Generic Gamer said:
Jamboxdotcom said:
CloudKiller said:
Wow, I thought I had an original idea for a second.Bobic said:
An... interesting hypothetical
- Thread starter hittite
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I'm sorry, but I just have to point out how stupid this is, biologically speaking.Talshere said:
If their very body chemistry is based on carbon, they never would have survived long enough to actually evolve into anything with a specialised organ to deal with arsenic. The very first proto-lifeform would have starved to death.
Talk to them about it. Maybe they know something you don't, or have a method for treating food to make it edible for you.
If it comes down to it, see if you can work out some sort of deal where if one of them dies of natural causes, you get to keep the meat. If it's stored properly and rationed, it could work.
All in all, however, I would rather die slowly from hunger before murdering an innocent person.
If it comes down to it, see if you can work out some sort of deal where if one of them dies of natural causes, you get to keep the meat. If it's stored properly and rationed, it could work.
All in all, however, I would rather die slowly from hunger before murdering an innocent person.
wait till one of the natives dies then fry 'em up.
same with every canibalism question, I won't murder somebody for food but if they're already dead, well, I wouldn't care if somebody made my body into say, a meat pie, if I were already dead.
same with every canibalism question, I won't murder somebody for food but if they're already dead, well, I wouldn't care if somebody made my body into say, a meat pie, if I were already dead.
Yes, but note how arsenic-free our environment is. By setting every single most other life-forms as arsenic based, you essentially state "there is a significant percentage of arsenic in the environment".Talshere said:
And as a specialized organ cannot evolve before the organism it is part of actually lives and survives, but at the same time the organism cannot survive without the organ. This means either there are other sources of nutrient that are arsenic-free (violating the OP condition), or divine intervention of some kind must have happened to allow for that specific organism to live long enough to evolve an arsenic-dealing mechanism while retain inherent non-compatibility with the arsenic-based life.
Ie. There is no logical way for this to have happened - invoking magic is the only solution.
No, an isolated environment that for the most part remained so for a sufficient length of time could breed an organism capable of developing such an organ. You dont need a large area. Just an area that has remained unaffected, or with limited contamination for sufficient time. Just because the dodo evolved to have no fear response doesn't mean it couldn't have learned one given time.SakSak said:
If both sets of life evolved simultaneously, then by the time life had become able to encroach on the environment, the other life would be evolved enough to adapt.
EDIT: By the time the environment became contaminated beyond repair, it is plausible that life could have evolved to cope. Which would also support the reasoning behind there only being one form of carbon life.
I'd eat them for a while in order to give them time to find a substitute. Or if that doesn't work, for as long as they can benefit from my knowledge and strange culture. There have to be criminals and such in their community as well that they wouldn't mind me eating. That is of course if corpses are out of the question?
They can eat the food I can't but I can eat them. If they eat things poisonous or inedible to me, I think most likely they would also poisonous or inedible. There would also likely be similar animals I could eat. But to answer your question, I would ask for a weapon to kill myself.hittite said:
Non-sufficient amounts to kill would not likely have established a driving evolutionary pressure and lethal amounts would have made the organism extinct. You'll notice that despite Arsenic being something like in the top 15 elements composing our bodies, we still don't have an organ specializing for dealing with it - and inorganic forms of it are particularly difficult for our metabolism to deal with.Talshere said:
What I'm questioning is the existance of a specialized organ. That requires significant and constant evolutionary pressure, organisms with it must have survived particularly well in comparison to carbon-based ones without it. But at the same time, I believe such concentrations would have been inherently lethal to the point of inducing extinction. Not to mention arsenic-based life-forms competing for space and resources being far, far more suited to the environment.
And yet supposedly, the carbon based life was the one to reach sapience - meaning it had sufficient energy available for the development of a brain.
I'm not buying that. Everything I know of biology and species development(which admittedly is restricted to basic university courses) just screams at me "this is not right."
actually, if the natives have tissue that you can eat that lets you absorb the nutrients that you need to survive as a human, then they had to get those nutrients through some means, which you could repeat and spare the locals.hittite said:
I win.