why wouldn't they be nice around us, if we were providers of food and safe shelter? One also has to keep in mind that they are powerful creatures you could colloquially declare to be essentially living walls of muscle. We took them into war for centuries for a reason, after all. You should also look at the teeth horses have, because they are not flat like some mistakenly believe. I could go on, but I digress.

Something else to keep in mind: 'Herbivore' often just means 'opportunistic carnivore'.

6234378
You could have held better restraint, but you were mildly amusing in your eloquence.

Poorly thought statements often do not like to accept being called out for what they are. Tantrums of the immature also speak for themselves.

6234345
A few things:

1. The reason the ponies are not a prey species is because their entire ecosystem, planet, and seasons somehow revolve around them.

2. I agree with your point on the apex predator thing.

3. Wolves (at least the ones I've experienced, although they might be coyotes, I'm not sure) are quite easy to scare off with a big stick.

4. In fact, we don't have much to go on with the ponies because the only enemies they've faced are literally mad gods. And, they are all defeated by a bunch of civilians with magic

5. If go to the Sombra timeline episode, you'll see how ponies fight. It is, uhhh, really bad... I mean, look at this!

Um... Ok...

I was going to point out that horses are actually capable of some brutal violence in real life, and that I saw them viciously attack each other when I was a stable hand, but...

6234370
6234374
6234378
You guys need to calm down...?

6234647
1. The reason they are not a prey species is simply because there is no other species that subsists on them. A predator species like Timberwolves would not stop from eating them because they'd worry about the sun coming up since they can't comprehend the idea. They have simply taken their species out of the loop, same as mankind.

2. Okay, cool.

3. It very much depends on the animal to be honest, and I don't mean just the type. Predators for instance are usually a meal away from starving, and it takes very often more than a single try to cap a kill. Meet a couple of wolves when they are pretty content, they are not going to pick up a fight. Why should they? They are not hungry enough and you seem more trouble than it's worth with the almost bear-like stance and painful stick. Make a pack of them though and get them pretty starving and you are in trouble. Much more if they've never experienced guns and thus don't have experience compunctions about attacking your kind. You are fucked then.

4. The fact that they have faced single or mass enemies has nothing to do with the main idea of what you quoted, which is that their instincts are inferior because they are herbivores. First of all, the instinct in question is called 'fight or flight' and is present on every single animal, including us. Second, the idea that being destructive and violent in states of fear or anger means control is emphatically wrong. These are actually the absolute worst instincts for a intellect-resources creature to have in a crisis. I don't know if you or the person you quoted meant to mean that these attributes are desirable in war and combat, but if you were then you are doubly wrong. The value of berserkers was demolished a long, long time ago, and the fantasy of an angry man with a gun fucking shit is a fantasy*.

*Note that there have been truthful incidents of these happening, but these were ocassions of what is known as cold rage. A determined and almost emotion deprived removal of enemy forces, bordering on the robotic. There were virtually no instincts involved in such cases. In fact, these very instincts often worked against the massed enemy forces.

The main case is that what the quote took pride in is actually a defect and an undesirable 'cornered animal' instinct.

5. The fact that an animated show of colorful horses, designed and animated for a targeted prime demographic of very young girls is portrayed in this fashion feels me with sheer wonder and puzzlement. It is unimaginable that this would happen. #sarcasm

Almost as unimaginable as a person trying to measure their e-peen against them and come out losing because of lack of using what made their race an apex predator in the first place.

6234871
An image of you slapping Angry Russian, Europa, and Dreadknight with a book titled facts just appeared in my head. Have a follow

I'm personally of the opinion that while the mentality of ponies' is similar to ours (for obvious reasons), they are still different enough to notice, and it is mainly due to the differences between our histories.

For instance, for over a thousand years ponies have had god-like figures to guide their civilization. That's already grounds to significant divergences in attitudes and mentalities when compared to our own. Where they had a long-lived leader to continually shepherd them, humans have had no such luck and have had to deal with countless of both good and bad leaders -- more of the latter than the former often times.

