2010-04-12

Crazy that some seem to suggest you can't care about whales heading towards extinction without being a level 6 Vegan.

Yup. I’m very opposed to whaling - they’re magnificent creatures - but I’m not giving up my hamburger any time soon.
I mean you can, you're just somewhat of a hypocrite
How much experience does it take to level up, btw?
- Please explain how someone is being a hypocrite for caring about species that are heading towards extinction
- you're right, I should actually support whaling.

This is not an isolated issue. This is how we treat animals and other humans (regarding the harpooning, we only do it figuratively to other humans, not literally).

Go vegan.

We do it literally to other humans, look Gaza or South Sudan
- You're right. Probably should be mostly figuratively to humans, but also literally. And we also do it figuratively to the whales by destroying and polluting the ocean ecosystems.
People's morality about slaughtering meat is going to flip so hard once we get affordable lab grown meat, future generations will think of us as utter savages. But until then I don't think it's going to happen at scale
- I doubt, it's going to make any sudden jumps. We have various vegan meat alternatives already, which are good, and you still have plenty people that feel personally attacked by the existence of morals, because they base their personality on eating dead animals.
What does veganism have to do with opposing whale hunting?
- It's not just whales, one could draw the same comic about other animals being hunted or factory farmed, it would be very traumatic to live through. In fact Disney made an animated one about deer.
- I thought I provided that connection by mentioning the harm we're doing to almost all animals.
💚
Go vegan.
but plants feel pain too

If you eat basically any form of meat, I have some bad news for you...

There's whale meat in my steak!?
I do give deer hunting a pass because they're overpopulated in places (because humans wiped out their native predators).
Feel free to try and change my mind so I can wipe that off my ever-shrinking personal "ethically ok to eat meats" list. For all I know this is one of those lies I was raised with that I've not examined since childhood. Edit: context is in Kentucky, USA 20 years ago. I don't know about deer populations elsewhere and elsewhen.
- Former vegan, current pescatarian here.
  Dont stop hunting, please. Humans did a phenomenal job of ensuring a required hunting season for deer by wiping out all the natural predators, now without them we have to have culls. If you participate in said culls, PLEASE eat the meat, use the pelt, give the antlers to your dog. We've forced ourselves into a position where some of us MUST take up the mantle of predator. If you choose to, just be responsible with the carcass so it didn't die for no good reason.
  Edit: accidentally lied, I'm not a vegetarian I'm a pescatarian who outside of her 6 shrimp a week is vegan.
- Pretty sure you can hunt nursing deer in most places.
  Edit: can't! You can't hunt while the babies are babies.
- Only time I've eaten meat in the past ~30 years was when I ate some invasive fish that had been caught in a killathon to restore native habitat. Not that it's my role to "give you a pass," but I certainly do in this case!
Or drink milk. Vegetarians don't get a pass.
- I only drink polar bear milk. I find the chalky cod liver oil taste delightful.

Whales are the farmers of the sea. They fertilize the open oceans and produce more food than they eat. Especially the biggest ones, like the fin whales Japan has decided to hunt again. So if you like sea food, maybe don't kill the whales.

I get your point, but let's not compare them to one of the biggest polluters in the world. Farmers fucking destroy our planet.

Here’s all you need to know:

https://ranflygenring.substack.com/p/my-whale-report

I mean yes, but what do you think happens to regular fish

Many of us are against that too. Whales just happen to be exceedingly intelligent and capable of forming powerful emotional bonds
- So are pigs.
Farm animals have it even worse

It's for scientific research though.

Tried making a joke here before reading more about it and now I regret the joke so I edited this out.

The human experience is built on cruelty.

The human experience is built on cruelty.
Well, almost. The human experience of the imperial core is built on cruelty. I'm pretty sure the Native Americans weren't slaughtering animals on an industrial scale.
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✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.
- Depending on which Native Americans we're taking about, some of them drove entire herds of bison over cliffs. Our European ancestors hunted the mastodon to extinction, I think? In Australia and New Zealand a bunch of reptiles and the moa birds were wiped out by humans.
  I don't think most humans are ever thinking about genocide exactly (probably some are/were), but that they're focused on feeding and defending their communities and not considering the balance of the ecosystem.

Well usually it's more injure the child so mom stays close then murder both.

Those Japanese bruh they savage.

Hahahahahhahah look bruh we are all gonna die in a nuclear war so justice will be served....omgawd this is hilarious

Modest Mouse - King Rat

If there were fish artists, do you think they would draw depressing pictures of whales obliterating entire colonies just to feed themselves, or humans doing the same for entire ecosystems?

I'm all for taking better care of our ecosystems, but let's face it, a lot of animals are assholes whose lives literally depends on preying on other animals. I also don't like to hear plants scream: https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/24473/20191218/a-group-of-scientists-suggest-that-plants-feel-pain.htm

