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Comment by go_elmo | Hacker News Reader

Most people dont seem to get that the only ones were really destroying are ourselves. Another mass estinction wont end life on this planet, its too robust.

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In fact, a mass extinction would be beneficial to the ecosystem by wiping out humans and allowing the rest of the planet to recover and thrive.

sad that you had to create an anon account to make this comment, as this sentiment gets downvoted here without fail.

Because it’s not very useful to anyone with an ego larger than a common house ant (e.g. sees a sense of self beyond the greater glory of the hive). A world without humans, without any human legacy, is not a future that any normative human wishes for. Is it even worth discussing something that 99% of people hate because it literally is a self inflicted apocalypse?

It’s just a fact - people are bad for biodiversity. I don’t think anyone can argue against it. What that implies is kind of dependent on your values, like you said, but it doesn’t mean we can’t discuss it and need to erase all such comments.

Ok let's discuss.

If all the humans that want the entire planet wiped of humans could start by setting the example with themselves, the rest of us will take it from here.

Seems to me like one should follow all the way through on those desires or else find some other ways of to live in which one could create value through their existence. To spout off that everyone should all die while not actually following through is one of the most selfish and destructive mind sets outside of murder and suicide.

That's not what I took from that comment, but there's another by the same poster that I can't see so maybe that's what they were suggesting there. Obviously, I'd personally vote against any such plan, but the issue is that there might not be a vote. By the looks of it we are inching towards one and half the world is in denial and the other half is arguing about how much beef we should be eating. It's ridiculous.

Anyway, I have no doubts that life and people will be around for a very long time, it's our current lifestyles that are either going to voluntarily change or be changed for us.

So to offer a solution, I think we need to put a dollar value on biodiversity in addition to carbon tax so that these things start to show up on the spreadsheets of people with the actual power to change things.

I think part of the reason people don’t fight for climate change is that they’d know the planet will recover… if there are few enough people on it.

They assume that they or their defendants will be one of the survivors so there’s nothing to worry about.

It’s the same issue with trying to prevent war when both sides think they can win. Sure there’s hardship but if you win didn’t you come out ahead? No one considers the trauma of the generation that has to actually do the fighting.

> allowing the rest of the planet to recover and thrive.

Are humans extra-terrestrial? How is humans thriving not part of the 'planet thriving'?

In fairness here, the comment said:

allowing THE REST of the planet to recover and thrive.

Which to me meant that humans are a part of the planet, and if you cut them out the other parts of the planet do "better" by the poster's definition of "better".

Humans are the only hope for life on this planet. On a long enough timescale the planet will cease to exist. Humans have (or have the ability to develop) the technology to establish life in other parts of the universe.

It is highly unlikely that life - as on earth - does not exist anywhere in the universe. Where the great filter is is a great question, but I am 99.9999% sure that it is NOT basic life with some intelligence (e.g. animals). - The elements CHNOPS are verywhere - including oldest asteroids - enough habitable zone exoplanets - enough evidence of primitive life forming where energy gradients exist - ...

so humans really are not that important for the universe, just for ourselves. But this should be enough for us not eradicate ourselves for the mid term benefit of a few.

> It is highly unlikely that life - as on earth - does not exist anywhere in the universe.

This is a common senitment, but there is no rational basis for believing it to be true.

> enough evidence of primitive life forming where energy gradients exist

There is no evidence that life has arisen more than once.

> there is no rational basis for believing it to be true.

Denying that humans and their blue little planet are in any way special is such a rational basis.

If origin of life is uncommon, then any place it does arise will necessarily be special. You are simply asserting, as an axiom, that life cannot be uncommon. The core of your erroneous thinking is that you have not taken into account observer selection bias.

https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/W6-Observer-sele...

Your sort of reasoning also led people to think in the 1700s that all the other planets in our solar system had intelligent life on them.

An extinction event that wipes put humans would wipe out every large animal too. Humans are incredibly versatile and adaptable.

Perhaps in the short term, but I don't think it would be beneficial long term. If humans are wiped out, which species would save or relocate planet earth's biosphere from the coming destruction by the sun going red giant in a few billion years? Humans can potentially preserve the biosphere through either stellar husbandry/engineering or travelling to the stars (or both). At a certain point, the solar radiation may get so intense as to boil the ocean and destroy the atmosphere. Then it is predicted to envelop earth which would seal the deal for any potential subterranean life.

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