I Will Ask You Questions - Now with MORE fantasy ecology!

Hello friends, strangers, and acquaintances. If you post in this thread, I will do my best to ask you a thought provoking question. While you do not have to answer, it would be rude.

The rules:
If you make a post and do not have an active question, I will ask you one. Answering a question, even if your answer is just "I don't know" or "This other guy answered it perfectly and I agree with him," closes your question. Answering questions asked of other people is fine, especially if you have something interesting to share about it.

Hit me

With all of the amazing arthropods in this world, how would one go about determining their favorite bug and the one that best represents who they truly are?

yeah, I'm game

hello

Arthropods (let's call them bugs for the duration of this exercise) are an interesting set of things to have to ascribe a favourite, because of their sheer diversity (over 1 million species!) For the vast majority of people, choosing a favourite bug will invariably be a comparatively uninformed decision to, say, choosing an item from an exhaustive list/set like a menu at a diner, because I don't think anybody can consciously know about and comparae/qualify a million things. Unless you are insistent on making 100% informed decisions, this lack of complete awareness is ok!

Choosing a favourite bug is as simple as focussing your brain on the bugs you know you like, presuming that you're unlikely to have especial fondness for a bug you heard about once in passing (we're assuming you're a total bug novice here). You may have various reasons for liking a bug, from an incrediawful scientific name to how it behaves to it being the prettiest thing to brighten up your corner of the world, and all of these reasons are ok! Think of a bug, and if you can't think of any other bug you like better, then you've found your favourite bug!

Second-stage bugfaving for novices: If your search for a favourite bug yields you a common name like "mantis" or "dragonfly" or "butterfly", you can proceed to do your research and find out exactly what species of "mantis" or "dragonfly" or what have you has captured your affections, either because you see it around or you saw it doing cool shit on TV. This will hopefully give you more information about its particular habits and what makes it different from the myriad other mantisdragonbutterbeetles. Alternatively, reading about similar species may make you discover one that tickles your fancy more, if your metrics for "best" bug entail it being weird or obscure.

Advanced bugfaving: use the already-integrated categorisation/classification system of Arthropoda to narrow down your options, though this also has its limitations. The term "Arthropod" refers to all insects in a particular category in Biological classification, which formerly grouped things based on morphological similarity but is attempting to shift toward a reflection of monophyletic groups, namely, each group encompassing all the descendants of a now-dead ancestor. This is complicated by said ancestors being dead and an incomplete record of what was previously alive, but because evolution is a slow and building-on-existing-shit process we can similarly build on the morphology-based classification rather than tossing it out entirely. It's additionally complicated by convergent evolution making unrelated taxa evolve a similar body plan because it's the best fit for the survival job, but the guts of this Fave-finding system is that morphology is generally reflective of behaviour (though some taxa may exhibit a greater diversity than others).

To Bugfave like a veteran taxonomancer, firstly check out the five main subphyla of Arthropoda (Trilobites; arachnids, sea spiders and horseshoe crabs; centipedes and millipedes; crustaceans; insects) and find out what their general deal is and how many weird exceptions to the rule exist in each subcategory therein. You'll probably need to set up some parameters, for example (though you may ignore these as your own tastes dictate) Not Extinct, I Could Actually See One In My Daily Life, Brightly Coloured, Vicious Predator, Can't Kill Me, Could Kill Me, Grosses Others Out, etc etc etc. The taxonomic system makes a good framework to find the creatures that tickle your fancy, and lays out obscure groups you may not have initially considered like scorpionflies, sea spiders, or other weird shit. Of course, you can always go the lazy route and google "Bugs which are like _______" and get handy-dandy lists people have pre-assembled for your bugfaving benefit. The key point here is that this method best benefits from knowing what you like, and scrambling up and down the many-legged tree of life to find the little beastie that fits all those parameters.

---

For finding your representative insect, you basically do the above but factor in cultural perceptions of said bugs, because there's no point choosing something like this then not telling anyone. Telling people and seeing their reaction/comparison/agreement or disagreement with your personal assessment is half the goddamn point, but is complicated by different groups of people having different relationships to the critters in question.

Bugs carry many cultural connotations, both positive and negative, and factoring these in is important! You may identify with a cockroach because of its much-maligned nature, or because you think you're tough enough to survive a nuclear apocalypse. You may identify with a mantis' raptorial grace and vaguely-alien physique, while some other jackass toting outdated information might call you a man-eater. (Funfax: female mantises probably don't eat their reproductive partners as often as initially believed. They were probably stressed out from pervert entomologists watching them go at it). This demonstrates that your choice of arthropod may not be about objective truth, but as much about popular opinion. If you feel being unfairly maligned (or hell, fairly maligned) suits you, though, feel free to point at a mosquito and say "that me." I'm not gonna stop you. Just bear in mind that while choosing an obscure insect order or "exception to the rule" like a hummingbird hawk-moth will require you to repeatedly explain yourself to strangers, a more common or generic hexappelation may be saddled with subtext you never really appreciated, because if there's a million types of bug there's gonna be a million times two differing perceptions of the fuckers.

