Positive outcome would be no more having to burn contaminted possessions (or wash them in very hot water many times).
I was going to go with the rabies virus, but bedbugs is a solid choice as well.
Viruses are not animals.
Viruses aren't even alive in the technical biological sense
Right? π€£
Yeah I think any human-specialized parasite is an easy choice. Head lice? Fuck em.
Bedbugs, hands down.
Only good bug is a dead bug.
I'm doing my part!
Landlords
They're not human, I'll allow this.
You sound just like someone from Nazi Germany.
Yeah, even nazi germany had principled people
Ah yes, the condition of being a landlord, a completely immutable state of being.
I know you said that we shouldnβt say humans but Iβm gonna say it anyway:
Humans.
Sorry.
Would be interesting to tally up the negative impacts of removing humans as well.
Culls of invasive species would no longer occur, which would be detrimental in those ecosystems.
A fairly significant number of endangered animals probably only exist today due to human intervention and breeding programs (i am well aware that we probably made them endangered in the first place)
Cross breeds would be done as well, Ligers and Mules require humans for breeding. Although in fairness they are definitely not natural to begin with.
Many animals we have domesticated would be done for as well, most smaller dogs are completely, reliant on humans for food and grooming. Many cats would be okay, but some breeds are likely dead ends as well. Jersey cows would probably have a bad time as well, without milking, sheep might have issues as well?
Interesting thought experiment.
Yeah, this is a good topic. I can add a few:
Short term, pets in houses, farm animals, etc will need to escape and start fending for themselves otherwise they'll starve (or dehydrate)..
Oops, I'd somehow missed an entire paragraph of your post π€¦ββοΈ Sheep need us to trim their wool, because we've bred them up grow fair more than they need. They'll get too hot if they don't have problems with defecation first (an actual thing farmers have to worry about).
Medium to long term, when dams and dikes aren't maintained they'll eventually fail, flooding vast areas including the Netherlands.
I guess that the world will continue heating for a bit even once we're gone, so we wouldn't be around to theoretically use our tech to help. Obviously, we're the reason it's happening in the first place, but nature's not equipped to deal with change that's this rapid.
Yes, most of those we created through breeding, but you could argue that wolves and coyotes created modern deer the same way.
I do wonder if many would go extinct in the medium term from predation, before they can evolve fast enough to adapt; I'm thinking farm pigs and chickens would be OK in the short term - they don't need us to survive - but wild dogs/coyotes/wolves, large cats like the NA lions, raptors, foxes... they'd all be putting a lot of pressure on those mostly defenseless breeds. Pigs are not wild hogs. Cattle and horses exist just fine in their environments without humans. Even with predation, herds are large and they aren't defenseless.
Sheep are an exception; like you said, they need us to perform maintenance because of how we've bred them. Are there others?
My thoughts go to a lot of our stored and operational fuel supplies. Nuclear fuel (both civil and weapon) would eventually become exposed through lack of storage container maintinance and cooling starting meltdown reactions in their localized environments. Oil extraction, distribution, and refining systems are automated to an extent but somewhere a tank is going ng to rupture or just run out of space and then it's all getting into the environment, likely at sea to have what effects that may cause.
Oh, yeah. If we suddenly disappeared, there'd be so many environmental catastrophes.
I'm sure it'd level off, but a driver falling asleep at the wheel on the highway tends to cause problems. If the BP spill in the Gulf had nobody trying to cap it off who knows how long it'd have kept going.
Life After people. Whole series exploring this
Ooh, thanks for the suggestion. Seems its on youtube as well. Thanks!
Was this the one with flying cats? Because that show was SO GOOD!! Except for the first few minutes with the dog...
Good point! Within a few weeks billions of animals would die. Chicken, pigs, cows, cats and dogs.
We definitely need to clarify what "good for the planet" means if we want to decide on the best answer.
Humans are the only species that would ask a question like this with ecologically damning effects. So, yeah.
I'm going to provide one very important reasons it would be disastrous to the ecosystem if humans were suddenly deleted from the Earth: what happens to the many currently active nuclear reactors? And what happens when Chernobyl's sarcophagus finally corrodes entirely and exposes that radioactive blight to the entirety of Europe and central Asia? Probably nothing good is the answer.
I would be willing to put money on "likely nothing" being the answer for active nuclear reactors. They're highly automated from a safety perspective these days. I'd be more worried about chemical plants
That's a good point, too. My general idea was we have certain things we've created that we can't leave unchecked or else it might be disastrous for the environment. Human infrastructure expects humans to exist.
Humans are not the problem. Ultrarich people are.
Oh come on, really? Is the problem ultrarich people? Or is the problem poor people who won't eat those ultrarich people?
They seem to just make everything worse, and I don't think anything only eats ticks. Not to mention the diseases they carry.
Possums eat ticks. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make, ticks are awful.
Possums don't live exclusively on ticks, they don't even particularly have a penchant for eating ticks. There was just one study that showed they could eat ticks and potentially have a resistance to some diseases.
Possums sure can eat some other bug/arachnoid don't need those vermin.
Ticks and mosquitos.
Do they make everything worse in ways other than disease?
I don't think they have much effect on the flora of an area, but humans are not the only fauna that are harmed by ticks.
Also they get in my dreams and I usually have at least one tick related nightmare a year, so please do understand I speak with some hyperbole.
I hate to say it, but getting rid of mosquitos would probably have bigger consequences than that. The females are the only ones sucking blood, the males on the other hand help pollinate plants, exterminating them could potentially affect our food production lines...
... But not gonna lie I'd still genocide the fuckers, ecological damage be damned.
You don't need to eliminate all mosquitos, just the ones that bite people.
There are dozens of different species of mosquitos, and not all of them bite people. If you get rid of the ones that bite people the others will likely still fill in as pollinators for those that are no longer competing with them.
Yes.. But then more humans will survive by avoiding certain diseases, which as a result, will produce a worse environmental outcome
Eh, kill off 3 or 4 billionaires per year and you'll counteract whatever additional environmental damage comes from millions of people not dying from malaria.
Funny you mention that, but in a way that's also true via the same mechanism.
Only the females of a tiny fraction of species, and only when they need to produce eggs, stuck blood.
Minimize their numbers as much as you want, but that won't stop me from having to deal with them in almost every single day of my life.
