Alaska snow crab season canceled after disappearance of an estimated 1B crabs • Hacker News Board

Re: Alaska snow crab season canceled after disappearance of an estimated 1B crabs

#281

Post by FpUser » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 1:49 AM UTC

b112 wrote: post #268

akira2501 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you believe in the rule of law and human rights, then globalism seems like a natural consequence, as does policing the world. You might ask, what problems is globalism going to solve that treaties and national cooperation can't today? More importantly, what will those mechanisms be and will they be just as vulnerable to the problems of corruption and interconnection that plague the meaningful enforcement of trea…

You might ask, what problems is globalism going to solve that treaties and national cooperation can't today? More importantly, what will those mechanisms be and will they be just as vulnerable to the problems of corruption and interconnection that plague the meaningful enforcement of treaties and agreements today? The difference is, much as the same with a democratic nation. In a democratic nation, citizens collectiv…

>"...encouraged by various means ; fines, jail, etc, to obey that collective decision"

Encouraged my ass. I would call it what it is - threat of violence by governments.

Re: Alaska snow crab season canceled after disappearance of an estimated 1B crabs

#282

Post by mickdeek86 » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 2:01 AM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #278

mickdeek86 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in the Alaska fishery and am typing this while sat in one of the largest fish processing facilities in the western hemisphere. I have the spare time because, well, there's no crabs coming in and everything else is mostly out of season. About half of the boats on Discovery belong to the company I work for, the largest in the US. So I'll take the opportunity to share some on-the-ground observations. Overfishing:…

Mick, thanks for taking the time to share your observations and expertise about this industry. Just want to say that my point about sharing the Canadian cod industry collapse was to illustrate the long-term effects - it still hasn't recovered 30 years later. And maybe that dovetails with what you're saying about indie crabbers being driven out, although from what I understand of the Canadian situation there is basica…

I agree things aren't looking good long-term. I didn't mean to attack your point specifically but to address the thread as a whole. The Atlantic cod collapse certainly was caused by overfishing, but the situation isn't all that comparable beyond the semi-permanence of the loss. The north Atlantic had a true tragedy-of-the-commons situation, this is most likely climate change, which is even more discouraging.

I'm in PLC/controls, so no expert on commercial fishing. Just hear/saying from those who are.

Re: Alaska snow crab season canceled after disappearance of an estimated 1B crabs

#283

Post by Test0129 » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 2:14 AM UTC

troutwine wrote: post #119

tylersmith wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If humans don't buy them they have no value and may as well be extinct anyways.

What a horrifying worldview.

Crass, sure, but true. Humanity is the reason certain animals are even capable of continuing existing. For example, chickens, pigs, cows, etc. The populations (and genetic diversity) would be far less if they were allowed to roam naturally all the time. With farmers releasing cows to free range, as well as keeping and breeding cows, the cow as a species is guaranteed to survive.

It's a complicated subject but the simplest answer goes back to the circle of life. There are two survival strategies of a species. Either becoming a predator, or become very useful prey. Which, in crass terms, basically means that if humans don't buy it (don't eat it, therefore don't insure it's survival), it will die out (e.g. it's "worthless") if it cannot evolve into a predator species.

Re: Alaska snow crab season canceled after disappearance of an estimated 1B crabs

#284

Post by timcavel » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 2:18 AM UTC

No post body was provided.

Re: Alaska snow crab season canceled after disappearance of an estimated 1B crabs

#285

Post by int_19h » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 2:22 AM UTC

akira2501 wrote: post #261

hayst4ck wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have large cognitive dissonance to "we shouldn't be the world police" and "globalism is bad." At face value I agree, but... If you believe in the rule of law and human rights, then globalism seems like a natural consequence, as does policing the world. What would happen if you let China have global hegemony and they become the over-fishing police? What type of enforcement do you think they might have (or non enforc…

> If you believe in the rule of law and human rights, then globalism seems like a natural consequence, as does policing the world. You might ask, what problems is globalism going to solve that treaties and national cooperation can't today? More importantly, what will those mechanisms be and will they be just as vulnerable to the problems of corruption and interconnection that plague the meaningful enforcement of trea…

The problem with our current approach to globalism is that it is built on top of a political system - representative democracy - that doesn't really scale well. Or rather it does on paper, but it's hard to see how one person "representing" literally millions of people can be effectively held to account by any of them. And a single world government - even a proto-government with just enough teeth to enforce the basics - would require even worse ratios.

