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De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking

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Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking

#11

Post by Ericson2314 »

ramraj07 wrote: post #7

I don’t understand why people are obsessed with extinction as some great evil - it’s as evil as the concept of death itself; killing something is evil (or is it not? Outside humans even this isn’t considered unnatural), but something dying naturally is not. Clearly many animals have gone extinct because of humans (many memorable ones before humanity developed a sufficiently profound collective consciousness that coul…

The article also illustrates the problem of the gap between research and development.

We have a bunch of technologies mentioned that are perhaps out of the pure basic research stage, but need to be developed a bunch. Developing those can be done independently and in parallel, but is that happening? Trying to put them all together probably is premature as the article suggests, and yet this is the easiest way to raise money because it is catchy.

Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking

#12

Post by shukantpal »

tokai wrote: post #8
sebastianconcpt wrote: post #6

Don't we had a lot of movies explaining how bad this could go? Don't we had enough self inflicted catastrophes to keep us entertained that we need another disruptive one?

Not a single one of those movies are an actual argument against a real de-extinction project.

Yes, because the parent comment's point was they are an argument _against_ not _for_ de-extinction

Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking

#14

Post by mdavidn »

ramraj07 wrote: post #7

I don’t understand why people are obsessed with extinction as some great evil - it’s as evil as the concept of death itself; killing something is evil (or is it not? Outside humans even this isn’t considered unnatural), but something dying naturally is not. Clearly many animals have gone extinct because of humans (many memorable ones before humanity developed a sufficiently profound collective consciousness that coul…

> I don’t understand why people are obsessed with extinction as some great evil

It's because we care about our children and their children. Each extinction eliminates a species that our ancestors lived among or depended upon. Eventually, an extinction may fundamentally break a food chain that keeps our descendants alive.

Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking

#15

Post by tokai »

shukantpal wrote: post #12
tokai wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a single one of those movies are an actual argument against a real de-extinction project.

Yes, because the parent comment's point was they are an argument _against_ not _for_ de-extinction

Obviously. Edited the missing words in my comment.

Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking

#16

Post by sklivvz1971 »

ramraj07 wrote: post #7

I don’t understand why people are obsessed with extinction as some great evil - it’s as evil as the concept of death itself; killing something is evil (or is it not? Outside humans even this isn’t considered unnatural), but something dying naturally is not. Clearly many animals have gone extinct because of humans (many memorable ones before humanity developed a sufficiently profound collective consciousness that coul…

Maybe this can help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiversity_loss

In very short terms: lack of biodiversity makes the ecosystem brittle and susceptible to collapse with changing selective pressure.

Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking

#17

Post by cmh89 »

ramraj07 wrote: post #7

I don’t understand why people are obsessed with extinction as some great evil - it’s as evil as the concept of death itself; killing something is evil (or is it not? Outside humans even this isn’t considered unnatural), but something dying naturally is not. Clearly many animals have gone extinct because of humans (many memorable ones before humanity developed a sufficiently profound collective consciousness that coul…

I personally don't want to live in a bland, dead world.

To me its like climate change. The climate change, just like species go extinct. But humans are exasperating both processes in a ways that will ultimately make living on earth worse for future generations.

Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking

#18

Post by leidenfrost »

I don't see the point of de-extinction other than naturist nostalgia.

The problem around de-extinction is that you can't just shoehorn a new species into a habitat that already filled the void left by a past extinction.

If some marsupial in Australia got extinct because it was replaced by feral cats, then that habitat won't welcome that marsupial anymore. And there's nothing we can do about it. Even if we somehow people organize themselves to hunt all the feral cats to extinction, it will either be replaced by new post-domestic cats or either some other, equally capable and already existing predator.

The habitat wasn't destroyed nor hurt in anyway. It just changed. It changed the same way it changed when all non-avian dinosaurs got extinct and then replaced with mammals and birds that filled the void left by them.

Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking

#19

Post by AlexandrB »

cmh89 wrote: post #17
ramraj07 wrote: post #7

I don’t understand why people are obsessed with extinction as some great evil - it’s as evil as the concept of death itself; killing something is evil (or is it not? Outside humans even this isn’t considered unnatural), but something dying naturally is not. Clearly many animals have gone extinct because of humans (many memorable ones before humanity developed a sufficiently profound collective consciousness that coul…

I personally don't want to live in a bland, dead world. To me its like climate change. The climate change, just like species go extinct. But humans are exasperating both processes in a ways that will ultimately make living on earth worse for future generations.

It won't be a dead world - but I sure hope everyone likes rats, cockroaches, and jellyfish - because these are the species that seem to be well adapted to living in environments where other animals have been driven out.

Re: De-Extinction? Surely You’re Joking

#20

Post by Ensorceled »

leidenfrost wrote: post #18

I don't see the point of de-extinction other than naturist nostalgia. The problem around de-extinction is that you can't just shoehorn a new species into a habitat that already filled the void left by a past extinction. If some marsupial in Australia got extinct because it was replaced by feral cats, then that habitat won't welcome that marsupial anymore. And there's nothing we can do about it. Even if we somehow peo…

> The habitat wasn't destroyed nor hurt in anyway. It just changed.

That's an interesting way to describe the massive effect humans are having on pretty much every habitat on the planet ... "It just changed."

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