That in of itself is enough for people to develop differently, biological differences notwithstanding. I'm fairly certain that were a human and pony to switch places at birth, you'd find that the human would grow to act a more like a pony and the pony would act more like a human as an adult.

Granted, I'm still oversimplifying things, because there are a lot of other factors that would affect our two species' mental development (the ability to control weather or the lack of, the presence of other sapient species, the presence of magic itself, etc.)

I do think that this is a worthwhile discussion to have, but we need to be careful with how we handle it. It's too easy for people to go 'Humanity, rah rah!' or 'Ponies > all'.

6234158 A horse, or pony, on earth is actually far more likely to rear up and smash your skull than to run away when you scream at it. Have you ever seen how horses/ponies establish dominance between males, and how males will drive other males out of their groups? Their equivalent to hands are basically a set of gigantic, relatively sharp, hardened morningstars. And they use them as such in fights. They don't bash their heads together, or run away from each other. They square up and whoever retreats first in the face of blindness, severe cranial damage, brain damage and/or severe facial lacerations is the loser. Ponies in Equestria seem to fight the same way. Also, real-world horses retreat behind the leader and then look to the leader to determine how to act; if the leader runs they run, if the leader fights they'll fight along with him or her.

Humans aren't apex predators, either. They're pursuit predation omnivores. That means humans have stamina, and they have tenacity. Humans aren't abnormally violent, they aren't abnormally angry. Everything on earth has the same set of fight/flight instincts; as the saying goes the cornered rat bites the cat and humans are no different, they fight back when there isn't a better choice available. What humans are is tribal, unwilling to give up anything, unwilling to admit defeat even in the face of impossible odds and reliant on brain power to overcome a laundry list of physical shortcomings so long that 'laughable' doesn't even begin to describe it. The few things humans have in their favour are a large brain, an overactive scarring response, a hyperactive fight/flight response, excessive pattern recognition heuristics and being bipedal. However, faced with any animal with claws, teeth, hooves, or weight on its side and unarmed, a human is nothing more than a squishy sack full of hard bits. IF they survive the initial attack, the human will likely survive with horrible scarring. Funnily enough, the one thing humans are much better than most at is surviving what should be life-ending injuries, like amputations for example.

As to humans 'destroying what scares them with brutal efficiency' they don't excepting very specific things. They either tame it (see; dogs/wolves, elephants, aurochs/cattle or pigs/wild boar), learn how to avoid drawing its ire (see; bears, rhinos, lions, tigers, cheetahs, sharks...) or mitigate it (snakes, pests). The 'brutal efficiency' is reserved for existential threats and things that cannot, feasibly, be avoided like diseases or rabid animals or other humans.

The ponies of Equestria are presented as being very human-like in mannerism, intelligence, fight/flight response, pattern recognition heuristic and civilization paradigm. The prime example of a difference, however, is that they fight like horses do: fight the target until it surrenders, retreats or dies. In comparison, humans fighting a war fight with the sole end-goal of removing the target's ability to fight back or killing the target. Two different philosophies, but neither one is better than the other. They have parity.

6234158

 humans get violent when frightened or angry and destroy whatever scares them with brutal efficiency."

If you get violent whenever you are scared that means you have

 let their fear control them,

6234247

just because it sounds edgy doesnt mean it isnt true, look at every war ever, we devoted entire branches of science to finding more efficient ways to end peoples lives

The civilised world went from summary execution to firing squads to long drop hanging and now have abolished capital punishment.

All the good countries on the planet have an aversion to kill people efficiently.

6234370

I honestly detest Europa because every thread I've been in where they have appeared has turned into a warzone. 

Dear 6234378 wouldn't start argument with you vapid adolescents if you didn't spout utter tripe with every thread posted.

