It's a dog-eat-dog world

If you're a pet owner, with only one dog in the family, this part might not immediately be familiar to you. However, I will try to provide context and observations to get the idea across

Dogs out in the wild are very much like any other social animal. They have familial bonds, communities, friendships, and adversaries. They are born, depend on their families for food, shelter, certain life skills, protection, support, and so on. Much like their ancestors, they live in packs and have territories.

If you've ever seen pups and adolescent dogs together in large spaces, or sometimes even in somewhat smaller spaces, you must have noticed that they like to "play" a lot. The form of playtime usually consists of running after each other, and a whole lotta biting, tossing, aggression, playfulness; you name it. The ultimate goal of any living thing is the preservation of its kind. Every mating season, animals go after their goal to preserve their existence, and it's just instinctive. Whether or not there's actual, verifiable cognition (in the human understanding thereof) that goes into the decision making process is not exactly something we can "prove" with 100% certainty. Again, I don't know whether there's literature to back or disprove any of this, so take everything with a grain of salt.

So, animals litter the world with younglings that learn how to survive it, acquire important skills that will help them along the way, mate some more, litter the world with younglings, and so goes the paradoxical process of life.

Part of preserving one's own species is having adequate resources that allow for sustaining life. In its most basic form, that's food and water. Energy, to abstract it to the core fundamental aspect. Dogs, as I mentioned earlier, have territories which they protect. They protect them because they have said resources that are adequate enough for them to sustain their life. So when dogs get to that "playful" phase of life, where they run around biting each other, tackling, pestering, whatever, it's really an on-the-ground training for what awaits them.

The universe, at its core, is a survivalist ecosystem. A living thing gets its energy from another, often smaller living thing. Then comes a bigger thing that feeds off the former. Then another even bigger thing feeds on the former, and so on. I'm not talking about animals/creatures here in particular; I'm talking about anything with an atom, which is everything. The ultimate feeders of which we "know" as of yet are black holes. Those are the ultimate apex predators of the observable universe. What feeds on black holes, we simply do not know, but I digress at this point.

Now, let's come back to dogs and humans. As a dog, you don't learn ethics, morals, law, canine code of conduct, or any of the sparkling BS that concerns humans. You learn survival in a cold, cruel world that, nine out of ten times, will take your food and shelter, beat you the hell up, and leave you for dead if not actively kill you. Do dogs show compassion as we know it? Sure. Sometimes, maybe; that's the exception, not the rule, however. The rule is: I am stronger than thou, so your stuff is mine unless you fight me for it. So in a way, it's a dog-eat-dog world really is a brilliant metaphor that highlights this survivalist system.

As humans, we go about life differently. Since we are supposedly self-aware, cognitive animals, we have to concern ourselves with rules and laws that define how we should coexist with one another without descending into absolute chaos. Dogs can fight and kill each other, but they do so in justice. There are no special weapons or means of victory that would give any one faction a strategic advantage over their adversary; there's only strength in numbers, techniques, teeth, and a tireless instinct embedded deeply within DNA that drives the fight for survival.

The question is: with all of our advances, civility, knowledge, and all that wonderful stuff, how did we fare as a species?

Well, we became the ultimate apex predator of our planet (forces of nature notwithstanding; that's a different equation). As a species, we are very successful at preserving our own existence...Theoretically. However, our existence also depends on energy, as with any other living thing trying to navigate an ever-expanding universe.

To make sure everyone gets their fair share, we've come up with laws that govern our coexistence with everyone and everything around us. Reality, however, couldn't be further away from all the fairy tales disguised as laws, ethics, regulations, etc. We violate laws, still, for our own personal gains. We go on to fish entire seas and oceans dry, exterminating entire species in the process, just so we can dine at fancy places and brag about it. As if eating this super rare animal delivers the elixir of life, and unlocks the hidden secrets of the universe. We comply with laws and regulations as long as they benefit us, but we also have no issues violating them the moment it's inconvenient.

The real question then is: what good are laws, ethics, morals, blah blah blah, if we don't follow them to begin with?

I mean, it's a dog-eat-dog world after all, right? But we like to lie to make ourselves look better. There's shame and guilt in some of us, so obviously we have to cater to those. So, we'll package up some formalities like laws and what have you so that, on paper, hey we're doing our part. We're ensuring a peaceful, just, equally-opportune world for everyone.

Reality is we're really not doing any of that. We fight ourselves, exterminate animals sharing the same ecosystem, exterminate our very own kind, lie, deceive, torture, restrict, oppress, and the list goes on and on.

Back to the same question, but with more context: if laws are no good, why are we still pretending we're a civilized species when we're just like any other species that sees no problem descinding into absolute chaos and frenzy, fighting for the same goal; survival?

Instead of spending our early years learning about coexisting peacefully with everything else, why don't we learn survival in a world that does not give a goddamn thing about anything?

It's either we stop the BS, and respect the code that binds us all together as a "civilized society", or we do away with it altogether and every person for themselves.

Do I want the latter? Absolutely not. Do I think what we're doing now is any different? Also no. The only difference is the pretense. Pretense, which is even worse than knowing for a fact that someone's coming for your life, and you have the means to fight for it and do your part in the ecosystem; survival, and preserving the whole species.

It's a dog-eat-dog world alright, but every little flap of the wing of a butterfly changes the course of the future. Every action taken, and every word uttered, matters. If we see injustice, it is our obligation as an "intelligent" species to speak up, and work alongside each other to put an unconditional end to it. Otherwise, what's the point of anything?