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Comment by johnecheck | Hacker News Reader

Any number of species?

Maybe in theory, but propping up an entire ecosystem in collapse is well beyond Colossal's reach and incentives. This money and research would be better spent preventing the ecosystems from collapsing in the first place.

If we fix climate change, I could see an argument for investing in restoring the ecosystems that were destroyed. But 'de-extincting' a species without addressing the root causes of that extinction is idiocy.

Realizing this, these types will give up on re-introducing the original organism and instead create a bioengineered version that can survive in the changed world. I fear this path will not end well for us.

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> Realizing this, these types will give up on re-introducing the original organism and instead create a bioengineered version that can survive in the changed world. I fear this path will not end well for us.

Developing and injecting genetic resiliency into existing populations isn't the worst thing in the world. Additionally adding animals that can only reproduce sterile offspring would be an amazing tool for dealing with invasives. That kind of practical work very easily follows from this R&D.

The sterile-insect technique has been practiced since the 1950s. There is nothing novel or newly promising in that regard presented here.

Are you saying that a company like Colossal has nothing to offer to the field of genetic biocontrol or are you saying there is nothing of interest in the field?

I'm saying that even if they can do it, which nothing so far suggests, then the enormous prior art in the field should still make it uninteresting to them in any case. Nothing you could patent, and it isn't charismatic to billionaires. Why bother?

Agreed, engineering our environment is hardly the worst thing. But it comes with some real risks that we shouldn't take lightly.

Climate change is only one reason for extinctions. Humans also tend to hunt a lot of things out of existence, like the dodo, that Colossal is also trying to bring back.

Non climate hunting and direct habitat destruction is likely the largest cause of the current mass extinction event going on, life will eventually find a way to take advantage of humans like rats and pigeons already do or avoid it entirely like bats do.

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