They have to be right all the time and everyone else is supposedly an idiot for not agreeing with them.

Sorry to inform you but if your best argument is "this person tries to be right all the time" it's implied admission of you being wrong.

All the time.

6234917
I'm mostly in agreement with everything here. You only made one tiny mistake in regards to cheetahs. Sure, they have never been domesticated, but they have often been kept as pets, because unlike many other big cats, they simply don't have the raw strength or even weight to be a serious threat to a fully grown adult human.

Irrelevant to the discussion at hand perhaps, but I'm like that, so sorry for bothering you with that minutiae.

Holy shit there's a second page.
6234416

now where will I watch people get triggered by people pointing out flaws in their thought processes?

The mirror.

6234925 No no, not a bother at all. Thank you for correcting me on something I got wrong. However, I would posit that lack of domestication relegates them to the 'learned how to not draw their ire' pot or the 'mitigation' pot, given that not all humans are fully grown adults. Protecting those who are vulnerable to their predation has to fall into a category.

6234158

There are many cases humans simply get overwhelmed in fear and run in terror. Imagine if a zombie even if it was slow was coming at you, many would be too terrified to even fight thing and simply run away.

There are many cowards among us, there's a reason why soldiers need to be trained. But even big conditioned for combat, they sometimes get post-traumatic stress disorder, due to exposure to violence and death. And possibly seeing the loose of their friends in battle.

The only reason we can kill bears is because we use guns or spears.

6234928
Fair enough. The classification that you used was a bit vague, so I made the wrong interpretation.

I'm just glad that we're clear on that particular detail.

6234345
Humans are apex predators because we reside at the top of the food chain meaning we hunt but aren't actively hunted by other species. Also you're assumption that apex predators are determined by physical features is simply ignorant, is an elephant an apex predator? I mean it has thick skin and large tusks. See what I mean? And these aren't buzzwords they are clearly defined terms that apply to these creatures. By the way pony's are prey because they are herbivores and we have seen that they are preyed upon by the windegoes(not sure how to spell that).

6234992
Apparently, you skipped over my massive wall of text. Here is the definition one more time. Please, read it this time.

An apex predator, also known as an alpha predator or apical predator, is a predator residing at the top of a food chain upon which no other creatures prey. Apex predators are usually defined in terms of trophic dynamics, meaning that apex-predator species occupy the highest trophic level or levels and play a crucial role in maintaining the health of their ecosystems.

The ponies are not actively hunted by other species, and are not part of the food chain of any other species. Also, I made no assumption as to the physical features. The example of a human having no physical features that distinguish it as an apex predator was pointed out to show that it is exactly NOT these features that define an Apex Predator species. In fact, compared against a pegasus or a unicorn, the average human comes out much more vulnerable as he has neither flight or magical capabilities ON TOP of intellectual capacity.

Herbivorism or diet doesn't qualify either. Eating meat gives no special privilege. By the assumption that because they are herbivores means they are not an Apex Predator species means that vegetarians are also disqualified.

EDIT: I am going to make an insert here however to address a misconception. There are, in the real world, a number of Apex Predators. Technically, although the issue is a bit muddled, Humans are not one.

The reason is that we are not, any longer, either a predator OR prey species. We do however impact the food chain, and that of course happens although we actually subside much further on a herbivore than carnivore diet. This is a result of the fact that we have actually taken ourselves out of the chain and we simply jump up and down the links, completely able to impact them all.

The term 'Apex Predator' however is very often used in media and casual discussion to elaborate on this property of our species, installing ourselves as the only one, although perhaps a term like an Apex Species would be far more suitable. For our purposes, consider we mean this when we say Apex Predator even though the exact term is wrong when applied on BOTH Humanity and fantasy ponies as both species have reached Apex Species status.

The term prey refers to an animal that is sought, captured, and eaten by a predator. A predator is an animal that hunts and kills other animals for food in an act called predation. Smaller predators, such as mice and lizards can be, and often are, prey for larger predators.

