After a long break from blogger - nearly a year - a comment on this blog reminded me that my blog still exists and inspired to post a few thoughts.
Here are a few things I've been thinking about:
1. Are conservationists hanging onto something (i.e. keeping nature pristine) that can never remain as is, and by trying so hard to protect this "sacred" state are we causing stagnation? Are we like those people who cannot accept and embrace change? There are good arguments for keeping nature as is. One commonly used argument is that nature in its pristine state is essential for maintaining micro- and macro-scale ecosystem services that sustain our existence (e.g. wetlands, mountain water catchments, soil production, genetic diversity, etc.) There are also spiritual and ethical arguments - for me the preservation of all the diverse animal species is one. But I'm not sure how pristine it needs to be. I have a feeling that pollution is bad and filling up the entire landscape with monoculture farms, urban structures and garbage is also detrimental to our environment and our psychology. But I don't have quantitative figures.
2. I have this feeling that it is unethical to create a world where species can no longer survive, where the Earth is no longer their home. I believe it is unethical to kill animals (via hunting or habitat destruction) when its not necessary for our survival. But sometimes when I watch nature documentaries, filled with the desperate struggle of eating and being eaten in pretty gruesome and painful ways, I wonder why we would want to preserve something so cruel, something that causes so much suffering. An Anaconda slowly strangles its victims to death. As the victim breathes out, it tightens its coils. Others snakes swallow their prey live. Lions do not have effective killing mechanisms and sometimes just hang on until the victim expires or they start eating it alive. Nature is inhumane and filled with suffering! I don't think the individuals are cruel - they have no choice like us humans. But they were not equipped with kind and humane ways of killing and eating their prey. Why do we want to preserve this kind of existence? But as a friend of mine pointed out, humans do inflict this kind of cruelty on each other all the time and we still want to continue existence. This is true, yet I always hope that somehow humanity will elevate itself to more kind ways of living. This doesn't seem possible now, but Stuart believes that through artificial intelligence and neurological enhancement we could make ourselves better people – I hope so.
