Pandas: Let them die.

[LaughingAtlas]

Fuck natural selection. I didn't climb my way to the top of the food chain to obey natural law like some helpless git, and I certainly don't intend to kill off a perfectly good species just because "that's the way nature intended it to be".

I think you have a point up until the "perfectly good" bit. A species that literally won't reproduce to save their lives probably shouldn't be catergorized under "perfectly good." That we're able to manipulate things may be favorable for us, but wasting time and energy to keep an apparently suicidal species because "they're so cute" around seems akin to maintaining really old houses no matter how decrepit and useless because they're "historic" or some silly bollocks.

Then again, in the words of Stephen Fry;
"It is the useless things that make life worth living, and that make life dangerous, too. Wine, love, art, beauty. Without them life is safe, but not worth bothering with."

Keeping broken, you-can-tell-how-old-this-house-is-by-how-short-the-doorways-and-ceilings-are buildings and stupid, fuzzy bears around may be useless, but as (for lack of better words) evolutionary masters of the world, I suppose we are at liberty to do fun, if pointless things, just look at Japan.

EDIT: Personally, I don't see the "cuteness" aspect, they're just monochromatic eating machines as far as I can tell.

 

[William MacKay]

pandacats. be fair: some human women want to kill their babies (post-partum depression, really serious) and sometimes babies arent even born/reach one. some humans smoke and drink alcohol even though its bad for us. we've got a large industry about preventing children while still following the urge to produce children.
and we destroyed parts of the forests and have actually prevented pandas from migrating properly. they might want to go the place with food they need, but we put a bigass town in the way. they got scared. they try to find a way around it. now theres a bigass city there.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Note to all humans: Stop meddling with nature. Until we re-learn to be one with nature again, we should not interfere with nature, at all. And while you're at it, learn a little something.

 

[Jonluw]

I agree.
We ought to stop spending money on keeping these useless balls of blubber and fur around.
The panda-bit starts at 8:25, but I recommend you watch all of it.
Edit: Oh, screw you other people who posted this. It was mine.

 

[Cowabungaa]

How about no because Pandas are cute?

But that's, frankly, a terrible reason to keep a species alive.

Of course not! We can keep it alive for our pleasure. Oh the power! MUAHAHAHA!!!!

 

[TeeBs]

Is it possible to domesticate pandas, like we have dogs and cats.

If so, shut up and take my money.

 

[Evil Top Hat]

There's no such thing as a "useless" animal, we shouldn't ever let an entire species die.

 

[Loop Stricken]

There's no such thing as a "useless" animal, we shouldn't ever let an entire species die.

And why not? We do it all the time whether we mean to or not.

 

[TiefBlau]

Fuck natural selection. I didn't climb my way to the top of the food chain to obey natural law like some helpless git, and I certainly don't intend to kill off a perfectly good species just because "that's the way nature intended it to be".

I think you have a point up until the "perfectly good" bit. A species that literally won't reproduce to save their lives probably shouldn't be catergorized under "perfectly good." That we're able to manipulate things may be favorable for us, but wasting time and energy to keep an apparently suicidal species because "they're so cute" around seems akin to maintaining really old houses no matter how decrepit and useless because they're "historic" or some silly bollocks.

Then again, in the words of Stephen Fry;
"It is the useless things that make life worth living, and that make life dangerous, too. Wine, love, art, beauty. Without them life is safe, but not worth bothering with."

Keeping broken, you-can-tell-how-old-this-house-is-by-how-short-the-doorways-and-ceilings-are buildings and stupid, fuzzy bears around may be useless, but as (for lack of better words) evolutionary masters of the world, I suppose we are at liberty to do fun, if pointless things, just look at Japan.

EDIT: Personally, I don't see the "cuteness" aspect, they're just monochromatic eating machines as far as I can tell.

Well, that's entirely subjective, isn't it? I mean sure, you can derive some objective goodness from a tool, an artificial object built with a specific purpose. Its "quality", so to speak, is in its ability to fulfill said purpose.

But a panda is an animal. It has no definitive purpose any more than snails, coral, or dolphins.