For what it's worth, my favourite bug is the hummingbird hawk-moth (it's a bit uncommon though easy enough to spot where I'm living, it's weird as hell, it's kind of cute actually, it ranks harmless-to-beneficial for humans), and I would idealise myself as being represented by jumping spiders. In reality I'm probably actually a semi-solitary, non-cuckoo bee of some kind.

tl;dr just think of all the bugs you know then go with the one that can't be beat. If the resultant answer feels unsatisfactory, go seek out more information about bugs. Rinse and repeat until you are at tentative peace with the fact there is far too much to know in the world for a single mortal entity like yourself, and that you'll take additional knowledge as it reaches you instead of trying to force it.

ask me a question

Ask me a quest

Imagine that cosmetic surgery became ubiquitous, and people used it the way that clothing is used now to identify your subculture (eg - a goth nose or preppy facial features). What modification would be used for the group with which you identify most strongly?

yeah, I'm game

If you were put in charge of a nonprofit / charity organization and were given a budget of only a few million dollars, how would your organization spend this money to accomplish the most good? Would you try to acquire other donors, or simply spend the endowment that you have received?

hello

If a pair of chemicals were discovered that, when synthesized and released into the earth's atmosphere, would make the world's population either more aggressive but more intelligent or more peaceful but less intelligent and you had the power to choose which of the two (or neither) to release, which would you use and why?

ask me a question

If you were trapped in a comfortable environment that had everything you physiologically needed to survive but no trappings of human contact (including second-hand contact, such as books or videos), what skills would you seek to master and how would you go about doing so without any means of instruction?

These are interesting questions, could I have one too?

yerp.

These are interesting questions, could I have one too?

YOU DON'T GET TO ASK THE QUESTIONS HERE, BUB! Sai does. Sai, give me the question you would have given Coldblooded if he hadn't crossed the line.

Excuse me.

ask me a question

hello

If a pair of chemicals were discovered that, when synthesized and released into the earth's atmosphere, would make the world's population either more aggressive but more intelligent or more peaceful but less intelligent and you had the power to choose which of the two (or neither) to release, which would you use and why?

Well, smarter but more violent would probably just mean more destructive military science and that's one of my less favourite sciences (I mean, depending I suppose), but even with more peaceful, less smart would mean less cool advanced medical science, and that's my favourite science! So I guess neither would have to be the thing.


Alternatively LET'S THROW UP BOTH AND SEE IF IT RUINS THE WORLD

hello

If a pair of chemicals were discovered that, when synthesized and released into the earth's atmosphere, would make the world's population either more aggressive but more intelligent or more peaceful but less intelligent and you had the power to choose which of the two (or neither) to release, which would you use and why?

Well, smarter but more violent would probably just mean more destructive military science and that's one of my less favourite sciences (I mean, depending I suppose), but even with more peaceful, less smart would mean less cool advanced medical science, and that's my favourite science! So I guess neither would have to be the thing.


Alternatively LET'S THROW UP BOTH AND SEE IF IT RUINS THE WORLD

But the real question is... can we provide answers?

These are interesting questions, could I have one too?

Imagine that most of the world were to suddenly have all of their energy needs met with renewable energy which requires minimal maintenance and is consistently functional, instantly obviating any reliance on fossil fuels. This would include cars (which are now all electric), house heating (all natural gas replaced with electric), etc. What would be the new primary source of international conflict, and how would America and China respond to it?

yerp.

What fictional series that you have read or watched had the most interesting political developments that happened offstage (ie were referenced, but not explicitly shown), and what are your favorite theories surrounding this development?

These are interesting questions, could I have one too?

YOU DON'T GET TO ASK THE QUESTIONS HERE, BUB! Sai does. Sai, give me the question you would have given Coldblooded if he hadn't crossed the line.

Imagine that humans were to encounter a sentient alien race that acquired energy through photosynthesis and considered all plant life sacred. They had since exterminated as much animal life as possible from their planet. They are surprised by the existence of human sentience, since they see animals as strictly parasitic with no need for higher reasoning. You are assigned the task of convincing the plants to treat peacefully with humanity. Assuming no problems in translation, how would you go about arguing for the existence of humanity and animals in general?

Can I have another?

aks me question nerdo

Excuse me.

Let's say you had access to the stored data of a ratings site, like yelp or consumerreports, and they asked you to come up with new classifications for their entries (that is, something other than location, type of automobile, genre of food, average rating, price range, etc). What new categories would you come up with, and how would things be sorted within them?