Canadian Geese, the animal that Canada stored all its rage inside and sent to battle the United States
How dare you. I live for seasonal goose fly bys
I do honestly love hearing the honking and watching them fly by. I always point it out to my kids. I've seen lots of Canada geese in my life and they've never hissed at me, so I don't have a problem with them other than the poops that are just everywhere.
You've been fortunate lol
I've been on walks in parks that got too close to someone's nest and been charged. Those maniacs have serated tongues and beaks. I'm not kidding. You don't want to be bit by these maniacs
Oh I know they're viscious! I've just been lucky and always kept enough distance between myself and them.
If you got a problem with Canadian Gooses, you got a problem with me, and I suggest you let that one marinate
The thing about Canada geese for me is the weird little poos. I don't mind the aggression, the flocking behavior, or any of the other antisocial nonsense that they've adopted from their namesake country.
Cobra Chickens are one of nature's wonders. Leave them alone!
And Finland...
Canadian geese, Australian Emus, sounds like there's some interesting AI image ideas here
What have Emus ever done to you??? :(
Not op, but an emu bit me as a child. Havent trusted them ever since. Just look at their shifty eyes.
Nothing it's like they don't even care about me :(
Oh noo, I love them both :(
I got distracted by the wrong aspect of that comment lol
I was picturing Canadian Geese and Australian Emus working together on... providing aid or something. Maybe not waging war
Well they seem to have a reputation for winning battles after all
Fucker stole my dimmie when i was six. Snatched it right out of my hand
Bedbugs. That's a terrible thing to happen to anyone.
A wave of them swept through my old apartment once almost six years ago. I still freak out at the smallest itch or bump.
Those bastards cause serious trauma
I had them about a year ago. I've never been the same either. A tiny black speck on the floor that is from my socks, or a fruit fly, can send me into hysteria.
The best thing you can spend money on IMO is a bedbug proof mattress encasement and those interception cups for the legs of your bed. Nobody will ever regret doing that. It can happen to anyone, right now Paris is rife with bedbugs.
First we ban DDT, then Pizza Hut releases Stuffed Crust, then bed bugs make a resurgence. It all fits.
My room mates/tenants in my basement spotted 2 bed bugs and we have gone full nuclear on them because we are all terrified of them. Like they've replaced everything soft, rubbed the sprays into the carpet, and I made a salt circle with d earth around their entrance.
We also keep quoting aliens (nuke it from orbit, only way to he safe) and Starship troopers.
I fear water and bed bugs as a home owner.
You should also run every piece of clothing and bedding you own through the dryer, and inspect your mattress seams, and get bedbug mattress encasements.
Most positive effects on the planet but not humans?
Cattle, they're a major source of greenhouse gasses, as are all the industries built around growing, processing, and transporting them.
That would be such a boon for the planet. The biomass of cattle (that is, if you piled them all on a scale and got their weight) far surpasses the biomass of wild mammals. All wild mammals, land and sea, combined. (They're only about 4% of total mammal biomass.)
Cattle, and the things you describe, are the result of human intervention...
Pandas. I mean, they really don't seem like they want to exist in the first place. And China get's to finally shut up about them.
they really donβt seem like they want to exist
Alternatively, they're at peace and content with their existence. At least that's what it seems like to me, goals really
but they cute though
Theyβre too lazy to even reproduce.
I'm off the opinion that no animal would be beneficial to remove. In almost every instance where we have exterminated a species there has been negative unanticipated consequences. Even mosquitos and bed bugs, there are predators that eat them and subsequent predators that eat them and so on. It's kind of like the butterfly effect. It's a balance formed from eons of coexistence that is not to be tampered with. There is so many examples where scientists try to introduce an animal to exterminate another that has gone horribly wrong. Regardless of my opinion, all living things have a part in our world. I'm not a vegetarian btw, but I do use Arch.
Mosquitos are also pollinators.
Mosquitoes
Mosquitos are important pollinators and have a very important place at the bottom of the food chain.
Surely something else can be eaten. And there are many species of mosquito that do not eat human blood. I think we can nuke the species that does and still get by.
Perhaps I'm under informed here.
I think we can nuke the species that does and still get by.
I think people in China had similar ideas about sparrows... Nature is immensely complex and I can't think of a single instance in which human Intervention improved anything at all
That's fair. I'm entirely uninformed on the sparrows but I do understand nature is an endlessly complex system which we do not and probably can not ever truly understand. Not trying to be absolutist.
But I do wish death on every blood sucking mosquito.
Deleting all mosquitoes would have a significant impact on the environment, many birds and spiders mainly prey on them. Delete just mosquitoes that bite humans. It's a much narrower range and wouldn't affect the environment as much.
Similar insects would quickly fill the niche.
Mosquitoes are pollinators. Sucking blood and being annoying is only a small part of their functionality.
Cockroaches... as far as I'm aware, they don't contribute anything to the eco system, they're just pests.
Unfortunatelly, not even a nuclear war can erradicate them π.
'Cockroach' encompasses a wide range of species, the majority of which have no interest in living in a human's home, and contribute to the work of decomposition on the forest floor. Many smaller predators also eat them.
OK, just the pest ones then π.
I'm on board with that π
Some pests (not only cockroaches) keeps the sewage unclogged by consuming solids.
Oh, come on π€£... people just have to find an excuse for cocroaches to exist π€£.
Just learned recently that there are over 3000 species of cockroaches and about 10 are invasive to humans.
well let's get rid of those 10 then, the other 2990 should be able to pick up whatever positive effect those 10 species have without building nests and swarming our homes
That's really only German cockroaches that are colony roaches. At least in my region.
That's an incredible statistic. Where did you learn that?
I was watching the streamer piratesoftware who before he became a programmer/hacker was in college for entomology.
They are extremely important for getting rid of dead things. Everything contributes to the ecosystem, except invasive species, OP's premise is impossible to begin with.
Like really? Even pest cocroaches, they eat dead flesh � Cuz I thought they only went after good food (not rotten).
They don't just eat dead animals, they also eat dead plant matter. Humans decided that some animals are "pests" because they don't like having them around for one reason or another.
My main concern is hygene, nothing more (spread of jerms and viruses)... other than that, I have no problem living with all sorts of insects.
