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Aspen Ideas Festival

Mother Nature Is Cruel. Should Humans Intervene?

The Aspen Ideas Festival is the nation's premier, public gathering place for leaders from around the globe and across many disciplines to engage in deep and inquisitive discussion of the ideas and issues that both shape our lives and challenge our times.

Mother Nature Is Cruel. Should Humans Intervene?

AIF TEST Episode 72 | 60m 20s

Should we ever intentionally drive a species extinct? Most people probably agree on smallpox and malaria, but what about the New World screwworm? Its very existence in the wild causes horrific suffering. Humans didn’t create the unrelenting drumbeat of suffering that occurs in nature every single day. Nature is amoral, because evolution doesn’t care.

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The Aspen Institute produces the Aspen Ideas Festival in concert with its partner, The Atlantic.

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