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What even? Wouldn't this fuck up the ecosystem?

Wait… There are people who want to genetically modify predators to become vegans?

They think that something like this is even possible? To modify the entire digestive structure, bone structure, brain structure, hormones and instinct of an animal while still keeping it the same animal. They think this level of Genetic engineering is even possible?

They think that predators going away wouldn't cause a massive negative impact on the environment when every animal species outgrows it's food source, begin to starve and become rife with plagues that would threaten to wipe the whole species of the face of the Earth?

They think we can track down and capture every single animal species, many of which are still undiscovered, capture all these HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of animals, in the few genetic labs we have, and modify them all?

I don't think I have ever seen a proposal so detached from reality yet still taken seriously. I would like to believe this a Poe, but then I look at the link, and the first thing they say is "Why this is technically feasible"

AHAHAHA No it's not! This is the most unfeasible shit I have ever seen.

This is just beautiful. I'm sorry for all the laughing .gifs in a serious debate thread, but seriously, this is the funniest shit I have ever seen people propose in my entire life.

Okay, so they want to get rid of animal on animal cruelty, but instead of just getting rid of the predators by introducing a chemical castration into their water supply or whatever, they want to get rid of the real animal and replace it with a genetically modified freak that looks like it.

I can understand wanting to get rid of suffering, but why does this modified animal, this toothless Lion, need to exist? Is it because you want to pretend that you respect the sovereignty of nature even as you shamelessly tamper with it, or do you just want to still be able to see "Lions" and "tigers" when you take your family on safari?

What a grotesque, vain fantasy.

No, just no.
If this happened then the entire ecosystem would get fucked up because then populations would be out of control.

If people did try to do this, it would result in serious consequences and mass ammounts of overpopulation.

It probably won't even be possible like what @Ryumaru Borike said.

How much are you willing to bet that the people that would advocate this (which no doubt is an incredibly small number) are ok with genetically modifying animals but are against genetically modifying food to be grown in higher volumes to be cheaper and more readily available to people who can't afford it because it's "unnatural". I feel like this idea was just brought up as some weird rebuttal to the anti-vegetarian argument that "eating meat and killing animals is natural"

In short: yes, this would entirely fuck up the ecosystem. There's just no way you can make a world where every animal is an herbivore and then somehow come up with enough resources to actually feed every single one of them. You can either have a world where animals kill each other for food but there's enough food for everyone and everything, or you can have a world where everything eats plants but there's not enough food to eat. You can't have the best of both worlds. Don't fuck with evolution, kids.

If that went down, we can kiss our entire ecosystem sayonara.
Everyone would starve, the same things you are trying to stop the suffering of would suffer ten times more, and the food chain would fall apart so badly, not even the world's most negative nihilist could describe how badly everything would get fucked up.
And in the name of "Conservation" and "Ease of suffering"? GTFO.
The world is already having it's own issues what with mankind having removed itself from the food chain a long time ago.

To vegans who think this.

{ Ultimately, it's an ethical choice whether intelligent agents opt to create such a world – or instead express our natural status quo bias and perpetuate the biology of suffering indefinitely. }

Check your evolutionary privilege, shitlords.

But really. I'm familiar with the "theory". All of the things you guys mention are true but the movement addresses them. Reprogrammed predators would lose their will to hunt, but would be sustained by our cultured/lab grown meat that's not the best texture for humans but lions/tigers aren't so picky. The explosive herbivore population would be controlled by us through contraceptive methods, which is a technique we already employ for many species (males of endangered species, for example, are "culled" in this way in wildlife parks because such a number of males isn't necessary for breeding). It's idealistic fantasy at best, but some of their ideas are not too far off from what we need to do to ensure our survival. A lot of these predatory species are going to go extinct either way, the resulting gap in the ecosystem is something were going to have to address. Of course, the more realistic solution is that we replace the predator. Not enough lions killing zebra? Zebra steaks! That's the "solution" they ultimately seek to avoid by going in the complete opposite direction.

This is an interesting topic for a thread full of people who generally insist that our morals and intelligence is what separates humans from animals. If our morals provide us with a higher quality of life, why should we not use our advanced intelligence to extend that quality of life to the whole animal kingdom? When a lion kills a human it's hunted down and itself ended, but when it kills a zebra it's just nature at work? When a human kills a cat they're lynched by an angry mob, but when cats drives over 30 bird species to extinction they're just doing what nature tells them?

