• KittenBiscuits@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    Dead and desiccated bodies around a body of water that has dried up. Fish, antelope, wildebeest, etc.

    • KittenBiscuits@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      14 days ago

      Also, I saw an eagle try to catch a snake once, and the snake was a constrictor. The snake wrapped itself around the eagle, grounding it. Neither were letting go, neither were going to survive. It was pretty metal, and it wasn’t beautiful. Definitely grotesque and brutal.

  • snek_boi@lemmy.mlOP
    0·
    14 days ago

    Here’s some I know:

    • Dolphins rape other dolphins
    • Praying mantis females often eat the head of males they have sex with. Some spiders do that too.
    • Mass extinctions have occurred in the past, way before humans existed
    • Genetic mutations often lead to inviable offspring or awful conditions (I don’t know specific examples off the top of my head)
    • Parasites can take control of insects and lead them to drown (also don’t know examples off the top of my head)
    • snek_boi@lemmy.mlOP
      0·
      14 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.

        • Iunnrais@lemm.ee
          0·
          13 days ago

          Not to me. Sounds more like someone who’s been in a lot of social media arguments, has a vague understanding of the counter arguments, and is trying to solidify their answer to it.

    • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
      0·
      13 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.

  • 0x01@lemmy.ml
    0·
    14 days ago

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

  • fulcrummed@lemmy.world
    0·
    14 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
      0·
      14 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.

  • bassicvgyn@lemmy.vgEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    I think there probably are some things that we could agree are universally disgusting , but it would still be a subjective opinion, just one that no one would argue. What I mean to say is that beauty and ugliness are human constructs, they don’t actually exist. It would be kind of pointless to go back and forth with someone countering examples of beauty with examples of ugliness.

    • snek_boi@lemmy.mlOP
      0·
      14 days ago

      I agree that there’s a layer of human subjectivity in this whole discussion. Within that layer, I think it’s okay to get a gut sense that nature is brutal and grotesque. My goal is to avoid romanticizing nature.

      Once we’re able to avoid our human bias of romanticizing nature, we can take the discussion to another layer, a layer that could be called more objective.

      For example, we could talk about entropy and evolution’s attempts to fight against it. We could talk about evolution occurring at multiple scales and dimensions simultaneously, such as atomic structures, cells, and multicellular organisms. These are examples of assemblages, and they expand the possible behaviors of the parts. In other words, assemblages make the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

      So, how does entropy, evolution, and assemblages connect with our discussion? Well, brutality and grotesqueness can usually be translated into the language of entropy and assemblages. Killing someone destroys an assemblage and increases entropy. Torture and trauma reduce the probability of an organism exhibiting variation in their behaviors. They reduce the emergent properties of the assemblage.

      Is it always better to choose the language of entropy and assemblages over brutality and grotesqueness? No. Context matters. Again, if the goal is merely to avoid the romanticization of nature, the brutality and grotesqueness layer is appropriate.

      • bassicvgyn@lemmy.vgEnglish
        0·
        14 days ago

        Definitely some interesting thoughts here. I do think you need to ask yourself if you aren’t romanticizing in the opposite direction.

        • snek_boi@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
          0·
          14 days ago

          After reading what I have posted, it’s totally fair to believe that I do not find beauty or inspiration in nature. However, I can give you some reassurance.

          How? Well, I actually I find the battle against entropy amazing and inspiring. A while ago I was sipping tea while my dog nestled next to me, and I was moved thinking about how we make each other so happy. I am also moved by people, people who look beyond their belly button, people who are kind, people who are good at what they do.

          It’s not just that we’re doomed to accept brutality and appreciate tiny slivers of beauty. There’s actually steps that we can take to support life. For example, we can become a part of an assemblage that we like. Sometimes that assemblage is a group of friends, a political group, or an organization. You know you’re in the right place when your incentives align with that of the group. There’s an alignment around shared values, shared goals. Your atoms are keeping your structural integrity. Your cells are keeping you alive. Your thoughts are aiding you in problem solving and connecting with others. And your friends are connecting with you.

          There’s quite a bit more to this, so if you’re interested in this way of understanding the world, you can check out Prosocial by evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson and psychologists Paul W. B. Atkins and Steven C. Hayes.

          • mranachi@aussie.zone
            0·
            13 days ago

            I have to ask what you mean by fight against entropy? Are you referring to the apparent paradox that complex life goes against the idea of entropy tending to increase?
            It is, however, only apparent. Assembleages, as you call them, are just possible expressions of energy in the system. Like if you put energy into a double pendulum in can swing in complex patterns. When you make any local reduction to entropy, by assembling order, it necessarily comes at the cost of increased ‘global’ entropy. That’s the meaning of the second law. Nobody can fight against it, without reversing the direction of time.

            • snek_boi@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
              0·
              13 days ago

              I’d say the fight against entropy is an attempt to retain specific expressions of energy in the system. The expressions of energy are assemblages that have created order. And yes, as you said, the creation of order has a cost: greater global entropy.

              In case you’re interested, this way of looking at entropy and life come from Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker.

  • HiddenLayer555@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    14 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.

  • hansolo@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    14 days ago

    The insect world is a tiny nightmarish hellscape of armor, weapons, and sudden death.

    Also, evolution isn’t maximally efficient, it’s just barely efficient enough. Eyes are a janky, often low-fi is good enough, affair. 99.9% of species that have ever existed are extinct. 99.9999999999% of species alive today do the bare friggin’ minimum to throw DNA into either the wind or a hole and maaaaybe do nothing more than reproduce.

    The Helicoprion existed.

    Jellyfish. WTF?

  • NONE@lemmy.world
    0·
    14 days ago

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