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79 Comments
- rjshatz, on 06/29/2009, -0/+24*****, I hate leechers. They always slow down my downloads and ruin precious seeds. They should totally go extinct.
Wait... - Hetman, on 06/29/2009, -1/+22Mosquitos are absolutlky ***** and kill more people a year than any other species. Yet many birds, lizards, and bats would be in trouble if they did not have a food source as abundent as mosquitos.
- chadsexingtime, on 06/29/2009, -0/+21I propose we also save the tasty animals
- EddiePotato, on 06/29/2009, -0/+20I look forward to the day when our conservation efforts finally result in a planet full of nothing but good-looking creatures. Then, and only then, should we try to contact the aliens, so we can put on our best face and win favor with our notoriously superficial new overlords.
"Mmmm, Earth! You lookin' fine today!" - kingofinternet, on 06/29/2009, -0/+20leeches have medicinal value.
- Ligersinkenya, on 06/29/2009, -0/+18Anyone else think this was an Onion article?
- FitteMas, on 06/29/2009, -4/+17Nuke the whales
- kinseyincanada, on 06/29/2009, -0/+10this is exactly what PETA was trying to do with the sea kittens.
- Hetman, on 06/29/2009, -0/+8Why do PETA members never throw blood on people with leather? Because it is easier to get away with throwing blood on little old white ladies rather than 250 pounds bikers.
If PETA really cared about what they believe in then they should also be just as vigilante against people who wear leather. - piper999, on 06/29/2009, -2/+10Evolution in action. Only the pretty survive.
Personally speaking I'm looking forward to a world purged of ugly animals. - alphamatt80, on 06/29/2009, -0/+7what if it's tasty?
- Leviathan433, on 06/29/2009, -1/+8Ummm....no it isn't.
- Bozmanbeyond, on 06/29/2009, -0/+7Are we ready to start saving ugly species? WTF!
I hope when I'm dying the paramedics don't ask "Are we ready to save this ugly dude?" - borez, on 06/29/2009, -1/+7The superficiality of human thought strikes again.
- SamSks, on 06/29/2009, -0/+6Or when it comes to medical experiments, how come PETA members don't step up and say, "Here! Use me instead!"
- MWeather, on 06/29/2009, -0/+6"99.9% of all species that ever existed are extinct now."
Yep, and biodiversity is the lowest it's been since the first life form started differentiating into separate species.
The fact that we've had mass-extinctions before doesn't mean they aren't harmful. Life is a thermodynamic system, and like all thermodynamic systems, the trend is toward entropy. We shouldn't be trying to help this process along.
Pointing to past extinctions to justify current ones is like pointing toward death from old age as a reason not to worry about your health. - longbow486, on 06/29/2009, -0/+6you gotta nuke something
- Lefts, on 06/29/2009, -0/+6More like human selection.
- Hetman, on 06/29/2009, -0/+6"Penn: You want passion and truth? Okay. Teller and I would personally kill EVERY chimp in the world, with our bare hands, to save ONE street junkie...with AIDS"
- omgwtflawl, on 06/29/2009, -0/+5@SamSks
Mary Beth Sweetland, a Peta exec, uses synthetic insulin derived from animal products. When questioned about this alleged hypocrisy, she claimed a clear conscience because her life was very important in the fight to "free the animals". Guess she is above the rhetoric she preaches. - SpazAttack5000, on 06/29/2009, -0/+5You don't see celebrities rushing out to save endangered frogs or something because they aren't cute like baby seals. Pisses me off! And frogs ARE cute if you ask me.
- Leviathan433, on 06/29/2009, -1/+5You won't live to see it fugo.
- ishkabum, on 06/29/2009, -0/+4Physical appearance has always been a powerful factor in natural selection! Nothing new here, the cute ones get our trans-species empathetic support whether we acknowledge it or not.
- drmangrum, on 06/29/2009, -0/+4George Carlin said it best
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw - sipsyrup, on 06/29/2009, -0/+4I bet people wouldn't be nearly as interested in saving pandas if they were hairless.
- Mujokan, on 06/29/2009, -0/+4I guess there would be four main reasons to save species.
(1) Ecosystems can shift state dramatically, so you want to keep them generally stable to avoid the risk of collapse
(2) Biodiversity is a hard-won resource. There are a lot of computation cycles invested in DNA. You don't just want to trash it.
