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Entrepreneur plans to resurrect woolly mammoths

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Re: Entrepreneur plans to resurrect woolly mammoths

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do the dinosaurs always escape in Jurassic Park? Is it because the mathematics of chaos theory dictate that life always finds a way? Or is it because nobody pays to see a movie where a couple of brats go on an uneventful vacation to a dinosaur zoo? It's definitely the latter, but through the power of repetition people started to believe it was the former.

Neither. It's because it's extremely difficult to keep large animals confined indefinitely through all circumstances. Ask any farmer with livestock. The bigger they are, the more capable they are of ignoring whatever fencing/obstacles you put in the way.

Zoos keep Rhinos. They manage without the kind of budget that a resurrected dinosaur would afford. They also keep elephants, 800lb gorillas, chimps, ostriches, all kinds of powerful and intelligent beasts capable of reproduction. They sometimes escape, but it's the exception, and killing the animal(s) is always a last-ditch option.

That last point is another place where I expect a huge fiction-reality gap. If I pay to watch a movie about a dinosaur getting loose, I want to see it shrug off bunker-busting missiles from fighter jets, with big fireball explosions and people jumping in the air and the hero magically surviving. I don't want to see a short, sad walk down to the city park where they try and fail for an hour to coax it back and ultimately decide that they have to shoot it with a slightly larger than average rifle. That's the boring and horrible but realistic scenario.

There's nothing wrong with the movie scene not being realistic, but there is something wrong with blindly assuming that the movie scene is realistic.

Re: Entrepreneur plans to resurrect woolly mammoths

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither. It's because it's extremely difficult to keep large animals confined indefinitely through all circumstances. Ask any farmer with livestock. The bigger they are, the more capable they are of ignoring whatever fencing/obstacles you put in the way.

Zoos keep Rhinos. They manage without the kind of budget that a resurrected dinosaur would afford. They also keep elephants, 800lb gorillas, chimps, ostriches, all kinds of powerful and intelligent beasts capable of reproduction. They sometimes escape, but it's the exception, and killing the animal(s) is always a last-ditch option. That last point is another place where I expect a huge fiction-reality gap. If I pay t…

> They sometimes escape, but it's the exception

That's... kinda my point!

Zoos keep large animals in significantly smaller areas that are easier to control and maintain. I can see someone making "Jurassic Zoo" where you're keeping a few fairly docile dinosaurs in an area of a few acres. I don't have hard data but the territories in Jurassic Park look like they were measured in square miles.

Re: Entrepreneur plans to resurrect woolly mammoths

#83

I think this is considerably more difficult than they think, genomes are more than just throwing genes together. It’s a finely tuned symphony made by evolution, epigenetic silencing and signaling, gene position. I suspect it doesn’t work at all but if they got something it would be more like the centaurs in Fallout. I also think there are ethical questions whether that baby “mammoth” being born would ask to be create…

Maybe not that difficult. We already have sequenced the mammoth genome [1]. We have CRISPR technology. We can do a diff between the mammoth genome and the elephant one, and we start editing the elephant one small segment at a time, like in a game of word ladder. We IV fertilize an elephant female, and we get a hybrid. After a few steps, we might end up with an actual mammoth.

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mammoth-genomes-s...

Re: Entrepreneur plans to resurrect woolly mammoths

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One country has a legend of mammoths. One country has Loch Ness monster. Another has sasquatch. Another has yeti. Some even have dragons or sea creatures.

>mammoths, Loch Ness monster, sasquatch, yeti, dragons or sea creatures One of these is not like the others

next, you're going to tell me that ships are not going to fall of the edge of the world where the map shows 'here be dragons'

Re: Entrepreneur plans to resurrect woolly mammoths

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoos keep Rhinos. They manage without the kind of budget that a resurrected dinosaur would afford. They also keep elephants, 800lb gorillas, chimps, ostriches, all kinds of powerful and intelligent beasts capable of reproduction. They sometimes escape, but it's the exception, and killing the animal(s) is always a last-ditch option. That last point is another place where I expect a huge fiction-reality gap. If I pay t…

> They sometimes escape, but it's the exception That's... kinda my point! Zoos keep large animals in significantly smaller areas that are easier to control and maintain. I can see someone making "Jurassic Zoo" where you're keeping a few fairly docile dinosaurs in an area of a few acres. I don't have hard data but the territories in Jurassic Park look like they were measured in square miles.

If "escapes are rare and low-consequence" is your point, I'm happy to agree.

Re: enclosure size, that's because city land is expensive, not because the mathematics of chaos theory dictate that it is impossible to hold an animal in a large enclosure. Come on.

Re: Entrepreneur plans to resurrect woolly mammoths

#86
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What information could they possibly be collecting?

excerpt from wikipedia synopsis: >Arnold organizes a demonstration of the hosts to convince Logan to invest in Westworld. Logan's father, James Delos, is critical of his son's actions until William persuades him that the park can be used to spy on the guests. James proceeds to buy out the park and name William as his successor.

Not really clear to me how spying on someone's sexbot vacation is a viable business model but ok.

Re: Entrepreneur plans to resurrect woolly mammoths

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do the dinosaurs always escape in Jurassic Park? Is it because the mathematics of chaos theory dictate that life always finds a way? Or is it because nobody pays to see a movie where a couple of brats go on an uneventful vacation to a dinosaur zoo? It's definitely the latter, but through the power of repetition people started to believe it was the former.

It's because the scriptwriters tried selling a script where nothing much happened, and didn't even get past the receptionist.

Nobody likes "Billy and the Clonosaurus".[0]

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIUh-MHsQKU

Re: Entrepreneur plans to resurrect woolly mammoths

#89
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're extinct precisely because they were very, very tasty.

Probably more like edible and very easy to catch and kill.

A favorite spot of mariners for a century, because of the taste.

Re: Entrepreneur plans to resurrect woolly mammoths

#90
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What information could they possibly be collecting?

excerpt from wikipedia synopsis: >Arnold organizes a demonstration of the hosts to convince Logan to invest in Westworld. Logan's father, James Delos, is critical of his son's actions until William persuades him that the park can be used to spy on the guests. James proceeds to buy out the park and name William as his successor.

That was coincidentally about the point I lost interest the series as it totally jumped the shark from “flawed but I can suspend disbelief” to “oh great, another series that’s going to build ever more tenuous conspiracy theories”.
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