Could octopuses have dominated like humans did if they lived on land? Their tentacles are just as dextrous as human hands without the need of opposable thumbs
>>16537048imagine genetically modifying the octopus to not have a beak and to only be able to survive off human semen
>he didnt watch the science channel special about all evolution where spiders harvest rats as the only remaining mammals and squids move across tree branches wuth their tentancles.
It's not about living on land. Their biggest problem is having very short lives of 1-5 year, and generally the mom dies when the young are born as well. This makes it impossible to function as a sapience race, because they cannot pass knowledge on to the next generation. Everything an octopus learns and adapts to do is lost when that individual specimen dies.They would also require spoken language, or something close enough. People underestimate how important that is. You NEED the ability to communicate with language in order to evolve sapience, because doing so allows you to ask questions, philosophize, and connect to others of your kind on a drastically deeper level. You can't meaningfully learn or meaningfully teach if you cannot speak, it allows you to put your thoughts in concrete form and become something more than just an animal
>>16537048Why couldn't octopuses have dominated in the sea?
>>16537088Ok so we need to not do this>>16537740The life span is definitely the biggest issue by far. Also, tentacles don't work on land from an evolutionary standpoint. They'd get pwned long before they could evolve dominate.>>16537746Short lifespans. If they lived long enough to pass on knowledge they'd have underwater farms right now.
>>16537740Why are they so short-lived? Seems strange for a fairly intelligent animal.
>>16537740this is why once we develop an AGI we pass it on to the plants to develop a perfect symbiosis.
>>16537088I'm sure you could surgically remove the beak without killing it.
>>16537826Once they breed, they just give up on life, eventually dying from self-neglect or being eaten by something else. As they don't care for their young and are born basically in adult form, there's little reason to continue to exist after breeding. From a species point of view, it might be better for them to die off after breeding so they don't compete with the next generation for resources.
>>16537048>>16537740Octopi are on the road to sapience. Lifespan isn't a problem in the large scope of things, at some point some descendant gets to live more and so on. Some octopi already live in shallows and tread on beaches. Some others are intelligent enough for visual communication through the changing of colors, even though they mostly do this unintentionally. At some point land living octopi could develop lung-like organs, they could develop some sort of hearing. The only reason they haven't evolves for total domination is because a lot of other animals did it first. The next candidate after humans and monkeys can be parrots of many kinds, and only if land animals ceased to exist would octopi have their chance.
>>16537048Human arms/hands are way stronger and more precise so no.
>>16537936They'd have to bring water reservoirs, like an old discarded shell or something, to bring onto land. They'd be like hermit crabs, but smart.
