This was a thoroughly researched paper.
But… is this supposed to be revelatory or just a contribution in assisting established confirmation? This isn’t meant as a rude or snobby question. I only read the paper, and not the embedded peer review link.
Because what I mean is that this is kind of common sense in Conservation discussions. The formation of clusters and parallel predation aid in achieving trophic balance. That is just common knowledge to me and the people in my circles of discussion. Nobody even thinks otherwise. It’s like biomagnification, it’s just part of the thought process in trophic exchange and balance.
The overarching and compelling discussion that emerged in Conservation was in the introduction of predators to amplify biodiversity or to correct population explosion of a specific species. The greater discussion in Conservation is not about if it works, because it does achieve both of those goals. It does achieve niche clustering. In magnitude. The greater discussion itself is in quality of life of the Fauna afterwards. Some people over the years have started to refer to this as “Wild Animal Rights”. Very often in acts of Conservation, the introduction of predators is a common practice, but it is now contested by fellow conservationists as an unethical proposition.
I know this is not the focus or the intention of the paper. So, we are (I am) sidestepping into a different abstract. But it is inevitable for me to ask as to what is the intention of this paper after being received. As I do agree with everything in the paper as a logical stance and as proof of it. My only rebuttal is in which direction are we to take this information afterwards?
Because biodiversity=good is not a clean cut affirmation that some like to claim. Even in Flora where is much easier to make that statement, one has to contend with invasive species as an undesired outcome of it. In Fauna, the quality of life has to be submitted as a factor in consideration in intervention.
Quick example: In the Yellowstone Park, the reintroduction of wolves, led to increase in biodiversity, and niche clustering was definitely found to occur. The case was considered on the surface as a success by many, as more species of everything including in the rivers was found after this (Human) intervention.
But… when investigating it closely, many of the species already there were found to have a decline in quality of life. Including the deer population which were now starving in fear of crossing the river and moving to places where they once fed, by the inflicted trauma of having witnessed the evisceration of some members of their population. Now they rather starve, just in fear of the same outcome. This is just one quick example in one place of many to be found if you desire to do so.
Geologists have confirmed that when Fauna emerged as a new form of life in our biosphere, species extinction of Flora and subsequently Fauna started to occur at a much faster rate and exponentially so. And mass extinctions coalesce with drastic climate change. Obviously.
All animals in Fauna, (including us, unfortunately), don’t possess self-regulation as a characteristic. This was what led to the initial predation systems in Fauna. Predators emerged from their owned induced scarcity, and parallel predation surged as a natural progression.
Even in a meta-zoology study, it was proven that carnivore animals are much more likely to develop cancer. And this can be easily established as another necessary feature in population control in larger predators. After all, if other animals cannot contain their numbers as they do to other species, another property has to emerge to prevent their own induced scarcity and even the extinction of other species in the process. Cancer is a good population control occurrence. Just like viruses are.
The problem with us as a species is that we are devising our own scarcity and driving species extinction because we resist all natural forms of population control. From predation, to cancer and even viruses and bacteria. And without possessing self-regulation, we are not only doomed to repeat what initiated predation in Fauna, but to commit it at a level that is unprecedented.
You can even see that human based conflicts also emerge from this. Without self-regulation as individuals and as a species, we devise resource collapse and start preying on each other as a result in scarcity becomes a source of conflict. From an athropological assessment this is a never ending loop in human behaviour. But it is just a feature in the design of all Fauna. If we ever develop a true capacity for self-regulation we would have for the first time proven to be special as many of us think we are. Which so far, we have not proven to be.
All societal issues lead back to this flaw in our design as members of Fauna. Survival instinct including procreation, plus pleasure seeking behaviours minus self-regulation equals the same outcome found in all Fauna. This simple equation of factors is our design. The same as in all other animals.
And we need to correct it, or face our role in the the inevitability of it in the entropy of biology in the biosphere.
Tangent aside, and going back to the paper, we need to have all this in mind when interpreting or using its’ information.
Especially when we deem ourselves as deserving “interventionists” meddling with what we have not mastered in ourselves.
Thank you for this. This is a phenomenal framing of the death of meaning.
This also has scratched an itch that has been bothering me…
Because I would say my biggest frustration with what you specifically described is how it bled through the common landscape of ideas. Through the whole social fabric.
It’s almost an infection in all forms of communication now.
It’s not just in ads, but journalism and even fiction or how art only seems to be presented as only viable as submissive to commerce and act merely as entertaiment or be condemned to oblivion where close to none can find it.
I’ll add a more precise example to what I’m trying to communicate…
There has been a strangely growing number of “eating the rich” pieces in all forms of media and art this decade.
Fiction especially seems to have escalated the rate in both literary and cinematic explorations. But it is clear that the current cultural landscape wants mere faint acknowledgement to act as consequence. Awareness is the only permitted punishment. Because then it has to forcefully act as the only form of absolution available.
So the invitation to mockery and the cartoonish portrails of the wealthy triggering the intended and controlled schadenfreude response is what is “sanctioned” for publishment or distribution. Because it addresses the existence of a problem but with enough distance from reality that it remains divorced of real world consequences. So bring on projects where the elite are just clowns or murdered in silly ways in silly thrillers and horror flicks but leave out of focus or frame, the consequences of their actions, or at least the more concrete and real forms of how real lives are affected by them. But especially and essentially leave out the possible and tangible ways in which the problems of the system that benefit them and negatively impact others can be spotted or dealt with.
There are projects who do not fit this description, but they don’t get much publicity, wide promotions or wide distributions in the end. Even when they get acclaimed runs in festivals or good critical reception. The “Machine” doesn’t get behind them.
Which is obvious in the end, after all, the publishers and heads of studios do belong much more to that faction in the class war. But if they play it well, they make it seem brave to finance these carefully selected projects to “the other side”, but just as long as these act as “casual roasts” of their peers, and not indictments that call for actual consequences. As it would be a call on themselves to actually change, or for them to also face consequences. In reality. And not just in just a performative plane.
So… “We may acknowledge the problem, just as long adressing that said problem is not permitted or at least inaccessible to most” becomes the approved and sanctioned approach.
Also to add another tangent to the death of meaning in the post-truth world… it is not a coincidence that in the current social paradigm of alternative facts and the subsequent alternative realities that people inhabit, the only form of universal concensus seems to be that the world as we know it is coming to an end.
And the death of meaning is an inevitable contributor to that conclusion, regardless of whom or from where one observes the world now. As it is an unsustainable reality from all angles.
The great tragedy is that onto itself the end of the world as we know it is not necessarily a terrible ordeal if people were allowed to perceive other ways of existing.
But as it stands, bleakness seems the only outcome as the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy running on a feedback loop of self-preservation.
Anyway… I hope I made enough sense in my rant in comparison to your sharply written and succinct comment. Again, I thank you for your words, even in your other comments in this thread.
I’m going to try and follow up on your writing.
We all need more people with your level of insight. And not in just “times like these”. But always.
So I wish you the best and hope to find more of your writing shared around along the way.
Cheers.