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Comment by rr808 | Hacker News Reader

I talked to a local who was friends with ranchers who now lose stock to wolves. They hate it. Its an interesting use case of local control, is the greater good more important than the people who live there?

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Or it's a reflection on is individualism really a thing when everything is actually interconnected?

"The greater good" is a bit abstract, and your framing suggests it's somehow separate from "the people who live there". A different framing of this question is should individuals be able to degrade ecosystem wealth in order to maximize their personal wealth?

This is the climate story in microcosm. We all know burning carbon is against the "greater good", but if we can pretend that our high-energy lifestyle is somehow independent and unconnected to the planetary ecological systems that support us, then of course, why shouldn't I mortgage my descendants' future for some toys today.

> A different framing of this question is should individuals be able to degrade ecosystem wealth in order to maximize their personal wealth?

It's the United States, that's virtually a constitutional right. If your skin color and cultural conformance checks out.

The logic of short-term gain at the expense of long-term viability is the same, just dressed up in different costumes

Losing stock to wolves and bears was why we used to have shepherds, shepherd dogs, fences etc, at least in Europe.

Eradicating predators created a very convenient, intermittent period where this was less of a necessity, but it also had quite negative externalities.

So the question isn't "is the greater good more important than the people who live there?", but more "is the greater good more important than the convenience of some people who live there?"

This is a question we have to ask ourselves a lot; nobody wants to live near a landfill, a prison, a sewage treatment plant etc, and yet we want them for the greater good.

Convenience, lifestyle and the ability to hire fewer people (keeping more money). If it doesn’t make money after expenses, get a second or third job like most artisans.

More important than their desire to continue doing business the way they're used to? I'd say so. You phrase it like we're feeding them to the wolves.

It's not just predators vs livestock, there are a bunch of things that we didn't used to understand about ecosystems that we do now. The societal cost of letting people displace or kill wild animals with abandon is quite high.

Zoonotic diseases are the first to come to mind. How many preventable cases of Plague or Lyme disease is that livestock worth to us?

Colorado, at least, provides several resources for minimizing and compensating wolf depredation.

https://cpw.widencollective.com/assets/share/asset/pzqhipzb1... (see Funding)

Cursory search shows that not just Colorado does this.

Oof. Bad place for a ranch. Natural ecology needs those apex predators. They should consider relocating if they are deep in the ranching world. If we've learned anything since the industrial revolution, we have learned that sustainability is highly desirable, even more so than marginal ranchland.

I guess the subsequent question is whether there are good places for ranches. If the benefits of predators reintroduction/protection become widely known, it will likely be practiced elsewhere in the future.

Great question! Once lab grown meat becomes economically viable, there will be few good places for ranches that make sense.

Plant-based "meat" seems to have been a commercial failure recently. It's hardly a sure thing that lab-grown meat will take over the market (without government intervention), especially considering that there's currently essentially zero market presence.

There are millions of acres to grow cows where there are no wolves.

> I talked to a local who was friends with ranchers who now lose stock to wolves. They hate it.

Well if they liked it, their anscestors wouldn't have killed the wolves in the first place.

Their ancestors were killing a lot more than wolves. This isn't a particularly noble point.

Your question rephrased from an Indigenous People's perspective:

"is the greater good more important than the original people who lived there?"

Most colonists say no

The Clovis are indeed important but they no longer exist.

"greater good" is a poor phrasing that doesn't point to the real thing-under-discussion. I prefer the phrase "common good" because it points to the feature that is unique to this good - it can only be held in common. That is, rather than being a "bigger" or a "fuller" good, it is a good that can only be achieved through collective action. No one person can have it of themselves, but together we can all have it. This necessitates collective sacrifice for the sake of this good.

It is also worth noting that not every good that is a "common good" is a necessary good. There are many common goods that can be legitimately given up because there is a hierarchy of goods as well.

Yes. They should nut up and get over it.

Spoke with someone on the Yellowstone team a few weeks ago. They mentioned most wolves lose life to ranchers. Avg wolf life in Yellowstone is just 3 years!

More important their businesses? Yes, very likely. To what extent should their business interests be protected over nature?

I think framing it as "locals vs. greater good" oversimplifies things

Yes, that's why it's called the 'greater' good.

Welfare ranchers grazing on BLM land? Yes.

Yes.

Yes

"Greater good" is a misnomer abused by all sorts of abusive meddlers.

yes

I think it's very obvious that it is more important what people like me who sit on the other side of the world thinks about wolves in Yellowstone, than what the people living there think.

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