Here's the difference: humans are unique in our understanding of these systems and have the empathy and ability to make better choices.
I wouldn't expect a whale to track the ethical and environmental impacts of its pod's consumption, not because it shouldn't, but because it literally does not have the intellectual capacity to do so.
- To be fair, a lot of humans also seem to lack the intellectual capacity to consider the ethical implications of their consumption, specially when confronted with the unimaginable cruelty and suffering we cause to animals just to eat something tasty with low individual effort.
- The environment has been shaped by countless extinctions over millennia. The environment does not need white knights, it simply is. Another entirely is what we would like it to be. A whale "tracking the ethical and environmental impacts of its pod’s consumption" would be at a competitive disadvantage to those who don't. specially given that they are carnivores who don't have the privilege of omnivore white knighting. Not eating meat is them dying en masse unless one of them is able to survive off of plants somehow, if at all. Bulls will skewer anyone who go near their territory, and they are herbivores, nature does not share your concerns not because of intellectual capacity but because they don't need to.
  We can track the ethical and environmental impacts, but we only do so within our own perspective. It is a trait of any animal to show empathy for that which they do care about, and ignorance and even disdain for that which they do not. People who care about the feelings of animals, feelings they do have, do so because they have the luxury of not becoming fodder. Not only people, but animals in captivity who are fed and need not worry about where their food or if they are food have been shown to express this notion as well.
  Life exists to survive. Don't think your ethical and environmental concerns will afford you likewise considerations from other animals, from humans to whales alike. Just because you feel and because they feel does not mean they will care. You pick your fights, you want to care about whales, you might end up caring too much about everything before ever finding yourself getting kicked to the ground because of a dystopian hellscape that was too out of focus for you coming from your own species. Will you ask if the concerns you chose to erect walls around helped you out then?
  Our ecosystems are doomed to change just as we are, but we should not accelerate their change unless we are ready to change ourselves. Unfortunately, the entire ocean is changing now, and if anything major governments driven by profits have made sure we are not ready to change. F-ing whaling is the least of my worries nowadays because so much more has become concerning.

It's okay, it's for scientific research !

It’s not.
Here’s all you need to know:
https://ranflygenring.substack.com/p/my-whale-report
- I know it's not, it's just the garbage excuse they've been using for decades

I don't mean to be that guy but, whales are delicious. And you get approx 3500kg of meat (low estimate) from a minke whale, whereas you'll get about 75kg from a commercially farmed pig. Meaning you have to kill 46 pigs to get the same amount of meat as 1 whale.

Both pigs and whales are intelligent and emotionally developed animals. Whales live free and normal lives up until the point of their harpooning, whereas pigs are kept in filthy overcrowded conditions and kept alive with antibiotics because they wouldn't last long without them. They are of course eventually killed, but unlike cattle they don't get a quick death from a bolt gun to the head. No pigs are asphyxiated with carbon dioxide. They spend the last moments of their tortured existence choking to death.

That doesn't take into account the massive environmental impact of large pig farms. Because pigs eat more nitrogen rich food than other farm animals, their feces leads to over nitrification of anything downstream and eutrophication of waterways.

So if you are sitting there chomping a bacon sandwich and bitching and moaning about whaling, take a long hard look in the mirror, because the pig farming you support is immeasurably worse both ethically and environmentally.

I don't have a problem with fishing, but shouldn't catches be monitored and tracked to ensure we don't catch things that are endangered? This can mean switching the things we catch from time to time as fishing stocks change.
Also regulations being more harsh on recreational fishers than commercial ones is kinda bullshit. Why are massive trawlers held to a lower standard than a guy with a rod in his hand trying to catch his own dinner? That one varies heavily by location though. Where I live is generally pretty good, if I go 50 miles east its extremely restrictive.
Quick edit: Saw your other post that minke whale isn't endangered. Good to know. Yeah as long as they are following that I don't really care.
I get the point you're trying to make but if people ate whale the same way we ate pig the entire ocean ecosystem would have collapsed by now.
Not to mention almost all whale species are on their way to being endangered right now, while factory farmed pigs aren't.
Maybe just go with the line all meat is murder rather bacon is worse then whale flesh lmao.
- We did almost hunt whales to extinction, but it wasn’t meat we were hunting for, it was their oily fat.
- I don't have a problem with people eating meat. I eat meat. I just don't like the way it's farmed what I'd propose is a largely vegetarian diet punctuated by fish or wild meat every so often. Like fish twice a week and venison on Sunday or something. As for whale, it's not really commonly eaten in many places and as long as people don't take too many, it's not necessarily a bad thing.
- ~~Harm free~~ cultured meat isn't murder and it's meat
It's amazing that you can type out that novel and not once realize that whales are going towards extinction.
I don't eat pork, really.
But it's not because I considered pigs that smart, it's just a cruel practice, industrial farming. I'm fine with them being farmed if there's proper regulation.
I do eat deer, horse and reindeer among other things as well. Less so beef, or try to at least.
So I guess if you're talking about the whaling of the common minke whale which isn't a threatened species at the moment, and I'd look into the regulation and practices, I guess I'd be fine with eating some.
Although I would still attribute vastly higher intelligence to whales than deer and pigs. I mean, it's hard to measure, but pigs eat their own babies which they kill by accident. That's why they have like a dozen. And prey animals like deer are usually kinda frantic and not seemingly that smart.
Whereas whales, we don't even know how intelligent they are, but some species are definitely super intelligent and the communication they use is complex af.
Still, can't say you're wrong in your points, as I often make the same points for deer, but they breed kinda lot and they honestly have to be kept in check so they don't ruin environments whereas I'm pretty sure whales aren't considered pests anywhere? I mean, I'm not at all sure, but I am guessing. There's those ship destroying ones, but that seems targeted against humans and not them generally destroying their environment.

Poor whales. It's better to eat the children, that's why civilized people eat lamb and chicken.

Don't feel so bad for the whales ..... we do the same to human beings too

Somewhere deeply submerged inside your comment swims a yo momma joke.
- I harpooned his mama 3 times just last week.
- Somewhere deeply submerged inside your momma swims the semen of 4 separate unemployed alcoholics.
We do the same to everything. Man, humanity suck.