At 09:02 PM 1/15/96 -0800, you wrote:
Morality has nothing to do with it. It's the speed of the evolution. If you walk across the straits, the system has the time to react and restore a dynamic equilibrium. If you immediately release a new species with no natural predators, the system is shattered, and it might not survive. This is not to say that ecosystems and societies are static -- they evolve constantly, displaying unpredictable punctuated equilibrium (Steven J. Gould was right, Edmund Burke and Karl Marx were wrong).
This appears to have happened in North America about 12000 years ago; a highly competitive omnivorous predator/scavenger species appeared, and either out-competed or killed off a number of other large predator species, as well as some of the large grazing species. Seen any dire-wolves looking through your windows lately?
Politically and morally, I'm a follower of the realist school (Morgenthau et al). It is right for the US to dominate the world because it has the most power.
Please don't abuse words like "right" for that sort of thing; it's as tacky as abusing "one-time pad", and there are other words that will do perfectly well, such as "unsurprising".... #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com, Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 # # "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" used to mean us watching # the government, not the other way around....