Comment on Humanity's concern with the extinction of a species depends on its complexity and cuteness.

Solumbran@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’d say uniqueness more.

  If one species of 47 different kind of European Swallows go extinct, it’s just not a big deal because the niche will be refilled in a few generations and in a decade they’d be pretty much the same as the OG.

  If something like a platypus was threatened with extinction, a lot more people would care, because what the actual fuck is a platypus?!

  That weird fuck survived when everything tangentially related to it except one animal half a world away that looks nothing like it died off long ago.

  That shit we need to protect. And I’d go farther and say we should encourage diversification of those species so an entire branch of our planets genetic history is pruned.

  Like those tiny pools of water that have been separated from all other life for millenia, it’s not enough to protect those organisms and their tiny natural habitats. We should be encouraging their growth and evolution, because absolutely nothing else would increase our planets genetic diversity as much as those weird living fossils.

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  • ttyybb@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Without the platypus who would stop the evil scientists?

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