This seems to confuse “animals” as species or viable DNA varieties, and “animals” as individual creatures which may be moral patients. There are zero individual creatures alive today which future colonists will bring with them (that includes humans). There will likely be a tiny number of species (compared to the diversity on Earth) we’ll bring, and a larger number of species we’ll create or allow to come into being along the way.
While I accept that we’re on track to killing basically every non-human species of the animal kingdom
That’s ludicrous. There are over 20K species just of ants, and probably over 8 million distinct species of animal. We probably are reducing overall biodiversity, and reducing the number of species by a bit in the non-human biomass of Earth, but that’s so far from eradication it’s not even useful as hyperbole.
Dagon, thank you for the reply! You’ve actually pointed out a lot of things which I didn’t think about. You’re right that I was only considering animals that have displayed some level of intelligence—dogs, dolphins, and the like. I did not consider animals that display colonial intelligence. I do hope such species are also considered which future humans make lists of non-human creatures to being along!
Your point about moral patients is interesting. I didn’t know that phrase, but it seems that all life on earth is a moral patient of humanity.
Climate Change certainly affects ants as it does other life. Why do you consider that climate change will not be an extinction level event after a point? “reducing the number of species by a bit” is certainly a worse hyperbole than mine.
Lastly, you seem very confident that some species will be brought along by future humans and “a larger number of species we’ll create or allow to come into being along the way”. What makes you say that? Could you please explain?
Aggregation is weird, when talking about morality. I don’t know what you mean by “all life on earth” or “of humanity” in this context. Which humans have what duty to exactly what? Are you concerned with biodiversity, biomass, variety or quantity of mammalian brains, or something else?
I expect that climate change will be an extinction event for many plant and animal species, and climate change or not, all individuals will die eventually. However, it won’t overall destroy all life on earth—we’ll engineer mitigations for large numbers of humans, and that will carry along with it large numbers of species and individual animals. It’ll be painful and expensive, but not permanent destruction of life.
Unless the rioting and civilizational fragility keeps us from mitigating it, and we nuke ourselves in the process. That could set things back a few tens of millions of years.
This seems to confuse “animals” as species or viable DNA varieties, and “animals” as individual creatures which may be moral patients. There are zero individual creatures alive today which future colonists will bring with them (that includes humans). There will likely be a tiny number of species (compared to the diversity on Earth) we’ll bring, and a larger number of species we’ll create or allow to come into being along the way.
That’s ludicrous. There are over 20K species just of ants, and probably over 8 million distinct species of animal. We probably are reducing overall biodiversity, and reducing the number of species by a bit in the non-human biomass of Earth, but that’s so far from eradication it’s not even useful as hyperbole.
Dagon, thank you for the reply! You’ve actually pointed out a lot of things which I didn’t think about. You’re right that I was only considering animals that have displayed some level of intelligence—dogs, dolphins, and the like. I did not consider animals that display colonial intelligence. I do hope such species are also considered which future humans make lists of non-human creatures to being along!
Your point about moral patients is interesting. I didn’t know that phrase, but it seems that all life on earth is a moral patient of humanity.
Climate Change certainly affects ants as it does other life. Why do you consider that climate change will not be an extinction level event after a point? “reducing the number of species by a bit” is certainly a worse hyperbole than mine.
Lastly, you seem very confident that some species will be brought along by future humans and “a larger number of species we’ll create or allow to come into being along the way”. What makes you say that? Could you please explain?
Aggregation is weird, when talking about morality. I don’t know what you mean by “all life on earth” or “of humanity” in this context. Which humans have what duty to exactly what? Are you concerned with biodiversity, biomass, variety or quantity of mammalian brains, or something else?
I expect that climate change will be an extinction event for many plant and animal species, and climate change or not, all individuals will die eventually. However, it won’t overall destroy all life on earth—we’ll engineer mitigations for large numbers of humans, and that will carry along with it large numbers of species and individual animals. It’ll be painful and expensive, but not permanent destruction of life.
Unless the rioting and civilizational fragility keeps us from mitigating it, and we nuke ourselves in the process. That could set things back a few tens of millions of years.