Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again • Hacker News Board

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#61

Post by serf » Thu, Jan 09, 2025, 4:23 AM UTC

xp84 wrote: post #20

hombre_fatal wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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>Are lions evil?

lions aren't consciously deciding against a rationally plausible alternative, they are eating what is available.

similarly human cannibalization stories generally center around the concept that the people driven to such actions are given no sensible alternatives (airplane crash in a snow mountain comes to mind) -- so we don't presume they were evil, we presume they were desperate.

lions lack the intelligence and forethought to see the consequences of long term decisions. We as humans have gauged and measured the effects of ranching on our environment, the effects of meat consumption on our physiology, etc.

so, to answer your question : If the lion was able to empathize and relate to the suffering of the prey, if the lion was able to relate its' actions to the destruction of its' environment, if the lion had sensible alternatives that avoided long term consequences while still satiating hunger, if the lion could accurately forecast the future and STILL decide upon the destructive course of action...

...yes, an argument could be made that that lion might be evil.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#62

Post by mulmen » Thu, Jan 09, 2025, 4:24 AM UTC

csomar wrote: post #42

cowfriend wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost this. The better answer is because we want to get ALL the milk. So instead of letting the mother cow nurse her calf for the first few months and then start taking her milk for our use, the more "modern" practice is to separate the calf immediately. Which means if you are drinking milk, you are drinking it from seriously depressed cows. I wonder how this contributes to our culture's growing mood of depression?…

The real crime is that alternatives are expensive due to how our new economy is structured. I personally prefer oatmilk (oatside) to dairy milk. However, it’s too damn expensive that I find myself only drinking it from time to time. Now how is a vegetarian milk more expensive than a full cycle of cow milk (cows are too burdening to maintain) you might ask?!? My guess is that we are seeing something along the lines of…

Their margin is your opportunity. If you think oat milk is overpriced then simply start making and selling it at a lower price.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#63

Post by Klonoar » Thu, Jan 09, 2025, 4:24 AM UTC

bamboozled wrote: post #16

qwertyuiop_ wrote: post #7

https://freefromharm.org/animal-farmer-turned-vegan/jackie-s...

I believe this is nice, but how do regular people actually find the time to care about this stuff? If you have kids, bills, a job, listen to crap from politicians all day, where do you find the time to be this empathetic. My kids school gives them milk as part of lunch, my kid likes milk now. You have to live in a very special world to get around this. I was a vegetarian for a while, I was mostly starving hungry and…

> I was mostly starving hungry

What? Vegetarian doesn't necessarily mean you lose all sources of animal protein, there's no real reason to be starving on the diet.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#64

Post by spondylosaurus » Thu, Jan 09, 2025, 4:25 AM UTC

csomar wrote: post #42

cowfriend wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost this. The better answer is because we want to get ALL the milk. So instead of letting the mother cow nurse her calf for the first few months and then start taking her milk for our use, the more "modern" practice is to separate the calf immediately. Which means if you are drinking milk, you are drinking it from seriously depressed cows. I wonder how this contributes to our culture's growing mood of depression?…

The real crime is that alternatives are expensive due to how our new economy is structured. I personally prefer oatmilk (oatside) to dairy milk. However, it’s too damn expensive that I find myself only drinking it from time to time. Now how is a vegetarian milk more expensive than a full cycle of cow milk (cows are too burdening to maintain) you might ask?!? My guess is that we are seeing something along the lines of…

I don't think non-dairy milks are artificially expensive so much as cow milk is artificially cheap. At least in the US. Federal dairy subsidies and all that.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#65

Post by pulkitsh1234 » Thu, Jan 09, 2025, 4:27 AM UTC

vivekd wrote: post #58

pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a long time humans did not breed animals for the sake of eating them, they used to hunt (just like a lion). No one was guilt-tripping anyone in those days (I hope), as we had to survive (not thrive). The situation has changed completely in the modern world. We have created meat factories, forcefully torturing millions of animals daily, and have somehow agreed upon what animals to kill and not to kill. A lion will…

Having seem children play I think many in would be quite comfortable killing a pig and draining it's blood if they could. You see children chasing pigeons - and I don't think it's just to hug them if they catch one. I say this without commenting in favor of either side of this debate which I am undecided on and reading with interest. But I think it's important not to shy away from the reality that cruelty and the des…

Sure, but what about eating?

What you mention is a typical destructive behavior noticed in kids and a tendency of violence/killing which even adults have. Key point here is: will they also eat the bird after killing it? Is the killing done here for the sake of eating ? or for the sake of enjoyment/destruction (whatever other reason).

