We're saying the same thing, and by using scientifically literate terminology we're probably furthering Taleb's point. They're cultivated in the sense that the

We're saying the same thing, and by using scientifically literate terminology we're probably furthering Taleb's point. They're cultivated in the sense that their seeds are propagated and they're cared for. Concerns about artificial selection used for tens of thousands of years might be dismissed as a naturalistic fallacy, and more surgical genetic engineering methods only introduced last century are difficult to distinguish in a meaningful way. However, example disasters from introducing species to ecosystems suggest that the conservative biases that partly make up the naturalistic fallacy would have sometimes lead to safer outcomes. In spite of these disasters though, it seems that the planet would not have a carrying capacity of 8 billion people without the inorganic advances of the green revolution. Nor, perhaps even conditions where probably half a billion of those people have a higher quality of life than the most fortunate 100 thousand people living two hundred years ago.