Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?

Re:Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention? by oska on Monday February 10, 2020 @07:34PM (#22294918)

> May as well just say The Earth would be better off if people had never existed if you're going to go that route.

No, that most certainly doesn't follow. It's entirely usual and normal for an amount of something in a system to be fine but then an excess of the same thing to be not fine. This is a very common situation in medicine, for example.

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Re:Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention? by robotastronaut on Tuesday February 11, 2020 @01:29AM (#22296518)

It's also a common situation in the rest of population and community ecology. For instance, removing wolves as a predator here in Michigan has caused an explosion in the deer population. That, in turn, changed the makeup in undergrowth as they eat more now, which has all kinds of extended effects. Not to mention the propagation of diseases in a more sense population.

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Re:Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention? by anthonypasq on Tuesday February 11, 2020 @10:41AM (#22299294)

We only care about the state of the system as it relates to humans.

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Re:Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention? by antepodius on Friday February 14, 2020 @07:11PM (#22331795)

That's certainly not true for a sizeable number of environmentalists. Have you never heard the 'humanity is a virus on the planet' take?

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