I was in Egypt once and stayed in a trailer in the middle of the desert (long story π). Anyway, the trailer was kinda dusty, so I decided to clean it a little bit. I pull the bed, a big fucking spider underneath it... OK, I guess we're not cleaning inder the bed π. Pull a drawer, a scorpio inside... OK... so, that about sums up my cleaning for the day π€£.
My point is, I wasn't scared of them. They attack only of you do stuff to them, you stay out of their way, they won't do amything to you βΊοΈ.
One of the proposed explanations for the recent explosion in bed bug populations is the fact that pesticides have become more effective at eliminating cockroaches, which are predators of bed bug eggs
Hm π€... you know, I've seen roaches in the bathroom as well, and I always wondered what they were doing there, like there's no food there. Apparently, if food is scarse, they'll eat almost anything, dead human skin included.
In that case, I guess they're not that bad. Sure, they should be regulated, cuz of deseases and all that, but living in a bubble is not good as well... for the immune system I mean.
OK, you've convinced me, I'm giving up on the roaches π.
I think they're a good diet to some insectivores.
Cats hunt them sometimes... I mean, some cats π.
I meant more like lizards, hedgehogs, frogs, but yeah, cats too.
If you gave any random person god like powers to do whatever they wanted, they would immediately eradicate mosquitoes as their first act.
I think I'm going to go with Africanized honeybees. My understanding is they're a man-made calamity, so pressing the delete key on them wouldn't like, upset the circle of life and piss off Mufasa or whatever.
Ticks and botflies. We don't need maggots making a home in our skin. Even worse is what they do to animals like sheep.
Mosquitos are mainly an annoyance to me and I can deal with them.
Maggots are the things that breakdown dead stuff, without them you'd have dead animals and plants rotting on the ground for ages while the bacteria breaks them down slowly. I think the whole world would smell worse.
These are maggots that get laid in your skin specifically. Look up "bot flies"
Fungi do most of the rotting anyway.
You can deal with them?? That would be FANTASTIC. I will pay you.
Hard to say. Mosquitos, is probably not one of them because even as much as we hate them, many animals prey on them, so unless other insect replaces them as a food source for those animals, them disappearing would probably affect many other species and subsequently, other species that may feed or depend in some form on those that feed on mosquitos.
My answer would probably be ticks, since I don't think there's many animals that feed on them and their only usefulness is population control, which should be doable by other species either way.
Edit: bed bugs as well, since it was mentioned by other commenters, I hate those fuckers and last I checked they weren't any animal's primary food source.
I remember reading some scientic article that examined what would happen if we eradicated the mosquitos entirely.
Surprisingly, they came to the conclusion that they'd just be gone and we would be a lot happier without the nuisance and the diseases they spread.
No other species is dependent on mosquitos as a food source, they could easily find enough to eat with them gone. Mosquitos apparently serve no known vital purpose in their ecosystems, although it was mentioned that males of some species have some little value as secondary pollinators.
That's interesting. With how many of them there are and knowing that many species eat them, I would have expected that at least some of them would suffer in some way.
This was also my previous assumption.
Chiggers. Fucking hate those things.
That is a dangerous word to say
Lol yep
They're so bad at my camp in the swamp, I have to bathe in bug repellent, and I still get 3-4. Without? I won't even try.
Once it dips below 40F sometime in October, or probably November, it's safe until April.
Tics. What's their use in nature anyway?
The bats would miss them.
Any change to the biodiversity on our planet will have a negative effect. What is a pest to you is food for another species, or a pollinator, or any of dozens of valuable purposes.
They're not just a pest to all humanity, but dogs and other animals as well because they can carry a parasite known as heart worm.
I'm sure there are a bunch of other terrible diseases they carry as well.
Bats aren't solely dependent on mosquitoes either. For all I car they can find something else to eat.
When you've seen family members you love suffer from dengue, malaria or whatever other fked up shit they spread, it becomes personal.
Definitely mosquitoes.
honestly any insect that primarily feeds on blood would be good to go.
mosquitoes
bed bugs
tics
fleas
screw all of those things
Particularly disease-carrying mosquitos have been assessed to be unimportant to ecosystems. Although, it's worth noting that outside of those few species, they don't primarily feed on blood, but rather nectar. They take blood once during their reproductive cycle.
Whatever shit's been preserved in the permafrost that's bound to come back.
cattle.
but preferably keep the wild ones
Wasps. Their stings hurt like hell.
I feel like a reasonable but controversial answer to this is cows
Cows are awesome. Go pet a cow sometime, they're extremely affectionate and just super chill.
just super chill.
Lol, they can be, they can (and do, several times a year in the UK alone) also stampede and trample a human/s to death quite easily (but also very deliberately. Edit to clarify - the stampede part is deliberate, I don't think the cows are necessarily homicidal lol).
Sure, they normally only do this when they feel threatened, but all it takes is a small dog nearby, or for the cow to have a calve you might not even see, and it's in defence mode.
I'm not trying to frame the cows as the problem, but this idea that they are docile animals you can just do whatever around (like people are literally paying money to "cuddle" cows) is wrong and dangerous. They are wild animals that are bigger and stronger than us, and should be treated as such.
But why cows?
It's an understandable answer that kind of misses the point. Cows are an incredible strain on the environment because of how fucking many of them humans breed in order to abuse and murder. But deleting cows would just prompt people to breed and abuse a different animal so it wouldn't help that much
What do you think we'd use? Just out of curiosity. Horse? Deer? We have the infrastructure and such for horses. I don't know why we haven't domesticated deer for meat production but I'd imagine they're next. Horses have much less utility in the modern world so I can definitely see them being the go-to.
More farming of pigs and goats probably.
Bison, most likely.
Yeah I honestly think they'd just reinvent the cow.
I don't kniw why but for some reason the phrase reinvent the cow is so funny to me.
Methane and total acreage needed per cow
But why male cows?
Flies
They are so annoying
Tiny (and some of them are absolutely minuscule) flying daredevils that can zoom in three dimensions through wild air currents to avoid your hand every time and land wherever they please? Nah, I respect flies. They're... perfected.
Flies serve many roles in nature. They help spread beneficial bacteria and mushroom spores. They are also food sources for various small animals, insects and arachnids. Sure they are annoying and creepy, but they have a place.
Wasps.
Fuck wasps.
Wasps are crucial pollinators, and predators for millions of other poisonous, venomous, deadly bug and animals (including other wasps). Ecosystem surviving the sudden loss of all wasps is questionable.
