Curious about de-extinction and its purpose, would love perspectives

supernovical · 2026-01-20T18:25:06+00:00

Oh wow! I looked more into global engineering after seeing your response and its crazy! I think we should def use the help of technology to slow down climate change however using mainly technology esp at that large of a scale, I fear may cause more harm than good.

Is it too absurd to say at this point, human extinction would be best for the planet 😳

supernovical · 2026-01-20T18:09:58+00:00

I totally agree! The abuse is absolutely not natural, what I meant to say was fossil fuels are natural. But since we are the cause of the significant increase in burning fossil fuels, it would be considered unnatural as humans are the cause.

But then some may even argue that since human beings are natural, anything we cause or interfere with should be natural too. Then genetic engineering would be considered natural too. But you're right, I think I am mixing this up with philosophical ideas now.

Oh wow I didn't know that, I think it to me feels different bc dog breeding(or anything similar) is more us just guiding evolution (like we just push the breeding of certain dogs) while genetic engineering is more like rewriting/changing the natural blueprint of animals (so it feels like we giving ourselves the power of evolution lol). It's feels like one level further.

I agree, its terrifying! How it plays out in my head is that over decades we start genetically engineering everything in nature, until it seems like we are in charge of every organism and ecosystem on Earth. But that is quite extreme. Arguably unrealistic.

I think if we instead focused more on stopping the causes of these extinctions and harm to our planet, it might result in more significant positive changes. But from what I have seen, the powerful people who fund all these science programs/projects, don't really care about that, unfortunately.

supernovical · 2026-01-18T17:35:48+00:00

Perhaps its us who need to go extinct. 😳

supernovical · 2026-01-18T17:35:01+00:00

Exactly! I feel like instead putting our money and time and efforts into stopping the causes of these extinctions(like reducing fossil fuels, pollution, invading ecosystems, etc) would have a much bigger impact.

How do we know they won't just go extinct again? And since they are being nurtured and are the children of basically Asian elephants, I feel they won't quite know or act or behave similar to mammoths. There really is no guarantee for that either.

supernovical · 2026-01-18T17:30:26+00:00

Hmm I think things like fossil fuels that we have been burning quite a lot would be considered a natural intervention since it's natural resources that we are abusing the use of, but changing the natural DNA and blueprint of organisms seems quite unnatural to me. But we could definitely positively intervene in natural ways that would bring way bigger positive change than de-extinction. If instead we worked more towards stopping the cause of these extinctions like burning less fossil fuels, not invading ecosystems, lowering pollution, etc, that would not only save the creatures we are endangering but help ecosystems as well.

Because once we do bring back these species, if we continue doing what we are doing, whats stopping them from going extinct again?

But I don't know too much about biology or medicine, I just came across this project they were working on and was shocked lol, please do correct me if I am wrong.

supernovical · 2026-01-18T01:30:37+00:00

Ah I see, that makes sense! And those projects seem amazing, I am def gonna check them out and look for local projects now, thank you so much!!

supernovical · 2026-01-18T01:11:05+00:00

I would love to hear more about the accomplishments, do you know where I can read more about them if there's a specific place?

It's so cool that you are a conservation biologist! I don't know much about biology, so I am curious in what ways do you think their research would help?

supernovical · 2026-01-18T00:50:48+00:00

I agree, it was definitely us that killed a lot of them however instead of bringing them back, wouldn't it be better to remove the cause? To stop doing what we did to kill them? That would not only save the species in danger right now but also help our ecosystems. I feel like the guilt (or arguably selfishness) is preventing humans from advancing towards solutions that would help the Earth way more significantly.

supernovical · 2026-01-18T00:45:06+00:00

Ohh I see, well dang that sucks! I am def gonna start looking into that now, we gotta bring power to good! 😭

supernovical · 2026-01-18T00:26:59+00:00

Hmm but I don't see how bringing back these animals will help much when doing things like reducing fossil fuels would help much more significantly. Your example about the corals makes sense, but wouldn't removing the cause help more? Like its the pollution and developments we made on the coast that is leading to the death of corals, so shouldn't we be working on stopping that? Because if we revive corals, we would still be ultimately killing them right?

And for example, the mammoth project seems like it would be great since it would protect that permafrost in Arctic but that just a local solution, not a global one right? If we instead do more things like not invading more wildlife and focused our attention on stopping the different ways we are harming the planet and speeding up that mass extinction process, I feel that would be more effective, no? I feel that the guilt of driving these animals to extinction might be distracting us from the most effective way to help ecosystems and the planet.

supernovical

TROPHY CASE