Anything is poison in a high enough quantity.
My masturbation has become poison?!?
friction burns
No no no, masturbation is how you get the poison out.
Phew! That’s a load off…
Seriously. Our bodies are more than half poison, by OP’s metric
I mean, there are various other animal species that specialize in eating so much poison that they become poisonous themselves, so we’re not very impressive in this regard.
Isn’t there an annual “man vs horse running race” where, once every decade or so, someone actually beats the horse?
People beat horses on the regular. The “man vs horse” race balances the course to try to make it equal. Horses will trounce people on courses under 3 hours or so. Humans do better with steep terrain. So humans will crush a trail endurance race over longer distances. We will lose badly on short, flat courses.
Interestingly dogs are the other species that can really hang with people in endurance runs. We will eventually leave them behind as well. They can outrun us in sprints and courses under a few hours. They can’t keep pace at 4+ hours.
I used to work as a safety officer for a mountain ultramarathon race. The shortest course was 8 miles, the longest was 100. We have humans that can run 100 miles in a day and a half. I don’t think any other land animal can do that. Hell, I’m a human, I can’t do that.
This isn’t exclusive to humans. Tons of animals actively seek out and consume mind altering substances that are generally poisonous. Elephants eat rotting fermenting apples to get drunk, monkeys steal alcoholic drinks from beach resorts, cats inhale cat nip, big cats like lions like to eat psychedelic mushrooms, and dolphins prick themselves with puffer fish poison spines
yeah i remember some exotic frogs intentionally eat poisonous stuff sothat they get poisonous themselves to deter predators that would otherwise eat them
Elephants eat rotting fermenting apples to get drunk
That was a hoax by some nature documentary channel back then.
…but there is a critter specialized in digesting high amounts of alcohol from fermenting fruits. Also has a boozers nose.
And monkeys do like fermented fruits too.
Imagining a fantasy setting where elves, dwarves, orcs and whatnot are just continually baffled by humans eating the most vile toxic things.
Salsa? You mean a mix of a hemolytic poison (onions), a cardiotoxin (tomatoes), and a nerve agent (chili peppers)? Eaten with corn chips dusted with a lethal amount of salt, and washed down with a cup full of neurotoxin (iced tea)?
Stay the fuck away from me because clearly you are the vile spawn of some incomprehensible eldritch god
Tbf dwarven religions are like “my ancestors carved these rules with their hands to guide us forward” and elven religions are like “my ancestors got intimate with a fae, starting our race. Also their firstborn is still alive.”
Meanwhile human religions are like “here is a horse that’s made out of all living beings, with a woman’s face too. Mortals who mount it can go to heaven for 5 seconds.”
let’s not forget that a lot of human religion is also just “thank u sun for making us not freeze to death, very cool. You too, water: big fan of watering my crops.”
Which is probably my favourite HFY concept: humans being ludicrously diverse while everyone else has like maybe 5 different cultures.
Even better there’s one non-human species that’s also super diverse and we both go
In D&D dwarves have resistance to poison damage and advantage on saving throws against poison, so they would be the ones with food no one else could eat safely.
When the dwarves invite you over for dinner, steer clear of the mushroom stew.
To everyone else, dwarf food seems bland. Since the dwarf cooking it couldn’t add any of there normal spices. “Can humans eat rocks? I don’t think so, better skip them.” (Then skips the salt)
Fun fact; you shouldn’t swallow pebbles. You can digest them, but they are rich in toxic minerals, to the point that your kidney gets overwhelmed.
I’m so glad I learned that I could digest rocks as an adult. I don’t think the second part of that warning would have been enough to deter me as a kid.
oh btw there’s these clay eating people all around the world.
they’re eaten for various reasons, sometimes because of health benefits (de-tox) or due to lack of proper food.
Impact on health
Clay minerals have been reported to have beneficial microbiological effects, such as protecting the stomach against toxins, parasites, and pathogens.[43][44] Humans are not able to synthesize vitamin B12 (cobalamin), so geophagia may be a behavioral adaptation to obtain it from bacteria in the soil.[45] Mineral content in soils may vary by region, but many contain high levels of calcium, copper, magnesium, iron, and zinc; these minerals are critical for developing fetuses, which may explain cravings by pregnant women to chew metallic objects, soil, ice cravings. Pregnant women may also experience ice-chewing cravings or drives towards specifically cold food to trigger vasoconstricting, which increases brain oxygen levels by restricting neck veins; both cravings, soil and ice, may have familial and environmental links.
detoxing is not real lol, unless you’re eating activated charcoal.
We have organs that specifically exist to remove toxins from the body, if foods have positive health effects it’s not due to “detoxing”.
What about boulders?
If it fits, it shits?
HumanityFuckYeah is a genre that is basically this, although it’s most often in a scifi setting.
Usually depicting humans reaching the wider universe and baffling/overcoming large more advanced galactic empires due to Earth effectively being a death world where everything is trying to kill us.
