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This is the sort of thing you are meant to learn at school... Introducing an exotic species for pest control can work, but sometimes it just makes everything m

This is the sort of thing you are meant to learn at school... Introducing an exotic species for pest control can work, but sometimes it just makes everything much, much worse. https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2018/05/top-10-invasive-species-when-pest-control-goes-wrong/ https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2018/05/top-10-inv...

EdwardDiego 4y ago
Disappointed that the article didn't mention the sad litany of New Zealand. 1) Hey, let's introduce rabbits for hunting! 2) Shit, they're eating all the grass that we want our sheep to eat 3) Let's introduce ferrets, stoats, and weasels, to eat all the rabbits! 4) Shit, they're just eating all the endemic birds 5) Uh.... We're still wrestling with Step #6 - our native beech forests (not Northern Hemisphere beech, as their Latin name makes clear - Nothofagus "false beech") will have a mass seeding event (a "mast") every few years. And when that happens, rodent populations explode, and then so too do the stoat and weasel populations. But when the mustelids run out of rats and mice, then they move onto the birds. So, we have to poison, like crazy, as well as trap, to try to protect the birds most vulnerable to them.
- kristiandupont 4y ago
  I am reminded of this brilliant solution from the Simpsons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuiK7jcC1fY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuiK7jcC1fY
  - EdwardDiego 4y ago
    At one point, after having introduced the brushtail possum from Australia, which is now a massive pest that kills forests and spreads bovine tuberculosis, someone suggested introducing dingos and/or tree snakes to control the possums. Luckily, that didn't get much traction.
    - simondotau 4y ago
      She swallowed the snake to catch the possum. She swallowed the possum to catch the spider. She swallowed the spider to catch the fly. I don’t know why she swallowed the fly. Perhaps she’ll die.
      - mistermann 4y ago
        Row row row your boat gently down the stream... The closer attention you pay, the more this place seems like a simulation, of some kind.
        simondotau 4y ago
        Or, more likely, life inspires art. Remember that "paying close attention" should not mean focusing on the interesting coincidences. A million things happen to you every day; most of it is noise unless you assign meaning to it. This sheer quantity of events means that coincidences are pretty much guaranteed to happen on a regular basis — paying close attention just means you notice more of them.
        mistermann 4y ago
        > Or, more likely, life inspires art. Or maybe: both are true (to some degree) simultaneously! > Remember that "paying close attention" should not mean focusing on the interesting coincidences. Exactly - this, and also all the other things. > This sheer quantity of events means that coincidences are pretty much guaranteed to happen on a regular basis — paying close attention just means you notice more of them. I am suspicious of the word "just" in this sentence, it makes an otherwise fine sentence seem necessarily incorrect. What did you mean by it?
        simondotau 4y ago
        It’s just a verbal tick (ha, I did it again) and means nothing. Eliminate that word and the sentence meaning is unchanged as far as my intent is concerned. If we’re living in a simulation, it would be strange indeed that they’ve made it appear to be completely deterministic but with an extra sprinkling of coincidence pixie dust as experienced by Darwinistic entities which experience a self-bootstrapped illusion of free will.
throwaway4aday 4y ago
That's a very simplified argument as well. Technological interventions are also often good. Medicine intervenes with the natural course of disease and deformity and more often than not produces better outcomes than if we let nature take its course. Agriculture is technology applied to the growth of plants and animals and has eliminated famine in the West for over a century and is quickly eliminating it around the world. You can't just say that human intervention = bad.

EdwardDiego 4y ago

Disappointed that the article didn't mention the sad litany of New Zealand. 1) Hey, let's introduce rabbits for hunting! 2) Shit, they're eating all the grass that we want our sheep to eat 3) Let's introduce ferrets, stoats, and weasels, to eat all the rabbits! 4) Shit, they're just eating all the endemic birds 5) Uh.... We're still wrestling with Step #6 - our native beech forests (not Northern Hemisphere beech, as their Latin name makes clear - Nothofagus "false beech") will have a mass seeding event (a "mast") every few years. And when that happens, rodent populations explode, and then so too do the stoat and weasel populations. But when the mustelids run out of rats and mice, then they move onto the birds. So, we have to poison, like crazy, as well as trap, to try to protect the birds most vulnerable to them.

kristiandupont 4y ago
I am reminded of this brilliant solution from the Simpsons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuiK7jcC1fY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuiK7jcC1fY
- EdwardDiego 4y ago
  At one point, after having introduced the brushtail possum from Australia, which is now a massive pest that kills forests and spreads bovine tuberculosis, someone suggested introducing dingos and/or tree snakes to control the possums. Luckily, that didn't get much traction.
  - simondotau 4y ago
    She swallowed the snake to catch the possum. She swallowed the possum to catch the spider. She swallowed the spider to catch the fly. I don’t know why she swallowed the fly. Perhaps she’ll die.
    - mistermann 4y ago
      Row row row your boat gently down the stream... The closer attention you pay, the more this place seems like a simulation, of some kind.
      - simondotau 4y ago
        Or, more likely, life inspires art. Remember that "paying close attention" should not mean focusing on the interesting coincidences. A million things happen to you every day; most of it is noise unless you assign meaning to it. This sheer quantity of events means that coincidences are pretty much guaranteed to happen on a regular basis — paying close attention just means you notice more of them.
        mistermann 4y ago
        > Or, more likely, life inspires art. Or maybe: both are true (to some degree) simultaneously! > Remember that "paying close attention" should not mean focusing on the interesting coincidences. Exactly - this, and also all the other things. > This sheer quantity of events means that coincidences are pretty much guaranteed to happen on a regular basis — paying close attention just means you notice more of them. I am suspicious of the word "just" in this sentence, it makes an otherwise fine sentence seem necessarily incorrect. What did you mean by it?
        simondotau 4y ago
        It’s just a verbal tick (ha, I did it again) and means nothing. Eliminate that word and the sentence meaning is unchanged as far as my intent is concerned. If we’re living in a simulation, it would be strange indeed that they’ve made it appear to be completely deterministic but with an extra sprinkling of coincidence pixie dust as experienced by Darwinistic entities which experience a self-bootstrapped illusion of free will.

throwaway4aday 4y ago

That's a very simplified argument as well. Technological interventions are also often good. Medicine intervenes with the natural course of disease and deformity and more often than not produces better outcomes than if we let nature take its course. Agriculture is technology applied to the growth of plants and animals and has eliminated famine in the West for over a century and is quickly eliminating it around the world. You can't just say that human intervention = bad.