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The Dire Wolf Is Back

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Re: The Dire Wolf Is Back

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Semi-related: very few people, even capable professional writers, use "disinterested" correctly.

Can you provide an example? I'm not sure how one would use it improperly...

It is often erroneously used when the writer means uninterested.

Re: The Dire Wolf Is Back

#52
post #36

Farmer here. The return of the regular wolf has been a tragedy of historic proportions. Wolves slaughter tons of livestock for fun. Farmers are not allowed to protect their herds at all. What will a dire wolf do to livestock if we bring them back? So dumb.

Don't farmers get reimbursed for livestock lost to natural predators?

farmers/ranchers always wanna bitch bout something (at least in the US). and we like the myth/nostalgia of the small operations out on the frontier so that's gets a lot of play.

Re: The Dire Wolf Is Back

#53
> "He explained that I was looking at a plan for a restored ecosystem. It was also a perfectly adapted money machine. There was a large area where the ancient elephants could graze, and this would be funded, in part, by carbon-offset payments from governments and corporations. The carbon value of a single elephant is about two million dollars, he told me. (An elephant increases biodiversity, in part, by spreading seeds in its dung and by crushing dense vegetation on forest floors, giving slow-growing trees the space to survive.) He added that the interesting educational opportunities and “sexiness factor” of Colossal’s creations would make its carbon credits “trade at a premium.”"

So it's a startup, valued at 10 billion?! How exactly do they plan to make money?

Seriously, could anything be more 21st-century? Resurrecting extinct animal species (ones that supposedly went extinct naturally, mind you, not because of humans – what's the point then?) just to reintroduce them into parks and sell carbon credits.

Re: The Dire Wolf Is Back

#54

I never realised the Dire Wolf was a real historical animal, not just a fantasy one like the Owlbear.

Oh shit, the next instagram thing will be DnD cosplayers trying to get selfies with them.

I think Game of Thrones cosplayers would be more likely

Re: The Dire Wolf Is Back

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Semi-related: very few people, even capable professional writers, use "disinterested" correctly.

Can you provide an example? I'm not sure how one would use it improperly...

Using "disinterested" to mean "uninterested" has become more common over the past few decades, rather than using it in the older sense of "having no stake in the outcome, having no bias or partiality with respect to a conflict."

An example would be saying that someone was "disinterested" in what was happening on TV, or in music that was playing.

Re: The Dire Wolf Is Back

#56

Here's[0] a recent editorial about Colossal, the company behind this. Basically, they make some flimsy claims about conservation and combating climate change to justify creating a poor imitation of Jurassic Park. Naturally, there's some real moral dilemmas that they gloss over in pursuit of the money a few wealthy people will pay to be able to say "I saw a Mammoth!" [0]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/editor…

In the beginning, only "a few wealthy people" could afford cars. This does not seem like a very good argument against anything new.

Yeah, as if we're all going to be riding dire wolves and mammoths to work in a few years...

Re: The Dire Wolf Is Back

#57

Here's[0] a recent editorial about Colossal, the company behind this. Basically, they make some flimsy claims about conservation and combating climate change to justify creating a poor imitation of Jurassic Park. Naturally, there's some real moral dilemmas that they gloss over in pursuit of the money a few wealthy people will pay to be able to say "I saw a Mammoth!" [0]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/editor…

Why would a zoo or something just be for wealthy people

Re: The Dire Wolf Is Back

#59

Here's[0] a recent editorial about Colossal, the company behind this. Basically, they make some flimsy claims about conservation and combating climate change to justify creating a poor imitation of Jurassic Park. Naturally, there's some real moral dilemmas that they gloss over in pursuit of the money a few wealthy people will pay to be able to say "I saw a Mammoth!" [0]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/editor…

The mammoth is the big PR project but Colossal is working on a number of species, and the idea is the research will enable us to easily "de-extinct" or prop up the population of any number of species if and when they're in danger.
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