extinctionist
- adjective
- /ɪkˈstɪŋkʃənɪst/
- Offensive
- The extinctionist approach raises ethical questions about the deliberate removal of species from our ecosystems.
- extinctionist argument
Examples
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To call the extinctionist project speculative seems an understatement; most of it is presently the sheerest of science fiction.
Academic text (2003) -
The extinctionist vision of the future, then, is incoherent, promising things that will not be available to beings who will not be there to enjoy them.
Academic text (2003) -
In part, then, the extinctionist argument is based on new routes to fulfilling old promises about doing good for human beings.
Academic text (2003) -
And the extinctionist arguments about the deficiencies of humans do not provide much reason for thinking that there are many qualities we will have to offer, as Moravec noted above.
Academic text (2003) -
If the extinctionist future envisions good guys and bad guys in some sense, however unrecognizable to us, then the picture of universal intelligence begins to look more like battling gods.
Academic text (2003) -
If this reading of the nature of the extinctionist argument is correct, then what is most problematic in it is the attempt to see meaning, created by humanity and primarily its successors, in a universe that modern science has shorn of meaning.
Academic text (2003) -
The preceding argument assumes some measure of choice in shaping the future, although, as already noted, part of the burden of the extinctionist argument is that the victory of robots is a matter of evolutionary necessity.
Academic text (2003) -
Furthermore, there are powerful incentives—commercial, military, medical, intellectual, and otherwise—that are completely independent of extinctionist expectations about outcomes, for the trends on which they rely to continue.
Academic text (2003) -
All the remarkable discoveries and inventions that form the present world have not changed just those fundamentals of human life that the extinctionist vision seeks to overcome (Paul and Cox 1996, 23-31).
Academic text (2003) -
Many scientists criticize the extinctionist perspective for ignoring the consequences of losing biodiversity.
Synonyms
1
9.1
Intended to destroy things completely
Surface Forms
Morphology
extinctionist = extinction (transparent) = extinct + ion + ist
The noun 'extinction' is a regular formation from 'extinct' + '-ion', and adding '-ist' clearly yields someone who advocates or is associated with that concept.
Etymology
The word extinctionist comes from extinct ('no longer living') and the same root as extinguish ('to put out'), with the ending -ist that marks a view or approach. So an extinctionist approach is one that supports making a species, group, or culture disappear on purpose.