The Ocean is Broken (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#71

Post by o_s_m » Wed, Feb 05, 2014, 7:25 PM UTC

pygy_ wrote: post #49

sliverstorm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of anything at the grocery store that doesn't have some sort of negative implication. Heck, just driving to the grocery store burns fuel and supports the automotive industry. Biking to the grocery store burns food (of which all food has negative implications) and supports the bicycle industry. You can work yourself into knots over it; there is no way in which you can eat food and not have some negative…

That's patent nonsense. The problem is not consumption/destruction per se, but the fact that we destroy more than what the planet can build out of solar energy. We're burning the reserves and the means of production.

What about the materials used in the solar panels, in addition to the process used to make them.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#72

Post by rosser » Wed, Feb 05, 2014, 7:33 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #29

frankzinger wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As someone already said, we should not worry about our planet, for it is going to be here, long long after we are finished. We should be worried about ourselves." See, this is something I don't get about most people. Does nobody else feel sympathy for individual animals ? We're inflicting immeasurable amounts of suffering and death and nothing will ever make that less of a tragedy.

That's a particular kind of scope insensitivity on your part, though: although we're inflicting suffering and death... so is the rest of nature, greater in most cases by enough signifiant figures that our effect gets lost in the noise. For every individual animal suffering at the hands of a human, millions die of starvation and disease in exactly their "adaptive habitat"--when they're not slowly chewed to death by pr…

A lion doesn't know any better than to eat a gazelle.

You do.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#73

Post by derefr » Wed, Feb 05, 2014, 7:36 PM UTC

frankzinger wrote: post #55

derefr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a particular kind of scope insensitivity on your part, though: although we're inflicting suffering and death... so is the rest of nature, greater in most cases by enough signifiant figures that our effect gets lost in the noise. For every individual animal suffering at the hands of a human, millions die of starvation and disease in exactly their "adaptive habitat"--when they're not slowly chewed to death by pr…

Some good points, but let's look at the context: millions of fish and other sea animals die as bycatch every day. This is a huge amount of death and suffering that can be avoided and serves no purpose whatsoever. Plus, we're humans, we have the power to manipulate and control (to a certain extent) nature, so saying "we're doing no worse than nature" is not good enough, IMHO. It's within our power to do less damage, a…

Doing "better" or "worse" than nature in human activities is a social more that sounds nice to humans, not a sound consequentialist policy for making animal lives better. Looking at the relative scale, you have to realize that cutting back on things humans do would have a lot less of an impact on a "global species-neutral utilitarian metaethics" than changing the things animals themselves do to one-another.

Here's an analogous situation: residential garbage accounts for about 1% of total garbage. The real way to "reduce, reuse, recycle" is to lobby industry to do those things. But instead, we see constant attempts to get people to put things in blue bins instead of green bins. Why? Because residential recycling is a mechanism for signalling pro-social values, and people can do it conspicuously to prove they're "better than you." So it gets emphasized, and the real problem--industrial waste--gets de-emphasized.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#74

Post by pygy_ » Wed, Feb 05, 2014, 7:37 PM UTC

o_s_m wrote: post #71

pygy_ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's patent nonsense. The problem is not consumption/destruction per se, but the fact that we destroy more than what the planet can build out of solar energy. We're burning the reserves and the means of production.

What about the materials used in the solar panels, in addition to the process used to make them.

I was referring to photosynthesis, not solar panels.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#75

Post by randallsquared » Wed, Feb 05, 2014, 7:38 PM UTC

leobelle wrote: post #62

falcolas wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that every single thing we could eat would have an impact on the environment (typically negatively), it's not as simple as abstaining from eating a particular substance.

> it's not as simple as abstaining from eating a particular substance. Not eating fish is a pretty simple way to help prevent unsustainable fish depopulation. I'm a bit incredulous that anyone would argue this point. Anyone other than individuals who want to rationalize their current destructive habits.

Have you worked out how much time of species existence, statistically, a single person not eating fish can save? Would you expect it to be more than a fraction of a second?