I place my faith in the collective power of the Beehive.
You can pick a fight with a wasp and win it. But mosquitoes sneak up on you and once you notice the little bastards it's already too late.
I'm going to choose not to pick fights with wasps. Haha
If I had to choose one Iβd choose one of the ones thatβs already going extinct so I could disrupt as few ecosystems as possible
Alternately, is there an invasive species that harms the ecosystems it invades and doesnβt have a non-invasive counterpart? Maybe domesticated cats?
Alternately, is there an invasive species that harms the ecosystems it invades and doesnβt have a non-invasive counterpart?
humans fuck
Obviously worms in general are needed, but any big group of mainly parasitic ones I could happily delete without a second thought. Ideally let's also destroy any records of their existence.
I could do without those hammerhead fuckers. They're invasive in our area, eat the regular earthworms, and really hard to kill.
The UCP
Tapeworm
My dog. Nobody's gonna miss his awful farts or massive shits.
I like the thought of an animal that already existed, terrifying, gruesome and truly terrible. But we humans were given a wish to extinguish a single type of animal from the face of the earth. And so we whose. And all memory of this horror from the dark was lost as it was cast into oblivion and humanity was relieved from its existence. Now all we are left with are in comparison cuddly squeaky companions of the animal kingdom and all is well, even the animals are glad to got rid of the horror. And now you ask that question when everything truly necessary was already done and now we ponder which one is the worst when all is well.
Kangaroos
Humans. Can you imagine how happy all of nature's spicies would be to get rid of this murderous polluting ravaging selfish disease of species called human? All animals to start to breath clean air, restore their trees and natural habitat, slowly recover their climate, and the fish thriving without plastic , toxic waste and oil pollution.
It is the best animal to delete for positive outcome no other choice comes close.
Don't think ya read the prompt.
Nature will never be happy. Nature will always be tearing itself apart. I vote "all animals" for deletion.
Seagulls. These fuckers shit on everything, they scatter your garbage all over the place and they're noisy.
And these tiny black insects that are small enough to get into picture frames and computer screens. Fuck then.
And that Brazilian penis fish that swims into your urethra. That im thing is just the stuff of nightmares.
That fish thing is a myth, it's never been proven to have ever happened.
Seagulls are fine, it is people who leave trash out that create the problem
All the people saying humans in this thread are the reason humans should be deleted.
Humans
Beavers. Just the mere sound of rushing water triggers their damn building instincts (scientists tested this). Just let the environment be itself.
Beavers create wetlands where other animals thrive. Plus wetlands are carbon sinks.
Oh, didn't know that. I thought they were just indiscriminate wood workers. Everyone says their level of destruction is second only to humans.
I can't tell if this is a bit or someone who has only heard of beavers from a half overheard conversation they were eavesdropping on.
I've heard of beavers, just I've never heard the part about their benefits before, just that they make structures to block water and that they do it whenever the urge kicks in. The times beavers have been brought up around me just happen to leave that out.
Huh. Do you live pretty far from where beavers do (not asking you to be specific)?
But yes, beavers are great. They are what is known as a "keystone species" because they create the wetland environments that many other species depend on to live in. They eat wood, and yes, the way they build dams is by piling debris/wood wherever they find/hear flowing water, until they've plugged it all up. Then they build a lodge with an underwater entrance in the pond they made, and stock it with sticks to eat through the winter. I think they are adorable.
It seems like I do, we get so many different animals here and of those I've only seen a beaver once. Plenty of woodchucks though, such as this sleeping beauty I woke up walking out.
I think the term "destruction" has been used too loosely here. Sure, beavers can change the landscape, but they don't make it uninhabitable for all life. As someone else mentioned they create wetlands.
Being second place in the destructiveness competition with humans is like they don't come anywhere close.
Don't they need to modify how many trees there are in the process though (which would be reckless to anything that depends on each one)?
Yes, they cut down trees. Approximately 200 per year. But these fallen trees stay nearby, and they are the beaver's home as well as some of their food. Plus they create a bigger wetland ecosystem than what they took away with those trees. Compare that to what humans do with trees we cut down... transport, process, burn, all sorts of things that are worse for the environment.
Btw even if it wasn't intentional this is the funniest thing I've seen today, "damn building instincts" had me in tears.
I'm sorry if this is rude, I'm glad we had a pleasant exchange.
It's not rude, I laughed a bit too. Damn autocorrect.
Beavers are immensly important for the environment for that very instinct. Where they go instinct, the land dries out and floods become much more severe.
How did nature cope before beavers existed?
Fun thing is nature always copes. When we've lit the atmosphere on fire and been killed off by climate change, chances are long after we're gone life will persist and leave us irresponsible children behind.
It's beautiful, in a way.
Some plants are going to enjoy all that extra co2
Not as good lol. Nature is constantly evolving and improving and beavers are such an improvement.
Nature is just a process of change. There is no improvement or deterioration, and it's not building towards some final goal or state.
Slow land accumulation in tree roots.
Pidgeons
Edit: surprised about how many people enjoy birdshit on their cars and home windows
Who should clean cities and subways from dropped food then? Rats?
Why do people hate pigeons?
Pigeons are super cute. I'm a lifelong city dweller and I understand the desire to be rid of them but their cooing is soothing and, unless tourists feed them, they leave you the fuck alone.
And dat plumage...
They are really beautiful and unique. I've very rarely had any issues with pigeons... People on the other hand, make me question living in a city sometimes
Bed bugs.
Positive outcome would be no more having to burn contaminted possessions (or wash them in very hot water many times).
I was going to go with the rabies virus, but bedbugs is a solid choice as well.
Viruses are not animals.
Viruses aren't even alive in the technical biological sense
Right? π€£
Yeah I think any human-specialized parasite is an easy choice. Head lice? Fuck em.
Bedbugs, hands down.
Only good bug is a dead bug.
I'm doing my part!
Landlords
They're not human, I'll allow this.
You sound just like someone from Nazi Germany.
Yeah, even nazi germany had principled people
Ah yes, the condition of being a landlord, a completely immutable state of being.
I know you said that we shouldnβt say humans but Iβm gonna say it anyway:
Humans.
Sorry.
Would be interesting to tally up the negative impacts of removing humans as well.
Culls of invasive species would no longer occur, which would be detrimental in those ecosystems.
