The issue of predation is one of the most complicated problems in wild animal ethics. Herbivorising predators is, indeed, a rather novel idea although it has some proponents. Of course, it is pretty much science fiction as of now.
I love this infographic it really is a novel idea I could see being used at least early on when humanity increases in ethical intelligence. The only objection I can think of is that it's not utilitarianly optimal, I admit my bias as a negative utilitarian, it would be better to get to as close as possible to a mass painless euthanasia, I'm not an expert but it seems like this would take a long while which would produce more suffering and less harm reduction than the euthanasia project which I could see causing emotional damage but still better than the grisly alternative. I would summarize my objection by asking how much unnecessary suffering we could avoid by directly getting rid of the cause of the suffering. How many decades are we going to allow predation to continue causing unimaginable pain for the sake of removing suffering from the predators. Politically I see the benefit in having a plan that's easier to swallow but a mass predator euthanasia program would probably reduce much more suffering.
You are right to assume that 'getting rid of cause' will be a wildly unpopular idea. After all, anti-natalist philosophers argue that the vast majority of humans have quite tragic lives and still continue to give birth. And we talk about humans here, sapient beings who could very well choose to prevent the suffering of their offspring.
It is likely that humans will kill everything by mistake when they have the technology for it than settle for extinctionism.
Reducing suffering is, then, a much more palatable alternative. And it is not so clear which option has greater moral risks. After all, there is no way to undo extinction but there are always ways to improve things so that everyone gets to live a decent life...
Even if you could create life that meets the highest standard of excellence, and highest standard of positive experience possible, to everyone at the same time:
You cannot describe why it should logically or necessarily exist in the first place, without your logic being ultimately reducible to "Because I/we want it to."
You cannot describe how the best possible life could be guaranteed failsafe; if you cannot be certain your experiment can't go catastrophic, then even the best possible life is just waiting to crash and burn. This is further evinced by the fact that the worst negatives always destroy (literally physically destroy) the best positives. This means big trouble for anyone that dreams of some year 2500~ scenario of technological utopia paradise. (Security Philosophy 101: No failsafe means only one sufficient hit is necessary for permanent bust)
When consciousness-altering technologies get better at manipulating consciousness, they do not just get better at making suffering go away and making pleasure much better and longer, they also get better at creating suffering for much worse and much longer. Now consider the fact that this is already taking place. Think of modern Germany and Holland: they don't allow torture. Think of America and China: they allow torture. Consider how bad artificially enhanced torture is now, then consider how badly it could possibly be: what is the upper limit? If these technologies are out, they can be used in a military way, criminal way, and pernicious way, and even an accidentally catastrophic way. The foregone conclusion is therefore that "utopia" is impossible in this universe, not only because the universe itself is a broken chaos that permits untold levels of catastrophe, but because every utopian theory is also absent this necessary failsafe, and utterly fails to solve this, while proceeding forward into increasingly dangerous technology. (Security Philosophy 101: The Dual Use of Technology)
Predators massively intervene in ecosystems, change natural habitats, without first performing environmental impact assessments or doing scientific research about consequences.
It is serious. He (Stijn Bruers) only makes that argument to counter people that claim that human intervention in nature is playing God. It's like "maybe you can call it playing God, but predators do exactly that but worse because unlike them we can intervene in a scientifically-informed, future-conscious way".
He tries to pass off level of sapience as an irrelevant distinction because he personally thinks it is, but I also don't think he actually gives any shits about "playing God" to begin with. Stijn is a consequentialist, he's just trying to turn the same arguments he sees all the time on their head
I for one don't think he is wrong. However he neglects to say outright (but does imply) that there WILL be unintended negative consequences no matter how good our wild animal population control is, but they are worth risking to end predation, which is way worse
They mention using bc to manage populations of the herbivores, to make up for the lack of predators, saying it's becoming more cost effective....it HAS to be satire, right?
What a novel idea
The issue of predation is one of the most complicated problems in wild animal ethics. Herbivorising predators is, indeed, a rather novel idea although it has some proponents. Of course, it is pretty much science fiction as of now.
