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Comment by napa15 | Hacker News Reader

It's fine being careful but this argument devolves all too often into some kind of religious nature worship. We are the dominant species on this planet. Animals and plant life - nature - have to conform to our wishes. Not the other way around.

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I agree, more or less, but I believe that the "We can't possibly predict the effects of this therefore we can't take the risk" argument demands more urgent opposition. I argue that we can predict the effects. They're tiny even in absolute terms, and the uncertainty is well-understood and also small. And in relative terms - These small risks and effects are weighed against a half-million lives per year. I'd be willing to release kudzu or rabbits to save that many lives; eliminating mosquitoes has such insignificant risk relative to its benefit that that risk doesn't even register. Do it now.

I'd say the life form that dominates this planet are single cellular organisms, i.e., mostly bacteria. They have run this place for billions of years, deciding who gets to stay in symbiosis with them or not and most likely will continue to do so for a few billion more, long after mammals and similar life forms will have disappeared again. They inhabit the entire biosphere, at least 1km below and up to 50km above earth, filling every cubic meter with millions and often billions of them. They can "communicate" (evolve their latest genetic modifications) across the whole planet in a matter of weeks for particularly mission-critical mutations. Every other life-form just passes by.

The only reason we are the dominant species is because we have resources and ecosystems that can support us. The dominant species won't be so dominant anymore when ecosystems collapse.

I don't think the OP would argue against that point.

Harming nature to the point that it harms humans wouldn't fit into that philosophy.

Uh no, we don't have the power to live without nature. We have a lot of power but we need to be careful wielding it.

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