• Nomecks
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    12314 days ago

    Nothing bad will happen, as long as they spare no expense.

  • TomMasz
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    8214 days ago

    The world they lived in is long gone along with the food they ate and the rest of their species. It seems almost cruel to bring them back.

    • @[email protected]
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      9214 days ago

      Not that long gone—the last relict population on Wrangel Island only died out about 4000 years ago. That’s (barely) within historic time. There are probably islands in the Canadian and Siberian Arctic that could still support them (and have no or few human inhabitants).

      I see two big issues. First of all, not all knowledge among elephants is transmitted genetically, and I expect mammoths were the same. Who will the new ones learn from? They’ll have to redevelop best practices for dealing with their environment from scratch.

      Secondly, global warming. This seems like about the worst possible time to bring back an ice-age-adapted critter. We’d be better off transferring the effort spent on this project into de-extincting the thylacine, a more recent loss which doesn’t have that specific issue.

      • DominusOfMegadeus
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        814 days ago

        I’m fairly certain they are working on the thylacine as well?

        • @[email protected]
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          1314 days ago

          Different group, I think, and not as close to success. The thylacine has a better chance at long-term survival if we do bring it back, though—it isn’t an ice age creature, and it was surviving despite competition from other creatures in a similar niche until humans started aggressively hunting it down.

          • DominusOfMegadeus
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            314 days ago

            I think the mammoths have a really good shot actually. Siberia seems like it will be perfect for them

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
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      2314 days ago

      It’s not that long gone. There were still mammoths around when the pyramids were built. Plus there’s still huge swaths of tundra and taiga that they could live on, with a lot of the same plants, even if it’s quite a bit warmer.

      • @[email protected]
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        1114 days ago

        In the grand scheme of things the pyramids were built relatively recently, but I’d still consider it quite long ago

          • @[email protected]
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            113 days ago

            A good measurement for human timescales is the age difference between a child and their grandfather (~50 years, basically one generation of oral tradition).
            The mammoths died out 80 grandfathers ago.

            • @[email protected]
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              213 days ago

              That’s an interesting unit of measure for sure. I do get what you’re saying–that’s sort of the limit to where some knowledge can reach.

    • @[email protected]
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      14 days ago

      Not advocating for restoring the mammoth, but this is a dangerous line of argument.

      With climate change and ongoing mass extinctions, many current species are or will soon be in the same situation that re-introduced mammoths would be—and you could use the same argument to say that trying to preserve them is cruel so we should kill off any current species facing environmental stress.

    • @[email protected]
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      914 days ago

      They were here pretty recently, their food is still here. It was cruel that we extincted them.

    • @[email protected]
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      14 days ago

      Nah. It’s still the same place. They died out within the time frame of completely modern humans.

    • Ænima
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      214 days ago

      It’s worse when you consider the state of the world and the warming. They’d have about 20 sq\km of land capable of supporting them and they’d have to share it with those psychos, polar bears.

  • @[email protected]
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    5314 days ago

    I’ve said this a million times before, but if we’re playing gods anyway, can’t we make them dog sized also?

    I would totally get one or maybe two.

  • @[email protected]OP
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    3914 days ago

    I hope they have put a substantial amount of thought into potential problems that could arise. (Not that it will actually be like JP)

    • @[email protected]
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      613 days ago

      No! They did it! They blew it up!

      And then the apes blew up their society too. How could this happen?

      And then the birds took over and ruined their society.

      And then the cows. And then…I don’t know, is that a slug, maybe?

      Noooo!

    • Sabata
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      113 days ago

      Future scientist can’t make that mistake if we get rid of the future faster.

    • @[email protected]
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      413 days ago

      There are about 2000 wild tiger left, I found this article from 2011 saying that they might be extinct in the wild by 2030.

      So there might be 2000 ecological niches for smilodon to fill in 5 years. We better hurry then.

  • @[email protected]
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    2014 days ago

    “Your Scientists Were So Preoccupied With Whether Or Not They Could, They Didn’t Stop To Think If They Should”

  • @[email protected]
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    1713 days ago

    I remember reading about this in 5th grade. 25 fucking years ago. I’ll believe it when I see it…

    • @[email protected]
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      1713 days ago

      just like nuclear fusion, it was 10 years away 10 years ago, it’s 10 years away now and it will be 10 years away 10 years from now

  • @[email protected]
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    1414 days ago

    Everything outside of cities should be a nature reserve and we should clone extinct megafauna to put in zoos

  • @[email protected]
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    13 days ago
    • Step 1: acquire genetic material
    • Step 2: supplement material with closely related extant species <- We are here
    • Step 3: Get an egg cell with your Frankenstein-DNA to survive and divide
    • Step 4: Produce a healthy baby
    • Step 5: Get a small population in a Zoo/Park
    • Step 6: have a permanent wild population in a specific area
    • Step 7: have enough of those areas to declare repopulation a success

    Is fixating on the mammoths here first-world centrism? The article mentions 4 other species that have way better chances. Also, given how far we are from actual wild mammoths, that “it can solve climate change” argument is just wrong the way it’s been presented.