I'm not so sure, we are still largely natural creatures. We are more nature than machine, certainly. Air is far more important to me than electricity. Wolves serve an important role in the ecosystem, it is unclear to me that we can so easily survive without them.
I actually agree. The point is not that it would be easy, or desirable to have an engineered ecosystem without wolves. It wouldn't; the article makes the against it being easy, and I'm opinionating the point about it being desirable. :P
The point of my comment (and of Curtis' series) is that there is no magical "natural balance" that we could strive to return to. It just doesn't exist, and never has. However, and without wanting to make this into a flamewar: the concept of a natural order of things is very convenient for people in power, or even just people in comfortable, moderate luxury, to justify their privilege over others' misery.
The idea that there is a "sweet spot" for ecosystems that they return to was unfortunately firmly established in the mind of many while it was "scientific consensus" (scare quotes to indicate what a fraught concept that is).
While the idea was being popularized, the idea of natural balance was already being scientifically dismantled, but by then the "damage" was done, and now we get to still discuss this...
Ah yeah I totally agree with that. Our arguments are orthogonal to the point. I'm simply saying the ideal number of wolves is almost certainly more than zero. You seem to be arguing that there's no ideal number of wolves, which is reasonable. The ideal number could easily change over time as well. Before the industrial revolution wolves posed a larger threat than they do today, for example.
To further internalize your point, rather than talking about "ideal" wolves, which as you established is not a thing, I will think of it as the ideal change in wolves. That number could be positive or negative as a function of time and location.
