You find yourself in the cretaceous

[skepticalbip]

No, of course not. How on earth would not murdering a tyrannosaur endanger the human species?

How would killing one tyrannosaur cause an ecosystem to be destroyed?

Your plan is to just kill one tyrannosaur and leave?

You keep implying that the OP was about a hunting safari intent on wiping out a species. It was not.

To restate Treedbear's question... How would killing one tyrannosaur (in self defense that was attacking) cause an ecosystem to be destroyed?

 

[Politesse]

Your plan is to just kill one tyrannosaur and leave?

You keep implying that the OP was about a hunting safari intent on wiping out a species. It was not.

To restate Treedbear's question... How would killing one tyrannosaur (in self defense that was attacking) cause an ecosystem to be destroyed?

The OP is obviously a childish power fantasy about going back in time with a gun. If it were really about wilderness survival techniques, we'd be talking about... well, those. There's a lot more to survival in an unfamiliar enviroment than guns. You're going to die of thirst, infection and exposure LONG before you ever have to worry about happening to run across and apex predator and somehow goading it into a fight, a statistically very unlikely event.

 

[skepticalbip]

Your plan is to just kill one tyrannosaur and leave?

You keep implying that the OP was about a hunting safari intent on wiping out a species. It was not.

To restate Treedbear's question... How would killing one tyrannosaur (in self defense that was attacking) cause an ecosystem to be destroyed?

The OP is obviously a power fantasy about going back in time with a gun. If it were really about wilderness survival techniques, we'd be talking about... well, that. There's a lot more to survival in an unfamiliar enviroment than guns. You're going to die of thirst and exposure LONG before you ever have to worry about happening to run across and apex predator and somehow goading it into a fight.

Strange how you seem to be so incapable of answering a simple question so respond with a strawman.

Certainly there is more to wilderness survival than guns. But anyone going into a wilderness where there are large predators (even to do science study on some aspect of the area) is not prepared to survive unless they prepare with the means to survive an attack by those large predators. Science expeditions to the arctic include people with guns to protect the team from polar bears.

 

[bilby]

Your plan is to just kill one tyrannosaur and leave?

I would try to plan to have the means to kill as many tyrannosaurs as I needed to in order to survive, whether I get to leave or not. Would that destroy an ecosystem?

Depends how often you decided you "needed" to kill a tyrannosaur, and whether you had other people with you doing likewise. If you're talking about apex predators, seemingly small impacts can have big effects, their numbers are often small to begin with and their links to other species significant. Moreover, in the years following the K-T event, therapod genes in particular came to play a significant role in the overall eocsystemic balance of the planet.

These days, therapod genes are for the birds.

 

[Politesse]

Certainly there is more to wilderness survival than guns.

But fantasizing about guns is obviouly the real topic of the thread, so that's what we've been talking about this whole time.

But anyone going into a wilderness where there are large predators (even to do science study on some aspect of the area) is not prepared to survive unless they prepare with the means to survive an attack by those large predators. Science expeditions to the arctic include people with guns to protect the team from polar bears.

Polar bears are a protected species, and you can get into enormous trouble for killing one, even in "defense". Defense kills in the arctic are therefore both rare and considered a last resort by most anyone who actually goes there, unless manufacturing such a scenario was in their heads to begin with. Most arctic travelers I know well have been ethnographers, not biologists, but I've never known a scientist of any specialization with a blase, let alone giddy, attitude toward killing members of an endangered species. If you get into a situation where attempting to kill a polar bear is your only remaining option, you've already been making a lot more mistakes than you realize up until that point, and probably still have more options than you are acknowledging.

Whom I have met in my own biomic neighborhood, many times, are "survivalist" morons trekking out into the woods, acting like morons, and trying to "accidentally" get into a situation where they'll need to kill a cat or grizzly. Or ranchers who've got no fucking clue how to defend their farmsteads, lose a few sheep to wolf predation, and blame the local park rangers when they are "forced" to take a wolf in defense of their herd. Then they cry and moan on social media when they get arrested for "defending themselves", usually win their stupid cases or get off with a nominal fine, and go home to their trophy rooms to gaze lovingly at the heads of all the animals they've gosh darn it just had to kill.

