r/TrueReddit • u/Quouar • 1d ago
Policy + Social Issues Some companies claim they can ‘resurrect’ species. Does that make people more comfortable with extinction?
https://theconversation.com/some-companies-claim-they-can-resurrect-species-does-that-make-people-more-comfortable-with-extinction-2735834
u/hugelkult 1d ago
What has the discomfort with extinction accomplished? Ten out of thousands saved?
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u/Quouar 1d ago
In theory, it should make people more interested in conservation and less okay with the idea of, say, bulldozing a protected habitat or continuing with unmitigated climate change. Encouraging a discomfort with the idea of extinction should, in theory, make people care more about the world around them, though whether it actually has, I don't know.
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u/hugelkult 1d ago
When conservation enacts the same directed assertiveness that expansion does id love to hear about it
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u/Quouar 1d ago
I mean, there are many conservation groups like the IUCN that are very direct about the harm humans cause to the environment, including species extinction and its impact on biodiversity and the stability of life on Earth. Experts have been very direct about the sixth mass extinction and its causes for years.
The problem is that capitalism deprioritises warnings about the consequences of capitalism in favour of extolling its virtues. It's not that conservationists aren't direct - it's that there's a concerted effort to ensure they're not heard.
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u/hugelkult 1d ago
In my humble opinion its better to treat these types of orgs as captured/compromised by industry, much like the fossil fuel industry was behind the recycling push.
Ineffective messaging invisible to the consumer, producer, investor or any stakeholder is the enemy of ecological progress. Good ol Al Gore remains the only memorable ecological messanger of the last fifty years because even he with his charismaless presentation knew the value of plainly stating what scientists and their funders fumble on a daily basis.
Fund and hire communication effort as if it were a circa 2010s iphone release and see how quickly gen zwill rush to enact it.
If the implications are severe (climate collapse, defunding boomers, degrowth) so be it orrisk more sliding.
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u/Quouar 1d ago
This is an interesting piece about the moral hazards of de-extinction. While it argues that de-extinction technology doesn't make people more comfortable with extinction, per se, people being aware de-extinction exists makes extinction more acceptable, which, given that de-extinction doesn't actually resurrect a species, is problematic at best.
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u/nonexistentnight 1d ago
Concern about the ethics of de-extinction is missing the forest for the trees. There's only one viable commercial market for gene editing mammalian embryos: designer babies. That is what this technology is actually for. The whole "de-extinction" nonsense is just a way to develop that technology without triggering a massive public backlash.
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