Babies
 

I was holding my four day old nephew in my arms for the first time. I couldn't get it out of my head, wondering how exactly humans survived to this day. Compared to most babies, he is very quiet and not very bothersome (he still craps himself and makes inappropriate advanced on my sister). But overall, not a whiner. But still. He still lacks the basic functions of survival that most animals have. Discuss.

Well, babies don't have to survive on their own. That's what parents do. This is our strategy.

And if we want to go ever so slightly out group, most marsupials are similar. Completely useless upon birth.

Well, it's like Power-leveling in RPs. Every baby may be weak and vulnerable, but it has two level-40 adults taking care of it, one of whom is typically a warrior, the other being more of a healer. They supply the baby with potions and pretty much train it until it has the neccessary feats, attributes and skills to do a few solo quests.

Human parents are among the best parents known to nature, I think.

Yeah, the shittyer the parent, the more capable the kid. Baby snakes are deadly venomous out of the egg.

Not really. There is the alternative strategy of crappy parenting and helpless young. In which case the parents just have about 80 billion of them at a time and by pure chance enough make it to adulthood to keep the species going. This is the strategy of all most everything that lives in the Ocean than isn't a mammal.

Yeah, but, Fuck squids.

It's not just squids. Octopi, basically any kind of mollusk, basically any fish that lays eggs, turtles, coral of course, lobsters, crabs, jellyfish, etc. Moving onto land we've got spiders, flies, various beetles, butterflies and mouths, basically any insect that isn't communal, and while most reptiles don't do it to quite the degree of other creatures they do tend to lay a crap ton of eggs and basically hope for the best. All and all I'd say the having tons of babies at once approach is basically the most popular and successful multicellular reproductive approach. Not only does it remove the need for parenting it takes genetic diversity even within a single generation to it's maximum while virtually guaranteeing only the most suitable genes survive. (While also making sure the genes can in fact survive in the first place.) It truly is the best possible way to have babies.

Must you make a thing out of everything? seriously.

Nope I just sound exactly the same when being serious and when not being serious. I suppose inflection would help but I'm not sure how much exactly.

Edit: I suppose I make a great straightman though. Although I have to say you're not holding up your end all that well.

you could talk less.....
Try it sometime...we might enjoy it.
nah, it's all love, baby