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> the rest of organic life (which we compete with)

Here is the issue: it is more than mere competition. We co-exist in a delicate balance with the rest of life, or at least we used to. Now we threaten to destroy them, and the planet on which we depend, exactly because of this implicit belief that we compete with them instead of relying on them.

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I think we need to engineer this balance. The ones we need we keep; the ones we don't, we don't. This is basically bioforming.

I agree, and we should probably understand it before we change it. It was already engineered by natural selection long before we gained the capability to alter it. Now we are in the process of destroying it by accident as a byproduct of thoughtless growth. If we want to survive we should understand it and then carefully cultivate it for maximum performance.

I agree that we shouldn't destroy value, especially by accident. My original point was that having this conversation in engineering terms is the only sensible way to have it.

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