Well the prior user was implying that the purpose of whaling is to hunt them to extinction, which is a pretty strange policy to have for any nation. Is that actually Icelands purpose in the whale hunting, to make them extinct?
Yes? It’s a rhetorical technique, you don’t need to correct something everyone already knows is an exaggeration for effect. It’s socially inept comic book guy behaviour that is ridiculed in so many different ways.
You don’t need to correct something everyone already knows is an exaggeration (and I agree it doesn’t seem very socially aware to do so) but this is a political discussion on the internet, so
Everyone does not know the original figure is an exaggeration, especially by how much
Providing the actual information ads value to the conversation and in this context this is more important than whether the commenter comes off as smarmy or socially inept
What if they said “Hey I know you’re being hyperbolic, but for anyone who’s interested, here’s the number estimated by experts…”?
The only difference here is tone.
I’m not sure why they only shared numbers for minke whales, as these don’t seem to be hunted anymore in Iceland in contrast to fin whales, whom the article was about.
Fuck me I am not reading that. Stop writing so much over a fucking exaggerated joke. Fuck off comic book guy. Please touch grass, smoke a joint, have sex, or just get some social relationships or something. Anything.
Outside of this Internet Melee, I’ve (WELL ACTUALLY) been struggling with this same dilemma with my youngest kid. We’re both autistic so this is an extremely fun topic!
Where do we draw line between doing a bit, sincerity, and just lying for fun?
Caveat: We’ve both been awake for two whole days right now. (Thanks, heritable sleep disorders!)
I don’t remember what question I wanted to ask here, or how it related to this discussion. I’m just stream of consciousness typing words while I attempt to explain to another kid why Zack Snyder’s Watchmen is worth watching, with the explicit understanding that 0.00% of the characters are good people, let alone HEROES.
Anyway, America sucks and Palestine deserves freedom. Okay Google, press the REPLY button.
Im Icelandic and I can confirm this. This massive asshole (Kristjan Loftson) has plenty of money and one hobby, killing whales. He as lost aprox. 20m€ on whaling in the years he has been hunting them.
He will probably kill 10-20 finback whales so we are not talking about very large numbers. Also it would not be good for Icelandic politics if someone would kill him, he could become somekind if whale killer martyr and Iceland would continue to kill whales after his death.
There’s a minimum whale population before genetic defects start having impact between mates…
I’m not advocating direct violence, but mixing sand into the hunting boat’s engine oil and other more peaceful methods should be considered if the government won’t listen to reason by its people.
Well that’s just as easily solved by more killing. There can’t be more than like 20 people in the country that have a massive boner for murdering whales.
The rise of far right politicians and fascists is directly related to the dramatic drop in assassinations of political figures.
The solution? Start murdering fascist and far right politicians that exploit the working class and the environment to add to their already endless coffers. This is the only viable answer.
One that seems to have fallen out of favor the last few decades with these ultra rich fascist assholes being more prominent all over the globe the last decade or two
Unless you subscribe to any one of most of the worlds’ belief systems. Or unless your parents did and some of it sort of rubbed off on you. Or if you think law and order is important. But outside of that, yeah, of course, killing is completely neutral moral gray area. /s
I don’t care to argue anymore semantics. You get what I’m saying and I get you. I just think that killing feels wrong for good reason, and that’s a very popular opinion. Stop acting like it’s a silly one.
Killing is wrong in general, but can be justified by circumstances.
It is never neutral. Only ever unacceptable or justified.
E.g. killing billions by making the world uninhabitable is unacceptable, whereas smashing an oil execs face in with a baseball bat is obviously justified.
Sadly, there is whale meat in our supermarkets and restaurants. The only reason they can sell it is because some of the whale is “necessary” for “research”, and the meat is a “byproduct”.
Why are you government or judges so shady when it comes to this? Like, what is the actual reasson, that this is not forbidden and nobody is in jail? You have a democracy in iceland, right?
