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Thomas comments on Crazy Ideas Thread - Less Wrong Discussion
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My crazy idea.
Are there examples of interventions like this working out well?
Sure. Camels in Australia. Dingo in Australia.
Especially hippos in South America, where they were introduced by the late drug cartel lord Pablo Escobar.
See
Hippos are ideal for South America. They were almost missing there.
So I guess is the case about polar bears and Antarctica.
What? Australia is the poster child for why you shouldn't randomly introduce species where they don't belong.
Polar bears would be disastrous in Antarctica. Their hibernation would need to adjust to the reversed seasonal pattern. Penguins aren't adapted for sharing their habitat with a large land predator.
And as for those hippos, the same article you link says it's actually hell to deal with them. Also, the history of how they got brought here is tainted with too much pain.
Sidetrack: "Randomly" is ill-defined. Is introducing 40 bird species that were mentioned in Shakespeare to North America random?
Following Shakespeare's list when it already existed was probably not random, but Shakespeare's choice of what birds to mention in each of his plays was likely determined by the constraints of meter, rhyme, and metaphoric value, which in a natural language are random parameters.
Edited to add: randomness may have also played a part in the choice of writer (i.e. Shakespeare instead of Goethe or Homer or someone else).
One definition of random is compressible-- it's shorter to say forty birds mentioned in Shakespeare than to list the birds.
I'm pretty sure the choice of writer wasn't random-- Shakespeare is tremendously respected by a lot of English speakers, but the idea of exporting British birds to North America to make it seem more homey seems very random.
A sequence of 40 zeros is highly compressible, but does not look random.
You mean a sequence "looks random" if it's not very compressible -- right? That is, the sequence is a member of the appropriate typical set:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typical_set
Or maybe you meant "looks random" means "compressed already." (???) A zipped file expressed as a bit sequence looks random.
I'm sorry, I meant to say that randomness is not compressible.
It's a crazy idea thread, not necessary a good idea thread.
How else than randomly, any species has been introduced? Ever?
Okay, by crazy but not necessarily good idea: eating a bag of pine cones.
You're committing the naturalistic fallacy. There's a difference between dumb nature acting blindly and rational people making choices they know they'll be held accountable for.
However, I know I may be accused of naturalistic fallacy because I'm arguing in favor of leaving current ecosystems the way they are. While is it true that not all introduced species have been harmful, this is very difficult to predict, the specific examples being discussed are more likely to end up terribly, and historical experience with introduced species has leaned toward it being a bad idea. Humans are the ultimate invasive species, and we've been great at killing everything in our path.
About 20000 species invaded British isles after the last ice age. Mostly with no human intervention, some with human help.
It is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Isn't it?
But this is only a thread about crazy ideas. That's all. Thought provoking, not necessary politically and/or environmentally correct thinking, for Christ sake!
The record on species introduced to the British Isles is rather mixed.
Of course it looks peaceful; dead squirrels tell no tales.
Of course, it's biology. Something we should transcend. But that's another topic.