Can We Bring Back the Passenger Pigeon? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can We Bring Back the Passenger Pigeon?

#41

Post by panglott » Tue, Apr 18, 2017, 2:41 PM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #39

panglott wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it's overdiscussed here, but there are lots of important environmental lessons that are worth reflecting on.

I like the idea that we can really mess things up and then use technology to "undo" the damage. Pay it forward if you will. Maybe it could increase the technological velocity of the human race just enough to get us out of this mess.

More like, the loss is so enormous and consequential that even massive technological efforts cannot reverse it.

I'm all for chestnut restoration and the Buffalo Commons and bringing back woolly mammoths and Carolina parakeets and passenger pigeons, but these are heroic efforts that are a drop in the bucket.

Re: Can We Bring Back the Passenger Pigeon?

#42

Post by sitkack » Tue, Apr 18, 2017, 9:13 PM UTC

panglott wrote: post #41

sitkack wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea that we can really mess things up and then use technology to "undo" the damage. Pay it forward if you will. Maybe it could increase the technological velocity of the human race just enough to get us out of this mess.

More like, the loss is so enormous and consequential that even massive technological efforts cannot reverse it. I'm all for chestnut restoration and the Buffalo Commons and bringing back woolly mammoths and Carolina parakeets and passenger pigeons, but these are heroic efforts that are a drop in the bucket.

We'll all have Carolina parakeets in cages and locally sourced Buffalo rugs while we terraform mars.

Re: Can We Bring Back the Passenger Pigeon?

#43

Post by yourapostasy » Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 3:15 AM UTC

asciimo wrote: post #19

callinyouin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of species have gone extinct due to the meddling of human beings, which is something many might not consider to be nature running its course.

We're a part of nature like everything else in the universe. We happen to be a sudden, violent shock to this planet's ecosystem. It happens. We can try to diminish our impact on the future, but we should let those organisms who couldn't adapt to our toxicity rest in peace.

While reading your comment, I envisioned the Singularity arriving, and as we watch without any pain whatsoever in horror as our bodies are disassembled atom by atom along with the rest of the planet to feed the building of its computronium Dyson Sphere (for its not a monster, pfft), the AGI explaining, "I happen to be a sudden, violent shock to this solar system's ecosystem..." ;)