> Extincting large animals isn't a very difficult feat, especially if people were to react quickly. We usually have the opposite problem - keeping larger animals from being entrepreneured into extinction.
Yet. Hippos still roam the jungles of Colombia freely. I'm sure they've even killed a few Americans. Nobody cares.
When you're dealing with nature, you're dealing with something much bigger than you are. Sure you can throw more resources at the problem. Doesn't always work.
Australians fought a war against emus and lost. The tumbleweed war in the American prairie is going nowhere. You seem to have this limitless faith in human ingenuity against nature that just doesn't make any sense. You open biological cans of worms, and it's going to take more resources than it's worth to fix properly. How many billions went into containing Chernobyl? And it's still not fixed. You just seem to want to give carte blanche to the Elon Musk's of the world because you want to believe they can dig us out of holes rather than dig us further into them.
Were you really one of the ones who thought he could actually do something positive with Twitter?
> Yet. Hippos still roam the jungles of Colombia freely. I'm sure they've even killed a few Americans. Nobody cares.
Because what's there to care about? It's normal hippos. Not dinosaurs. Not even genetically engineered hippos. Animals roaming the wilderness and occasionally killing people is still a normal occurrence. Has been everywhere around the world, and it always ends the same way: people start using technology to defend themselves effectively, and to develop the land they live on, and expand their reach, and suddenly they need to self-constrain in hopes they don't extinct the previously dangerous animal.
> Australians fought a war against emus and lost. The tumbleweed war in the American prairie is going nowhere.
Which is why I mentioned large animals. Low r, high K. Not rabbits, that can breed as fast as you can make bullets, but more like elephants, which are all too easy to hunt down to extinction. Jurassic Park dinosaurs were more like the latter than the former.
> You seem to have this limitless faith in human ingenuity against nature that just doesn't make any sense. You open biological cans of worms, and it's going to take more resources than it's worth to fix properly.
Yes, I do. And that faith includes awareness that we can just as well destroy ourselves with that power (we're part of nature too, after all). This is why avoiding stupidity is important. This includes stupidity of the flavor I'm criticizing here.
> How many billions went into containing Chernobyl? And it's still not fixed.
That has little to do with nuclear power per se, and much more to do with why some parts of US still drink water contaminated with heavy metals. That, and most recently, war.
> You just seem to want to give carte blanche to the Elon Musk's of the world because you want to believe they can dig us out of holes rather than dig us further into them.
Carte blanche is a bit much, but I definitely put more trust in Musk and Gates and anyone who's trying to directly tackle real problems with science, technology and resourcefulness, over randos constantly whining about "playing god" or "hubris", etc. - who don't even believe in their own bullshit, because if they did, they'd all pack up and find some nice caves to live in. Because seriously - how else do people think we can dig ourselves up of the holes we're in? The answer has always been human ingenuity.
> Carte blanche is a bit much, but I definitely put more trust in Musk and Gates and anyone who's trying to directly tackle real problems with science, technology and resourcefulness, over randos constantly whining about "playing god" or "hubris", etc. - who don't even believe in their own bullshit, because if they did, they'd all pack up and find some nice caves to live in.
This is... hilarious. It's either believe in Lord and Savior Elohim Muskiah and crew to save the human race through glorious, heroic science, or give up on technology entirely. Do you not even see the stupidity here? Of course you don't.
These idiots don't represent science. They don't represent technology. They didn't invent the modern world. They're not making the world a better place, the best example of which you completely ignored in my last reply, do I need to spell it out, yes I do, it's the big Xitter. Twitter was doing just fine before ole' Elmoid decided to save the human race from its evil wokism.
You do see them as representative of science and "human ingenuity." You are completely saddened by the fact that science fiction author(s) are coming out of the woodwork to warn against drinking this kool-aid, and then moving hell and high water in the comments to defend the faith, circle the wagons. Human ingenuity is fine. It's always been fine. You're motte and bailey'ing this. You want to believe in techbro Jesus and then when called on you retreat back to "oh it's just human ingenuity I believe in."
No. I'm not letting you do that. If so this article wouldn't make you sad. You'd be seeing it as yet another example of such ingenuity. You'd see the work authors do as valuable. But instead you just see myths being shattered. The only representatives of ingenuity you seem to value are techbros. If the science mythologists aren't doing their job by properly mythologizing the techbros, then they aren't contributing to glorious science revolution.
Yet. Hippos still roam the jungles of Colombia freely. I'm sure they've even killed a few Americans. Nobody cares.
When you're dealing with nature, you're dealing with something much bigger than you are. Sure you can throw more resources at the problem. Doesn't always work.
Australians fought a war against emus and lost. The tumbleweed war in the American prairie is going nowhere. You seem to have this limitless faith in human ingenuity against nature that just doesn't make any sense. You open biological cans of worms, and it's going to take more resources than it's worth to fix properly. How many billions went into containing Chernobyl? And it's still not fixed. You just seem to want to give carte blanche to the Elon Musk's of the world because you want to believe they can dig us out of holes rather than dig us further into them.
Were you really one of the ones who thought he could actually do something positive with Twitter?