[extropy-chat] Extinctions

[Damien Sullivan]

On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 11:05:05AM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:

> Besides, if we really want to have more species, it will be cheaper to
> make them tomorrow than spending a lot of effort on saving them today.

This sort of gambling of present things for hypothetical future
capability is part of what strikes normal people as wild-eyed optimism
and religiousness about the Singularity.  "It doesn't matter what we do
now we'll fix it later."  "We can't fix it now."  "But we will be able
to!  Trust us!"

Genetic engineering misses the point, anyway.  Yeah, we might be able to
make something, but what?  It's not just the diversity, it's the
*design*, and the encoded history of the Earth, in the diversity today;
that wouldn't be possible to replicate.

-xx- Damien X-)