My problem with this thread is with gun culture and its customary idiocy. Not with the dinosaurs part. I love dinosaurs, always have. You want to talk about the actual Cretaceous, I'm game.

 

[skepticalbip]

Certainly there is more to wilderness survival than guns.

But fantasizing about guns is obviouly the real topic of the thread, so that's what we've been talking about this whole time.

"Obvious" to you maybe because you steered it in that direction. You are the only one I have seen that insists that the idea is to hunt down dinosaurs.

But anyone going into a wilderness where there are large predators (even to do science study on some aspect of the area) is not prepared to survive unless they prepare with the means to survive an attack by those large predators. Science expeditions to the arctic include people with guns to protect the team from polar bears.

Polar bears are a protected species, and you can get into enormous trouble for killing one, even in "defense". Defense kills in the arctic are therefore both rare and considered a last resort by most anyone who actually goes there, unless manufacturing such a scenario was in their heads to begin with. Most arctic travelers I know well have been ethnographers, not biologists, but I've never known a scientist of any specialization with a blase, let alone giddy, attitude toward killing members of an endangered species. If you get into a situation where attempting to kill a polar bear is your only remaining option, you've already been making a lot more mistakes than you realize up until that point, and probably still have more options than you are acknowledging.

Science expeditions to the arctic do have people with guns to protect the team from polar bear attacks. Pretend to read the minds of the organizers of those expeditions and attribute all the brutish, evil intents to them you want. But the fact remains that if they did not make such preparations then the team is not prepared to survive in the arctic.

ETA:
But I see that you still can not give Treedbear a simple, straight answer.

 

[Politesse]

"Obvious" to you maybe because you steered it in that direction. You are the only one I have seen that insists that the idea is to hunt down dinosaurs.

What can I say, I'm a skeptical guy, especially when people are pushing bullshit to promote idiotic social agendas.

As for your theoretical arctic expeditions, I'd be interested in any actual source to support the idea that guns are or should be your primary strategy for polar bear defense.

For some actual advice on dealing with polar bears, try:

https://polarbearsinternational.org/research/research-qa/polar-bear-attacks/
https://www.fws.gov/alaska/alaska/pages/marine-mammals/polar-bears/Safety-in-polar-bear-habitat
https://omakas.es/what-to-do-when-you-encounter-a-polar-bear/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/mosaic-polarstern-polar-bear-guards/​

Note that although all of these sources acknowledge a possible a possible role for firearms, they also treat this as the least effective means of keeping yourself safe in the Arctic. The public, not biologists, are the ones obsessed with rifles as bear defense, and the prevalence of guns in the north country is as much a problem as it is a solution, especially for someone concerned about ecological questions. You want to be smart, don't get into a bad situation to begin with. There are more than four million people living in the arctic, and three or four of them are seriously attacked by polar bears each year - literally, a one-in-a-million chance. If you're the one in a million, you have already made mistakes, and the gun is likely among those mistakes unless you are very good with it and more than a bit lucky. If you are, you may still find yourself in hot water with the law, and I certainly won't think much of you. So-called "defense kills" are way out of proportion with the number of human kills by bears, and many believe predation by humans to be the most significant threat polar bears face in the wild today. Not the other way around.

 

[skepticalbip]

"Obvious" to you maybe because you steered it in that direction. You are the only one I have seen that insists that the idea is to hunt down dinosaurs.

What can I say, I'm a skeptical guy, especially when people are pushing bullshit to promote idiotic social agendas.

What the fuck is this supposed to mean? Is it an intro to yet another strawman?

I will repeat:

Science expeditions to the arctic do have people with guns to protect the team from polar bear attacks. Pretend to read the minds of the organizers of those expeditions and attribute all the brutish, evil intents to them you want. But the fact remains that if they did not make such preparations then the team is not prepared to survive in the arctic.

ETA:
But I see that you still can not give Treedbear a simple, straight answer.

 

[Politesse]

What the fuck is this supposed to mean? Is it an intro to yet another strawman?

I will repeat:

Science expeditions to the arctic do have people with guns to protect the team from polar bear attacks. Pretend to read the minds of the organizers of those expeditions and attribute all the brutish, evil intents to them you want. But the fact remains that if they did not make such preparations then the team is not prepared to survive in the arctic.