Matt Groening predicted the future.
(I stole that from Tumblr, sorry I had to)

Lisalombs wrote:

If our morals provide us with a higher quality of life, why should we not use our advanced intelligence to extend that quality of life to the whole animal kingdom? When a lion kills a human it’s hunted down and itself ended, but when it kills a zebra it’s just nature at work? When a human kills a cat they’re lynched by an angry mob, but when cats drives over 30 bird species to extinction they’re just doing what nature tells them?

what morals provide us higher quality of life? the morals that create a social status that sometimes crushes those less fortunate similar to that of the animal kingdom? or the morals of creating slaughterhouses to create animals to breed and kill in low qualities of living? or the morals that protect us when we get robbed in an alley.

our quality of life is not based on what morals we have, because our morals are not that different to that of animals, the only thing we have that they dont is a rather faulty concept of good and evil, and even that is considered obsolete at most, we still do evil shit, people still do evil sht and no matter how many times we preach morality that wont stop and wont get us anywhere at best that animals have gotten. this project operates on a false "black and white" that killing is always wrong no matter what, which is honestly deluded to think, even vegas kill considering plants are "alive" (which leads to other stuff)

our quality of life is relative to our intelligence and the gadgets we create to aid us in our everyday life, which sadly animals cannot comprehend because they lack the ability to use most of these gadgets, maybe a kickstarter to create safe tech animals can use to increase their living is a thing most could get behind (but there is the side effects it might cause)

When a lion kills a human it’s hunted down and itself ended, but when it kills a zebra it’s just nature at work? When a human kills a cat they’re lynched by an angry mob, but when cats drives over 30 bird species to extinction they’re just doing what nature tells them?

there has been multiple movements that go againts extinction of animals, even by other types of animals, considering it has been one of the big issues of this century.

however isnt that natures way in the end? i mean not talking about the human thing but the cats, if cats are able to exterminate so many birds, how much ability WE got to stop them? i mean consider the theory of the survival of the fittest, as for the human – cat thing it is a double standard to take that stance, but most domestic cats tend to be kept as pets, and the bond a human gets from pets is too strong to be able to see them as "bad", which is another moral thing that is seen as bullshit (surprise it doesnt get us anywhere either)

Does nobody remember this fucking shit?

First of all, it'll be many decades of advances before we'll even have in our possession the tools to make these alterations. But much more importantly, if we were to actually attempt this on the scale that these arrogant people are suggesting, humanity would need to be practically omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent unless we wanted to seriously risk (or practically guarantee) a fucking disaster that would make Jurassic Park look like a parrot escaping its cage in the Aviation Habitat of your local zoo.

This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and I watch conspiracy theory videos.
Oh, and here's an edit I made.

No. The world works on an eat or be eaten system. Remove natural predators and the prey would quickly grow to consume all the food, leading to both the prey and predator starving to death.

This idea is so fucking stupid it won't progress past a few blogs that are stupid enough to think of it.

{ if cats are able to exterminate so many birds, how much ability WE got to stop them? }

Well, we're the reason house cats are in North America in the first place, the house cat is an invasive species.

Survival of the fittest says all the animals who can't adapt to us should go extinct (including ourselves), the "reprogramming" movement says we should adapt animals to us so they don't go extinct and are living in a world where food delivery is a regular accommodation and murderers go to jail. If that's the ideal way for us to live, as our intelligence says, why are we keeping it from the rest of the animal kingdom? If it's just because they're not as intelligent as us, then aren't we practicing a form of racism? We're keeping our comfortable lifestyle of progress from every other lifeform on our planet simply because we think we're better than the rest of them…

If they were allowed to progress in a comfortable environment, would they get smarter, as our ancestors did? No longer having to roam a large territory for food and mates, not living it in the open but in designated parks where shelter is permanent, it sounds exactly like when our ancestors went from hunter-gatherers to self-sustaining communities based on cooperation. Are we obligated to provide those conditions, knowing from our intelligence that said conditions are what allowed us to advance as a species? Or are we the only ones who get to live comfortably and focus on bettering ourselves, leave the animals outside where they belong?

edit: uh you guys, this is a pretty established way of thinking, and a bit more complex than you're all analyzing it to be. It's not some random whim from a nutty vegan on tumblr, reprogramming is becoming a much more studied theory as we get less afraid of associating with eugenics.

