# Imagine that you live in the equator... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 4, 2012, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752 "2012-04-04T00:01:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/21 "2012-04-04T13:01:17Z")
> [@SDMBKL](#): > > How would you feel if a bunch of civilized humans have bulldozed away your forest and flattened the landscape, so you have no cave and no home? I would have misgivings. Joe ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/22 "2012-04-04T17:02:42Z")
When I lived on the equator we bought meat from the supermarket. Just saying. If you ate zebras past their prime, you might be more ethical. If you ate cute little baby seals you’d be less ethical - and confused about how they got to the equator. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/23 "2012-04-04T18:01:02Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > When I lived on the equator we bought meat from the supermarket. Just saying. > If you ate zebras past their prime, you might be more ethical. If you ate cute little baby seals you’d be less ethical - **and confused about how they got to the equator.** Not if you lived in the [Galapagos](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_fur_seal). ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/24 "2012-04-04T18:35:44Z")
\*\*Imagine that you live in the equator… \*\* Do I have a refrigerator? Is this urban visitor bringing beer? If my visitor has been hiking the equatoral rain forest all day with meat he bought at Safeway, neither of us are going to want to eat it. He will have to eat my fresh kill, and he had better bring beer. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/25 "2012-04-04T18:42:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Imagine that you live in the equator… _…live **at** the Equator…_ **At**. ---
**Author:** ![Heart\_of\_Dorkness](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/4bbf92/32.png) [@Heart\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heart_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/26 "2012-04-04T18:45:57Z")
Judges would also have accepted “ **on** the Equator”. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/27 "2012-04-04T19:19:55Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > Not if you lived in the [Galapagos](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_fur_seal). Then you’d just be confused about where the zebras come from. ---
**Author:** ![Corcaigh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Corcaigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corcaigh)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/28 "2012-04-05T14:49:16Z")
> [@SDMBKL](#): > > Both? Neither? Yes. Nature can be horribly cruel, just watch any wildlife show where an innocent zebra or wildebeest is having a quiet drink at a waterhole when a crocodile lunges and grabs the poor thing and chows down. They don’t die instantly, it can take several minutes for the prey to choke or drown. But then keeping animals in small confined spaces, feeding them food that wouldn’t be part of their natural diet, breeding them so that their ‘prime cuts’ become more pronounced, “pumping them full” of drugs, then herding them into a slaughterhouse where they can see and hear their herd mates being butchered, isn’t very nice either. Then again they are animals and the question of how aware they are of the pros and cons of their life will probably never be answered - it’s doubtful that the Aberdeen Angus herd along the road from me are chewing the cud and cursing their fate and wishing they were on the savannah running free with the gazelles. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/29 "2012-04-05T14:53:21Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > I’m crestfallen. Are you standing next to someone? Is his name Tom? Did he just drop his toothpaste? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![eldowan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@eldowan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eldowan)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/30 "2012-04-05T19:05:53Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I am aware that humans can run down and catch up to most animals in a long chase. I am talking about killing them, not chasing them. Without weapons, your only choice is to engage in some kind of wrestling match – maybe to strangle them, or to break their necks (if you’re strong enough), or to… bite them to death. > > Now, if I had a spear, or a bow and arrow, or even a decent sized rock, it would be a different story. Isn’t chasing an animal to death still killing it? But I do agree that without tools physical conflict with a wild animal would be more likely to leave you wounded or worse. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/31 "2012-04-05T19:14:05Z")
Seriously? Show me a cite that an animal will literally drop dead after a chase. The article you linked to didn’t say so, unless I missed it. In fact, it skips the whole issue of how a chased animal dies. I will certainly admit an exhausted animal is easier to kill than an energetic one, and perhaps, if I had a spear, I could just stab it and let it bleed to death. But according to the OP, I don’t have a spear. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/32 "2012-04-05T19:37:54Z")
> [@SDMBKL](#): > > Hmmm… interesting. Now this may be a crazy idea, but have any of you ever considered the possibility of living like a caveman in a cave and kill animals for meat because you need them to survive? How would you feel if a bunch of civilized humans have bulldozed away your forest and flattened the landscape, so you have no cave and no home? This reminded of a quote from My Cousin Vinnie. Mona Lisa Vito: “Imagine you’re a deer. You’re prancing along, you get thirsty, you spot a little brook, you put your little deer lips down to the cool clear water… BAM! A fuckin bullet rips off part of your head! Your brains are laying on the ground in little bloody pieces! Now I ask ya. Would you give a fuck what kind of pants the son of a bitch who shot you was wearing?” ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/33 "2012-04-05T20:04:15Z")
> [@Corcaigh](#): > > But then keeping animals in small confined spaces, feeding them food that wouldn’t be part of their natural diet, breeding them so that their ‘prime cuts’ become more pronounced, “pumping them full” of drugs, then herding them into a slaughterhouse where they can see and hear their herd mates being butchered, isn’t very nice either. Most (IIRC) slaughterhouses in the US are designed so they can’t see others being slaughtered, for just that reason. ---
**Author:** ![eldowan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@eldowan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eldowan)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2012, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/34 "2012-04-06T20:14:29Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Seriously? Show me a cite that an animal will literally drop dead after a chase. The article you linked to didn’t say so, unless I missed it. In fact, it skips the whole issue of how a chased animal dies. I will certainly admit an exhausted animal is easier to kill than an energetic one, and perhaps, if I had a spear, I could just stab it and let it bleed to death. But according to the OP, I don’t have a spear. Fair enough. I misread the article and thought that the first thrust was entirely ceremonial, that the animal had died first. Also, I bought hook line and stinker the but about riding horses to death our dogs running to the point of taking over from heat exhaustion/stroke. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/35 "2012-04-06T20:29:12Z")
> [@SDMBKL](#): > > Now, one day you meet a random person from the city… I would say, “Hey, Mr. Random Person, we be the dominant creature on this shitpile you call Earth, and we eat whatever we want. Got ketchup?” ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/36 "2012-04-06T22:00:08Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I’m trying to think of what animals I could reliably catch only using my body as a weapon. Grubs and insects, small crippled birds, maybe a few slow moving reptiles, and a bunch of left-over carrion from other animals’ kills. Rodents, rabbits and the like? If you live on the coast, there’s all sorts of shellfish and stuff. And fish in the rivers can be “tickled”. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2012, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752/37 "2012-04-08T12:22:10Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I’ll cavil, just very slightly, and say that if the equatorial can make fire and work tools, even stone tools, he has transcended the strictest definition of the word “natural.” > > (The word has to be interpreted on a spectrum. If you say, “Humans are part of nature, and thus so are their creations,” then plutonium bombs and supercomputers are “natural.” I’d prefer not to interpret the word that liberally!) Yes. I just want to point out there has never existed a human society that didn’t use fire and stone tools, as they predate _Homo sapiens sapiens_ by a million or a couple million years. Humans have evolved physically and mentally into what they are _because_ of the use of fire and stone tools. So I wouldn’t say even the strictest definition of the word “natural” rules out basic technology. We suck at toolless survival, because it is as “unnatural” for us to try to cope that way as it is for a Siberian tiger to survive de-clawed and shaven. This is why the hypothetical in the OP is contrived beyond belief. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/imagine-that-you-live-in-the-equator/617752.md?page=1)