Ponies are not seen as a prey species by any other predator species, thus they are not. Will a large predator attack one if given the chance? Yes, same as a large predator would attack a human. In these cases, the individuals, pony and human alike, would become prey. Surprisingly, this does not transform their species to a Prey Species. Crazy, right?

The key characteristic of predation is the predator's direct impact on the prey population.

This is taken right of of the wikipedia page on predation. It is quite easy to see that either pony or human are not typically a prey species, as NEITHER's population is impacted by another species chomping down on them regularly enough to make a dent.

Also, your example with the Windigoes fails on two levels. First, there is no predation done by the Windogoes or however they are spelled in the show. They were merely creating winter with their presence, attracted by the ponies infighting. Secondly, from what we know so far they may just be a mythos and are as eligible as saying that we are a prey species because trolls eat us.

6234912
I agree with you fully.

I hereby retract my former points

6234924
If your response in a debate is to state your opinion and insult everyone because they don’t agree with you, then claim you are rage quitting the site because someone notices you make a habit of being a troll instead of actually acting acting like a decent human being, its hard to take any arguments in their defense seriously when they seem to act like a spoiled child more than a rational adult

6235132
You know, Europa did have a point though. He countered Dreadknight's... argument, and then DK started accusing him of only being an asshole and trying to prove his opinion superior (which, let's face it, was not an opinion. DK said an empty tautology and Europa called him out on that). Look through the conversation again and you will see that it is DK who's twisting and adding a little more perceived insult and then firing off even worse while never answering the core of the subject and egging Europa on. He even called Europa a fag while Europa never used an insult himself, only calling certain theories stupid or idiotic.

I don't know what you mean in other threads, and I haven't noticed him doing anything other than defending his arguments and opinions. I rather think he has been so quite well, absently remembering, but I think he has been falling prey more to trolls himself rather than being one himself. Herem at the very least, Europa acted more like a frustrated adult trying to deal with a sullen, insulting man-child than anything.

Then taking all this patience to act properly and being called the troll instead? Well, yeah he was right to huff.

Yeah, this is a circlejerk of HaS. Honestly kind of want some aliens like the ones in the Forth Wave to just destroy us so that people like you see the truth. We are fragile, our society is fragile, and literally one solar flare could plunge our society to the middle ages.

6235149
I admit that I could have handled things better... He had a habit of trolling my obviously sarcastic posts with cold hard logic a while back and would call me an idiot for not making a logical argument which left me biased on not liking him. I have a hard time liking anyone with no sense of humor and completely ruins jokes with logic...

6234158
Yes, but there are people that are extremely docile and nice and couldn't hurt a fly. And I'm pretty sure if you and a lion where thrown into an arena and the winner got to live... I'm pretty sure the lion wins this fight 9 times out of 10.

6234345
I FUCKING LOVE YOU SIR OR MADAME!!!

6234257
When was he a dismissive asshole? Please explain this to me, cause all I see is him/her pointing out their reasoning... and then you called him an asshole!

6234328
Rewatch the epsiodes then speak

6235132

If your response in a debate is to state your opinion and insult everyone because they don’t agree with you,

It was Greenknight who started making it personal, not Europa.

 its hard to take any arguments in their defense seriously when they seem to act like a spoiled child more than a rational adult

I honestly detest Europa because every thread I've been in where they have appeared has turned into a warzone. They have to be right all the time and everyone else is supposedly an idiot for not agreeing with them.

The lack of self awareness is hilarious.

6235464
I honestly remember you too which is why I don't really care what you have to say either...

I’m pretty sure I remember someone with the same picture and and a screename with the words lorenzo and Coco combined, trolling a friend of mine and openly attacking them in a thread a couple months ago, nearly getting themselves banned in the process...