If it’s just because they’re not as intelligent as us, then aren’t we practicing a form of racism?

you are missing the point of what i said.

if they are less intelligent then that means they dont have the capabilities of managing technology as us and we shouldnt force them to because that would be a too harsh of a change for such an unevolved species.

if said animals are gonna evolve like us it has to be trough a organic process since there is no technology to simply speed up their evolution and they are in terms of evolution millions of years behind us, we simply cant introduce them to a fridge without knowing the basics of the wheel.

now that i think about it, training animals to learn about the wheel and creating fire might be an interesting idea.

but i think at this point we are derailing the thread and might be better to talk about animal evolution and our techology in a different thread

As a person who loves animals and doesn't like seeing them eat each-other to death. I still think this is wrong.

Do you want to cause destruction to Earth's natural order? Are you so out of your mind that you want to risk killing off the entire planet because you care so much about anti-animal violence?

I really hope this is satire. As THESE animals are the rebellious, cancerous, illogical people who dis-obey education and any form of basic logic to be a cool hippie that should of been died off from natural selection. As I thought humans where suppose to get smarter, and not devolve into a world of scrawling manchilds that need a beating and permanent mental abuse.

As anyone would expect, I'm beyond 200% mad. I'm in the mood to dis-classify the abomination myself as a homo-sapien, as these people are no less smarter than homo-erectus.

This is the first time I've heard of "reprogramming" and I put reprogramming in quotations because I feel like a large number of people think genetic material works like a computer program as if its programmed in you what kind clothes you like to wear, how you like to marinate your steak, what hair style you like etc. DNA encodes for proteins. That's it. And most of our DNA isn't even used to code for functional proteins. The interactions of all proteins and protein products is so convoluted that if by some means we have enough knowledge to alter a cheetah so that it no longer hunts other mammals it will probably not be a cheetah anymore.

I have reasons to believe that "reprogramming" is impossible because of how dependent the evolution of an organism is to its environment. For example there's no "formula" for creating a busy swamp ecosystem they just happen as a result of all the organisms populating the habitat trying to live.

{ but i think at this point we are derailing the thread and might be better to talk about animal evolution and our techology in a different thread }

I'm devils advocating the exact argument reprogramming proponents use, how can I be off topic?

{ that means they dont have the capabilities of managing technology as us and we shouldnt force them to because that would be a too harsh of a change for such an unevolved species. }

Literally the point of reprogramming. We're altering them, we're evolving them, faster than what would happen naturally because we ourselves have evolved beyond what's natural. "Natural" no longer having a place in our world is the heart of the reprogramming argument. It's not natural for us to order takeout, it's natural for us to go hunt our own food, but if our intelligence allows us to obtain food peacefully, why can't our technology help the rest of the animal kingdom do the same? Why are we adamantly keeping them in the dark when we technically have the ability to bring them out if it?

{ it has to be trough a organic process since there is no technology to simply speed up their evolution }

We're discussing that technology right now. The goal is not to evolve them into lion-men who can play Xbox or whatever, it's to evolve them into peaceful individuals who recognize lab grown meat as their default food source, so they have no instinct or reflex to go after prey animals at all, so they have no need to hold a large territory, so they can survive how humans are (unnaturally) shaping the planet. Genetic domestication.

{  For example there’s no “formula” for creating a busy swamp ecosystem }

We're quite adept at creating all sorts of ecosystems.

Here's an Amazonia swamp full of fish and other critters all living together peacefully because we've used our intelligence and technology to allow them the opportunity. Predators in multi-species zoo exhibits have learned and adapted to the humans feeding them pre-killed prey, they don't hunt their enclosure mates. Some videos exist of prey animals accidentally getting into predator enclosures (wild deer jumps into lion enclosure) but the predators aren't interested in hunting it, just curiously checking it out. No reason we couldn't get all animals to look at us the same way, we will feed you, we will house you, you just have to exist. What do you do when you don't have to go out and hunt for hours every day, when you don't have to worry about protecting your offspring or yourself? You think. You sit around and observe and think about what you're seeing. How many generations will it take for the rest of the animals to think critically once they've been given the opportunity to worry about nothing but thinking? Are the lions thinking about the deer that jumped into their enclosure as something other than food when they're sniffing it out but not stalking or attacking?

lisalombs wrote:

What do you do when you don’t have to go out and hunt for hours every day, when you don’t have to worry about protecting your offspring or yourself? You think. You sit around and observe and think about what you’re seeing. How many generations will it take for the rest of the animals to think critically once they’ve been given the opportunity to worry about nothing but thinking?

Yikes. Do you really think that's how evolution works? I hate to break it to you, but there isn't really any credible biologist that'd defend Lamarckism anymore.

