Have extremely short lifespan so a limited capacity to learn (1-2 years)
Don’t raise their offspring, in fact after mating/laying eggs they naturally die, so no knowledge sharing
Are extremely solitary and don’t have social bonds or do anything socially, so little communication/passing of knowledge

[–] scarabic 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I’m not even convinced that intelligence is a requirement to be the dominant species. Intelligence is so expensive that nature rarely ever selects for it.

Trilobytes did pretty damn well for a hell of a lot longer than we have so far. I think we need a stronger working definition of “dominant” in order to judge any candidates.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

But the reason he gives for them becoming the dominant species is their intelligence.

[–] scarabic 1 points 1 day ago

Sure well if that is a precondition of the conversation, we can talk about it. But IMO it may be a faulty assumption to go on.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

On top of that, they might not even survive the CO2 and consequent ocean acidification. If humans were to get eradicated by some super plague, then octopi might still stand a chance. However, the points you mentioned mean that they are playing this game in hard mode when it comes to winning by intelligence.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I worked as an intern at a lab studying octopus vulgaris.

They are extremely sensitive to all sorts of things in the water. Keeping them well is very difficult. Although I would imagine if there are big but gradual changes in water environment, they would have a chance of adapting faster due to short life cycles and the fact that mating creates hundreds of thousands of eggs.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

If we assume that they somehow survive all the way to the very moment when humans get a permanent ban to the Earth Server, then the changes should be gradual enough after that. The bad news is, humans love to play this game by recklessly exploiting every bug and glitch, so rapid changes (in evolutionary scale) are the norm.