Eric Peterson #fundie

Eric Peterson #fundie youtube.com

I don’t think it’s intrinsically bad for species to go extinct.

7 comments

Do you mean humans?

I mean technically speaking, he's not wrong per se. But such a position brings up lots of moral/ethical issues.

I don’t think it’s intrinsically bad for species to go extinct

Well, as what was once the all-powerful Religious Reich during the Raygun Era is becoming more and more socio-politically irrelevant - just ask the Fundie Hypocrite-supported President Reject Donald Fart - who am I to disagree, OP...?!

As long as that species is the rightwing shitbird, I fully support their extinction.

@Mathius_dragoon #66196
Eh that really depends. There are some animals that don’t seem important to the ecosystem. So he is somewhat wrong depending on how important the species is to ecosystem.

“I don’t think it’s intrinsically bad for species to go extinct.”

XKCD mentions a flower that mimiced a kind of bee to draw the members of that species to pollinate its flowers. The bee has gone extinct. The plant will eventually follow it. Such things happen. Biology functions.
However, dumping toxic chemicals somewhere because if it kills off a species ‘big whoop,’ that’s just laziness.

<@KeithInc.> #198945

There is also once again a difference in scope and intention: species dying out due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, with losses that enable other species to fill in the now open niches is unfortunate but fine, not much to be done about it. Thousands of species, some of which we don't even know about, dying out due to our rampant negligence and greed in a manner that is affecting entire ecosystems and is close to a mass extinction event already? That's not ‘unfortunate but eh’, that's horrific and morally troubling.
There is also a smaller difference (at least for me) between ‘species dying out due to our greed’ and ‘species dying out that are specifically targeted due to their impact on us or on the environment’ (i.e. parasites being forced towards extinction). I know that this view is contentious too in certain philosophical schools, but I think it is in the right of every species to defend itself from its own predators and parasites (this does not include killing off all non-domesticated mega fauna and predators for convenience of agriculture mind you).
Still, even if we kill off certain parasitic worms or mosquito species entirely, I would want them to be remembered. A species is something quite unique (from our point of view definitely) and while losing them is to a degree unavoidable or necessary in rarer cases, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep them and their traits in our memories. That's what's also so deeply disturbing for me about so many species being lost before we are even able to identify them.

Eric Peterson #fundie youtube.com

7 comments

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