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

In the Philippines, Dynamite Fishing Decimates Entire Ocean Food Chains

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 101 posts

Re: In the Philippines, Dynamite Fishing Decimates Entire Ocean Food Chains

#91

Post by lopmotr »

bshepard wrote: post #12
lopmotr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain the causal link between those rich people's greed and this fishing technique? Is it because rich people enabled dynamite to be produced cheaply enough for them?

It's because "richness" creates a pathologically competitive social system that encourages this sort of destruction activity in order to get the token that conveys value.

You mean rich people are to blame for poor people destroying their environment because the rich people set an example for poor people to aspire to? Have you got a suggestion for a way to solve that problem other than what the Khmer Rouge did?

I have. Forbid poor people from becoming rich. By keeping them in fixed economic classes, they won't have the motivation to compete so hard and then the fish will be saved. There are obvious bad side effects of this. Can you improve on it?

Re: In the Philippines, Dynamite Fishing Decimates Entire Ocean Food Chains

#92

Post by candiodari »

jackvalentine wrote: post #85
candiodari wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what will happen to the country and the economy that sustains them if they "stop digging" ?

We'll have to figure that out, won't we? The Philippines birth rate is somewhere in the vicinity of 3 children per woman. What's a more sustainable number?

Economically, to take care of those ?

4

Re: In the Philippines, Dynamite Fishing Decimates Entire Ocean Food Chains

#93

Post by jackvalentine »

candiodari wrote: post #92
jackvalentine wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll have to figure that out, won't we? The Philippines birth rate is somewhere in the vicinity of 3 children per woman. What's a more sustainable number?

Economically, to take care of those ? 4

How did you come to that number and why do you think a double the replacement birth-rate can be sustained forever?

Re: In the Philippines, Dynamite Fishing Decimates Entire Ocean Food Chains

#94

Post by lopmotr »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #63
acchow wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? This has nothing to do with the rich. This is the tragedy of the commons - other fishers are allowed to use dynamite to fish extremely effectively, so the only way for you to make a living wage is to do the same.

This has everything 100% to do with the rich and inequality. "Tragedy of the commons" is a total strawman. You want to stop this from happening...give these people enough money to go to the grocery store or get trained for a job. Its extremely simple.

Anytime some proposes a simple solution to a complex problem that nobody's been able to solve and calls it "simple", they're wrong. Who's going to give them money? Bill Gates? No, he's spending it curing malaria. Jeff Bezos? No, he's using his money for his rockets. You? No, you're using your money for whatever luxuries you indulge in. Once you find the people who're going to give away their money, how will you convince them to do so? Threaten violence? No, you'll get arrested. Steal it? No, you'll get arrested. Form a revolution and steal it? No, you don't have enough desperate people willing to give up their lives just so they'll be compelled to give their money to some strangers in another country.

Even if it succeeds, now you have a bunch of unskilled people who don't need to work. What will they do with their time? There's plenty of examples in the US and other countries of how that turns out.

Re: In the Philippines, Dynamite Fishing Decimates Entire Ocean Food Chains

#95

Post by lopmotr »

ptaipale wrote: post #39
lopmotr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't every nation? Europe and China have lost almost all their forests. Pre-European New Zealand natives exterminated the giant flightless moa. There was a powerful ancient African civilization that died out because they used up all the artesian water. I'd say nobody cared about conservation until rich people we comfortable enough to stop worrying about their next meal and look at broader issues.

BTW, elsewhere I just read that the amount of forests in England has now recovered above the levels recorded in Domesday Book (William Conqueror's land survey in 1086). Same's happening in many countries in Europe. I have a picture of my birth home, taken in 1903 from a nearby hill. The landscape is mostly bare, almost everything except the actual fields is used for cattle. Now you can't take a picture like that. Alm…

Surprising! But now it sounds like rich people are regrowing the forests that the poor people of earlier centuries destroyed. Evidence that rich people help the environment and poor people harm it. Still no sign of the harm that the grandparent claimed rich people are doing to the environment.

Re: In the Philippines, Dynamite Fishing Decimates Entire Ocean Food Chains

#96

Post by nickthemagicman »

lopmotr wrote: post #94
nickthemagicman wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has everything 100% to do with the rich and inequality. "Tragedy of the commons" is a total strawman. You want to stop this from happening...give these people enough money to go to the grocery store or get trained for a job. Its extremely simple.

