Japanese fleet catches 177 whales in latest hunt • Hacker News Board

Re: Japanese fleet catches 177 whales in latest hunt

#71

Post by yayana » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 8:22 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #44

krylon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I do not see how eating a dog or cat is morally worse than eating a cow. I am not a vegetarian, but honestly, that is mostly due to laziness and a fair amount of hypocrisy. And yes, the thought of eating a dolphin or a humpback whale is kind of sickening. I guess that is largely due to Greenpeace and their "Save the Whales" stickers that I remember as being nearly omnipresent in my childhood. The difference, I…

But Minke whales are not close to extinction; isn't objecting to eating a Minke whale because blue whales are endangered something like objecting to eating chicken because passenger pigeons were overhunted?

I don't think your analogy holds. The big issue with granting commercial hunting rights is that you have hunters (and related industries) launching political attacks to expand them using the income and playing the victim when you take them away due to resulting stock decline.

Once they are out of minke they will legally or illegally hunt something else. (Whether it is one or the other is just a matter of how much money they have to corrupt policy verse hunting completely illegally like a portion of the fish industry sneaking around the coasts of poor nations.)

If they can't play by rules they don't agree with now then they aren't going to play by them when they have expanded on minke, represent a larger portion of some GDP and are looking to keep their larger fleet financed.

Re: Japanese fleet catches 177 whales in latest hunt

#72

Post by uhtred » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 8:23 PM UTC

honkycat wrote: post #59

yboris wrote: post #2

My head spins about how schizophrenic the vast majority of the population is when it comes to meat consumption and love of animals. People shed tears over pets, yet pay others to abuse animals (factory farming) just to enjoy a meal that's equivalently tasty to easily available options. People will condemn the Japanese for eating whales or dolphins, the Chinese for eating dogs, meanwhile they themselves cause the suff…

Explain how hunting a severely endangered whale is the same thing as killing one of the 1.5 billion cows on the planet.

From the cow's or whale's perspective, it's the same.

Re: Japanese fleet catches 177 whales in latest hunt

#73

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 8:23 PM UTC

wpdev_63 wrote: post #11

yboris wrote: post #2

My head spins about how schizophrenic the vast majority of the population is when it comes to meat consumption and love of animals. People shed tears over pets, yet pay others to abuse animals (factory farming) just to enjoy a meal that's equivalently tasty to easily available options. People will condemn the Japanese for eating whales or dolphins, the Chinese for eating dogs, meanwhile they themselves cause the suff…

This is why I am incredibly excited about the impossible burger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebNeUihciDI It's the ultimate fake burger that has a 1/10 of the environment while being vegan. Now if there was an equivalent for chicken then it I would never eat another animal again!

I haven't tried the Impossible Burger as, as far as I'm aware, it doesn't exist within a 50 mile radius of where I live, but Beyond Meat's Beyond Burger is pretty great too.

Re: Japanese fleet catches 177 whales in latest hunt

#74

Post by yboris » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 8:24 PM UTC

52-6F-62 wrote: post #27

yboris wrote: post #2

My head spins about how schizophrenic the vast majority of the population is when it comes to meat consumption and love of animals. People shed tears over pets, yet pay others to abuse animals (factory farming) just to enjoy a meal that's equivalently tasty to easily available options. People will condemn the Japanese for eating whales or dolphins, the Chinese for eating dogs, meanwhile they themselves cause the suff…

I don't quite understand what you mean by schizophrenic in with what you describe. Isn't it possible it isn't a unified issue? I grew up in a rural region and I've seen the production first hand both on medium-sized farms to single hunts. I have had pets I've loved and watched them die and it made me sad. I also have an issue with the mass whaling because we know of the extinction risks and the goal when eating an an…

I hold that conscious experience is likely the only thing that can matter morally. In the US, in fact, the vast majority of meat comes from factory farms - a place where sentient beings are living lives not worth living (roughly speaking torture). Buying meat thus results in market incentives to produce more meat in the future. So by buying meat, people are implicitly paying for more animal torture. Individual choices not to eat meat decrease the future supply*

It doesn't matter whether in the past things were different. It doesn't matter that other animals eat animals. What matters is that each of us has a choice when buying food in a restaurant or supermarket. A choice that directly results in less or more suffering of sentient beings.

* footnote in case you're curious: supermarkets are receptive to consumption patterns -- either at per-unit level, or at threshold they buy in bulk -- so you stand a chance of being the purchase that results in dozens more animal purchases. Factory farms are similarly responsive to market consumption patterns. Economists have studied the market elasticity of animal product sales and individual decision not to purchase does translate in decrease in future production.

Re: Japanese fleet catches 177 whales in latest hunt

#75

Post by uhtred » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 8:26 PM UTC

honkycat wrote: post #53

grumbalina wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, good job conflating a whole bunch of very different aspects to feed your narrative; pretty much guarantees no one can support your position of one.

