3 ms·

Your "meanwhile" is on the order of hundreds of thousands of years, at a bare minimum, whereas the extinction of specialists can easily happen over the course o

by crygin 12y ago

Your "meanwhile" is on the order of hundreds of thousands of years, at a bare minimum, whereas the extinction of specialists can easily happen over the course of a single human lifespan. It's not thinking critically about the issues in play or how they would affect the lives of millions or billions of people, let alone the animals, plants, and microorganisms involved. It's not heresy, it's just hubris.

gbog 12y ago
How would the loss of one specie of fish affect the "lives of millions or billions of people"? I know the thing with the top predators, but I think nature has many other ways to regulate population of animals, and if some ecosystem relies on one single weak link for its survival, it means this ecosystem is weak and will be replaced anyway. It doesn't mean we should destroy things without consideration of the consequences, but I think that if we always consider the worst case as the most likely we will never do anything interesting anymore. Do you know that in France many industrial projects are stopped because of such reasoning? For instance, a guy has a factory there, and it's working well, and he wants to expand to the neibouring wasteland, which is conveniently placed. Then some guys come and say that some specie of triton is living there and might be disturbed, and the project is cancelled, and the factory guy must build another factory far away, and it's an headache, and he gets some "compensation" from the local administration, which is just people's tax money. All of this because maybe, just maybe, a triton will be disturbed, which will break the natural cycle, which will create an invasion of cricket, which will kill us all, but just maybe... (All of this come from a stupid misunderstanding of the butterfly effect) Also, can't we think a bit out of the party line there? I am a nature lover as much as anyone, but I think we currently do not trust its resilience enough, and it is dangerous. Am I allowed to share these thoughts? Am I rude or something? Could there still be some topics that we cannot question? Then why? Maybe these topics are weak too, and will break if we question them. Which means they will break anyway, and will break much harder if we protect them from criticism. That's dangerous.
- ch4s3 12y ago
  The triton factory issue here is a strawman. None of us are talking about those types of species. We were talking about apex species in marine ecosystems. When you lose apex species, the species in the middle of the ecosystem start to disappear. Billions of people rely on the ecosystems for food. So, not intentionally killing off these key species is in our own best long term interest.

by crygin 12y ago

gbog 12y ago

How would the loss of one specie of fish affect the "lives of millions or billions of people"? I know the thing with the top predators, but I think nature has many other ways to regulate population of animals, and if some ecosystem relies on one single weak link for its survival, it means this ecosystem is weak and will be replaced anyway. It doesn't mean we should destroy things without consideration of the consequences, but I think that if we always consider the worst case as the most likely we will never do anything interesting anymore. Do you know that in France many industrial projects are stopped because of such reasoning? For instance, a guy has a factory there, and it's working well, and he wants to expand to the neibouring wasteland, which is conveniently placed. Then some guys come and say that some specie of triton is living there and might be disturbed, and the project is cancelled, and the factory guy must build another factory far away, and it's an headache, and he gets some "compensation" from the local administration, which is just people's tax money. All of this because maybe, just maybe, a triton will be disturbed, which will break the natural cycle, which will create an invasion of cricket, which will kill us all, but just maybe... (All of this come from a stupid misunderstanding of the butterfly effect) Also, can't we think a bit out of the party line there? I am a nature lover as much as anyone, but I think we currently do not trust its resilience enough, and it is dangerous. Am I allowed to share these thoughts? Am I rude or something? Could there still be some topics that we cannot question? Then why? Maybe these topics are weak too, and will break if we question them. Which means they will break anyway, and will break much harder if we protect them from criticism. That's dangerous.

ch4s3 12y ago
The triton factory issue here is a strawman. None of us are talking about those types of species. We were talking about apex species in marine ecosystems. When you lose apex species, the species in the middle of the ecosystem start to disappear. Billions of people rely on the ecosystems for food. So, not intentionally killing off these key species is in our own best long term interest.