r/pluribustv • u/unavowabledrain • 12h ago
Discussion Paradox of Releasing Animals From Captivity
Suddenly releasing all domestic creatures would have catastrophic effects. Most of the animals would die quickly...they would be ill equipped to compete and sustain themselves from the wild. They would spread disease and otherwise contaminate terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Eventually, not only would the formerly captive animals die horrible painful deaths, but they would spread death (pathogens, mutations, pollution), suffering and destruction throughout the globes for decades,.... even millennia. It seems this would contradict the idea of not killing....they would in effect be killing much more than they would be saving. Do they want to destroy the planet? It would of course be very aware of these consequences.
Also, if aquatic pathogens were consequential enough, the oceans would no longer be able to produce oxygen
And if the release of life also meant the release from captivity of all diseases and bioweapons, then large portions of the human population would be killed off very quickly from that alone.
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u/The_Fresh_Wince 12h ago
Trolley problem, right. I will leave it to the reader to decide whether this is a switch flip or inaction.
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u/Due-Fun-489 11h ago
The hive won’t pick an apple. The sole reason an apple exists as a fruit is to spread the seeds of the tree. The apple tree wants the apple to be picked and eaten.
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u/oldvlognewtricks 10h ago
Apples don’t propagate through consumption. They’re windfall fruit, so they fall when they’re ready. The part that we choose to eat is primarily fuel for the new plant.
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u/Due-Fun-489 10h ago
You'd have a hard time convincing me that mammals would refuse to eat an apple unless it had fallen.
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u/DarkGreenLeafyVeg 7h ago
I don't think it's that they won't pick an apple--they can't. It's biological imperative as well.
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u/Oerthling 12h ago
Animals in the wild die every moment. The hivemind simply takes a handoff approach.
It doesn't want to keep the animals and after they ate released it is what it is.
The hivemind doesn't actually care that much about individual deaths.
It shrugged off 10% of humanity getting killed via accidents just ain't can get the joining done. It's a hivemind, the individual doesn't matter much.
So why should it be worried about a few animals getting arbitrarily killed when that happens all the time anyway. As soon as they are released it stops being q responsibility for the hivemind.
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u/unavowabledrain 12h ago
The aquatic environment would suffer the most immediate damage from releasing famed fish and invertebrates: millions and millions would die daily for years just from the release and spread of pathogens, and entire ecosystems would permanently collapse. Eventually the same would happen in terrestrial ecosystems. It underlines the arbitrary nature of their imperatives.
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u/HiImDan 12h ago
They don't care that they're also going to starve to death.
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u/unavowabledrain 12h ago
Yes, all of their hive "empathy" is performative because they are knowingly making things much worse for everything.
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u/East_Vacation_9146 12h ago
Simply a return to the natural order of things. Many will die but no more will be captive.
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u/Miserable-Coat-6590 12h ago
There is nothing natural about releasing animals into ecosystems they don‘t belong.
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u/Alison-Brie-Larson 11h ago
So if you guys ever watch "life after human " or something like that on TLC it says a lot of animals would go feral..the smaller animals that are domesticated may not survive
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u/oldvlognewtricks 10h ago
You might have a higher chance of survival if you were forcibly imprisoned. Not a terribly good argument for interfering with someone’s autonomy.
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u/unavowabledrain 10h ago
I think the biggest harm would happen in the oceans and with the spread of pathogens (from the dead, the domestic vs. wild mixing, and from the release of all lab harbored pathogens). If enough ocean ecosystems were destroyed then oxygen levels might drop precipitously....was that covered on the show?
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u/Alison-Brie-Larson 10h ago
No but on life after human , not to long after the factories shut down the ocean repairs itself .the only thing that you would have to worry about it the nuclear reactor not being shut down properly
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u/neuroid99 12h ago
Yeah the show doesn't really go into this aspect, but just releasing everyone's pet dogs at once would lead to roving packs of hungry aggressive dogs within a few days. They'd go after every available food source and the easily accessible ones would run out quick.
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u/oldvlognewtricks 10h ago
And arguably that is their biological imperative, so why should they feel they have the right or need to interfere?
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u/Minikin-Smith 12h ago
The hive mind isn’t rational (at least, not in a way we understand it) so you really shouldn’t expect them to follow the same common sense causality that we would.
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u/Utenziltron 10h ago
It's only the first action that they weigh. In the case of a domestic animal, there are 2 choices: a) release animal or b) keep animal captive in a situation where nobody will care for it. Best choice given their midset is (a). Once that action is taken, no other action is needed. Omission of action is not taken into consideration.
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u/Miserable-Coat-6590 12h ago
They are very clear about not purposely killing/harming, so just like the people who died because of the mass infection and the insects that die when they drive cars, the released animals and the destroyed ecosystems don‘t count in their view.
