Should the government invest in the preservation of endangered species?

[Ban my account ffs!]

To an extent, sure. We humans do use the world's ecosystems for a multitude of purposes, and certain species are important to maintaining said ecosystems. Generally speaking maintaining wildlife preserves is a good way to do this. On the flip side though we do need to recognize that extinction is a natural process - a species will go extinct and eventually a new species might take its place.

Yes, but if we can tie a species' demise to human influence, we have an obligation to help protect that species from extinction.

Nearly every species of animal and plant in the U.S. that is endangered is that way because of human encroachment on their habitat/exploitation of resources.

Hey DWTL, do you know what Tragedy of the Commons is?

Again, you're acting like a 16 year old with your senseless post.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Hey DWTL, do you know what Tragedy of the Commons is?
Again, you're acting like a 16 year old with your senseless post.

That point was not senseless, there is no reason the government should fund, sanction a private organization to do it, perhaps, but not funded by the government.  Government funding = waste

The whole point is that no individual person or organization will see it to be in their own benefit to preserve the area; that's the very definition of the Tragedy of the Commons. Therefore, the government has to step in and do it themselves. Your ideological commitment to hating the government doesn't serve you well here.

There is no reason the government cannot sanction a private organization to do it, I'm sure there are non-profit organizations that want to help animals

The government cannot make an organization do this. 

Seriously, DWTL, you're not making sense.  Your "there's a private market solution to everything" attitude is dangerous.  You obviously haven't thought about it very much and you don't know how to apply real world solutions to the problems we face.

In this case, either you're just ignorant and have a poor understanding of how the government works (claiming that government spending any money at all is just waste) or you just don't care if animals go extinct and you are completely ignorant of the repercussions and side effects that removing a species of plant or animal from an ecosystem can have not only on the ecosystem, but on humans as well.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Funded by private donations rather than tax dollars

You don't really understand how this government thing works, do you?

Yes, I do, and I understand that we need to cut funding and that the cost of bureacracy adds up.  I don't know how you guys do it up their in Canada though

Why not support government outsourcing absolutely everything to private organizations, then?  Surely private organizations can control abortion, gay marriage, flag burning, et cetera.

I would not trust private organizations to run those things, I personally (and I see where the disagreement lies) think a private organization could handle this task.  Marriage must be run by the government and involves little cost if any to the government.

Wow.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Funded by private donations rather than tax dollars

You don't really understand how this government thing works, do you?

Yes, I do, and I understand that we need to cut funding and that the cost of bureacracy adds up.  I don't know how you guys do it up their in Canada though

Why not support government outsourcing absolutely everything to private organizations, then?  Surely private organizations can control abortion, gay marriage, flag burning, et cetera.

I would not trust private organizations to run those things, I personally (and I see where the disagreement lies) think a private organization could handle this task.  Marriage must be run by the government and involves little cost if any to the government.

Wow.

Great rebuttle

Why should I post a lengthy rebuttal?  What you've posted here already says a lot about your character and your knowledge of government.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I don't know if this is what DWTL is saying but the government does not do everything it decrees to happen by itself. For instance, if the government decides that children are to get public education they may not build the school buildings themselves but contract it out to some private company. And so on. Of course, enforcing laws by violence has to be made by the state to uphold its monopoly on violence, one of the corner-stones of civilization.

As regards the question, I'd say it depends. If there is some point to it other than saving an endangered species or if there is some public interest and people ready to pay for it, I guess. Otherwise, I don't think there is a point to saving species for its own sake. The aforementioned Tragedy of the Commons only become relevant if we're talking about edible fishes running out due to over-fishing, etc not concerning pandas or other completely irrelevant species.

Then I would question your understanding of ecosystems and how they function as a system.

There are advantages to keeping species from going extinct due to human influences beyond "oh, it's cute and fuzzy" or serving some purpose to human existence.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I don't know if this is what DWTL is saying but the government does not do everything it decrees to happen by itself. For instance, if the government decides that children are to get public education they may not build the school buildings themselves but contract it out to some private company. And so on. Of course, enforcing laws by violence has to be made by the state to uphold its monopoly on violence, one of the corner-stones of civilization.

As regards the question, I'd say it depends. If there is some point to it other than saving an endangered species or if there is some public interest and people ready to pay for it, I guess. Otherwise, I don't think there is a point to saving species for its own sake. The aforementioned Tragedy of the Commons only become relevant if we're talking about edible fishes running out due to over-fishing, etc not con
cerning pandas or other completely irrelevant species.

Then I would question your understanding of ecosystems and how they function as a system.

There are advantages to keeping species from going extinct due to human influences beyond "oh, it's cute and fuzzy" or serving some purpose to human existence.

Well, that would count towards human existence wouldn't it? If a species is not important for the survival of humanity (even indirectly) I don't see why tax money should go towards protecting it. It seems sort of arbitrary to me.

You misunderstood what I said. 

We have an obligation to protect species that face extinction because of human activity.

Removing species that don't seem to directly benefit humanity can have massive repercussions and negatively impact the ecosystem of which they are a part.  And in many cases, such carelessness would likely come back to bite us in the butt.

I suggest you do some reading about ecosystems and how they function.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Again, Gustaf, YOU misunderstood what I posted.

My opinion is that even if a species is NOT even indirectly linked to human survival, if we are responsible for that species' demise, we should invest in its preservation.

The ONLY case where I would not support an investment in the preservation of an endangered species would be if it met two conditions:

1)  It had no direct or indirect link to human survival.

2)  Its demise was in no way caused by human activity.  In other words its endangered status was caused completely by natural (meaning here:  non-human) processes.

I suggested you do some reading about ecosystems (whether you think that was condescending or not is not the point) BECAUSE

A)  I assumed that your stated opinion was not simply to be different than the obviously more popular stance.  Ebowed has cleared this up for me now.  You like being different for the sake of being different.

B)  You are a logical person who would oppose the destruction of a plant/animal species by human hands whether or not it was important to the survival of the human race.

I obviously assumed wrong now that you have made it clear that you do not support investments into saving endangered species not important to human survival even if we are responsible for their decline and ultimate demise.

In essence, what you did, was misunderstand what I said and then launch into a tirade of unwarranted insults about my understanding and comprehension of the English language.

Despite your opinion, my grasp of English is just fine, thank you.  I did not read your post incorrectly.  I understood it very well, gathered that you were arguing something else completely, and so I clarified my post.  You then responded with the insults.  In other words, we were on different wave lengths, if you get my drift.

In the future, don't try to pull the "but I'm not a native speaker" card as a last ditch effort to try and save face when somebody clearly calls you on incorrect claims.

If you can successfully insult other native speakers and question their ability to comprehend and understand the language, then you are fair game when you make mistakes.