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Woolly mammoth habitats don’t exist anymore nor do their social structure. We might be able to guess at their habitats but we know very little about how they li

Woolly mammoth habitats don’t exist anymore nor do their social structure. We might be able to guess at their habitats but we know very little about how they lived. I would think it’s cruel to try and bring another mammoth back to what ever we currently think is a good for them, especially since the whole venture would be likely at least partially be driven by a quest for fame and profit. If humans go extinct and some alien species works out how to clone us in vitro and put us in a breathable atmosphere, do you think that would be a life worth living? Hard pass for me, I can’t see that being an experience I would want to endure. It’s life Jim but not as we know it. If governments or the super rich want a cause to spend their super profits on then working on human immorality or curing our current environmental/social ills would be much more moral.

deviation 4y ago
> I would think it’s cruel to try and bring another mammoth back to what ever we currently think is a good for them Bias for what is 'cruel' cannot exist without historical context, for Mammoths or even humans for that matter. Any species (human or otherwise) is a product of its environment. We've seen this time and time again in historical examples such as human sacrifices, fights to the death, torture- all these ideals were cultivated and accepted by the majority at one point or another. It's important to also recognise that mammoths only became extinct roughly 4000 years ago and that they are the closest ancestor to modern day elephants. Mammoths existed at the same point in time as bison, grizzly bears, and camels. Camels even predate mammoths and co-existed with species like the giant beaver. In the timeline of evolution 4000 years is an extraordinarily short period. I'd wager that reintroducing mammoths into a suitable environment would go surprisingly smoothly. > If humans go extinct and some alien species works out how to clone us in vitro and put us in a breathable atmosphere, do you think that would be a life worth living? Hard pass for me This seems like a catch-22. In this example, you would be reborn in a new environment with zero historical knowledge of the human race. As odd as it seems... Even if you were made to ride around an alien spaceship naked on a unicycle for your foreseeable lifetime, you would still have no context in the slightest for if this would be a life worth living for you, or if it is an experience you would want to endure. You would be crafting and designing the social norms for your ancestors from scratch.

deviation 4y ago

> I would think it’s cruel to try and bring another mammoth back to what ever we currently think is a good for them Bias for what is 'cruel' cannot exist without historical context, for Mammoths or even humans for that matter. Any species (human or otherwise) is a product of its environment. We've seen this time and time again in historical examples such as human sacrifices, fights to the death, torture- all these ideals were cultivated and accepted by the majority at one point or another. It's important to also recognise that mammoths only became extinct roughly 4000 years ago and that they are the closest ancestor to modern day elephants. Mammoths existed at the same point in time as bison, grizzly bears, and camels. Camels even predate mammoths and co-existed with species like the giant beaver. In the timeline of evolution 4000 years is an extraordinarily short period. I'd wager that reintroducing mammoths into a suitable environment would go surprisingly smoothly. > If humans go extinct and some alien species works out how to clone us in vitro and put us in a breathable atmosphere, do you think that would be a life worth living? Hard pass for me This seems like a catch-22. In this example, you would be reborn in a new environment with zero historical knowledge of the human race. As odd as it seems... Even if you were made to ride around an alien spaceship naked on a unicycle for your foreseeable lifetime, you would still have no context in the slightest for if this would be a life worth living for you, or if it is an experience you would want to endure. You would be crafting and designing the social norms for your ancestors from scratch.