In fact, the reality is quite the opposite- when you hand an entire species everything it needs to survive and thrive on a silver platter, you take away the forces of natural selection that may have allowed it to develop a more advanced internal model-producing device.

So basically something what you can see in illustrations of some of the Christian magazines?

Taking organisms that were part of functioning ecosystems then mixing and matching them isn't what I was referring to. What I was referring to was that forming that sort of complex dependency on other creatures isn't something that is hardwired into the genome. The ecosystem creates itself, you just set it forth by bringing a bunch of different animals closer.

I didn't read the article, but the thread title refers to genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is not the same as "speeding evolution" by some sort of classical conditioning technique. Besides, you're pretty much rehashing what I wrote in the animal vs. human thread anyway.

I wasn't describing traditional evolution, I was describing an adaptive response to human activity that removes the natural order from the field completely, which is what the reprogramming movement seeks to do. Combine that with epigenetic reprogramming (what it's called when you're not a vegan talking solely about predators) and you've got the new and improved evolution. Literally the topic of this thread.

edit: "I didn’t read the article"

like wtf why do I even bother. Why don't you read the article and get a grasp of the topic you're trying to discus so when I reference directly from the article, assuming you have all at least skimmed it and can make the connection, you know what the hell I'm talking about and where it's coming from?

That's lame. I thought they were going to alter lion stem cells so that they don't want to eat other animals anymore or something crazy like that. That would be so interesting if they actually tried. Dam.. I give vegans a chance to impress me and I was disappointed again.

EDIT: I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in about genetic engineering. Saying you're going to "genetically modify" something without meaning by manually altering the genome is stupid. That's like giving birth to a baby and saying "oh look, she genetically modified another human"…

You know I was gonna write a whole bunch about this in regards to how it impractically risks destruction and couldn't feasibly work. I was going to write more on how GE efforts are more practically spent on other more useful projects like high yield crops rather than altering the biosphere

I was about to write a bunch of responses to Lisa's post about how even though we have working examples in the smaller scale of artificial environments, changing the environment of the entire earth is another matter entirely with risky consequences and extreme costs comparable to the dyson ring theory. Yes it can be done, but the risks of destroying everything in the process are astronomical…I could have made a massive post about all of that until I stopped and thought:

I wasn't truly against the idea because I thought it was silly, impractical, impossible or wasteful

Because like all science fiction concepts for the future it really has as much leverage to work as any other concept. In that our concerns for how it would fail today are irrelevant to how we could make it work in the future. This whole plan presented in the article presents not a movement for today but question for the future: what happens when we get to the point where we can start fundamentally changing how hostile the environment is to us? This isn't about making carnivores vegan. This is about the bigger picture: total demolition of nature and reshaping it into an artificial form that favors mankind

And if I had the chance to eliminate all hostility from the environment, wouldn't I agree with it? Well I thought some more on that question and I came to this answer:

Fuck this shit.

Yes that was my conclusion. I don't care if it works or not. I outright reject such a painless world

I realized that I actually want a barbaric world full of death and suffering where animal eats animal. None of this pansy lion with the lamb crap, bring on the slaughter, bring on the hunting, let the world be a frenetic melee of species vs species. I want to see beasts tear at each other, I want to see an ecosystem driven by survival of the fittest. I want to see mankind strive against the most violent and hostile elements of creation and come out stronger and better over it all.

I wouldn't want it any other way. Not on the basis of practicality, efficiency or feasibility but because I don't want a sterile Earth. I want a dynamic, active earth filled with conflict and chaos, driven by the gears of instinct and evolution. I admire too much the nature that formed over the billions of years into what it is today. Essentially I am a preservationist of that nature.

I think we can still get utopia. But if we can get to a future where we can demolish nature, we can get to a future where we can work with nature as well and I'd much rather see the latter because at least it will be more interesting. We can create an environment that's safe for humans without fundamentally changing the Earths unique and precious biology. That's the idea I truly want to hear.

{ Yes it can be done, but the risks of destroying everything in the process are astronomical… }

Kinda like the risks brought on by creating superbacteria that out-evolve us and wipe out the species via global epidemic because our medical technology can't keep up with it anymore.

A-bombs? Large hadron collider? Robots with emotions? Cloning dinosaurs?

Potentially killing us all has been and will remain a fairly typical risk for science to accept. Isn't this just the next step?

{ We can create an environment that’s safe for humans without fundamentally changing the Earths unique and precious biology. That’s the idea I truly want to hear. }

hahahahaha idk if I should laugh or cry.

nigga you and the rest of the world been hearing this "idea" for decades.

shit ya'll been drawing conservation posters since grade school.