ETA:
But I see that you still can not give Treedbear a simple, straight answer.

To what? Obviously, killing a single tyrannosaur would not collapse an ecosystem singledhandedly. It doesn't make it any less of a stupid motivation for time travel.

I note that precious little naural science has been discussed in this thread, which is in the "natural science" subforum. This is the forum equivalent of a (modern) National Geographic program.

 

[Treedbear]

"Obvious" to you maybe because you steered it in that direction. You are the only one I have seen that insists that the idea is to hunt down dinosaurs.

What can I say, I'm a skeptical guy, especially when people are pushing bullshit to promote idiotic social agendas.

As for your theoretical arctic expeditions, I'd be interested in any actual source to support the idea that guns are or should be your primary strategy for polar bear defense.

For some actual advice on dealing with polar bears, try:

https://polarbearsinternational.org/research/research-qa/polar-bear-attacks/
https://www.fws.gov/alaska/alaska/pages/marine-mammals/polar-bears/Safety-in-polar-bear-habitat
https://omakas.es/what-to-do-when-you-encounter-a-polar-bear/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/mosaic-polarstern-polar-bear-guards/​

Note that although all of these sources acknowledge a possible a possible role for firearms, they also treat this as the least effective means of keeping yourself safe in the Arctic. The public, not biologists, are the ones obsessed with rifles as bear defense, and the prevalence of guns in the north country is as much a problem as it is a solution, especially for someone concerned about ecological questions. You want to be smart, don't get into a bad situation to begin with. There are more than four million people living in the arctic, and three or four of them are seriously attacked by polar bears each year - literally, a one-in-a-million chance. If you're the one in a million, you have already made mistakes, and the gun is likely among those mistakes unless you are very good with it and more than a bit lucky. If you are, you may still find yourself in hot water with the law, and I certainly won't think much of you. So-called "defense kills" are way out of proportion with the number of human kills by bears, and many believe predation by humans to be the most significant threat polar bears face in the wild today. Not the other way around.

Well that was actually relevant to the discussion. Take along bear spray, flairs, an electric fence, and btw ...

The government of Greenland has very specific advice: When camping in high-risk areas for polar bear sightings, you should always have a polar bear guard and/or a warning system (e.g. tripwires). In areas where observations of polar bears are frequent, it is recommended to carry a rifle of cal. .30-06 as a minimum, loaded with soft point ammunition, at all times.

Photojournalist and polar explorer Michael Ginzburg, a former researcher now serving as a polar bear guard on the MOSAiC Arctic expedition. Image Credit: Julia Hager
...
Not all bears scare easy, though.

The absolute last resort is the .308 caliber rifle carried by each guard. If it comes to it, Ginzburg says, there’s a protocol: Once the bear’s within 100 feet, take aim just below the head. One shot is usually enough to take down a smaller female or a juvenile. Multiple shots might be necessary for a healthy adult male. “If we shoot, we shoot to kill,” Ginzburg says.

 

[Politesse]

Something to consider. A question of scale.

 

[skepticalbip]

View attachment 32810

Something to consider. A question of scale.

Yes, T-rex is comparable in size to the elephant.
That makes it a damn big predator so a more powerful weapon is needed than for a polar bear.

 

[Politesse]

Yes, T-rex is comparable in size to the elephant.
That makes it a damn big predator.

View attachment 32811

Closer, certainly. The African bush elephant is the largest terrestrial land mammal (by a surprising proportion!), and a male can be expected to weigh between 4,700–6,048kg. Oof! The weight of a tyrannosaur can only be guessed at, for obvious reasons, but if their skeletons are any indication, an adult female tyrannosaur may have been something like 5-8,000 kg, in the same range but noticeably larger on average; the largest elephant ever recorded (also 8,000 kg) would have been a within the normal distribution of the tyrannosaur clade. And tyrannosaurs, of course, were dwarfed again by some of their probable prey.

Fun tyrannosaur fact: Everything we know about these most famous of dinosaurs comes from a mere 50 known specimens, most of them very incomplete; many mysteries remain about this elusive former apex predator, including of course the famous debate over whether they were predators at all. (My sympathies in this matter are clear, sorry John if you're reading this!)

 

[DBT]

Your plan is to just kill one tyrannosaur and leave?

