▲ | chongli 4 days ago | |
If only one party is able to reason about and withdraw from an arrangement, the other party is being used. This is our relationship with all other life on earth. We use plants, fungi, bacteria, and animals to survive. We've invaded every continent on the planet (including Antarctica) and like some kind of mega-beavers we've radically reshaped environments to suit ourselves, destroying habitats for some and creating new ones for others (squirrels and many species of birds seem to thrive like crazy where I live in the city, with few predators to endanger them). What survives and what doesn't survive is largely our choice. No other animal on the planet has this capacity for choice. Whether we favour one species over another or vice versa, it's our choice in either case. Many people do try to frame this as a moral choice but neglect the human side of it. Making real change to help wildlife requires scaling back human society, reducing food production, reducing housing and other infrastructure. |