A fairly significant number of endangered animals probably only exist today due to human intervention and breeding programs (i am well aware that we probably made them endangered in the first place)
Cross breeds would be done as well, Ligers and Mules require humans for breeding. Although in fairness they are definitely not natural to begin with.
Many animals we have domesticated would be done for as well, most smaller dogs are completely, reliant on humans for food and grooming. Many cats would be okay, but some breeds are likely dead ends as well. Jersey cows would probably have a bad time as well, without milking, sheep might have issues as well?
Interesting thought experiment.
Yeah, this is a good topic. I can add a few:
Short term, pets in houses, farm animals, etc will need to escape and start fending for themselves otherwise they'll starve (or dehydrate).. Oops, I'd somehow missed an entire paragraph of your post π€¦ββοΈ Sheep need us to trim their wool, because we've bred them up grow fair more than they need. They'll get too hot if they don't have problems with defecation first (an actual thing farmers have to worry about).Medium to long term, when dams and dikes aren't maintained they'll eventually fail, flooding vast areas including the Netherlands.
I guess that the world will continue heating for a bit even once we're gone, so we wouldn't be around to theoretically use our tech to help. Obviously, we're the reason it's happening in the first place, but nature's not equipped to deal with change that's this rapid.
Yes, most of those we created through breeding, but you could argue that wolves and coyotes created modern deer the same way.
I do wonder if many would go extinct in the medium term from predation, before they can evolve fast enough to adapt; I'm thinking farm pigs and chickens would be OK in the short term - they don't need us to survive - but wild dogs/coyotes/wolves, large cats like the NA lions, raptors, foxes... they'd all be putting a lot of pressure on those mostly defenseless breeds. Pigs are not wild hogs. Cattle and horses exist just fine in their environments without humans. Even with predation, herds are large and they aren't defenseless.
Sheep are an exception; like you said, they need us to perform maintenance because of how we've bred them. Are there others?
My thoughts go to a lot of our stored and operational fuel supplies. Nuclear fuel (both civil and weapon) would eventually become exposed through lack of storage container maintinance and cooling starting meltdown reactions in their localized environments. Oil extraction, distribution, and refining systems are automated to an extent but somewhere a tank is going ng to rupture or just run out of space and then it's all getting into the environment, likely at sea to have what effects that may cause.
Oh, yeah. If we suddenly disappeared, there'd be so many environmental catastrophes.
I'm sure it'd level off, but a driver falling asleep at the wheel on the highway tends to cause problems. If the BP spill in the Gulf had nobody trying to cap it off who knows how long it'd have kept going.
Life After people. Whole series exploring this
Ooh, thanks for the suggestion. Seems its on youtube as well. Thanks!
Link for anyone else interested: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLob1mZcVWOagLL-shJOp-d5_qJOG2MvCJ
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
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Was this the one with flying cats? Because that show was SO GOOD!! Except for the first few minutes with the dog...
Good point! Within a few weeks billions of animals would die. Chicken, pigs, cows, cats and dogs.
We definitely need to clarify what "good for the planet" means if we want to decide on the best answer.
Humans are the only species that would ask a question like this with ecologically damning effects. So, yeah.
I'm going to provide one very important reasons it would be disastrous to the ecosystem if humans were suddenly deleted from the Earth: what happens to the many currently active nuclear reactors? And what happens when Chernobyl's sarcophagus finally corrodes entirely and exposes that radioactive blight to the entirety of Europe and central Asia? Probably nothing good is the answer.
I would be willing to put money on "likely nothing" being the answer for active nuclear reactors. They're highly automated from a safety perspective these days. I'd be more worried about chemical plants
That's a good point, too. My general idea was we have certain things we've created that we can't leave unchecked or else it might be disastrous for the environment. Human infrastructure expects humans to exist.
Humans are not the problem. Ultrarich people are.
Oh come on, really? Is the problem ultrarich people? Or is the problem poor people who won't eat those ultrarich people?
TouchΓ©. We need to do better xD.
Natural selection
removed
Ticks.
They seem to just make everything worse, and I don't think anything only eats ticks. Not to mention the diseases they carry.
Possums eat ticks. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make, ticks are awful.
Possums don't live exclusively on ticks, they don't even particularly have a penchant for eating ticks. There was just one study that showed they could eat ticks and potentially have a resistance to some diseases.
Edit: sauce - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34298355/
Possums sure can eat some other bug/arachnoid don't need those vermin.
Ticks and mosquitos.
Do they make everything worse in ways other than disease?
I don't think they have much effect on the flora of an area, but humans are not the only fauna that are harmed by ticks.
Also they get in my dreams and I usually have at least one tick related nightmare a year, so please do understand I speak with some hyperbole.
I hate to say it, but getting rid of mosquitos would probably have bigger consequences than that. The females are the only ones sucking blood, the males on the other hand help pollinate plants, exterminating them could potentially affect our food production lines...
... But not gonna lie I'd still genocide the fuckers, ecological damage be damned.
You don't need to eliminate all mosquitos, just the ones that bite people.
There are dozens of different species of mosquitos, and not all of them bite people. If you get rid of the ones that bite people the others will likely still fill in as pollinators for those that are no longer competing with them.
Yes.. But then more humans will survive by avoiding certain diseases, which as a result, will produce a worse environmental outcome
Eh, kill off 3 or 4 billionaires per year and you'll counteract whatever additional environmental damage comes from millions of people not dying from malaria.
Funny you mention that, but in a way that's also true via the same mechanism.
Isn't the Gates Foundation focusing on stopping diseases from mosquitos? https://www.worldmosquitoprogram.org/en/news-stories/stories/the-gates-foundation-and-the-world-mosquito-program-partners-in-change
Only the females of a tiny fraction of species, and only when they need to produce eggs, stuck blood.
Minimize their numbers as much as you want, but that won't stop me from having to deal with them in almost every single day of my life.
Canadian Geese, the animal that Canada stored all its rage inside and sent to battle the United States
How dare you. I live for seasonal goose fly bys
I do honestly love hearing the honking and watching them fly by. I always point it out to my kids. I've seen lots of Canada geese in my life and they've never hissed at me, so I don't have a problem with them other than the poops that are just everywhere.