But there are other systems. E.g. in a council democracy, on every level, every delegate is personally responsible to few enough people from the level below that accountability can be near-instant. You can't add levels indefinitely, either, but I think that the breakdown (of democratic governance) there still happens at scales much larger than with representative democracy.

Re: Alaska snow crab season canceled after disappearance of an estimated 1B crabs

#286

Post by int_19h » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 2:24 AM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #271

sharkjacobs wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not?

Because the West in general is ideologically cohesive and generally follows a country which, alone, is a sole superpower. China is never going to be able to outproduce the ~billion people in the west economically, and will never be able to have an overwhelming military edge over NATO sufficient to set up and for at least a decade enforce its own version of the liberal international order. The US was able to do so bec…

"Never" is a very long time. I could imagine similar arguments being made 100 years ago against the notion of China becoming a global superpower.

Re: Alaska snow crab season canceled after disappearance of an estimated 1B crabs

#287

Post by int_19h » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 2:25 AM UTC

MichaelCollins wrote: post #179

revscat wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which will likely involve not raising animals for slaughter at all, but rather things like Impossible/Beyond meats.

These have flopped. Most people who like meat want real meat. Most people who don't like meat don't want fake meat. The remainder is the market for fake meats, and it has proven small.

I really like meat, and I actually like the Impossible Whopper.

Re: Alaska snow crab season canceled after disappearance of an estimated 1B crabs

#288

Post by Filligree » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 2:30 AM UTC

EricE wrote: post #273

Tozen wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the world doesn't get over fossil fuel addiction and allowing oil companies to push us to near extinction for their profits, really soon, the worse is yet to come.

Talk to a European about that evil addiction to fossil fuel this winter.

Hi, I'm a European.

We should have switched to nuclear decades ago.

Re: Alaska snow crab season canceled after disappearance of an estimated 1B crabs

#289

Post by int_19h » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 2:31 AM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #246

virgildotcodes wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, there are a lot of horrible ways that people die. Cancer, alzheimer's, violence, crippling injuries, chronic pain and depression leading to suicide, war, etc. etc. Does this justify us enslaving people and torturing them (debatedly) less in a factory farm and slaughtering them at a young age?

If we were truly logically consistent creatures then yes but that's not really how it works. We carve out an exception for ourselves because some combination of not wanting this to happen to us and not doing it to others is the trade and because species that don't kill their own probably did better so it's a deeply ingrained evolutionary instinct. Which by the way is why "othering" is such a powerful and dangerous th…

"Othering" is itself an evolutionary development. Innate human altruism is deeply parochial, which comes out in many experiments, but especially those with young children. And it makes perfect sense when you think about it from the "selfish gene" perspective. We also know from observation that genocidal wars are something that other apes practice occasionally, so "othering" within species is likely something that predates our speciation as humans.

Re: Alaska snow crab season canceled after disappearance of an estimated 1B crabs

#290

Post by int_19h » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 2:35 AM UTC

hayst4ck wrote: post #205

chrisfrantz wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, if you have to include the word torture in the descriptor of food production than there’s already an ethical problem to solve.

What is the ethical problem? What kind of solution would there be? How would that philosophical thinking apply to other apex predators, such as spiders who poison and wrap their prey while they hopeless wriggle to death for minutes or snakes who suffocate their prey to death sometimes breaking major bones, or a cat killing a rodent for fun? Do we have a responsibility to intervene against other torturous predators, w…

Other apex predators don't have the intellectual capacity to develop abstract ethics, so they can't be held responsible for the suffering they instictively cause. But we do have the capacity, we have used it to develop our ethics, and now we're responsible for the conclusions that stem from it.

If you mean it in a sense of whether we're morally obligated to prevent predation in general - I actually think that we are in the (very, very, very) long term, but the limiting factor is the ability to do so without collapsing the ecosystem. If there were a magic wand that you could waive and make "the lion lie down with the lamb" - with full knowledge that both species would still do fine in this new arrangement - I think it would be highly unethical to not use it.