Should we upgrade photosynthesis and grow supercrops?

[DetlefK]

8. I say yes, because being alive is no inalienable right and evolution happens. (long post)

People tend to forget that humanity is not separate from nature, just because we're intelligent. We obey by the same rules as everybody: We multiply to stave off death, we influence our environment, we adapt to changes in our environment.

About half a billion years ago there was a drastic change in the stoichiometry of the atmosphere: The waste-gas oxygen showed up in massive amounts, simply because there were so many bacteria producing it. As a result, scores of bacterial dynasties died out because oxygen was poisonous to them. Genetic bloodlines tracing back to the very origin of life... gone forever.
About 65 million years ago, a random incident caused the dinosaurs to die out and allowed filthy little life-forms, evolved to make ends meet with the scraps falling from the dinner-tables of huge, efficient terror-beasts, to fill now-vacant ecological niches.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, some monkeys made it from Africa to South-America and changed the ecological system.
Hundreds of years ago, rats made it to isolated pacific islands and changed the ecological systems. Dingos in Australia, pythons in Northern America, raccoons in Europe... They are all invasive species.

Thousands of years ago, cave-men accidentally drove pleistocene megafauna to extinction.



Is there a difference in all of that? I say: No.
Intelligence does not separate mankind from nature. Mankind's actions are nature's actions, it's only the magnitude compared to other life-forms' actions that makes it seem like a difference.

If mankind wipes out a species, then mankind has retroactively gained the right to wipe out a species.
If mankind develops a killer-virus that wipes mankind out, or sabotages the climate to a degree that mankind can no longer compete with other life-forms, or invents a species of intelligent robots which then exterminates mankind in a bloody apocalyptic war, then this is totally fine.
If a species fails to survive in the onslaught of mankind, then it deserved to die.
If mankind fails to survive in the onslaught of some development, then mankind deserves to die.

There is no universal moral protecting one's right to live.
You are alive? You deserve being alive.
You dead? You deserve being dead.
Who avenged the deaths of the dead bacteria? Who avenged the deaths of the dinosaurs? Who avenged the deaths of the megafauna? Who protected them?
There is nobody. Nature does not care. So why should we, one among many children of Nature, fighting for survival against all of our brethren and sisters, care?

And even if there were some authority saving species from the brink of extinction (like in Futurama), the question remains:
Why would they save a species? To what end?
And who would they save? Everybody? All the bacterias that can't breathe oxygen? Or just cute life-forms?

Why does mankind save species from the edge of extinction? The motives are deeply, deeply selfish: Those species are or might be crucial to a balance of nature that keeps mankind alive. Whether we keep them alive because we need them to keep another species in check or whether we want to keep their genetic potential around, just in case, all of our motives are selfish and geared towards mankind.




Does mankind have the right to modify other life-forms to better suit its needs? Absolutely:
* Read the article above: Plants stole the blueprint for photosynthesis from bacterias. If plants are allowed to do that, why aren't we?
* Wasps steal genes from viruses and put them to use: http://www.democraticunderground.com/122832391 If wasps are allowed to do that, why aren't we?

And mankind has already shaped so many species:
* Avocados are relics of the pleistocene era. Without humans breeding them for consumption, they would be unable to reproduce in large numbers and fend off extinction.
* Dogs have been bred to develop all sorts of anatomic deformations that would get them killed in nature, but we think it's cute.
* Wild hogs have 12 ribs, domestic swine have 16 ribs. What do you think were they come from?

Mankind has even influenced its own evolution by preventing deaths (medicine, glasses, dental-care...) and by arbitrarily modifying the rules by which we seek partners for procreation (fashion).



There is no moral argument whether mankind should or should not influence nature. Whatever course of action is chosen and whatever the results may be, if mankind's new plants usher in a new ecological golden era or if those new plants eventually cause mankind's demise, either outcome is perfectly in line with the laws of nature.

And as a final point: I think those new super-plants could give mankind the extra-time it needs to get its shit together.