You've been fortunate lol
I've been on walks in parks that got too close to someone's nest and been charged. Those maniacs have serated tongues and beaks. I'm not kidding. You don't want to be bit by these maniacs
https://a-z-animals.com/blog/goose-teeth-everything-you-need-to-know/
Oh I know they're viscious! I've just been lucky and always kept enough distance between myself and them.
If you got a problem with Canadian Gooses, you got a problem with me, and I suggest you let that one marinate
The thing about Canada geese for me is the weird little poos. I don't mind the aggression, the flocking behavior, or any of the other antisocial nonsense that they've adopted from their namesake country.
It's the poos. They linger around for weeks.
https://youtu.be/ai_siQmok14?si=qr3YUH0FKk2Kb3CB
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Cobra Chickens are one of nature's wonders. Leave them alone!
And Finland...
Canadian geese, Australian Emus, sounds like there's some interesting AI image ideas here
What have Emus ever done to you??? :(
Not op, but an emu bit me as a child. Havent trusted them ever since. Just look at their shifty eyes.
Nothing it's like they don't even care about me :(
Oh noo, I love them both :(
I got distracted by the wrong aspect of that comment lol
I was picturing Canadian Geese and Australian Emus working together on... providing aid or something. Maybe not waging war
Well they seem to have a reputation for winning battles after all
Fucker stole my dimmie when i was six. Snatched it right out of my hand
Bedbugs. That's a terrible thing to happen to anyone.
A wave of them swept through my old apartment once almost six years ago. I still freak out at the smallest itch or bump.
Those bastards cause serious trauma
I had them about a year ago. I've never been the same either. A tiny black speck on the floor that is from my socks, or a fruit fly, can send me into hysteria.
The best thing you can spend money on IMO is a bedbug proof mattress encasement and those interception cups for the legs of your bed. Nobody will ever regret doing that. It can happen to anyone, right now Paris is rife with bedbugs.
https://www.wired.com/story/paris-bed-bugs/
I also have the little heated traps for them too.
First we ban DDT, then Pizza Hut releases Stuffed Crust, then bed bugs make a resurgence. It all fits.
My room mates/tenants in my basement spotted 2 bed bugs and we have gone full nuclear on them because we are all terrified of them. Like they've replaced everything soft, rubbed the sprays into the carpet, and I made a salt circle with d earth around their entrance.
We also keep quoting aliens (nuke it from orbit, only way to he safe) and Starship troopers.
I fear water and bed bugs as a home owner.
You should also run every piece of clothing and bedding you own through the dryer, and inspect your mattress seams, and get bedbug mattress encasements.
Most positive effects on the planet but not humans?
Cattle, they're a major source of greenhouse gasses, as are all the industries built around growing, processing, and transporting them.
absolutely
https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food
https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000010
That would be such a boon for the planet. The biomass of cattle (that is, if you piled them all on a scale and got their weight) far surpasses the biomass of wild mammals. All wild mammals, land and sea, combined. (They're only about 4% of total mammal biomass.)
Cattle, and the things you describe, are the result of human intervention...
Pandas. I mean, they really don't seem like they want to exist in the first place. And China get's to finally shut up about them.
Alternatively, they're at peace and content with their existence. At least that's what it seems like to me, goals really
but they cute though
Theyβre too lazy to even reproduce.
I'm off the opinion that no animal would be beneficial to remove. In almost every instance where we have exterminated a species there has been negative unanticipated consequences. Even mosquitos and bed bugs, there are predators that eat them and subsequent predators that eat them and so on. It's kind of like the butterfly effect. It's a balance formed from eons of coexistence that is not to be tampered with. There is so many examples where scientists try to introduce an animal to exterminate another that has gone horribly wrong. Regardless of my opinion, all living things have a part in our world. I'm not a vegetarian btw, but I do use Arch.
Mosquitos are also pollinators.
Mosquitoes
Mosquitos are important pollinators and have a very important place at the bottom of the food chain.
Surely something else can be eaten. And there are many species of mosquito that do not eat human blood. I think we can nuke the species that does and still get by.
Perhaps I'm under informed here.
I think people in China had similar ideas about sparrows... Nature is immensely complex and I can't think of a single instance in which human Intervention improved anything at all
That's fair. I'm entirely uninformed on the sparrows but I do understand nature is an endlessly complex system which we do not and probably can not ever truly understand. Not trying to be absolutist.
But I do wish death on every blood sucking mosquito.
Deleting all mosquitoes would have a significant impact on the environment, many birds and spiders mainly prey on them. Delete just mosquitoes that bite humans. It's a much narrower range and wouldn't affect the environment as much.
Similar insects would quickly fill the niche.
Mosquitoes are pollinators. Sucking blood and being annoying is only a small part of their functionality.
Cockroaches... as far as I'm aware, they don't contribute anything to the eco system, they're just pests.
Unfortunatelly, not even a nuclear war can erradicate them π.
'Cockroach' encompasses a wide range of species, the majority of which have no interest in living in a human's home, and contribute to the work of decomposition on the forest floor. Many smaller predators also eat them.
OK, just the pest ones then π.
I'm on board with that π
Some pests (not only cockroaches) keeps the sewage unclogged by consuming solids.
Oh, come on π€£... people just have to find an excuse for cocroaches to exist π€£.
Just learned recently that there are over 3000 species of cockroaches and about 10 are invasive to humans.
well let's get rid of those 10 then, the other 2990 should be able to pick up whatever positive effect those 10 species have without building nests and swarming our homes
That's really only German cockroaches that are colony roaches. At least in my region.
That's an incredible statistic. Where did you learn that?
I was watching the streamer piratesoftware who before he became a programmer/hacker was in college for entomology.
They are extremely important for getting rid of dead things. Everything contributes to the ecosystem, except invasive species, OP's premise is impossible to begin with.
Like really? Even pest cocroaches, they eat dead flesh � Cuz I thought they only went after good food (not rotten).
They don't just eat dead animals, they also eat dead plant matter. Humans decided that some animals are "pests" because they don't like having them around for one reason or another.
My main concern is hygene, nothing more (spread of jerms and viruses)... other than that, I have no problem living with all sorts of insects.
I was in Egypt once and stayed in a trailer in the middle of the desert (long story π). Anyway, the trailer was kinda dusty, so I decided to clean it a little bit. I pull the bed, a big fucking spider underneath it... OK, I guess we're not cleaning inder the bed π. Pull a drawer, a scorpio inside... OK... so, that about sums up my cleaning for the day π€£.