Earth effectively being a death world where everything is trying to kill us.
I’d be chill with that, but my experience with r/HFY was mostly humans being more amazing than aliens in every way for no apparent good reason. Just so weird.
idk about weird, most fiction is at least somewhat based in power fantasy, especially in times like these where basically everyone feels fucking miserable and helpless.
The best settings are where everyone is morbidly fascinated by each other.
Humans are effectively viewed as stereotypical frenchmen, constantly smoking and drinking and eating violently stinky food.
Dwarves think asbestos has a wonderful crunchy texture that goes great with a tall glass of mercury.
Elves cannot comprehend why you wouldn’t simply drink raw magic like a civilized person (you gotta try some Yith’Illian merlinot, they age it for two hundred years in silverwood caskets which gives it a gorgeous silky texture).
Orcs consider most human food to be ultraprocessed slop for babies, but have become borderline addicted to our hard candy and have formed a deep friendship with dwarves over sharing bones to gnaw on.
Don’t forget how we’ve been partying by getting absolutely smashed with a large variety of poisons for fucking millennia. We make alcohol out of plants, honey and even milk.
We’re not fast and don’t have a lot of natural weaponry
We are pretty fast compared to a lot of animals, especially when it comes to speed over any significant distance. Only a few other animals (like wolves and horses) can beat us in a long-distance race. And we’re especially good at maintaining speed over distance in high temperatures – as the temperature rises, our advantage there increases.
And having two hands to grab and grapple with (as opposed to only a mouth) is also a pretty rare and special skill in the animal kingdom. Maybe not the most impressive ‘natural weaponry’, but still quite useful and something to be feared by other animals. Then there’s our sheer size – we’re certainly not the biggest ever, but in the grand scheme of things, we’re definitely on the larger end of the spectrum, which gives us an advantage over most animals out there.
Yeah, yeah, the running thing.
Next you’ll be saying you have a fighting chance against a chimpanzee.
you know what i call victory? not having to engage in fights in the first place.
Using my superior intellect and aforementioned running thing i can make the extremely complex strategic decision to run the fuck away from the chimp.
I wouldn’t put money on us vs. a cheetah or even a bobcat
A Cheetah will do a half mile faster than a human. 50 miles? 100% bread ape victory.
A single human would likely loose. 5 humans against 5 cheetahs?even if the cheetahs could work together, with basic weaponary (eg. Spears) the humans win.
Depends on the distance. The cats are faster over a short distance, but can’t keep it up for miles and miles.
We’re not fast but we can run for a long time. Don’t have natural weapons but can make them. Then there are people who voted for trump 1-3 times. And other countries that see how the USA is doing and are trying to copy it. I’m not sure where I’m going with this. I hate it here
Our superpower is sweating.
we have a lot of little superpowers, but i’d say the big one is the thing we’re doing right now. We would never have made any of this technology if we didn’t communicate and work together absurdly well.
Hell it applies to other animals too: being both intelligent and social unlocks the ability for not only your entire species but potentially even all the intelligent species to collaborate.
Yet, we drink from a mountain stream and we shit ourselves until we dehydrate and die.
True, but that’s not just humans. We just drink less poop water so we’re behind on the immunity.
actually, mountain streams are mostly safe because the water is in constant movement, and also as it’s on a mountain, that typically means that the source is not that far away and so the water didn’t have a lot of time to stand around and get infected with all kinds of stuff.
slowly-flowing or standing water in the plains is what gives you the diarrhea of your life.
even better: walk upstream ideally until you find the source, and drink from there. Water straight from the ground is generally incredibly clean, thanks to being filtered as it passes through the soil.
Like, that’s how wells work, you dig down until water seeps out from the ground around the hole.
Is this about capsaicin? Because that’s not a poison by any definition of the word.
The morning necessity is probably caffeine.
But capsaicin is a neurotoxin, and high enough doses absolutely can be dangerous and even fatal. The pain involved long before those doses are reached keeps most sensible people safe.
What can a human eat that a pig can’t?
yeah, except that i’m pretty sure pigs are better at digesting stuff that’s gone off. carrion, rotten meat. not saying they like it, but it probably kills them at a much lower rate than it kills us. we’re cookbabies. small-jawed widdle babies who need sterile pap.
we’re walkpilled brainmaxxing cookcels
Raw parsnips, also high quantities of salt without water (pigs are highly sensitive to salt toxicity), also raw celery sticks
pigs cant eat celery? that’s amazing. do pigs have the smarts not to eat it? or are they like dogs, who very often eat anything that appears in the vague context of food and then maybe vomit it up if it turns out to be not food.
Not only are they not smart enough to avoid it, they find it tasty. They also won’t vomit it up. Raw celery makes their skin highly sensitive to sunlight and causes them to get badly sunburnt easily, allowing blisters and open sores. Lighter skinned pigs are at even more risk for the lack of melanin.