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How automatic transmission almost made sperm whales extinct

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Re: How automatic transmission almost made sperm whales extinct

#21

Post by Someone »

srean wrote: post #8

Sperm whales are incredibly interesting animals. Amongst their multiple records is their ability to dive deep, fast and long. They are the deepest diving warm blooded animal, they go close to 25 times deeper than their other equally famous and endangered cousin the blue whale. To give an idea of how deep they dive, here is an infographic http://i.imgur.com/ESp2j.jpg The jpg needs to be magnified to get the perspectiv…

They do dive deep, but there are various animals that I find more surprising. For example, Wikipedia claims 500m+ for emperor pinguins and 600m for elephant seals.

Also, IIRC, it is fairly hard to get the bends without using scuba gear (not that that says much, but I do not think free divers consider it a grey risk)

Re: How automatic transmission almost made sperm whales extinct

#22

Post by philwelch »

cq wrote: post #19

Sad how there's no discussion of the economy that enables stuff like this to happen. "Why were people so cruel and evil?" is a stupid question; it's not about cruelty or being "evil". It's about money. Don't expect people to be moral in this economic system. Morality is a weakness in a capitalist society, and you'll go out of business if you bring morality into a competitive business ecosystem. This is why we need to…

Can you name an economic system that doesn't have similar flaws? Economic systems only usable by hunter-gatherers don't count, unless your real argument is with civilization rather than capitalism.

Re: How automatic transmission almost made sperm whales extinct

#23

Post by JoachimSchipper »

_THE_PLAGUE wrote: post #4

Whaling needs to be brought back. Sperm whales are prevalent once again, so controlled harvesting of them should be possible just like hunting deer or anything else. This creates jobs, and contributes to finding renewable energy sources. Furthermore, because without whaling sperm whales have no predators they are getting abundant and taking up too much of the marine ecosystem's food supply. We need to limit their num…

Actually, sperm whales are still considered endangered, e.g. by http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/profile/speciesProfile.ac.... If you have any reliable sources that we "need to limit [sperm whales'] numbers for our own survival", please cite them.

Re: How automatic transmission almost made sperm whales extinct

#24

Post by guard-of-terra »

This is humiliating to us as a race of sentient species.

If we still badly need sperm oil, why don't we work to inject the relevant genes into some bacteria and get our oil in any quantities we want to? Or reproduce the process in any other way (synthesis, cell culture).

Re: How automatic transmission almost made sperm whales extinct

#26

Post by nickpinkston »

philwelch wrote: post #22
cq wrote: post #19

Sad how there's no discussion of the economy that enables stuff like this to happen. "Why were people so cruel and evil?" is a stupid question; it's not about cruelty or being "evil". It's about money. Don't expect people to be moral in this economic system. Morality is a weakness in a capitalist society, and you'll go out of business if you bring morality into a competitive business ecosystem. This is why we need to…

Can you name an economic system that doesn't have similar flaws? Economic systems only usable by hunter-gatherers don't count, unless your real argument is with civilization rather than capitalism.

Distributism has some interesting properties of socialism / capitalism, but would still have killed the whales probably... "The Venus Project" guys believe they can do this, but it just seems like a human enslavement program masked as human empowerment.

Re: How automatic transmission almost made sperm whales extinct

#27

Post by dexen »

philwelch wrote: post #22
cq wrote: post #19

Sad how there's no discussion of the economy that enables stuff like this to happen. "Why were people so cruel and evil?" is a stupid question; it's not about cruelty or being "evil". It's about money. Don't expect people to be moral in this economic system. Morality is a weakness in a capitalist society, and you'll go out of business if you bring morality into a competitive business ecosystem. This is why we need to…

Can you name an economic system that doesn't have similar flaws? Economic systems only usable by hunter-gatherers don't count, unless your real argument is with civilization rather than capitalism.

Let me reverse that question for you:

Can you name an ecosystem (as in, natural system) that doesn't have similar flaws?

A predator predates on its prey as long as feasible. When prey is overhunted, some of the predator population dies out (negative feedback, if you will), or the predator adopts (behavior or genome) to use alternative food sources, or to better utilize the resource. Nothing new to see here, move along ;-)

Not that I approve of predatory use of natural resources; we humans sure should know better. Just please don't make it sound unnatural.

Re: How automatic transmission almost made sperm whales extinct

#28

Post by joejohnson »

tl;dr

The reason why so many whales were killed in the 20th century was the distant ramifications of replacement of whale oil by petroleum. It took another 100 years to find solutions to these ramifications, and only then it became possible to save the whales. Ecological activism did not play significant role in all of these developments; neither did the numerous well-meaning international treaties, moratoriums, and other chest beating displays.

Re: How automatic transmission almost made sperm whales extinct

#29

Post by Symmetry »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #16
streptomycin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It boggles the mind why the car companies lobbied to keep whale hunting when their numbers were already so low. They wanted a few more years of automatic transmission working at then-current levels, and then what? The same mass transmission failures that happened, only without anymore whales left. Tragedy of the commons.

Tragedy of the unregulated commons.

Exactly. It would make sense for them to try to get around the ban individually, but here they are trying to arrange to all hunt whales collectively. I really don't understand why they didn't all say: "Let the other companies pay for the lobbying about this".

EDIT: I think I could actually explain this pretty well in a cognitive dissonance framework. "We hunt whale. We know we're good people. Therefore, good people support hunting whale. Only bad people don't defend things they do. Therefore, we have to defend whaling."

Re: How automatic transmission almost made sperm whales extinct

#30

Post by losethos »

God is just.

God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\SWIFT.TXT

second word, much harder to be pronounced; but reducing it to the English orthography, may be spelt thus, Houyhnhnm. I did not succeed in this so well as in the former; but after two or three farther trials, I had better fortune; and they both appeared amazed at my capacity.

After some further discourse, which I then conjectured might relate to me, the two friends took their leaves, with the same compliment of striking each other's hoof; and the gray made me signs that I should walk before him

------------

The question on justice is... is it equal to dammage inflicted on others or what was going through the shrink's head? I'd like to think the shrink has lived through hell.

God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\BIBLE.TXT

nd swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are.

8:22 And I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there; to the end thou mayest know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth.

8:23 And I will put a division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be.

8:24 And

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