Would you rather bring back dinosaurs or historical figures?

@alextheboss said:Historical figures, because bringing back the good ones could actually improve humanity. Also not bringing a human back to life in favor of a reptile seems kind of scummy. Imagine if you died and someone could chose to bring you back or a lizard, and they picked the lizard, lmao.

I mean everybody different, what happen if that guy religion or just believe make it appalling that you revived him. Is he truly the same person as before or just a reconstruction, is it morally right to bring back the death, how many vaccination do we have to give him, how would he re-adjust to today society etc. Also there no guarantee he can improve humanity or would even want to help out.

While Dinosaur on the other hand, we can get lots of information out of it. Like how does his normal flora look like which can help with how microorganisms were back then, how their immune system work, more anatomy and physiology data on them, their tough skin and just lots of fun tests.

Also reviving the death just make me feel like a necromancer, which is creepy :-p. (Okay I am not 100%, but DINOSAURS).

@jgames: Just admit you are choosing dinosaurs because they are cool.

The only one I'd be remotely interested in bringing back is King Leonidas.

@bearderby: You know better than to use foul language.

Dinosaurs are cool. Far cooler than some scruffy old people in fancy wigs. But there's also a massive wealth of information that we cannot know from just studying their bones.

Think about it. Even today we're learning so much about biology and the nature of life from the animals around us. We're making huge strives in medicine by studying some of the bio-chemical processes found in animals. Komodo dragon venom? It can be used to remove blood clots. Spider silk? It can be used to replace damaged nerve tissue. The axolotl is a miracle animal and has so much to teach us about limb growth and regeneration.

Now imagine what secrets these creatures might hold. There is so much we might learn from them. Biological processes we could never even guess at because it no longer exists in our time.

I wouldn't underestimate how much bringing extinct species back for study could do for humankind.

Plus if we don't I'll never be able to ride a t-rex!

@alextheboss:

You are precisely right. A human life is worth more than a dinosaur, giving someone more life would be the moral choice.

@metaljimmor:

I wouldn't underestimate how much bringing extinct species back for study could do for humankind.

I'm sure some discoveries wold be made, but I doubt it would be anything revolutionary.

Plus if we don't I'll never be able to ride a t-rex!

And now we've come to the real reason... lol

I kinda wanna see what Hitler would do in 2019.....

But probably dinosaurs. They got really unlucky, second chance for them.

You'd probably be wrong in that doubt. 200 million years. Billions and billions of species that we know almost nothing about. Most of which we don't even have fossils for. Many of which would have their own unique attributes and abilities. Venoms. Proteins. Compounds. Materials. Some of which could teach us new things about bio-chemistry that could be applied to modern medicine. Some of which could be applied to material sciences in constructing better clothing or armor or plastics.

And of course the huge boon in turning paleontology into zoology. We'd have a far, far better understanding of life on Earth and how it has developed if we could actually see the animals in person. It could lead to a better understanding of evolutionary psychology and how the mind evolved. Having access to the genetic material of our ancient, ancient, ancient relatives could provide huge insights into the human genome that could allow great strides in genetics research.

I'd argue way more could be learned that would actually benefit mankind from dinosaurs than we'd get bringing back a bunch of immensely racist folks who's thoughts and ideas are ancient and antiquated. If anything we'd be setting ourselves up for disappointment when we learn these people we once thought the world of really are just normal folks riddled with flaws and contradictions.

@metaljimmor: While you make great points, with the good also comes the bad. Bringing back these “billions” of new species would be extremely difficult on the economy just trying to take care of them, not to mention we probably don’t even have the space for it. Farm animals are one of the leading causes of methane production and human caused global warming, so imagine what all these dinosaurs would do. Sure, the new discoveries may be amazing, but is that worth the acceleration of human extinction?

This is actually a good question. I'm still thinking about it. Good job man.

@quinlan58: I mean, historical figures are just smelly humans. We already have a bunch of those.

Honestly neither are good choices. Bringing dinosaurs back would be an ecological disaster. Bringing historical figures back would be pointless, as they'd be completely unadjusted to modern times. Also you run the risk of bringing back bad people like Vlad the Impaler, Hitler, and Stallin.

@alextheboss:

Farm animals are an issue because we raise them on an absurdly large scale in relatively basic confines. With these animals we'd be raising them mostly in captivity within controlled environments and in controlled numbers. It isn't like we'd bring back all hundreds of billions at once in a blink.

To study every species could take another thousand years on our part but it'd be worth it in the long run.

As for the economy. Dinosaurs really are their own money makers. How many people do you think would pay good money to be able to see a real, living dinosaur? I know I would. Actually I am fairly sure there is a successful movie franchise built on that very premise!

But instead of just a zoo we could create a whole franchise around them. Wildlife documentaries. Real dinosaurs starring in movies in the same way we used to use elephants before... Well. They started to go extinct. Live shows where dinosaurs are the main attraction. You could even have handlers go around to schools with the little ones and show them off like the folks who bring snakes to school to educate kids about reptiles.

The animals that die of natural causes could be harvested for their hide and bones too. I imagine tyrannosaurus hide boots would be quite the luxury item. Some dinosaurs probably regrew their teeth and lost them naturally over their life time like modern crocodiles. I'd pay good money to own a real dinosaur tooth as a novelty.

Dinosaurs would spawn an entirely new industry around themselves. More than enough to pay for dinosaur upkeep so long as we're conservative with the rate we revive them.

@metaljimmor: Yeah, if we have the power to control how many we bring back at a time that would work, but if a significant amount of species spawn at once, and there are enough of each species so there wouldn't be interbreeding, then we would have a massive amount of animals on our hands.

And if we only bring back a limited amount of species, the chances of finding something revolutionary lessens. I wouldn't be surprised if a few new medicines are created due to the dinosaurs brought back, but with only a few dozen species, I don't think our lives would completely change.

@alextheboss:

Well, if we can't control how many and what we bring back would you really want to bring back historical figures? Suuuuper high chance of getting a bunch of power mad dictators or cult leaders that want to purge the world of -Insert Random Minority Here-.

If we can't control it and there's a chance of bringing back billions of new life forms we're better off not doing it regardless of which we pick.

And sure, if we're bringing back a few at a time the chance for massive boons goes down. I still think it is a worthy endeavor though. Even if we don't find the cure for cancer we're bound to learn huge amounts about the evolution of life and the ecology of this ancient world that up until now we could only guess about.

MLK or a Trex? Tough decisions.

@metaljimmor: Yeah I definitely see where you are coming from. The gains in science is a legit reason to chose them over historical figures.

I'm tryna ride a dinosaur. I don't even really care if they ransack modern society and leave us in a prehistoric wasteland.

I'd rather revive one Bruce Lee than the thousand of dinosaurs.