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Comment by geysersam | Hacker News Reader

If you think those 21 species were the only ones going extinct you're badly informed.

About 200 plant and animal species go extinct every day.

But we will not realize it until 2073. This 21 are species that went extinct between 1960's and 1980's.

My money would be into the molluscs lost as collateral damages by the effects of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, and the birds by a combination of touristic development plus Mikonia tree invasion starting on 60's and 70's.

Millions of species even went extinct before modern man was ever here.

Oh well then i guess it doesnt matter we destroy the earth. Fire up those coal plants and slap some more meat on the barbecue, nothing matters after all because things have happened in the past!

How did you that conclusion from what I said?

The timing and placement of your statement comes off as a challenge to the original statement. It appears you’re implying that what we’re doing today is ok because it is part of a natural process. While true, we also have agency to transcend the natural process or perpetuate it.

Just because it has happened, doesn’t mean we should endorse and accelerate it. What we do determines the future.

So are you arguing we should prevent the extinction that would happen naturally? The extinction where man played no role?

Why?

Maybe. If that helpes us develop better medicines or food crops it sounds like the smart thing to do. Instead of waiting around for 2 million years until eco-system has recovered.

However, in my opinion, it's a rather uninteresting hypothetical because human activity absolutely does play a huge role in the extinction of species today.

> Maybe. If that helpes us develop better medicines or food crops it sounds like the smart thing to do.

What about the ramifications of doing so?

What about the ramifications of not preventing extinction caused by human activity (or other causes)?

That’s a separate discussion.

I’m not sure fiddling with natural levels of extinction are smart.

Yes but: 1. Many more species go extinct because of human activity. 2. That's a problem.

Delete your account.

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