Different creatures have different strategies for passing on their genes. Spiders for example, produce thousands of offspring and send them flying off on the wind without a care for their survival–with a thousand chances, a few are sure to survive. Humans and other mammals, on the other hand, put all their energy and effort into one or two offspring, and making as absolutely sure as possible that they survive. What would our world be like if humans took the spider’s approach to procreation?
A human giving birth to a thousand human eggs… what would the tiny hatchling human be like? What would it eat, how would it grow? Perhaps it would take the strategy of the caterpillar, and be in a different form at a young age, eating loads of food until it built up enough energy to transform. Most of them would die, of course. As do most spiders, or other animals that lay huge broods.
I think humans would be very different, if that was their way. They would be less caring, less helpful, less social. More loners and individualists. Less empathetic. We probably wouldn’t have society as we know it, and would not have accomplished what we have, since we wouldn’t work together as well.
Jonas David 