My point is, I wasn't scared of them. They attack only of you do stuff to them, you stay out of their way, they won't do amything to you βΊοΈ.
One of the proposed explanations for the recent explosion in bed bug populations is the fact that pesticides have become more effective at eliminating cockroaches, which are predators of bed bug eggs
Hm π€... you know, I've seen roaches in the bathroom as well, and I always wondered what they were doing there, like there's no food there. Apparently, if food is scarse, they'll eat almost anything, dead human skin included.
In that case, I guess they're not that bad. Sure, they should be regulated, cuz of deseases and all that, but living in a bubble is not good as well... for the immune system I mean.
OK, you've convinced me, I'm giving up on the roaches π.
I think they're a good diet to some insectivores.
Cats hunt them sometimes... I mean, some cats π.
I meant more like lizards, hedgehogs, frogs, but yeah, cats too.
If you gave any random person god like powers to do whatever they wanted, they would immediately eradicate mosquitoes as their first act.
I think I'm going to go with Africanized honeybees. My understanding is they're a man-made calamity, so pressing the delete key on them wouldn't like, upset the circle of life and piss off Mufasa or whatever.
Ticks and botflies. We don't need maggots making a home in our skin. Even worse is what they do to animals like sheep.
Mosquitos are mainly an annoyance to me and I can deal with them.
Maggots are the things that breakdown dead stuff, without them you'd have dead animals and plants rotting on the ground for ages while the bacteria breaks them down slowly. I think the whole world would smell worse.
These are maggots that get laid in your skin specifically. Look up "bot flies"
Fungi do most of the rotting anyway.
You can deal with them?? That would be FANTASTIC. I will pay you.
Hard to say. Mosquitos, is probably not one of them because even as much as we hate them, many animals prey on them, so unless other insect replaces them as a food source for those animals, them disappearing would probably affect many other species and subsequently, other species that may feed or depend in some form on those that feed on mosquitos.
My answer would probably be ticks, since I don't think there's many animals that feed on them and their only usefulness is population control, which should be doable by other species either way.
Edit: bed bugs as well, since it was mentioned by other commenters, I hate those fuckers and last I checked they weren't any animal's primary food source.
I remember reading some scientic article that examined what would happen if we eradicated the mosquitos entirely.
Surprisingly, they came to the conclusion that they'd just be gone and we would be a lot happier without the nuisance and the diseases they spread.
No other species is dependent on mosquitos as a food source, they could easily find enough to eat with them gone. Mosquitos apparently serve no known vital purpose in their ecosystems, although it was mentioned that males of some species have some little value as secondary pollinators.
That's interesting. With how many of them there are and knowing that many species eat them, I would have expected that at least some of them would suffer in some way.
This was also my previous assumption.
Chiggers. Fucking hate those things.
That is a dangerous word to say
Lol yep
They're so bad at my camp in the swamp, I have to bathe in bug repellent, and I still get 3-4. Without? I won't even try.
Once it dips below 40F sometime in October, or probably November, it's safe until April.
Tics. What's their use in nature anyway?
The bats would miss them.
Any change to the biodiversity on our planet will have a negative effect. What is a pest to you is food for another species, or a pollinator, or any of dozens of valuable purposes.
They're not just a pest to all humanity, but dogs and other animals as well because they can carry a parasite known as heart worm. I'm sure there are a bunch of other terrible diseases they carry as well.
Bats aren't solely dependent on mosquitoes either. For all I car they can find something else to eat.
When you've seen family members you love suffer from dengue, malaria or whatever other fked up shit they spread, it becomes personal.
Definitely mosquitoes.
honestly any insect that primarily feeds on blood would be good to go.
screw all of those things
Particularly disease-carrying mosquitos have been assessed to be unimportant to ecosystems. Although, it's worth noting that outside of those few species, they don't primarily feed on blood, but rather nectar. They take blood once during their reproductive cycle.
The poisonous (not venomous) grasshoppers that eat plants to death but nothing eats them.
Really it is people, though.
Parasitic worms
I haven't vomited in years, but the concept of those things makes me feel like I'm gonna
Same for me, mosquitoes. Those pesky little buggers!
Mosquitos. Also bedbugs. Any insect that feeds on blood really
Mosquitos are the largest killer of people in history. Getting rid of them would have a massive positive effect.
Humanity OFC-- oh you said not to say humans... Shit.
How nice would that be if humanity stopped existing...
None. And weβre hurting badly from the ones that have already been removed.
Australians would say emus
Disease carrying mosquito species
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Whatever shit's been preserved in the permafrost that's bound to come back.
cattle.
but preferably keep the wild ones
Wasps. Their stings hurt like hell.
I feel like a reasonable but controversial answer to this is cows
Cows are awesome. Go pet a cow sometime, they're extremely affectionate and just super chill.
Lol, they can be, they can (and do, several times a year in the UK alone) also stampede and trample a human/s to death quite easily (but also very deliberately. Edit to clarify - the stampede part is deliberate, I don't think the cows are necessarily homicidal lol).
Sure, they normally only do this when they feel threatened, but all it takes is a small dog nearby, or for the cow to have a calve you might not even see, and it's in defence mode.
I'm not trying to frame the cows as the problem, but this idea that they are docile animals you can just do whatever around (like people are literally paying money to "cuddle" cows) is wrong and dangerous. They are wild animals that are bigger and stronger than us, and should be treated as such.
But why cows?
It's an understandable answer that kind of misses the point. Cows are an incredible strain on the environment because of how fucking many of them humans breed in order to abuse and murder. But deleting cows would just prompt people to breed and abuse a different animal so it wouldn't help that much
What do you think we'd use? Just out of curiosity. Horse? Deer? We have the infrastructure and such for horses. I don't know why we haven't domesticated deer for meat production but I'd imagine they're next. Horses have much less utility in the modern world so I can definitely see them being the go-to.
More farming of pigs and goats probably.
Bison, most likely.
Yeah I honestly think they'd just reinvent the cow.
I don't kniw why but for some reason the phrase reinvent the cow is so funny to me.
Methane and total acreage needed per cow
But why male cows?
Flies
They are so annoying
Tiny (and some of them are absolutely minuscule) flying daredevils that can zoom in three dimensions through wild air currents to avoid your hand every time and land wherever they please? Nah, I respect flies. They're... perfected.
