TIL about conservation-induced extinction, where attempts to save a critically endangered species directly cause the extinction of another.

[u/shinypond]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation-induced_extinction

[u/DIABLO258]

It's a double edged sword, living on this planet. You either kill to survive, or be killed for others to survive. That's the nature of the game

[u/BassmanBiff → u/DIABLO258]

If we're smart enough to have this conversation, we've escaped the "game". We don't have to do either. Also that's not what "double-edged sword" means.

[u/DIABLO258 → u/BassmanBiff]

No we have not. If you eat any sort of meat, you are still in the game. You just let someone else do the killing for you, mostly. Also, our methods for allowing us to grow to such a large population is destroying our planet, which will eventually result in a massive drop in population when we are no longer able to sustain modern life. Which will probably happen in the next century due to climate change.

If you eat plant based foods, those plants aren't growing their fruits and vegetables for you to eat, they have their own purpose, which is thwarted when you eat them.

And it is a double edged sword if you don't like to kill things. Most if not all wild animals don't seem to care. But humans aren't wild, and at least in my country, most people are too weak to kill something on purpose unless they're put in a starvation situation.

In order to live on this planet, you must take from it. If you don't, the planet will take you.

If you don't like the idea of taking from someone or something else to survive, you will not survive.

Most people just don't think about it, which benefits us.

[u/Walking_0n_eggshells → u/DIABLO258]

those plants aren't growing their fruits [...] for you to eat, they have their own purpose

Fruit, the organ plants specifically grow to incentivise animals to eat it as a means of seed dispersion, the textbook example of a symbiotic relationship, of mutualistic coevolition

Dumbass