Anytime some proposes a simple solution to a complex problem that nobody's been able to solve and calls it "simple", they're wrong. Who's going to give them money? Bill Gates? No, he's spending it curing malaria. Jeff Bezos? No, he's using his money for his rockets. You? No, you're using your money for whatever luxuries you indulge in. Once you find the people who're going to give away their money, how will you convi…

Theres alot to unpack in what you just said. Not to mention your entire thesis is based on claims and assertions.

Who's going to give them money? Taxes?

Unskilled people who don't need to work? You missed my whole point about 'education' and 'training' so they can provide value to make money. I'm not giving anyone money. Just lower the ladder for them to climb up that the rich have pulled up behind them.

Re: In the Philippines, Dynamite Fishing Decimates Entire Ocean Food Chains

#97

Post by meko »

vfc1 wrote: post #55

Its by far time for we to leave the fishes of the hook. Dynamite fishing is bad but its just the tip of the iceberg in what concerns the global impact of fishing. What about: - the widespread use of human slaves in southeast Asia still in 2018? - Or the massive ocean dead zones that keep getting bigger? - Or the 25% of by-catch (fish caught unintentionally and discarded)? - or the estimates that certain oceans will b…

The truth is this (discontinuing consumption) applies to all animal products, not just fish, we should also stop consuming beef pork and chicken as well. There are better, healthier cheaper proteins that can be acquired through other safer means that don't require the same environmental taxing (using more food to feed the animals we eat, getting rid of their waste, etc).

Re: In the Philippines, Dynamite Fishing Decimates Entire Ocean Food Chains

#98

Post by jopsen »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #65
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perfect worlds are, probably, the worst of all possible outcomes. It is unfortunate that how the world is conducted at any point in time is largely a result of the choices of those with the most power to bring about their desires. So it has always been and so shall it always be.

> It is unfortunate that how the world is conducted at any point in time is largely a result of the choices of those with the most power to bring about their desires. This is scary but true. Why are human beings so primitive?

Could it at the same time be, that the less wealthy people are getting more influencial?

Certainly, democracy have made this happen... Certainly, media have made politicians more accountable... So while sure it might look bleak on a scale of 10-15 years, I would argue we are better off than in the 70ties :)

Re: In the Philippines, Dynamite Fishing Decimates Entire Ocean Food Chains

#99

Post by jhanschoo »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #3

In a world where 8 people have more money than the bottom 3 BILLION people combined. You can blame the poor for surviving...or blame the rich for the greed that forces people to do this to survive.

Everytime I see this argument I shake my head at the naivety. People with high net worth are so because they have capital tied up in assets. Nobody is rich because they hoard liquid money.

Say you distribute a rich man's investments in risky instruments to a community living in a remote, impoverished land. Now each investment becomes infinitely less useful because they are not part of a portfolio, it may be difficult to find a buyer for them. Next, how does the community in the remote land trade them, seeing as they live so far from a market?

This is a structural issue of capitalism and not something that anyone can boil down to some greed of the rich. For as long as populations do not see the need to pass laws regulating wealth, capitalist countries will always develop high inequality.

Re: In the Philippines, Dynamite Fishing Decimates Entire Ocean Food Chains

#100

Post by gepi79 »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #61
gepi79 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many rich people are rich because they employ people and profit from it. Many rich people are rich because they own real wealth and not (just) money. Rich people are not the problem. Rich people are no excuse for doing bad things. Poverty is no excuse for doing bad things. Deficient morality leads to bad actions and bad constraints. Change requires change. Understanding who and what to blame is an improvement. Becomi…

Become vegan and vote? Thats the whitest most privileged first world solution I've ever heard. There's around 3 billion people in the world who don't know where their next meal is coming from. Should they also recycle? They are not concerned with abstract concepts like morality when their fundamental survival is at stake. You, me, anyone would kill someone to feed their kid without a second thought. Dyanamiting fish…

Vegan food is the cheapest food and the most efficient food with regard to natural resources in the Philippines. Eating meat is a tradition and a personal choice but not a requirement in the Philippines.

Maybe several millions but not billions of people are hunters or farmers living in barren locations were only grass and shrubs grow well and thus animal products are needed. Too often land is stolen for animal farming. Too often deserts are created by animal farming. Animal farming is maybe the most important activity promoting global warming.

Regarding rich people:

-) Why not become rich yourself instead of working for rich people ? You can not do anything else than work for rich people ? Thus rich people are not the problem.

-) Except for Swaziland and North Korea, all (AFAIK) poor states in the world are democratic states were people vote for those in power. Thus the rich minority or the 10% or the 1% is not the problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_monarchy#Contemporary...

Post reply on HN