Sometimes I am alarmed that so few people are “species ethicists.” In a Darwinian sense, the chicken had won a genetic lottery by being tasty, horse by being fast, dog by being friendly. Discontinuing meat is ethically equivalent to species extinction.
biodiversity (i.e. species count) is often used as a proxy for ecological "health", which can mean all kinds of things but it seems really to be an aesthetic judgment more than anything.
-
-
I agree, which is why I wrote https://twitter.com/Locus_of_Ctrl/status/971479857598160896 … One common justification for preserving wild species is that "what if our descendants find a particular species useful for some reason in the future -- the way we found cows and horses useful?"
-
They could find it useful for very strange reasons not yet known to us -- for example modern medicine finds snake venom to be chemically "interesting" and useful.
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.