[vasco]

I think you can define degradation. I can make objective claims that less biodiversity is worse than more biodiversity and use it to measure degradation without humans around. I can measure this degradation in planets without humans or model out the degradation in a future where humans are extinct, and call certain situations objectively worse than others under that yardstick.

Maybe I misunderstood because it seems you're claiming if there's no humans around it's impossible to model any phenomena, but we possess abstract thought to make up those situations and define things like degradation in the absence of humans.

[alexey-salmin]

> I can make objective claims that less biodiversity is worse than more biodiversity and use it to measure degradation without humans around.

While the amount of biodiversity can be measured objectively, the notion of it being "good" is completely made up. You need humans to judge what's "good" and which means that for any "good" kind of future humans are essential and are more important than say biodiversity.

[FredPret]

If biodiversity is good (and I say it is, but it’s a human judgement), then human civilization is also good, and for the same reason: it represents life, complexity, activity, and progress.

[CatWChainsaw]

... sixth mass extinction??

[robertlagrant]

You, a human, can define degradation. So your prerequisite to degradation measurement requires humans?