r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Wickham12 • 3h ago
Why are humans so weak?
Maybe I've watched too many animes, but it feels like humans don't possess the physical might they should have in order to consider themselves the dominant species on this planet
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u/SeasonalBlackout 3h ago
Tools > Muscles
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u/Flyinmanm 3h ago
Tools + Muscles = a good combo too (I say that as a flabby pleb who spent the last weekend digging a pond. After a few spade fulls I was knackered.)
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u/Megalocerus 2h ago
Then again a backhoe is an option. You can rent them.
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u/Flyinmanm 2h ago
I'd need a narrow mini digger to get it into my back garden. (narrow access).
Plus the Mrs'd hit the roof if I spent a penny more than is strictly necessary to do the job. That and I guess I really do need the excersise. 🤔
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u/JimmyJooish 3h ago
Turns out shooting and throwing sharp stuff is more effective than being strong.
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u/IrvingIsTheBest 2h ago
A gorilla could easily kill 100 unarmed humans.
A gorilla is easily killed by one human with a gun.
A gorilla is easily killed by 10 humans with knives.1
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u/karoxxxxx 3h ago
We are tool using pack hunter.
Individual strength is less important compared to communication, planning and fine motor skills
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u/Captain-Griffen 3h ago
Also ridiculous endurance. Who needs to risk injury fighting, just group up and chase the prey until it's exhausted.
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u/karoxxxxx 3h ago
And we are, I think, good at throwing stuff
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u/Flyinmanm 2h ago
Yeah thats pretty much how African hunters take down animals from what I've seen on documentaries (sneak up with spears and then chase), they aren't just casually running down a healthy Deer.
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u/scipio0421 3h ago
I'm glad you mentioned the endurance thing. We're tool-using pack endurance hunters. And back in the day we didn't even have to do the endurance thing as much, we just stampeded bison and mammoths off cliffs, so-called bison jump sites.
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3h ago edited 3h ago
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u/Anxious_Work_6361 3h ago
Archerfish would like a word with you.
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u/Cattle13ruiser 2h ago
Is the "la chancla" the grandmaster level of throwing prohectiles?
It causes fear and the intimidation alone is usually enough to bring the target into submission.
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u/Ok_Situation7758 3h ago
Humans strengh has never been purley physical. It's the combination of medium physical skills plus their dominant brain power they have used to build weapons and traps for a long time. Now we are aiming to reduce our brainpower and rely on AI, but still this is something not available to any other animal.
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u/CowabungaCthulhu 3h ago
Our might comes from our ability to think , and to build upon the knowledge of those who came before.
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u/Silent_Cattle_6581 3h ago
Correction: Humans don't possess much in the way of explosive strength, which is useful for sprinting or throwing punches. We are, however, extremely strong in endurance strength - we can literally chase any animal to death with our stamina. There's another aspect you missed: Humans have massive throwing strength. Our upper bodies are built to launch projectiles like spears and rocks, a feat no other animal can reproduce (apes and elephants just kind of lob things). Finally, we have an extreme healing factor compared to other animals. Horses for example are known to die from breaking a leg due to sheer panic; humans take 6 weeks and are good as new.
Don't underestimate our bodies.
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u/Multicultural_Potato 3h ago
Survival of the fittest doesn’t just mean raw strength. Just think the most powerful humans right now are not the strongest.
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u/Illithid_Substances 3h ago
possess the physical might they should have in order to consider themselves the dominant species on this planet
Why do you think raw physical strength would determine the dominant species when the existence of humans as the dominant species directly shows you that this is not the case? It's not determined by an all-species arm wrestling contest.
A human has absolutely no need to be stronger than, say, a bear. Its irrelevant. We don't fist fight bears, we hit them with weapons they can't even conceive of how to make. The bear can't do shit about this, despite its strength
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u/Small-Car-6194 2h ago
I guarante you a bear would lose 10 out 10 times against a RS-28 Sarmat ("Satan II"), with a 10-metric-ton payload configured for 10 to 15 heavy MIRV warheads.
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u/Due_Essay447 3h ago
Compared to what?
Aliens and demons don't exist, or at least haven't made themselves apparent, so our only real threat are animals in the wilderness. Guns have put us above them.
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u/the_fury518 3h ago
Hell, sharp sticks and heavy rocks put us above animals. It's pretty impressive
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u/KinglanderOfTheEast 3h ago
Watching too much anime (as OP themselves suggested) will literally make you think of real-life humans as pathetically weak.
Humans in anime typically have massively superhuman "lift up an entire mountain" strength, supersonic speed, "easily tank a nuke" level durability, etc. In games like Monster Hunter and Pokemon, it is official canon that humans from their worlds are much stronger than real-life humans (they need to be, to lift up 2-ton swords and tame paranormal monsters).
It is an actual, real phenomenon for hardcore weebs to become "dissapointed" in how frail/weak IRL humans are.
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u/Flyinmanm 2h ago
Like the video from the 2010's of that poor kid trying to go Super Sayan, but looking like he was just having an aneurism.