(3) For the sake of the animals themselves
(4) Because people want to, and so it's just like anything else people want like health or television or whatever that we put resources towards in a democratic society
You can look at all four on a case-by-case basis. Often the third argument isn't so compelling. Does it really matter if you have two thousand fewer spotted frogs but two thousand more cows after you drain a swamp? The "higher" the animal, you could say, the more morally significant it is, so we should be most concerned about apes and then go down from there.
The rest mainly concern people's interests. Of course animals are impacted by ecosystem collapse too, though. But generally we save species because it's something we want to do for many reasons, including just that we like diverse ecosystems and cool animals. That is as good a reason as any. - mxxz, on 06/29/2009, -4/+8Obviously, why would anybody care about something going extinct, if its ugly?
- kurisu10, on 06/29/2009, -0/+3Perhaps we just haven't tried it yet? Reminds me of a Futurama episode with the Poppers thing.
- Grandpohbah, on 06/29/2009, -0/+3I credit this shirt http://www.amazon.com/The-Mountain-Three-Wolf-T-Sh ... for saving the wolves...not the Endangered Species Act.
- SamSks, on 06/29/2009, -1/+4But then the cute cuddly little bats will have nothing to eat!
And also birds. - ghatid, on 06/29/2009, -1/+4This counts as news? I thought everyone knew this.
That's why we spend so much time saving pandas and baby seals (Please note: Greenpeace wants us to save baby seals, not their older counterparts). - Lefts, on 06/29/2009, -0/+3I love the leeches, but the mosquitos must burn.
- DreKor, on 06/29/2009, -2/+5Save the Sea Kittens! http://www.peta.org/sea_kittens/
- Alabaster1234, on 06/29/2009, -2/+5Denis Leary is a no talent ass clown who stole his entire career along with every joke he ever told from the MAN...
Bill Hicks. - PandaOnIce, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2Does it really matter? I mean, were all going to go extinct one day, because we looked at things and animals and said "We can fix that, we can make that better"
- PityDaFool, on 06/29/2009, -4/+6Bias? I call that natural selection.
- trer, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2Wow! you're cool because you point out those who are cynical!
- jer21, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2Those guys are looking very intently into each others eyes...
- Khast, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2I know it isn't a popular idea. As humans' population grows, we are pushing more species into endangered, and possibly extinction. We consider ourselves as the most important creature on Earth, so much that if it comes down to making an animal extinct because we need more resources, or places to put our McMansions...then so be it.
If we keep up at our rate of growth, we will either have to learn to co-exist with animals...or we will have to learn the hard way that we really weren't so superior after all...because with major breaks in the food chain, it could make the whole ecosystem fail...or become hard for many species to survive, thus putting more kinks in the food chain.
I am not saying this so some eco-***** scientist can control our lives....we need to learn how to do this on a society level, and it won't be the same for every region of the world. We need to live with nature, not against her. - nepidae, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2Who cares what they look like, the only thing that matters is if they are tasty or not.
- Atario, on 06/29/2009, -1/+3As someone originally from the Central Valley of California, let me tell you: the numbnut tools quoted in the article are all too common there.
[Hangs head in shame] - beetrixi, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2There's only room for the beautiful creatures on this ark.
- drifty914, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2Certainly something to consider when choosing "umbrella species" for conservation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella_species
- frieddonuts, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2JitMaster, they would if we weren't there.
- Pxtl, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2Maybe it's fair to say that some things are just too small a niche? I mean, a louse that only lives on the back of an endangered condor really just isn't practical to save.
- Xaevier, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2Reality is going to leave the Onion with no new material at this rate.
- MWeather, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2Who says we're going to survive?
- Leviathan433, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2"A persons a person, no matter how small"
- BlankVerse, on 07/01/2009, -0/+2What I find even worse than any bias over different endangered species is when animal rights groups such as the Funds for Animals seek to protect "cute" non-native non-endangered species such as goats and foxes that are destroying native endangered birds and plants.
- xevidentx, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2it's pretty understandable that edible species get first priority. billions of people will have to alter their diet if salmon becomes extinct. hopefully funding will pick up for other species as well though
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