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#76

Post by pickleport » Wed, Feb 05, 2014, 7:39 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #31

CalRobert wrote: post #4

I sometimes wonder if shopping for groceries is as frustrating for most people. I like Nutella, but when I see Palm Oil as the second ingredient I picture dead orangutans. I like beef, but I sympathize for a fellow mammal and think of the enormous amounts of diverted water and fertilizer runoff that goes in to producing feed. I enjoy fish, but thinking of this makes me sick to my stomach. I enjoy many beverages that…

I can't think of anything at the grocery store that doesn't have some sort of negative implication. Heck, just driving to the grocery store burns fuel and supports the automotive industry. Biking to the grocery store burns food (of which all food has negative implications) and supports the bicycle industry. You can work yourself into knots over it; there is no way in which you can eat food and not have some negative…

You make it sound like your decadences cost little ("10 percent externality") and give you lots of happiness, when it's the other way around -- things like eating cattle, fish -- things like driving -- have huge environmental costs and probably don't make you that much happier or better off.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#77

Post by iamjustin » Wed, Feb 05, 2014, 7:40 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #50

ASpring wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I am an animal whisperer but I think most animals would prefer to be in the wild for 5-6 years and then die a gruesome death compared to being locked in a tiny, literally shitty, cell as part of a CFO for 1-2 years and then dying a slightly less gruesome death.

Sure, but again, that's a failure to do the math. Humans put one animal in a cage; nature infects ten-thousand with worms and rips off the limbs of ten-thousand more. Our impact, however horrible per-animal , is lost in the noise when multiplied by the number of animals affected.

I'm not sure that affects the morality of it though.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#78

Post by snake_plissken » Wed, Feb 05, 2014, 7:41 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #4

I sometimes wonder if shopping for groceries is as frustrating for most people. I like Nutella, but when I see Palm Oil as the second ingredient I picture dead orangutans. I like beef, but I sympathize for a fellow mammal and think of the enormous amounts of diverted water and fertilizer runoff that goes in to producing feed. I enjoy fish, but thinking of this makes me sick to my stomach. I enjoy many beverages that…

I can't tell if this is supposed to be sarcastic or not.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#79

Post by andrewfong » Wed, Feb 05, 2014, 7:55 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #61

What would go into building a vessel designed to remove all the junk from the ocean? How would it capture and process the waste?

There was (and maybe still is) a project to build an open-source low-power autonomous robot to clean up oil spills. https://sites.google.com/a/opensailing.net/protei/

Not sure if still active. Presumably, you could build something to pick up trash in general.

Bigger issue though is the trawling -- junk or no junk, trawling is incredibly devastating to the ecosystem.

Re: The Ocean is Broken (2013)

#80

Post by sliverstorm » Wed, Feb 05, 2014, 7:58 PM UTC

pickleport wrote: post #76

sliverstorm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of anything at the grocery store that doesn't have some sort of negative implication. Heck, just driving to the grocery store burns fuel and supports the automotive industry. Biking to the grocery store burns food (of which all food has negative implications) and supports the bicycle industry. You can work yourself into knots over it; there is no way in which you can eat food and not have some negative…

You make it sound like your decadences cost little ("10 percent externality") and give you lots of happiness, when it's the other way around -- things like eating cattle, fish -- things like driving -- have huge environmental costs and probably don't make you that much happier or better off.

1) I'm not talking about decadence, I'm talking about burning a little extra calories to engage in sports and games and such. Or choosing foods that are not the very best in terms of externalities, but still OK and also good for your health. You could live on nothing but rice, but it would totally ruin your health, and then have you not wasted all that rice?

2) Engaging in sports do not increase your average daily caloric consumption much. Once your body normalizes to your activity level, your BMR is something like 75%-90% of your total calorie consumption for the day. So the incremental cost is indeed low.

3) Fish can be a very economical meat. Feed conversion ratio is fantastic. To my knowledge most environmental damage comes from irresponsible fishers/farmers, not from inherent problems with fish. Crickets (one of the few even more efficient meats) are simply not available.