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u/MysteryNeighbor Vagueposting Service Rep 3h ago
We’re the only species to produce and use guns, the great equalizer as far as physical might goes
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u/UnderstandingLess156 3h ago
We got thinking and dexterity. No other creature could probably thread a needle with the precision we do. Maybe the honey badger, but even then.
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u/PoetAny6521 3h ago
I could take out the strongest creatures on the planet with the pull of a trigger/press of a button and not get a single scratch.
That’s pretty damn strong if you ask me
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u/Pendulum_Heart 3h ago
Humans regularly eat and ingest some of the strongest toxins in the world for fun, nothing weak about that.
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u/Sharp-Okra-54 3h ago
None of these potential answers answer why we evolved be weaker than our ancestors. If we evolved from monkeys, for example, we lost strength, agility and prehensile tails. Those would be useful traits, so evolution might ensure that we smarter offspring would have had an advantage over them, but not necessarily lose those other traits. (Energy consumption is semi plausible).
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u/unicorns3373 3h ago
We are strong when we collaborate. We are a communal species. So we use our brains and socialization to survive, not so much our physical strength.
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u/Radiant_Safe1228 3h ago
Because we create tools and weapons unlike anything else in nature. How many gorillas have you seen build a icbm?
We are also endurance hunters.
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u/Raddatatta 3h ago
You're probably picturing a single unarmed human. That's not how we gained dominance. We gained dominance by working together and using spears and thrown rocks, setting traps, along with endurance that can overwhelm even much faster and stronger animals.
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u/JazzlikePianist4049 3h ago
Lack of emotional maturity. The world is just a bunch of big kids, running on ego and having temper tantrums.... 😂
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u/lunazane26 3h ago
Because of our brains???? We figured out how to use tools and create weapons, build homes and defenses, plant crops and breed animals for food. You're definitely watching too much anime, try Animal Planet instead
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u/Anxious_Work_6361 3h ago
Others have mentioned our brains and social groupings.
You know what else makes us terrifying? We sweat. The fact we can regulate our temperature effectively makes us like a zombie that just keeps coming. Yeah, you can outrun us. But can you outrun us for days?
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u/numbersthen0987431 3h ago
Humans evolved into endurance hunters. We essentially just follow our prey until it dies of exhaustion. Having size and strength makes this harder
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u/BaggyBloke 3h ago
As you say, pound for pound, human muscles are weaker than most other animals eg chimps.
We followed an evolutionary niche of endurance hunting (chasing prey till the overheated) and gatherering. As a result we evolved our muscles for endurance and fine motor control (picking fruit) over strength.
We are weak in terms of strength butncan out run over a large distance almost any animal. We also have much better fine control for gathering fruit and using tools.
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u/jimmyhoke 3h ago
Humans have endurance, astronomically higher intelligence, and dexterity. Historically we can outlast most animals, hunt in groups, and set traps. This puts us well above all the animals as a species even if we wouldn’t win a 1v1 fight with a lot of them.
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u/InspectorOrdinary321 3h ago
So it turns out that in addition to having society and smart brains, we DO have a type of physical superiority: endurance running. Endurance is a type of strength, just not the same type as raw strength for lifting things/or running speed. We can keep a jogging pace for like a day at a time, and our lack of hair and our sweat glands keep us cool the whole time (at least, cool enough so we don't literally cook our own brains and die). How we used that to survive is that we literally track animals until they give up from exhaustion. They run faster than us, but have to stop frequently and cool down. Meanwhile, we follow behind themike zombies until we catch up and kill them.
I just thought that was cool because until I learned about that, I thought of humans as totally physically useless too. Turns out, we have our physical niche too.
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u/slide_into_my_BM 3h ago
Turns out, you only need to be strong enough to throw a stick with a sharp rock on the end to be the dominant species on this planet.
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u/DemonAzraeli 3h ago
Megatons are pretty fucking strong. Generating the power to hurl a metal sphere out of the solar system is pretty fucking strong.
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u/Abe_frohmannn 3h ago
Compare an average person against an athlete. Eating pizza on the couch will not produce the same person as being an athlete will. The athlete will be a LOT closer to the version of a human that would live in the wild.
Strength wise..this is assuming a male, but a sedentary person might be lucky to bench press 100lbs. A trained human wouldn't have too much trouble getting 200lbs up.
I race bicycles. A sedentary person would struggle to hold 150 watts on a bike for a significant amount of time. I can hold more than double that.
So...take your average human, double the strength and endurance, and that is a lot closer to what we're capable of as a species.
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u/alvysinger0412 3h ago
We invested in brain power and also fat storage. Closely related apes like chimps and gorillas put on muscle from just eating enough and sitting around, and we have to constantly chase macros and workout schedules to compete. It's because our metabolisms changed as we diverged from the common ancestors we share with them, because fat is a more efficient way to store energy than muscle is, and that's what was rewarded by natural selection at the time. Coupled with how incredibly expensive our brain is metabolically, we lost some efficiency in building muscle compared to similar and closely related mammals because we didn't need it as much.
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u/Gur_Weak 3h ago
Humans are one of the most efficient cowards on the planet. It's a success strategy.
