Re: De-extincting mammoths
Originally Posted by
bakerman
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We stand at the apex of the animal kingdom.
Purely an illusion born of arrogance. The animal that does not die, which is not subject to aging and decrepitude, is the one that stands upon the apex and that my friend is not you.
Originally Posted by
bakerman
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All true dogs are the creation of mankind.
Let's be clear, mankind is incapable of creating life. So no, mankind did not create dogs. All mankind did is exercise artificial selection and cross breeding to generate lots of variants. Nature is the architect of life and as such remains the "God" in this world. Even a man and woman can not create life. The best they can muster is to fumble under the sheets for a while and create the environment which best serves the purposes of Nature, a working place if you will for Nature to do its thing. Man and woman can no more create a life (or indeed anything else) than a hamster can create a nuclear submarine.
Originally Posted by
bakerman
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To bring back some creature that has gone extinct is a wonderful gift to all mankind. We should be proud.
Sadly no. The moment mankind begins this process mankind as a whole will suffer greatly. It needs to be thought through but even the most basic superficial thinking process will tell you where this will end up. Let me explain.
The circumstances of this world are that resoucres are not freely abundant and as a result over 1000s of years, certain pockets of mankind have through force of arms and violence seized control of resources and become the most powerful, wealthy and influential people on Earth.
It has become the case now that everything that can be exploited for money and power IS exploited and if it can not be immediately exploited then the actions are taken and changes implemented to ensure that it can be exploited. Energy resources, taxes, basic utilities, your water, heating, sanitation and in these latter years even your health has now become an exploitable commodity which evil corporations now prey on to make huge profits, making you ill at any and every opportunity, ensuring there is demand for their treatments, pills and drugs.
Against this back drop it becomes clear where advanced technology takes us and how evil corporations are going to use it. We already stand on the threshold where the evil monster Monsanto is close to having perfected their genetically engineered, self seeding food crops which are patented and their's to grow alone. All that requires for them to seize supreme power in the food chain is to find a way to remove all of the competition. That done they become the world's food supplier, unchallenged and everyone else loses their freedoms and choices in food.
How might that be achieved?
Pretty easy. You simply engineer the circumstances whereby we can conduct genocide on specific insects. Kill the bees, kill the wasps and other pollenating creatures and very quickly the world's crops fail and everyone comes to Monsanto for their crops and grains and for permission to use their seeds.
If insect genocide (insectocide?!) isnot palatable to the masses then engineer the circumstances whereby it appears to happen naturally. Grab the DNA of some extinct animal or insect that would prey on bees and wasps and revive that species, set it loose and voila.
Those in the know already know how bee/wasp populations have been damaged and attacked over past years. Almost like a trial run for some larger insect armageddon.
The fact remains. Nature rules the roost here and any ideas that man has that he is in control are utterly deluded. Messing about with Nature and her processes is somewhat foolish.
Rather what we should be doing, is understanding what she does, even if we can't understand how she does it, and working with her to help those processes run. In population terms we do that by fumbling under the sheets, providing the environment for Nature to work. Even so, mankind could easily naff all that up by doing something stupid that makes everyone sterile. The answers to life and our existance and all our ailments and troubles, including what we perceive as "death", are all to be found in Nature.
Nature maintains a balance. If we tip the scales, we could quite easily temporarily destroy everything.