Islands of the Feral Pigs | Hacker News Reader

Islands of the Feral Pigs

hakaimagazine.com

46 pointsPaulHoule26 comments

My urge to pass judgment on the short sighted explorers is at odds with some of the commits I have pushed to get something to market at the expense of some future souls.

This was a great read to start the day with.

People used to believe that animals could generate from the earth. The ecosystem used to be viewed as a mystical thing that would take care of its self and no mere man could significantly influence. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation

Tbh, this was the intended result.

looks like they are shooting themselves in the foot with so much conservation red tape. Those things will double and double till you got nothing left

The purpose of the system is what it does.

Humans have eradicated tons of species from various islands and areas over the years. If this was a priority it would be solved or on its way to being solved. It's not a priority so the problem just kind of continues at a simmer and nobody really cares as long as it doesn't encroach on the developed areas where people who's voices matter (at a state level) live and the business of lightening tourists' wallets takes place. And people like the author are left sadly pissing into the wind bemoaning the state of affairs.

New Zealand at least is trying _very_ hard:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/new-zeala...

> The purpose of the system is what it does.

This is a tautological and useless definition of telos. Sometimes things just don't have a purpose.

Eh, it's a heuristic. When you put time and effort in, you can usually do better. Superforcasters can beat "nothing ever happens", and even regular people can in particular areas, but if you don't know about a subject it's a good starting point.

Similar to the "efficient market hypothesis". It's clearly false, but good luck walking into a randomly selected part of the market and reliably being able to beat it.

I have no clue what this babble has to do with the concept of a "purpose" or a "telos" or an "end".

I don't think it's babble, they're reasonably good heuristics if you have little information or time. What part is confusing?

The point of "POSIWID" is that you can look at e.g. a government office that's never denied a request and make a first guess that its purpose is to rubber-stamp documents.

That just seems like an incoherent understanding of "purpose", which seems most reasonably based off "intent" and can only be measured by claims of intent.

The heuristic you're referring to seems to be figuring out whether a system does what it's intended to, which seems to be an entirely different issue. Why overload an already useful word with seemingly contradictory semantics?

Granted, it seems like a very useful concept, just an abominably-named one.

What's your position on intentionality[0]? I don't put stock into anything too fancy there. Being simple about things in general, you can define a physical or mathematical system that uses optimization of some sort to drive the world toward certain states over others.

Questions regarding if the system's conscious or "cares about anything" don't really matter.

Accepting that, you can say any system that drives towards states "intends" to do so.

Unless a system is not functioning well, is weak, or is adversarial opposed, in general what it does should be more or less what it "intends".

This isn't iron-hard, but as a first guess, that gets you "the purpose of a system is what it does".

[0]: e.g. I don't know if your definition of "telos" requires anything in that direction. If you've got definitions you can link them from the SEP (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) or similar. Maybe too far into the weeds to be useful from a cybernetics perspective though. More theological.

It's still useful to communicate with people who don't desire to or do not tend to think in systems. You can define things any such way you'd like, of course, especially if communication is not your desire.

Hm, this makes me wonder: what exactly makes the European pig more harmful than the Polynesian pig which was there for ~1600 years? Is there a viable way of breeding pigs more like the latter?

The pigs were placed there as a living food refuelling station. If they are caught and turned into beacon, izs the pig singularity .

Came here hoping tris was an articule about organizational management

Isn't this exactly the legit use that ar-15 enthusiasts cite?

Resources on wild pig management usually recommend trapping or baiting rather than trying to shoot them. Shooting at them with a semi-auto while they are fleeing is a particularly cruel way to address the problem, as you're not making clean kills in this sort of situation.

We aren't talking about one or two pigs wandering into a backyard here. The sheer numbers are such that people who hunt them routinely end up shooting literally dozens of feral pigs in minutes, and it still isn't enough to keep the populations in check. Which is why USDA straight up says that "lethal techniques may be a more effective means for limiting population growth and achieving long-term suppression of damage".

I'm still in shock that this online magazine won't continue.

https://mailchi.mp/hakaimagazine/important-news-from-hakai-m...

At least it will be preserved. But, the writing is consistently good, and consistently on the front page of HN. This is an example of a magazine worth saving.

Damn that is very sad, I have donated in the past. Sounds like there is a chance they could find a new funder though.

> But we have adjusted to the news and we’re committed to finding a new outlet where we can continue to publish stories with our signature keen insight into all things coastal and oceanic. We’re actively looking for new funding sources—if you have ideas, please get in touch, because we’re open to suggestions. Over the next six months, we will keep you informed of our progress in finding a new haven for our next chapter.

Uuffff.. I get it where the article is trying to go, but "..the pigs exist a little too much."

Well, we rape nature, we unbalance natural order and when there are 50-100 more pigs we need to slaughter them.

In cases like that what comes to mind is the Hubris, Atis, Nemesis, Tisis. (https://www.greecehighdefinition.com/blog/hubris-atis-nemesi...).

We (humans) 'contaminated' the island with pigs and other animals and we were a-ok while they were ravaging other species. Now they are annoying us we need to take swift and firm action and eliminate them.

I am looking forward to a future where the cities will be under a self-sustainable 'dome' and everything between those cities will be wilderness/jungle, we will let nature take over.

"I am looking forward to a future where the cities will be under a self-sustainable 'dome' and everything between those cities will be wilderness/jungle, we will let nature take over."

This strikes me as a similar idea to 1970s sci-fi with its "arcology" super high-rise vertical cities.

It hasn't happened yet because it makes too much sense but isn't a solution that makes the most $$$/humanity is far too selfish.

Hope I'm wrong but I don't think you'll live to see your dome :(

That, we haven't figured out any viable way to produce the sort of energy necessary to feed humanity without harvesting the sun, which is very greedy in terms of area.

Just wait- mass prevalence of humans drives mass adaption of anti-human counter measures by oncologic systems. Ambrosia everywhere..

> I am looking forward to a future where the cities will be under a self-sustainable 'dome' and everything between those cities will be wilderness/jungle

I suspect we'll see Trantor before we see that.

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