I love this infographic it really is a novel idea I could see being used at least early on when humanity increases in ethical intelligence. The only objection I can think of is that it's not utilitarianly optimal, I admit my bias as a negative utilitarian, it would be better to get to as close as possible to a mass painless euthanasia, I'm not an expert but it seems like this would take a long while which would produce more suffering and less harm reduction than the euthanasia project which I could see causing emotional damage but still better than the grisly alternative. I would summarize my objection by asking how much unnecessary suffering we could avoid by directly getting rid of the cause of the suffering. How many decades are we going to allow predation to continue causing unimaginable pain for the sake of removing suffering from the predators. Politically I see the benefit in having a plan that's easier to swallow but a mass predator euthanasia program would probably reduce much more suffering.
You are right to assume that 'getting rid of cause' will be a wildly unpopular idea. After all, anti-natalist philosophers argue that the vast majority of humans have quite tragic lives and still continue to give birth. And we talk about humans here, sapient beings who could very well choose to prevent the suffering of their offspring.
It is likely that humans will kill everything by mistake when they have the technology for it than settle for extinctionism.
Reducing suffering is, then, a much more palatable alternative. And it is not so clear which option has greater moral risks. After all, there is no way to undo extinction but there are always ways to improve things so that everyone gets to live a decent life...
Utopia - The Final Fallacy
Even if you could create life that meets the highest standard of excellence, and highest standard of positive experience possible, to everyone at the same time:
You cannot describe why it should logically or necessarily exist in the first place, without your logic being ultimately reducible to "Because I/we want it to."
You cannot describe how the best possible life could be guaranteed failsafe; if you cannot be certain your experiment can't go catastrophic, then even the best possible life is just waiting to crash and burn. This is further evinced by the fact that the worst negatives always destroy (literally physically destroy) the best positives. This means big trouble for anyone that dreams of some year 2500~ scenario of technological utopia paradise. (Security Philosophy 101: No failsafe means only one sufficient hit is necessary for permanent bust)
When consciousness-altering technologies get better at manipulating consciousness, they do not just get better at making suffering go away and making pleasure much better and longer, they also get better at creating suffering for much worse and much longer. Now consider the fact that this is already taking place. Think of modern Germany and Holland: they don't allow torture. Think of America and China: they allow torture. Consider how bad artificially enhanced torture is now, then consider how badly it could possibly be: what is the upper limit? If these technologies are out, they can be used in a military way, criminal way, and pernicious way, and even an accidentally catastrophic way. The foregone conclusion is therefore that "utopia" is impossible in this universe, not only because the universe itself is a broken chaos that permits untold levels of catastrophe, but because every utopian theory is also absent this necessary failsafe, and utterly fails to solve this, while proceeding forward into increasingly dangerous technology. (Security Philosophy 101: The Dual Use of Technology)
https://web.archive.org/web/20240626094715/https://efilism.fandom.com/wiki/Efilism_Wiki#Utopia_-_The_Final_Fallacy
Source: https://stijnbruers.wordpress.com/2024/06/28/why-we-should-herbivorize-predators-infographic/
Is this serious...? This reads like satire
It is serious. He (Stijn Bruers) only makes that argument to counter people that claim that human intervention in nature is playing God. It's like "maybe you can call it playing God, but predators do exactly that but worse because unlike them we can intervene in a scientifically-informed, future-conscious way".
He tries to pass off level of sapience as an irrelevant distinction because he personally thinks it is, but I also don't think he actually gives any shits about "playing God" to begin with. Stijn is a consequentialist, he's just trying to turn the same arguments he sees all the time on their head
I for one don't think he is wrong. However he neglects to say outright (but does imply) that there WILL be unintended negative consequences no matter how good our wild animal population control is, but they are worth risking to end predation, which is way worse
They mention using bc to manage populations of the herbivores, to make up for the lack of predators, saying it's becoming more cost effective....it HAS to be satire, right?
Nope, it's something that is effective for population control.