6234158

kinda? maybe? I mean its a bit more complicated then that, but as ive read the five primary reactions humans have to Psychological Trauma is fight, flight, friend, freeze, and flop, and in fact friend is the first reaction we learn as babies (http://unsfoundation.blogspot.ca/2014/03/psychological-trauma-five-fs-fight.html) . Also, humans being the apex predator is actually somewhat debatable, because although weve managed to dominate the environment and the planet weve done so through the use of tools and being really good at building shit, our species is omnivorous in our diets, and our social behavior is closer to a herd species then a pack one. We have predatory aspects, cause ya know omnivores, but we just arent the slick carnivores we like to imagine ourselves. Especially since the average human trophic level (measurement of a species’ position in the food web) is a piddling 2.21 compared to other apex predators which can have trophic levels as high as 5.5, and in fact the highest the human species reach on the trophic level is around 2.6 (america for reference is between 2.4 and 2.5 on the trophic level) well an animal that would exclusively eat plants, such as how mlp ponies are usually portrayed as or indeed vegans, would rate as a 2 on the trophic level (http://earthsky.org/human-world/humans-arent-top-predators-says-new-report , http://www.businessinsider.com/map-of-human-trophic-levels-2013-12).

as such, id say its perfectly acceptable that someone put in such a situation would hypothetically act fairly similar to a pony at their worse (IE scream and cry) especially if put in such a baffling situation with no social support from their own species to fall back on. Personally id say, its simply easier to rage and possibly be efficient or productive (though humans also tend to make really stupid decisions when angry) in a group or when having others and more resources to fall back on, a bit harder when your effectively isolated though you can still be efficient and productive in such a situation with the right mindset. Though this is all just my personal conjuncture, and honestly if one wants to write a more realistic approach to a human reaction to such a situation it would be better to just read case studies of say humans having to survive in an isolated or dangerous situation like being lost alone in the wilderness.

EDIT: none of this excuses lazy writing btw, im just a downer on HFY.

6235477

I honestly remember you too which is why I don't really care what you have to say either...

 insult everyone because they don’t agree with you, 

Good work there champ.

I’m pretty sure I remember someone with the same picture and and a screename with the words lorenzo and Coco combined, trolling a friend of mine and openly attacking them in a thread a couple months ago, nearly getting themselves banned in the process...

That's some pretty weak shit you got there.

6235013
OK I'll admit that I was wrong on a number of points though to my knowledge humans were apex predators before we took ourselves out of the food chain. And I find it interesting that you brought up the point that humans have distanced themselves from the food chain (I had never heard of this and as such was still under the assumption that humans were still apex predators) as it brings up the possibility of the ponies having done the same thing, though it's not really visible whether or not the ponies did this. Furthermore I did indeed skip over a lot of you're comment as it seemed like it was going to be mad ramblings because of the buzzwords part and the part where it looked like you were trying to link appearance to position in the food chain, I should have read the full comment before responding.
One last thing I know it will sound petty but vegetarianism is a choice not a species wide diet, though I more so meant that most small to mid sized herbivores are prey animals and that very few herbivores are at the top of their food chain. Though you are right they could have been I just wanted to point out that it's uncommon.

6235521
Your trolling is the weak shit. I suggest trying again when it isn't so obvious (hard to do when your profile practically self advertises it) or pathetic. (But seeing as trolls are seen as nothing but the lowest form of pathetic scum on the internet, I might as well block you now and save myself the headache later.)

6235542
>Anyone who disagrees with me is trolling

Real mature.

6235570
I only accuse that of the idiots who are obviously on the site for no greater purpose than to argue.

6235581
Arguing and trolling are not the same thing.

6235601
Then please enlighten the world of how endlessly keeping an argument going simply for your own amusement is not being a troll?

6235610

Then please enlighten the world of how endlessly keeping an argument going simply for your own amusement is not being a troll?

You're doing it too.

6235628
I've been just wanting it to end and you to leave me the hell alone this entire time...