Flies serve many roles in nature. They help spread beneficial bacteria and mushroom spores. They are also food sources for various small animals, insects and arachnids. Sure they are annoying and creepy, but they have a place.
Wasps.
Fuck wasps.
Wasps are crucial pollinators, and predators for millions of other poisonous, venomous, deadly bug and animals (including other wasps). Ecosystem surviving the sudden loss of all wasps is questionable.
I place my faith in the collective power of the Beehive.
You can pick a fight with a wasp and win it. But mosquitoes sneak up on you and once you notice the little bastards it's already too late.
I'm going to choose not to pick fights with wasps. Haha
No figs for you
Wild hogs. They're invasive, they're spreading like crazy in Prairie Canada and Midwest USA.
I got some bad news for you...."Super pigs" β called the "most invasive animal on the planet" β threaten to invade northern U.S.
If I had to choose one Iβd choose one of the ones thatβs already going extinct so I could disrupt as few ecosystems as possible
Alternately, is there an invasive species that harms the ecosystems it invades and doesnβt have a non-invasive counterpart? Maybe domesticated cats?
humansfuckObviously worms in general are needed, but any big group of mainly parasitic ones I could happily delete without a second thought. Ideally let's also destroy any records of their existence.
I could do without those hammerhead fuckers. They're invasive in our area, eat the regular earthworms, and really hard to kill.
The UCP
Tapeworm
My dog. Nobody's gonna miss his awful farts or massive shits.
I like the thought of an animal that already existed, terrifying, gruesome and truly terrible. But we humans were given a wish to extinguish a single type of animal from the face of the earth. And so we whose. And all memory of this horror from the dark was lost as it was cast into oblivion and humanity was relieved from its existence. Now all we are left with are in comparison cuddly squeaky companions of the animal kingdom and all is well, even the animals are glad to got rid of the horror. And now you ask that question when everything truly necessary was already done and now we ponder which one is the worst when all is well.
Kangaroos
Humans. Can you imagine how happy all of nature's spicies would be to get rid of this murderous polluting ravaging selfish disease of species called human? All animals to start to breath clean air, restore their trees and natural habitat, slowly recover their climate, and the fish thriving without plastic , toxic waste and oil pollution. It is the best animal to delete for positive outcome no other choice comes close.
Don't think ya read the prompt.
Nature will never be happy. Nature will always be tearing itself apart. I vote "all animals" for deletion.
Seagulls. These fuckers shit on everything, they scatter your garbage all over the place and they're noisy.
And these tiny black insects that are small enough to get into picture frames and computer screens. Fuck then.
And that Brazilian penis fish that swims into your urethra. That im thing is just the stuff of nightmares.
That fish thing is a myth, it's never been proven to have ever happened.
Seagulls are fine, it is people who leave trash out that create the problem
All the people saying humans in this thread are the reason humans should be deleted.
Humans
Beavers. Just the mere sound of rushing water triggers their damn building instincts (scientists tested this). Just let the environment be itself.
Beavers create wetlands where other animals thrive. Plus wetlands are carbon sinks.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64502365
Oh, didn't know that. I thought they were just indiscriminate wood workers. Everyone says their level of destruction is second only to humans.
I can't tell if this is a bit or someone who has only heard of beavers from a half overheard conversation they were eavesdropping on.
I've heard of beavers, just I've never heard the part about their benefits before, just that they make structures to block water and that they do it whenever the urge kicks in. The times beavers have been brought up around me just happen to leave that out.
Huh. Do you live pretty far from where beavers do (not asking you to be specific)?
But yes, beavers are great. They are what is known as a "keystone species" because they create the wetland environments that many other species depend on to live in. They eat wood, and yes, the way they build dams is by piling debris/wood wherever they find/hear flowing water, until they've plugged it all up. Then they build a lodge with an underwater entrance in the pond they made, and stock it with sticks to eat through the winter. I think they are adorable.
It seems like I do, we get so many different animals here and of those I've only seen a beaver once. Plenty of woodchucks though, such as this sleeping beauty I woke up walking out.
I think the term "destruction" has been used too loosely here. Sure, beavers can change the landscape, but they don't make it uninhabitable for all life. As someone else mentioned they create wetlands.
Being second place in the destructiveness competition with humans is like they don't come anywhere close.
Don't they need to modify how many trees there are in the process though (which would be reckless to anything that depends on each one)?
Yes, they cut down trees. Approximately 200 per year. But these fallen trees stay nearby, and they are the beaver's home as well as some of their food. Plus they create a bigger wetland ecosystem than what they took away with those trees. Compare that to what humans do with trees we cut down... transport, process, burn, all sorts of things that are worse for the environment.
"When a beaver builds a dam, it floods outlying areas creating wetlands. Frogs, salamanders, fish, birds and lots of mammals depend on wetlands to live. One estimate shows nearly half of all endangered & threatened species need wetlands to survive."
Btw even if it wasn't intentional this is the funniest thing I've seen today, "damn building instincts" had me in tears.
I'm sorry if this is rude, I'm glad we had a pleasant exchange.
It's not rude, I laughed a bit too. Damn autocorrect.
Beavers are immensly important for the environment for that very instinct. Where they go instinct, the land dries out and floods become much more severe.
How did nature cope before beavers existed?
Fun thing is nature always copes. When we've lit the atmosphere on fire and been killed off by climate change, chances are long after we're gone life will persist and leave us irresponsible children behind.
It's beautiful, in a way.
Some plants are going to enjoy all that extra co2
Not as good lol. Nature is constantly evolving and improving and beavers are such an improvement.
Nature is just a process of change. There is no improvement or deterioration, and it's not building towards some final goal or state.
Slow land accumulation in tree roots.
Pidgeons
Edit: surprised about how many people enjoy birdshit on their cars and home windows
Who should clean cities and subways from dropped food then? Rats?
Why do people hate pigeons?
Pigeons are super cute. I'm a lifelong city dweller and I understand the desire to be rid of them but their cooing is soothing and, unless tourists feed them, they leave you the fuck alone.
And dat plumage...
They are really beautiful and unique. I've very rarely had any issues with pigeons... People on the other hand, make me question living in a city sometimes
Cause it's a plague that shits everywhere.
Sounds like you're describing humanity
Orange cats