Conservation? Sustainability? You know, those words that get thrown around that nobody cares about?

Planet isn't gonna fix itself, can't sit here and wish for a wizard to come wave his magic wand and instantly make everything all better. How many lights you all got on right now?

@lisalombs

How do know that's not what he meant in the first place?

Also, I'd just like to point out that the fears of partial colliders have been "pretty thoroughly discredited."

lol, you can't get rid of carnivores. Even herbivores become meat eaters when given the opportunity. We have cases of deer eating birds and rabbits when truly hungry, such as when there's a lack of vegetation to eat. Like in the case of over populated deers when nothing is allowed to kill them. You can't breed hunger out of an animal, no matter how hard they try.

@lisa

What are you talking about? The planet won't fix itself no, that's the point of the conservation movement. We can't just keep trashing the ecosystem and expect everything to remain okay. Certainly no wizards can wave their wands to repair our continued environmental damage.

But my statement wasn't directly referring to the green movement. I'm saying that if we can afford to make a future society that confirms the biosphere to itself, I see no reason why those same resources couldn't be used to make a future society that adapts itself to the biosphere.

There are also people out there who think the world is flat. We call those people fucking stupid, ignore their uninformed drivel, and move on with our lives. It really is that easy.

Can we start by genetically engineering everyone involved with the abolitionist project so they no longer think of such stupid ideas?

This is some dystopia shit. I can see them writing about wanting to remove the evils of free will so that no one suffers from others opinions or actions. The ultimate form of utilitarianism: everyone acts like everyone else.

{ I’m saying that if we can afford to make a future society that confirms the biosphere to itself, I see no reason why those same resources couldn’t be used to make a future society that adapts itself to the biosphere. }

Because the resources needed to do one aren't the same as the resources needed to do the other, that's the whole reason there's two different directions you could go, but you can't go both ways or meet somewhere in the middle.

On one side humans are on top, we control everything, the animals that can't adapt to us exist in zoos and parks and reserves, but they exist. We don't bother preserving forests and quarries and wetlands beyond what we need to keep our resources replenishing with the population, the land is converted into housing or malls or factories or theme parks. That's the way the planet is currently going anyway, reprogramming just gets it over with faster and you end up with animals who are content to be displayed.

On the other side we go back to nature. We completely reform the way global industry operates. We move from a profit-driven world to a world of self-sustainability, community agriculture, green industry, and (if we restrain the vegans) natural ecological order for the most part. Our homes and businesses are integrated into the surroundings, instead of skyscrapers and mansions we live in modest (or not) eco-homes that run on their own solar/wind/etc perhaps supplemented by nuclear energy. Apartments go much the same way, self-sustaining and vertical instead of horizontal, with wooded park areas as well as ponds and wetlands for wildlife to inhabit, like living in a forest preserve.

Which of those scenarios do you see as more likely at this point?

Because the resources needed to do one aren’t the same as the resources needed to do the other, that’s the whole reason there’s two different directions you could go, but you can’t go both ways or meet somewhere in the middle.

Uh… what? Why? That's a pretty huge claim to make. Where is your huge mountain of evidence to prove this irreconcilable dichotomy? I mean, shit, let's go with the most obvious counterexample- Afro-Eurasia go the way of your first description, and the Americas the second.

Afro-Eurasia is not the model suggested. Africa, purely africa, would be required for a truly sustainable way of living. Low population numbers. Low amounts of architecture. Semi-Migrational living. Very few environmentally altering structures such as Dams or Power Plants. Really if you look at it Concrete is one of the most environmentally damaging things besides plastics in terms of how its made in the first place.

It would be very much like the end of all city or suburban living, and a return of the much more rustic and countryside lifestyle in order to ensure the environment is kept health and dependable without altering it. Not to mention that organic farming just cannot sustain as large a population as the world currently has. http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2014/11/19/why-organic-isnt-sustainable/

Is there no place in the middle? Doubtful. I think we can find a good 65% in one direction, 35% in the other, as a more realistic way of looking at it. But in terms of cost, going more "environmentally friendly" is definitely more expensive in the cost of making everyone transition to this new way of living, including many factory, industrial, commercial, and service jobs that will simply no longer exist with the new way of living.

Not to mention, the biggest cost of all. Seeing which trillions of people don't get to live in order for a sustainable human population to exist. That, I think, would probably be a lot harder to deal with then anyone wants to think about.

