[andrewksl]

I guess if you try to quantify a species’ value by looking at its utility, either to the ecosystem or for our amusement, you may arrive at the conclusion that some species are not worth saving. Reasonable even if a little cold.

I tend to take the view that life — all life — is extremely rare in the universe, and that alone is enough to warrant as much action as realistically possible to preserve it. A species might never be useful for anything, but it is the unique product of countless generations before it; a story of complexity and beauty that, it could be argued, dwarfs any of humanity’s greatest achievements.

[cmdshiftf4]

>I guess if you try to quantify a species’ value by looking at its utility, either to the ecosystem or for our amusement, you may arrive at the conclusion that some species are not worth saving.

If you included our own species in that evaluation you may reasonably conclude that ours is not worth saving, above all others.

What would one reasonably label a species that hyper-populates, spreads itself spatially, destroys the other species and their habitations in the spaces it expands to, consumes at a rate far above utility, hordes whatever resources it can gather and spends its efforts calculating how to increase these efforts?

Unless the intelligence we evolved with is used to benefit the rest of life which flourished with our own, then it is hard to call it a virtue, or even deem us any more worthwhile, or worth preserving, more than any other life form.

[andrewksl]

There are some days I definitely don’t disagree with you. For all our intelligence, we spend an awful lot of it being senselessly destructive. Hard to argue that’s worth keeping around.

[aplacelikethis]

Unless all species naturally end up at that stage and the only way to the next stage of evolution is to rise above it.

Or if every animal life is net more pain than enjoyment.

Or if it's the only way to have any lifeform exist into perpetuity. Then we're net beneficial to all other life on the planet as long as any of it survives along with us; disregarding that we're perpetuating a boatload of genes just by continuing to exist.

Any individual animal has a survival instinct. We have a survival instinct that encompasses much larger groups than that of any animal.

[andrewksl]

It’s a survival instinct when there’s two mouths to feed, and one meal to do it.

When there’s enough for everyone and more, and we take enough resources for 50 because then we get it faster, cheaper, and shinier... well, I wouldn’t personally describe that as survival instinct.

[briefcomment]

This is fair. I would say though that I am not suggesting that "species are not worth saving". Rather I would define my view as "all species are worth saving, but as human actors, and not gods, we need to pick and choose".

Again, I would love to see nothing go extinct. Only reason I left my first comment is that I think it is unfair to classify the extinction of species during our lifetimes as "meekly accept[ing]" as opposed to "sad but rational given our limitations".

[andrewksl]

I hear you, and FWIW, I didn’t construe your meaning negatively.

I am Malaysian. I wish I could say that despite our best conservation efforts, we just couldn’t save the Sumatran rhino. Instead, both within Malaysia and without, we hardly give even a moment’s thought to the damage we do as we do it.

If only our quandary was, “which species won’t we be able to save?” instead of “what species are we going to sacrifice so we don’t have to change our lifestyle?”