Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Decline of Indian vultures

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 129 posts

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#111

Post by dreamcompiler »

jihadjihad wrote: post #82

> The scavenging bird would always hover over sprawling landfills, looking for cattle carcasses Reading this sentence gave me the unsettling feeling of cattle carcasses tossed into the trash, along with a feeling of, "surely that doesn't happen in the US?" It turns out that landfilling a carcass seems to be a legitimate option (item 3 at [0]), and isn't something I'd ever thought about before. 0: https://efotg.sc.ego…

It doesn't happen as often in the US because unlike in India, cattle in the US get eaten and thus they don't frequently die of natural causes.

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#112

Post by pvaldes »

VikingCoder wrote: post #80

I once had someone on Reddit comment back to me, "Why should I care about biodiversity?" As someone who grew up watching "Life on Earth," I could not relate to their question at all. It was like if someone asked me, "Why should I care about oxygen?" And of course, I had the shame that if I can't explain something simply, then I don't really understand it. I still don't have a great answer that I can offer. But wow, t…

> "Why should I care about biodiversity?"

The stupid question.

No matter how much time you spend answering it, they will ask exactly the same question a month later. Is a trap for grabbing time. The goal is that --they-- will be served with by --your-- attention, so is an ego boost move.

The best move here is oblique: "You are part of it, but is perfectly Ok if you aren't still ready to find the answer by yourself and benefit of that knowledge. Your live, your choice".

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#113

Post by pvaldes »

ecshafer wrote: post #97
VikingCoder wrote: post #80

I once had someone on Reddit comment back to me, "Why should I care about biodiversity?" As someone who grew up watching "Life on Earth," I could not relate to their question at all. It was like if someone asked me, "Why should I care about oxygen?" And of course, I had the shame that if I can't explain something simply, then I don't really understand it. I still don't have a great answer that I can offer. But wow, t…

I think there are some really good responses from the polyculture movement in agriculture. I am not a biologist or farmer or chemist, so this is at best my five year old explanation. But different organisms use different chemicals, and produce different chemicals as byproducts. Polyculture farming is when you plant multiple types of plants in a single field. So one row might be beans, one row corn, one row squash (th…

I heard about a man at his forties that found some insects in their room. He was not interested on entomology. No time to study their family or type. Just dosed them with a generous dose of insecticide, and got to sleep in the same room.

That man was unable to walk on the next morning by a 'mysterious' irreversible nerve damage, and is still in a wheelchair since that day. Bad things happen, sadly. But happen more often to those that don't care about biodiversity

Maybe people should start to care.

Maybe if something kills animals is in our best interest to understand that we don't want this stuff around. We are animals too.

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#114

Post by ethbr1 »

fuzzythinker wrote: post #109
Coolbeanstoo wrote: post #20

99% invisible did a good episode on the loss of Indian vultures and its effects. I found it quite interesting. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/towers-of-silence/

Radio Lab's "Corpse Demon" is great too. https://radiolab.org/podcast/corpse-demon

Cannot recommend enough. One of my favorite Radio Lab episodes.

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#115

Post by radicaldreamer »

pvaldes wrote: post #113
ecshafer wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are some really good responses from the polyculture movement in agriculture. I am not a biologist or farmer or chemist, so this is at best my five year old explanation. But different organisms use different chemicals, and produce different chemicals as byproducts. Polyculture farming is when you plant multiple types of plants in a single field. So one row might be beans, one row corn, one row squash (th…

I heard about a man at his forties that found some insects in their room. He was not interested on entomology. No time to study their family or type. Just dosed them with a generous dose of insecticide, and got to sleep in the same room. That man was unable to walk on the next morning by a 'mysterious' irreversible nerve damage, and is still in a wheelchair since that day. Bad things happen, sadly. But happen more of…

Do you know what insecticide he used?

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#116

Post by j-bos »

apwell23 wrote: post #44
j-bos wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chatgpt's context configurations already allow susers to get reposnses mimicing specific speech styles. So no, this is not all we will get because better already exists, these fools just didn't use it.

can you create an example in this post and see how many upvotes it gets.

Pretty sure that'd violate the rules. But you can search on twitter for some examples contexts to use. Or experiment yourself.

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#117

Post by RoyalHenOil »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #115
pvaldes wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard about a man at his forties that found some insects in their room. He was not interested on entomology. No time to study their family or type. Just dosed them with a generous dose of insecticide, and got to sleep in the same room. That man was unable to walk on the next morning by a 'mysterious' irreversible nerve damage, and is still in a wheelchair since that day. Bad things happen, sadly. But happen more of…

Do you know what insecticide he used?

Many common insecticides work through a neurotoxic effect, particularly general insecticides that kill a wide range of insects and arachnids. You want to be very, very cautious using neurotoxic insecticides because most of them can cause neurological damage in mammals as well.

The safest insecticides tend to be slow-acting and target only particular species, but most of these are rare outside of agricultural use. The average homeowner does not want to whip out a magnifying glass and a field guide to identify the species, sort through a broad collection of specialised insecticides to select the one that targets it, and then wait a few days for the bug to die. They just want a basic spray that will kill everything, and fast.

Unfortunately, such sprays come with a risk of neurological injury to yourself, your children, and your pets if you don't follow the safety instructions to the letter. You don't want anyone eating any of it, breathing it, or getting it on their skin/fur.

I recommend just getting a flyswatter instead.

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#118

Post by Teever »

ffsm8 wrote: post #85
nyc_data_geek wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we are all interdependent, and monocultures fail. Loss of biodiversity means you are more likely to die of starvation. Loss of habitat means you are more likely to die of disease. Loss of biodiversity means less resiliency to a changing climate and world. We get a lot of our medicines and medical treatments from plants and animals, historically and to this day. If not for those creatures, these avenues of pro…

You're making it sound a lot more straightforward then it is. We're currently producing incredible amounts of food through monocultures, which is kinda the opposite of biodiversity. So the relationship with starvation is objectively inverted: we sacrificed it to boost yields! Resilience is another thing that's very hard to reason about, because why would resilience matter to you if your race dies out? Sure, some anim…

On a long enough timeline it is that straight forward.

These monocultures and the carbon-based energy systems and the capitalist systems that depend on will fail and millions will die.

We are heading for a cliff.

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#119

Post by pvaldes »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #115
pvaldes wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard about a man at his forties that found some insects in their room. He was not interested on entomology. No time to study their family or type. Just dosed them with a generous dose of insecticide, and got to sleep in the same room. That man was unable to walk on the next morning by a 'mysterious' irreversible nerve damage, and is still in a wheelchair since that day. Bad things happen, sadly. But happen more of…

Do you know what insecticide he used?

Obviously a neurotoxin, but I don't know the specific product. He is a relative of friends of a friend; and happened some decades ago.

People don't need to know if an insect is harmful or inoffensive, but just "it has more than four legs, kill it with fire!" is a moronic way to deal with this planet of arthropods. And it can destroy your life.

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#120

Post by pvaldes »

aurareturn wrote: post #2

Question: Did another animal take the role of the vultures? Nature is very efficient. If there opportunity, it seems like some animals might evolve to fill that role.

Striped Hyaenas would be the other choice, but the relationship with humans is more complicated
Post reply on HN