Do you think we could/will ever have two dominant[prime] species?

[Heat]

Do you think we will ever have two prime species?

Imagine a community of aliens visits earth, and they decide to join.

This community, this species, is not much smarter, or more advanced, in any noticeable way, than Humans.

They may be more advanced in one area, but in general, they are not dominant in comparison to us, as humans are in comparison to other animals(such as Humans exceed other species in many other areas, and much more noticeable ways)


You can also imagine this as not Aliens, but simply instead that another species(ape or w.e) some variation, had evolved as Humans did, alongside humans, and fit the same criteria as mentioned above with Aliens,


So theoretically, even though there may be subtle differences, given that there is no way to efficiently differentiate the two species in terms of evolutionary advancement, or intelligence.


What would happen?

Would one species eventually exterminate the other?

Would they even communicate with eachother?

Would they live cooperatively?

[Whateverist]

Only if we split. I don't see it happening.

[ignoramus]

I can see it working.
Once they become part of society, their first words need to be "would you like fries with that?"
Ha suckers! (What if they look like the shrimps from district9?)

[Darkstar]

Do you think we will ever have two prime species?

Imagine a community of aliens visits earth, and they decide to join.

This community, this species, is not much smarter, or more advanced, in any noticeable way, than Humans.

We can't even get along with each other; how would we get along with aliens? People are already good enough at coming up with reasons to hate other groups of people, like their religion (or lack thereof), or the color of their skin. A lot of people already hate illegal human aliens, so imagine how they would react to actual aliens! The aliens would end up being treated like garbage, and if they had enough firepower to make us think twice about oppressing them via conventional methods then we would probably start a war with them instead.

...unless they had nukes and were willing to use them. Then we would just glare menacingly at them from a thousand miles away while our politicians shouted empty rhetoric. Paint me pessimistic.

[Minimalist]

This community, this species, is not much smarter, or more advanced, in any noticeable way, than Humans.

They're already here.

[Anomalocaris]

I can think of two plausible ways for separate dominant species to evolve out of humanity:

1. Genetic engineering - humans begin to implement high degree of genetic menipulation and eugenics until a population sufficiently altered as to represent one or more new species arises. This could happen relatively quickly on a scale of decades or centuries at most. Whether humans will eradicate them, they will eradicate humans, they will eradicate each other, or some will coexist either peacefully or precariously, is hard to say. But I give high likelihood it will happen within a few centuries.

2. Interstellar fragmentation - humans begin to use generation ships to colonize extrasolar planetary systems, but no practical near light speed or super luminal travel is developed for very long time, hundreds or thousands of centuries. In this case, intense selection pressure of surviving in drastically different chemical and physical environments on different planets, combined with high degree of population isolation caused by limits on time and scale of space travel, will lead to rapid outward and genetic changes in the separated population and speciation within a few hundred or thousand centuries.

[robvalue]

I think it's unlikely. If it was to happen, it would require the two species being roughly equivalent in intelligence at least. Otherwise one would presume power, in my estimation.

The dark lord does not share power.

[Alex K]

Yes, I agree, humans are assholes. Homo society could evolve to accept others, but if we barely treat people as humans who come from three countries over and are biologically indistinguishable, and culturally almost so, why would we treat beings better that are much more alien to us?

[brewer]

Aliens schmayliens. Not likely.

After the human race exterminates itself (and we definitely have that capability) other species will begin to fill in the top niche. During that time there may be several "prime" species, at least for awhile. Eventually, given enough time, I think that one species would end up dominant again.

[AFTT47]

I can think of two plausible ways for separate dominant species to evolve out of humanity:

1.  Genetic engineering - humans begin to implement high degree of genetic menipulation and eugenics until a population sufficiently altered as to represent one or more new species arises.   This could happen relatively quickly on a scale of decades or centuries at most. Whether humans will eradicate them, they will eradicate humans, they will eradicate each other, or some will coexist either peacefully or precariously, is hard to say.  But I give high likelihood it will happen within a few centuries.

I agree that this is a possible scenario. There should be no doubt that technology will advance to the point where we are able to dramatically improve ourselves. Some people will reject such "improvements", seeing it as dehumanizing. What will happen then is anybody's guess. I doubt the improved humans would have any ambitions against the old. I believe they would take advantage of resources in the solar system and move on. The old humans however, might well fear them and instigate the kind of terrorism we see today - but on a much worse scale. That could be a very ugly time.