I would try to plan to have the means to kill as many tyrannosaurs as I needed to in order to survive, whether I get to leave or not. Would that destroy an ecosystem?

Depends how often you decided you "needed" to kill a tyrannosaur, and whether you had other people with you doing likewise. If you're talking about apex predators, seemingly small impacts can have big effects, their numbers are often small to begin with and their links to other species significant. Moreover, in the years following the K-T event, therapod genes in particular came to play a significant role in the overall eocsystemic balance of the planet.

If you are attacked by a predator, do you 'decide' to defend your own life, or do you allow yourself to be killed and eaten?

 

[Politesse]

Depends how often you decided you "needed" to kill a tyrannosaur, and whether you had other people with you doing likewise. If you're talking about apex predators, seemingly small impacts can have big effects, their numbers are often small to begin with and their links to other species significant. Moreover, in the years following the K-T event, therapod genes in particular came to play a significant role in the overall eocsystemic balance of the planet.

If you are attacked by a predator, do you 'decide' to defend your own life, or do you allow yourself to be killed and eaten?

I've never been attacked by predator, because that is an avoidable problem.

 

[skepticalbip]

Depends how often you decided you "needed" to kill a tyrannosaur, and whether you had other people with you doing likewise. If you're talking about apex predators, seemingly small impacts can have big effects, their numbers are often small to begin with and their links to other species significant. Moreover, in the years following the K-T event, therapod genes in particular came to play a significant role in the overall eocsystemic balance of the planet.

If you are attacked by a predator, do you 'decide' to defend your own life, or do you allow yourself to be killed and eaten?

I've never been attacked by predator, because that is an avoidable problem.

It is sometimes avoidable. More so if you live in and stay in an area where there are no predators that prey on humans.

When I was in service, my team avoided being attacked by a predator by touching off a claymore to eliminate a tiger that had crept up to ten feet from our position.

 

[Politesse]

I've never been attacked by predator, because that is an avoidable problem.

It is sometimes avoidable. More so if you live in and stay in an area where there are no predators that prey on humans.

Of which there would be none in the Cretaceous, initially, though a Cretaceous animal might, in theory, decide to add us to the list.

 

[DBT]

Depends how often you decided you "needed" to kill a tyrannosaur, and whether you had other people with you doing likewise. If you're talking about apex predators, seemingly small impacts can have big effects, their numbers are often small to begin with and their links to other species significant. Moreover, in the years following the K-T event, therapod genes in particular came to play a significant role in the overall eocsystemic balance of the planet.

If you are attacked by a predator, do you 'decide' to defend your own life, or do you allow yourself to be killed and eaten?

I've never been attacked by predator, because that is an avoidable problem.

So the cretaceous would be a safe place for a mammal to stroll around in, with no fear or risk of predation? Just make a bit of noise to scare the animals and all is well?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We can't change the past. It's quite likely that we also can't change the future.

If time travel to the past will happen, then it has happened, and the consequences were and are exactly what we see. How could it be otherwise?

There are three reasonable scenarios:

1) Yours.

2) You can go back and change the past. The present is thus changed. (James Hogan, Thrice Upon a Time for a novel that explores this.) Note that Larry Niven has a reasonable argument that in such a universe time travel will never be developed--if time travel exists somebody will use it, causing a change. The only stable state is one where it's not developed, so that's what we will see. However:
2a) What I call time roads--rather than a time machine that's free to move the time travel is accomplished by a fixed system. You can only reach points where the system already exists. (Robert L. Forward, Timemaster for a novel that explores this. Time travel is accomplished via wormhole, one end of the wormhole takes an interstellar voyage at relativistic speeds.)

3) You can go back, but the universe branches when you do. You end up in a new universe. (Since I've been giving novels, David Weber, The Apocalypse Troll. There's only one time jump, though. The protagonist discusses some of the implications of time travel.)

Note that if the trip is one-way there's no way to distinguish scenario #1 from #3 unless you're in one of those branches.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How much lasting damage would such a trip to the Cretaceous do if the time chosen was the week before the impactor?

In that case what does it matter what gun you bring? You'll starve to death anyway.

Only if you know what's coming and can find suitable shelter (there isn't much.) Otherwise you'll die in the fire.