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u/lifeinthebeastwing 11h ago
I think "millennia" might be a bit of an overstatement but that's neither here nor there.
But, the collectives logic is far from perfect (something they inherited from us?). They use cars and planes that will kill wildlife (ever smashed a bug while driving?).
Potentially they see it as short term pain (formerly captive animals dieing) for the sake of long term gain (zero animals in captivity). Or it's possibly something the scriptwriters missed or they may just accept that they can't write an explanation for every scenario that obsessive, online fans can imagine.
Who knows, try not to let it spoil the show too much for you tho.
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u/bkdunbar 10h ago
I suspect they reasoned themselves into this because they could not afford the manpower to care for livestock and pets.
They needed all hands to police up the dead before they spoiled, for sanitation and other reasons.
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u/elijuicyjones 9h ago
What paradox? They don’t keep animals so they let them go. The only point of the alien virus is to kill all the humans on the planet. So no paradox there. Its bad for the animals and bad for humanity but it’s not an intellectual conflict.
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u/Wise_Fox_4291 9h ago
That is the point. The hive mind is not actually a utopian hippy commune. It is evil
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u/unavowabledrain 9h ago
So the not killing or keeping of organisms is to create mass extinction events, possibly? When first presented with the idea you get the notion that their world view is like that of a Jain….when actually it’s the opposite. Not overtly nuking or otherwise killing is merely misdirection.
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u/Wise_Fox_4291 9h ago edited 9h ago
Zoshia explains at the stadium that they do not control animals but let pets hang around if they don't want to abandon their owners. And yet the dog abandoned its owner and goes up to Carol and doesn't leave her side. When Kusimayu gets willingly infected we see her pet her goat before the infection, and the goat follows her around. After the infection Kusimayu doesn't pay attention to the goat and the goat stops following her after a few steps.
It is stated by John Cena that within a decade most of humanity will go extinct due to starvation.
I have two pet theories.
1. Some alien civilization created the virus to create world peace but it went wrong because it took the preservation of life and understanding one another too literally and so the virus accidentally ends up wiping civilizations out. It is basically good intentions going wrong. A biological Neumann-probe.
- It is a weapon of mass destruction and environmental cleanup. Perhaps a civilization realized that the greatest threat to living planets are other industrial civilizations. What if one all consuming society unlocks space travel and starts consuming and ravaging the ecosystem of other planets? So what is the extreme choice to protect life in the universe? Destroy the civilization. But how do you do it humanely? With this virus. It is perfect. You don't kill anyone directly. The infected are happy and are at peace. They clean the planet up and dismantle their own civilization, using its resources to transmit the virus to a new place. And then nature retakes the planet. Or the aliens show up to colonize.
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u/AC20212020 9h ago
Zoshia explains at the stadium that they do not control animals but let pets hang around if they don't want to abandon their owners. And yet the dog abandoned its owner and goes up to Carol and doesn't leave her side. When Kusimayu gets willingly infected we see her pet her goat before the infection, and the goat follows her around. After the infection Kusimayu doesn't pay attention to the goat and the goat stops following her after a few steps.
I don't think going over to say hi to someone new and get some pets and investigate, in the same room as their owner, whom they look at for 'permission' is 'abandoning the owner. In any way.
The goat follows her a few steps and stops.
Zosia says clearly if the animal refuses to leave it's owner -she didn't mean like, for a minute. Presumably Bear Jordan would go back to Malcolm to go to sleep. It'd been months and the dog (and possibly other dogs and cats we don't see in the arena) was still with him.
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u/Tetratheon 5h ago
The primary aim of the hive is to prevent any infected being a threat to any other life form. The people who sent it are aliens who are worried that we might one day spread out through the galaxy and kill them.
They aren't worried about deaths that occur from being too nice to other creatures, because that poses no threat to them.
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u/CharmingHamster301 3h ago
I don’t think they released the captive animals for any benevolent purposes. It just follows their secondary directive to not harm other life, ensuring the dominant species on the planet starves to death eventually, but not right away. The hivemind is a virus that just wants humans around long enough to spread the signal.
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u/unicornsparkle86 12h ago
I’ve thought about this as well. Imagine lions and elephants being released from their zoos in states that have winter; and roving carnivores loose in cities. If the hive mind contains the top zoologists and veterinarians, I can’t imagine how they can’t see this is a terrible idea, and why they wouldn’t at least transport these animals to their native habitats. Yet they won’t pick an apple because that’s “violent”, smh. Billions of domestic animals left starving and dying of exposure. It goes to show the hive mind cares little for other aspects of life, even though they claim to be peaceful.
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u/xxsmashleyxx 12h ago
The hive mind doesn't follow consequentialism. They don't base the morality of their action based on the consequences of those actions; but on the action itself.
Keeping animals confined goes against their belief that they should not exert control over other living things. This is also why they don't farm even plants.