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#66

Post by vasco » Thu, Jan 09, 2025, 4:29 AM UTC

pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #56

vasco wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another counterargument is: pets. Somehow all meat eaters gasp on the idea of eating their pet, so they are not morally okay to eat an animal (as you claimed). You seem to think humans are rational if-this-then-that machines but we're perfectly irrational enough to hold two dissenting views at the same time very closely. It doesn't prove much that people like their pets, serial killers also like their own families.

Should we move towards irrationality or rationality? If being rational is marginally better we should move towards that. We want less serial killers in the society. So pointing out the fact about pets is to force meat eaters to consider their irrationality face to face. We have done this throughout our evolution. Some people notice the irrational things in our behavior and try to reason with other humans why doing th…

I hope to have the discernment to tell the difference between the irrational things I cannot change from the ones I can, and I don't think I'm changing this, so I accept it.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#67

Post by ValentineC » Thu, Jan 09, 2025, 4:29 AM UTC

vasco wrote: post #45

csomar wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real crime is that alternatives are expensive due to how our new economy is structured. I personally prefer oatmilk (oatside) to dairy milk. However, it’s too damn expensive that I find myself only drinking it from time to time. Now how is a vegetarian milk more expensive than a full cycle of cow milk (cows are too burdening to maintain) you might ask?!? My guess is that we are seeing something along the lines of…

> Now how is a vegetarian milk more expensive than a full cycle of cow milk (cows are too burdening to maintain) you might ask?!? Not enough scale because little demand compared to regular milk.

What's baffling is that the supply chain for non-dairy milk is so much simpler, since all non-dairy milk can be packaged as UHT which doesn't need any form of refrigeration until open.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#68

Post by cloverich » Thu, Jan 09, 2025, 4:31 AM UTC

bobxmax wrote: post #3

> Tahlequah is using much of her energy to cling to the dead calf, which weighs about 300 pounds, and she is unable to forage for food, scientists said during a news briefing on Thursday. They said that her closely knit pod was supporting her. Other female orcas, especially her sister, have been observed to be consistently at her side. Utterly tragic. It's also singularly evil the devastation humans have brought to s…

I always have mixed feelings about this. It's sad. But how is her pod supporting her exactly? Are they bringing her food? If so is that food the dead offspring of other animals? I feel these kinds of stories often have a kind of selective empathy for the focused animal. Ultimately nature is extraordinarily cruel absent humans; imo humans are the only hope for something better, if such a thing even makes sense.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#69

Post by erikerikson » Thu, Jan 09, 2025, 4:31 AM UTC

pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #44

mystified5016 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practicality. To put it bluntly, the majority of humans do not think it is immoral in principle to kill and eat an animal. After all, that's how biological life just is. At an individual level, you can choose to think it's wrong but you do have to simply accept the fact that not everyone agrees, and very likely there will always be someone who disagrees. To most people, killing an animal for food is not a problem con…

> The majority of humans do not think it is immoral in principle to kill and eat an animal This is wrong, the majority of humans may think that way because they don't have to kill any animal personally, they are disconnected from the "killing" part of the whole equation. Let's see how many people eat and kill animals (i.e. hunting) once we remove meat factories. Another counterargument is: pets. Somehow all meat eate…

My pet chickens and ducks had happy, idyllic, safe lives until I humanely slaughtered, butchered, and ate them. I have also slaughtered and eaten lamb and fish.

I care about suffering so I minimize it, maximize well being, and eat meat because it tastes delicious and is calorically and nutritionally dense. I also eat more vegetables than the average person, many of which come out of the garden I work.

I have been afforded a much less idyllic life than is sustainable but I still hope for a quick, inexpensive death for myself.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#70

Post by ValentineC » Thu, Jan 09, 2025, 4:31 AM UTC

spondylosaurus wrote: post #64

csomar wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real crime is that alternatives are expensive due to how our new economy is structured. I personally prefer oatmilk (oatside) to dairy milk. However, it’s too damn expensive that I find myself only drinking it from time to time. Now how is a vegetarian milk more expensive than a full cycle of cow milk (cows are too burdening to maintain) you might ask?!? My guess is that we are seeing something along the lines of…

I don't think non-dairy milks are artificially expensive so much as cow milk is artificially cheap. At least in the US. Federal dairy subsidies and all that.

Oat/almond milk suppliers are definitely pricing them artificially expensive.

Here in Singapore, where soy milk has been around for decades, soy milk in both fresh and UHT forms tend to be much cheaper than dairy.