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Heal to what? The idea that there is a natural ecosystem is nonsense. Humans and other organisms have been changing the environment since the beginning of life.

Heal to what? The idea that there is a natural ecosystem is nonsense. Humans and other organisms have been changing the environment since the beginning of life. Life is a process, not a state.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> Heal to what? The idea that there is a natural ecosystem is nonsense There isn't a stable state, but there are multiple equilibria. We can quantify the robustness of an ecosystem, its resilience to exogenous shocks. That makes certain states "better" than others. That resilience is low and decreasing. "Healing" means helping it increase. Re-introducing extinct species may or may not build a more robust and more productive biosphere.
anigbrowl 5y ago
I think you're confusing ecosystem (which word itself implies process) with equilibrium. It's quite fair to say that there was an actual ecosystem at least until the establishment of writing, at which point state information became transmissible across time and space beyond the capacity of individual organisms or eusocial colonies. While you are correct that evolution would sooner or later take over, whether with assistance via cloning or blind luck if humans were to go extinct, you do need to consider the possibility that under some circumstances systems can collapse rather than bouncing back over a relatively short timeframe. Life would eventually re-establish itself, just as life persists in extremely arid desert conditions, but there's no guarantee it will do si n a timely fashion, and by timely here I mean on a timescale short enough for a human civilization to flourish in parallel with it.
- ceilingcorner 5y ago
  I am just saying that the idea of returning to a natural equilibrium is nonsensical. We really just mean a form of nature that has a balance we find agreeable to human beings. Nothing more, nothing less. No human is okay with an equilibrium if it’s filled with killer wasps and sentient bears.

Heal to what? The idea that there is a natural ecosystem is nonsense. Humans and other organisms have been changing the environment since the beginning of life. Life is a process, not a state.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> Heal to what? The idea that there is a natural ecosystem is nonsense There isn't a stable state, but there are multiple equilibria. We can quantify the robustness of an ecosystem, its resilience to exogenous shocks. That makes certain states "better" than others. That resilience is low and decreasing. "Healing" means helping it increase. Re-introducing extinct species may or may not build a more robust and more productive biosphere.

anigbrowl 5y ago

I think you're confusing ecosystem (which word itself implies process) with equilibrium. It's quite fair to say that there was an actual ecosystem at least until the establishment of writing, at which point state information became transmissible across time and space beyond the capacity of individual organisms or eusocial colonies. While you are correct that evolution would sooner or later take over, whether with assistance via cloning or blind luck if humans were to go extinct, you do need to consider the possibility that under some circumstances systems can collapse rather than bouncing back over a relatively short timeframe. Life would eventually re-establish itself, just as life persists in extremely arid desert conditions, but there's no guarantee it will do si n a timely fashion, and by timely here I mean on a timescale short enough for a human civilization to flourish in parallel with it.

ceilingcorner 5y ago
I am just saying that the idea of returning to a natural equilibrium is nonsensical. We really just mean a form of nature that has a balance we find agreeable to human beings. Nothing more, nothing less. No human is okay with an equilibrium if it’s filled with killer wasps and sentient bears.