False: Pedantic vegans will support OPs position, and feign ignorance at your point because it's convenient for them to pretend killing a severely endangered whale is the same thing as killing one of the 1.5 billion cows on the planet. Don't expect any better either. Outright lies and false equivalences like this are all they seem capable of. They have been singing the same song for a decade and can't pack in the smu…

But the message is working otherwise there wouldn't be a huge increase in the amount of and interest in vegan food products in the last few years :)

Re: Japanese fleet catches 177 whales in latest hunt

#76

Post by dclowd9901 » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 8:27 PM UTC

jlmorton wrote: post #43

52-6F-62 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite understand what you mean by schizophrenic in with what you describe. Isn't it possible it isn't a unified issue? I grew up in a rural region and I've seen the production first hand both on medium-sized farms to single hunts. I have had pets I've loved and watched them die and it made me sad. I also have an issue with the mass whaling because we know of the extinction risks and the goal when eating an an…

You seem to have missed OPs point. Many of us in the West find hunting wild whales, or dolphins to be repugnant. Meanwhile, we're perfectly happy to eat factory farmed pigs. And, yes, we do morally owe it to nature not to eat animals. The natural corollary is human rights. Human rights is just a philosophy. Most of us adhere to it today, but we have not for most of our existence. The default has been to kill large nu…

"And, yes, we do morally owe it to nature not to eat animals." I think you're right about this, but you don't quite say why. We owe it because we're capable of not doing it, and still surviving as a species. We can't blame mountain lions for eating rabbits, because what the hell else are they going to do?

And this is coming from an omnivore. If meat were completely taken away as an option overnight, I probably wouldn't have a problem with it, in all honesty, but its ready availability and lack of the distinct association of its production makes me able to consume it without feeling the moral chaos of it.

Re: Japanese fleet catches 177 whales in latest hunt

#77

Post by macintux » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 8:28 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #69

macintux wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also an intelligence problem. Octopi, whales, dolphins are very smart animals. (Pigs too, but I try not to think about that.)

Well if you're unwilling to think too hard about the intelligence of pigs, I can't see how you can cast judgement on the Japanese for not thinking too hard about the intelligence of whales.

Did you see me casting judgement? I'm just pointing out that there are valid concerns beyond "cute factor".

Re: Japanese fleet catches 177 whales in latest hunt

#78

Post by gascan » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 8:28 PM UTC

52-6F-62 wrote: post #27

yboris wrote: post #2

My head spins about how schizophrenic the vast majority of the population is when it comes to meat consumption and love of animals. People shed tears over pets, yet pay others to abuse animals (factory farming) just to enjoy a meal that's equivalently tasty to easily available options. People will condemn the Japanese for eating whales or dolphins, the Chinese for eating dogs, meanwhile they themselves cause the suff…

I don't quite understand what you mean by schizophrenic in with what you describe. Isn't it possible it isn't a unified issue? I grew up in a rural region and I've seen the production first hand both on medium-sized farms to single hunts. I have had pets I've loved and watched them die and it made me sad. I also have an issue with the mass whaling because we know of the extinction risks and the goal when eating an an…

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated -- Mahatma Gandhi

We don't owe it. But we should treat animals with compassion all the same.

Many vegans & vegetarians aren't really opposed to meat, they are opposed to suffering, and American industrial meat production involves a lot of animal suffering.

Re: Japanese fleet catches 177 whales in latest hunt

#79

Post by emodendroket » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 8:29 PM UTC

flavor8 wrote: post #68

emodendroket wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do animals have a natural right not to be killed by humans, now that we have other options? Of course. Well, why? It's equally consistent to simply say that no animal other than humans enjoys rights, whether it's a dolphin or a dog or a pig. You can certainly take the other position as your premise, but I don't see why I should follow you.

Do humans have the right not to be killed by humans? All humans, or just humans of the same nationality? If so, where do you draw the line between, say, killing humans and killing fish? I'm not trying to suggest that the two are equivalent, but constructing a logical argument for the line being somewhere rather than elsewhere is non trivial.

Somewhere in here you inevitably take some intuitive stance, call it "self-evident," and use it as your premise. This is the problem with formal ethics, I guess; if you can't agree on the premises of the discussion you're just stuck.

I mean, what if we go the other way? Am I a murder for swatting a mosquito and killing it? OK, what makes that different from the fish? Is the fish more like a human or a mosquito? Is unintentional killing of animals the same as intentional? Surely we don't believe that stepping on a worm is equivalent to manslaughter. Well, you get the idea.

To me, the anthropocentric view seems completely natural. In a hypothetical trolley problem with a human and an animal I can't see a circumstance where I'd ever choose to save the animal and allow the human to die. From this thought experiment I appeal to intuition to say that human life is qualitatively different, and of more value, than animal life.

Re: Japanese fleet catches 177 whales in latest hunt

#80

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Wed, Aug 22, 2018, 8:30 PM UTC

uxcolumbo wrote: post #15

wpdev_63 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I am incredibly excited about the impossible burger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebNeUihciDI It's the ultimate fake burger that has a 1/10 of the environment while being vegan. Now if there was an equivalent for chicken then it I would never eat another animal again!

Try the beyondmeat chicken strips [0] And here's a hat tip for wanting to give up meat! [0] https://beyondmeat.com/products

Not really on-topic, but Beyond Meat makes a line of sausages including a bratwurst. This is important to me because I live in Wisconsin and haven't had a brat since becoming a vegetarian as nobody has made a vegetarian version since Boca cancelled theirs. Problem is, the damned things are so popular there's a huge shortage of them.