81–90 of 208 posts
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Why would a zoo or something just be for wealthy people
Investors expect returns on the hundreds of millions of dollars they've invested. At best, it'll be a very expensive zoo.
At worst, it'll be a very crowded zoo
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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We'll perhaps visit them at the zoo.
Oh, good, so when that happens they'll be making some flimsy claims about conservation and combating climate change to justify creating a poor imitation of Jurassic Park that wealthy and middle class people can visit.
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Any number of species ? Maybe in theory, but propping up an entire ecosystem in collapse is well beyond Colossal's reach and incentives. This money and research would be better spent preventing the ecosystems from collapsing in the first place. If we fix climate change, I could see an argument for investing in restoring the ecosystems that were destroyed. But 'de-extincting' a species without addressing the root caus…
> Realizing this, these types will give up on re-introducing the original organism and instead create a bioengineered version that can survive in the changed world. I fear this path will not end well for us. Developing and injecting genetic resiliency into existing populations isn't the worst thing in the world. Additionally adding animals that can only reproduce sterile offspring would be an amazing tool for dealing…
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Thanks, that's a terrific article
Its a horrible article. Grey wolves and dire wolves arent even genetically related in a way that allows for this sort of gene editing and we have known this for a few years now. If anything, a dire wolf is closer to a red wolf.
0: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dire-wolves-were-...
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We'll perhaps visit them at the zoo.
Oh, good, so when that happens they'll be making some flimsy claims about conservation and combating climate change to justify creating a poor imitation of Jurassic Park that wealthy and middle class people can visit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would a zoo or something just be for wealthy people
Investors expect returns on the hundreds of millions of dollars they've invested. At best, it'll be a very expensive zoo.
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…
That entire article just sounds like a collection of every naysayer argument they could find, compiled into an authoritative-sounding essay on why doing nothing is better than doing some very cool proof-of-concept genetic editing tech. Are they just reflexively against tech these days? Because when the arguments they bring are so scattered and miscellaneous, it sure sounds like they're justifying a preexisting opposi…
There's nothing wrong with building cool proof-of-concept tech as a prestige project that might actually lead to real solutions some day, but Collosal's dire wolf lookalike and mammoth lookalike and whatever else lookalike aren't a serious solution to a problem nor a direct path towards a solution, so they get valid criticism for pretending that they are.