It's a very interesting idea, to be honest. Nature, when viewed through a human point of view at least, is extremely cruel. To truly create a world free of suffering, a massive overhaul of how ecosystems work would be required. To achieve this however, humanity would have to become nothing short of God-like. Resources, climate and the genetics of everything on the planet would have to be completely under control. Given humanity's track record when it comes universally agreeing on something and then working towards a common goal, I see no way in which this can be achieved without some use of force. There is also the fact that violent, "sociopathic" behavior is common among many vegetarian species. How much genetic tinkering would be required to eradicate this behavior? Another issue is the fact that a lot of the animal species we are fascinated by, including ourselves, evolved due to the harsh, suffering filled world. The article does touch on our aesthetic appreciation of nature, but are we really prepared to essentially end a world where creatures really have no need to be amazing, so to speak?

A lot of philosophical issues are raised here as well. What is better, freedom and danger or control and comfort? Does suffering invalidate life? How "sacred" is the natural order? Is suffering inherently bad? Can humans become God? Also, the whole idea takes on a very different image when looked at it from a religious perspective, as was mentioned several times in the article. Did God intend for this suffering to exist? Does striving for ultimate, God-like mercy mean eliminating suffering? Since Buddhism teaches that to escape suffering we must detach ourselves from this world, would it be futile to try and entirely eliminate earthly suffering?

Need a soundtrack for this thread.

Carnivores eat herbivores, it has been the way since life on earth exist. Change it means we change the nature itself.

We can't change the natural order, if that happens.

We've being doing it for a long time. Why not go the whole nine yards?

Also, I don't necessarily agree with the opinion espoused in the article, but people have wayyyy too much of a kneejerk reaction to anything involving veganism or the green movement.

Yeah but not reach the line of out control.

Sooo… people like this literally want to ruin everything?

Predators, animals specifically made for killing, turned herbivore. Because, you know, I bet somewhere in the felidae evolution line, they were once herbivores. Yeah, no. To change a predator into a herbivore, requires tons and tons of modifications. So many modification, that a "vegan" cat wouldn't even remotely look like a cat. Those cute canines and purely white teeth made for ripping and swallowing meat? Gone, replaced with teeth more suited for a herbivore. Good example, look at molars. Those tiny claws, made for gripping, protection, and killing? Gone. Those ears, that rotate and listen to their environment? Why need 'em? Those eyes, faced forward to hone in on prey? Head and eyes alter to accommodate new jaw, teeth, and skull. Eyes will be on the side, like the rest of herbivores.

You're not just changing a diet. You're making something new. New stomach. new intestines, changing the metabolism, even a new brain. All the organs. Everything. Everything down to the fur, muscles and skin.

Meet, Andrewsarchus.

This is a carnivore. Looks like a dog or something, right? Well, they're not even close.
They are apart of the Even-toed ungulate order.

In other words, that carnivore is related to… Oh, you know… This.

Yeah, they look nothing a like and the same will happen if you try to make a "vegan predator".

{ I mean, shit, let’s go with the most obvious counterexample- Afro-Eurasia go the way of your first description, and the Americas the second. }

Try applying it to real life. If the Americas go profit/industry/human-oriented, and Afro-Eurasia goes small/local/nature-oriented, what happens to the economies of those countries in each example? Industry is only able to work out because of the low cost of producing goods in foreign countries where labor is cheap. If those countries go "green" and reject factories in favor of community agriculture/local skilled trade, what happens to the cost of goods and working conditions in the Americas? & what happens to the cost of goods in the green countries if they're the only ones producing things sustainably, which does not equate to cheap?

Both of these examples infer globalization, which is happening, thus why it must be an all-or-nothing choice. We can't go on as we currently are (which is essentially the middle ground in this hypothetical situation), we know this, the resources are depleting far faster than they can replenish, the world is changing despite our preference to perfectly preserve its current state. An extreme change has to take place, one way or the other, in order for us to sustain ourselves on this planet. The question is which way do you want it to go?

The closest we can get to keeping mass industry while responsibly managing the Earth is to go back to pure human labor (or we could say fuck responsibly managing the Earth, reprogram everything else living on it, and keep mass industry in tact), but that's where it stops being such an environmental issue and becomes more of an ethical/species management issue (applies equally to the industry-oriented scenario as the green-oriented scenario). Our population density is, as BGT said, not something we currently discuss at all (and anyone who tries is called Hitler and ostracized), but it's arguably the most significant factor in our future.

Why are you assuming that the economies of these two regions would still be connected?

And by the way, one thing you have to realize is that the resources you think of as "nonrenewable" will not be so forever.