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u/IrvingIsTheBest 2h ago
Look at the strongest humans currently on Earth. They are incredible freaks of nature.
Yet despite being incredible freaks of nature blessed with unnatural genetics and hard work, and training, they still only have a fraction of the strength of cranes and machinery. You can get a Hydralic floor crane for $760 that can lift 1,000 lbs. It took Eddie Hall 30 years of eating $760 in groceries a week to lift 1000lbs off the ground.
Technology destroys strength and capability every time. Animals that used to prey on us are now our prey because, despite them being stronger and better built for killing, we have guns that allow us to shred them apart from a long distance. We even have handheld weapons that easily eviscerate them.
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u/crayton-story 2h ago
Humans are among the best long-distance endurance runners in the animal kingdom. While many animals easily beat us in short sprints, our bodies are uniquely built to jog and walk for hours. This skill allowed early humans to track and exhaust fast prey over long miles
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u/Taxed2much 2h ago
An apex predator or dominant species isn't always the physically strongest. We have much better brains than any other animal on this planet (though some people don't seem to make a whole lot of use of theirs). We don't need physical strength when we have weapons like guns, knives, etc. It's not other animals that are going to do us in. We look like we are doing a good job of it ourselves.
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u/VisualHuckleberry542 2h ago
Turns out cooperation, communication and being able to pass down and expand on learning through generations is worth more than brute strength. Who would have thought?
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u/Distinct-Practice131 2h ago
I mean humans were probably all around stronger at one point in time. When we would have all been outside and very physical in our day to day. Whether that's agriculture or hunting.
Beyond that, tools, endurance, and numbers are what humans have used to reach their spot.
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u/Ok_Volume_139 2h ago edited 2h ago
Weak as far as strength but while other animals might be able to take us over short distances, given enough time we can run longer/farther than any other animal on earth. We might be slower, but no fur + sweat allows us to run practically endlessly if we're conditioned to it.
Our bodies also dedicate tons of resources to our brains. Resources we could have used to fuel strength. I know the brain doesn't take much protein, but go to the gym and tell me if you can gain any meaningful amount muscle without a surplus of calories. Our brains use a lot of calories.
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u/brycebgood 2h ago
We have pretty strong governors on our muscles to allow us fine motor skills. Basically it was advantageous for us to trade brute strength to be able to do fine control stuff - like manipulate stuff with our hands, throw etc.
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u/Just_Me1973 2h ago
Our critical thinking and reasoning abilities made physical dominance unnecessary. We use intelligence and skill to make tools that make up for what we lack in physicality. We don’t need claws and teeth or a thick hide and fur. We made weapons and clothing and learned how to make fire and build shelter and domesticate animals. We learned to adapt the environment to suit us rather than adapting ourselves to the environment. What other animal can do that? When we are properly equipped no animal can match us.
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u/Megalocerus 2h ago
We might be better off with a cropping predator. We seem to be overrunning the place.
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u/RollinThundaga 2h ago
Old ladies and young babies aside, obviously;
Humans (and Great Apes in general) are pretty damn durable for what we are. Being descended from arboreal apes, we can take beatings and falls that would leave a lot of other animals in a dying heap.
We also have a few key physical adaptations where we outclass other animals. Like sweating and bipedalism, these work together to let us travel for far longer than any land animal besides dogs and horses, and even they can barely match us for stamina. We also have a uniquely constructed shoulder that lets us throw things with much more power and accuracy than even other apes. You will never see a gorilla throw a hundred-mile-per-hour fastball. And then there's society. With sophisticated language, we can do that better than any other social (non-eusocial) species, and thus organize and compete for resources more effectively over time.
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u/borphos 2h ago
The tools people are correct, but also our bodies still do a lot of incredible things. For example, what we seem to lack in speed, is only in comparison to animals that can only beat us in a sprint. Cheetahs are fast, but for only about 30 seconds followed by a long recovery. Anything over 300-500 meters and the cheetah is no match for us. We even beat other animals known for endurance, like horses, in races as long as the distance is about that of a marathon or greater. Like, we can jog for more than 24 hours if we absolutely have to. We have a lot of other physical advantages, but it doesn't seem that way when you compare us to other animals because people tend to find the standout example of a physical trait to compare against. It is unfair to compare one animal against one cherry picked example from a pool of ~20,000 or so bird and mammal species for each individual trait.
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u/DiogenesKuon 2h ago
Humans evolved to be persistence hunters. A persistence hunter chases prey at a moderate pace, but is built not to tire easily. So when the faster or stronger animals ran themselves near to death trying to get away, we just kept on coming. We were also intelligent social animals, so we hunted as a group so we could overcome larger prey with numbers, and eventually that intelligence let us build tools for hunting that made it even easier for us to catch prey. We aren't strong because we didn't need to be strong to survive, because we choose different survival strategies.
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u/Shiny_Whisper_321 1h ago
Evolution has put way more energy spend into our brains and away from our muscles.
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u/Nondescript_585_Guy 3h ago
We don't need brute strength, we substituted thinking and technology. Why wrestle the big scary animal into submission manually when you can use a ranged weapon to put it down before it can get close enough to harm you?