Ultimately, what it comes down to is whether my quality of life is better with them existing or not. And I like pandas, so I hold the former to be true.

In any case, what I'm getting at is that Darwinism is a natural law, not an ethical guideline. To say that it's "the way it was meant to be" is no less ridiculous than saying that gravity is "the right thing to do".

 

[Evil Top Hat]

There's no such thing as a "useless" animal, we shouldn't ever let an entire species die.

And why not? We do it all the time whether we mean to or not.

1) Because life is the most valuable thing that exists.

2) Just because we do things accidentally, doesn't mean they are justified things to do.

 

[Brandon237]

Totally. More eucalyptus for the rest of us. Amiright?

I believe that those are koalas you are referring to with Eucalyptus...

OT: People defy natural order, we can make any species go extinct (unfortunately we have rather more trouble with the ones we WANT extinct) and we can save the genetics of any species (even if they ARE all dead, they are not gone to the world with our technology), so if we want pandas, we can have them. It also gives China one more accomplishment and the effort to save pandas can help bring about conservation of species that are capable.

 

[spectrenihlus]

Their diet is 99% bamboo. Pandas can't digest bamboo properly. They're clearly idiots. Wikipedia tells me they've been living in bamboo forests for millions of years, and haven't evolved the guts to properly digest the food they life off've.
Idiots.

If a species cannot live on it's own due to no fault of humans, I feel no sympathy for it. Sorry. Learn 2 live noob.

I know things aren't exactly looking good for the panda, but it seems to me that it was doing fine "for millions of years" before humans came along and ruined their habitats.

Don't blame humans. Blame the fact that you cannot get these creatures to have sex. I doubt humans caused that.

I'm sure that in those millions of years before humans interfered they were having plenty of sex. At least enough to survive for so long. I don't think you can deny that humans have had a great effect on the panda population. True, they are now trying to keep them from going extinct, but it's not really working because apparently pandas don't like having sex in captivity. You could say that is their own fault then, but it were humans who changed their living conditions, and I think it is fairly safe to say that without human interference there is no reason to assume they wouldn't have lasted another couple of million years.

Well guess what their environment has now changed and if they can't adapt they die. This has been the way of nature since nature began.

 

[A Werewolf]

I vote option 3:

Dye other bears black and white [Polar bears presumably, save on the dye]

Open zoo

????

Profit

 

[AngelSephy]

Really, though, we broke evolution a loooong time ago; we kill things way too fast for animals to adapt to the hazards. Like the indiscriminate bird murderer that are glass skyscrapers.
So yeah, we're humans, we broke nature, so the fate of pandas is pretty much our choice.

I'm going to have to disagree with you here. We, as a species, are also perpetually evolving and adapting to our environment. What you view as us "breaking out of evolution" is actually us staying with evolution by following our instincts. The creation of homes and buildings was us using natural resources to provide shelter and allow us to survive against certain elements since we haven't the fur or fat(for the most part), to survive against the dead of winter; or any other extreme weather circumstance. Frankly, it's no different from birds building nests, or certain animals using the trunks of trees and caves as shelter!

So in terms of deciding the fate of another species, we honestly have no right to. But it doesn't mean that we can't try and help. It would be fairly egotistical, however, to assume that our actions alone are what determine the fate of anything. There are species that live and die-out that have no direct, or even indirect, contact with humans. While our actions have affected many species, it's rather unfair to state that we all-out "broke nature".

Though first person to tl;dr is going to get my sandal in their rear. Stop being lazy please!

 

[BlackSaint09]

For some reason i dont care that keeping them alive is taking money that could be spent elsewhere... There living creatures.
And since were already giving mothernature the finger with so much else i suppose we should use our ability to defy nature to do something merciful.
So...
LONG LIVE PANDAS!

 

[Evil Top Hat]

1. The pandas dont want to co tinue existing. If they actually had sex and had more than one child then fine, but they dont care about thier species survivng.

2. We are the ones keeping them alive at this point, if it wasnt for people trying to sve them things would be far worse.

1) A panda isn't quite intelligent enough to recognize that their species will not survive if they don't reproduce, and saying that they want their species to die because they aren't reproducing is just absurd.

2) Correct.