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A compelling read. What goes unaddressed however is a parallel to what we humans are in through climate change. We've overwhelmed earth to our short term advan
by scrubs 3y ago
A compelling read. What goes unaddressed however is a parallel to what we humans are in through climate change.
We've overwhelmed earth to our short term advantage and to net negative disadvantage of our climate and transitivily on what sustains us: the food chain, clean fresh water, clean air, rampant pollution in the sea. Species are extinct etc. We can get to a place where run away green gasses can destroy us and everything here.
We now realize we depend and some level of equitable co-sharing is required.
Would agi share with us?
- sandspar 3y ago[flagged]
- seanhunter 3y agoEven if you are fine with line of reasoning you should consider the situation where we find ourselves in some fututre predicament where we have a disease that can only be cured by something we would synthesise from a rare protein that has only ever been found in the tears of the lesser Peruvian Fruitbat but unfortunately it's extinct and that's pretty much that. Even if you don't buy the argument that we are custodians of the earth and its natural resources for future generations, extinction is a one-way door[1] and it's really not possible to say that allowing an animal to become extinct would serve our interests because we can't see the future to know how this may harm us in the future. [1] Pretty much. Yes I know about the attempts to bring back the mammoth etc.
- sandspar 3y agoI think there's a relationship between human flourishing and animal extinctions. Human flourishing goes up as animal extinctions go up, but quickly reaches diminishing returns as more animals go extinct. I agree that we may have gone too far, but I also think that aiming for zero animal extinctions is severely limiting.
- dwaltrip 3y agoWe benefit enormously from the biological technology and wealth found in the natural world.
- root_axis 3y agoYou're using this "Lesser Peruvian Fruitbat or whatever" as a rhetorical tactic to make environmental concerns seem silly, but we live on the same planet that they do. It's useful to consider extinction rates as a function of general environment health. If the water is so full of shit that the things living in it are dying, that's a good sign that the water isn't going to be good for us either.