Farming livestock is industrialised animal cruelty. Animals are kept in squalid conditions. Whales have a good life followed by a quick death (unless it dies in the Faroe Islands). Dynamite tipped harpoon will get the job done right.
I would highly recommend the recent Freakonomics Radio series about whaling. It’s Episodes 549-551 and the bonus episode from 2023-08-06. If you’re firmly against killing any living creature (or at least sentient creatures), I highly doubt it will change your mind (and I don’t think that it should or that it tries to), but I also think it is really fascinating learning about the history of the whaling industry and hearing the perspective of a modern whaler in the bonus episode. Putting aside the obvious ethical issues with killing sentient creatures, it’s interesting to consider things like whether there’s a sustainable level of whaling, what a sustainable quota would look like, and how much we’re in competition with certain whale species for harvesting fish as food for our own species. I personally appreciated how unbiased Freakonomics tried to be in their discussion of the topic.
Whaling is no different then fishing as far as sustainability goes and ethically a whale is no different then a cow. If you have no problem with killing cows, you should have no problem killing whales, assuming it is done sustainably.
Sure and that is taken into account with the sustainability. While you can harvest something like a billion cows a year plus cows are domesticated the same concept applies to whale but it may be only a few thousand a year.
Ah yes “sustainability”. Whaling is such a sustainable industry that basically every civilized nation has banned it. That’s okay though, we’ve proven that we’re really good at farming and fishing sustainably, so I’m sure we’ll be just as good at whaling. We definitely aren’t fishing the oceans to extinction, or releasing millions of tons of methane from factory cattle farming.
That’s a pretty strong statement without any underlying argument. There are countless differences between whaling and slaughtering livestock. I’m not in favor of either one per se, but to say they’re ethically identical is quite the leap.
Problem is fishing is one of the biggest contributors to plastics ending up in the oceans and sea floors being destroyed. If whaling is like fishing then that’s still adding to the problem.
I get it’s probably because people just aren’t used to the idea of eating whale, but it’s odd you’re being downvoted when like that’s kinda the stance I think a lot of environmentalists have here in Norway, though I think the comparison is more to like venison than cows, because venison’s hunted but cows are raised. In the grand scheme of things, the beef industry does way more damage and has more ethical concerns than the strictly regulated whaling industry and we should be focusing our attention on that. I could be completely off though - I ain’t from Oslo and whale is regularly available on the supermarket shelves in the season so I’m obviously somewhat biased here. I know a lot of people have ethical concerns but like, I don’t get it. Pigs are smarter than a whale, but people aren’t upset at pork chops.
Also idk how reliable it is because obviously it’s a biased source, but according to the fishing industry pound for pound whale’s actually way better for the environment than any farmed red meat because you’re, y’know, not raising it.
Yea wild-hunted venison is probably a much better comparison, I’d probably agree that whale meat is better for the environment then farmed meat but ultimately you have to account for scale. It would be impossible for the world to live on whale meat alone, much like it would be impossible for the world to live on fish, or non-farmed crops. It’s good to have a variety of food sources both for culinary enjoyment as well as food security and sustainability.
I’d also add to the discussion that the reason why Norway (and I think Iceland too) eat it as “tradition” isn’t because it’s some sacred animal or traditional or something, it’s because up until very recently both countries were dirt poor and neither country is particularly great when it comes to arable land that you can grow veggies or animals on. Whale is a physically big source of red meat that lives not that far off the coast, and has tons of other uses besides food too. They’re also small countries so using them as a food source isn’t that damaging (hell I’m pretty sure out of the entire Norwegian fishing industry the whaling part is probably the least environmentally destructive part of it)
Also grilled whale is like, really nice. It’s like if tuna was a red meat.
Funny you should take for granted no one has a problem with fishing, a practice absolutely chocked full of problems, environmental and otherwise. Also do you not realize a lot of people also has issues with killing cows?
Sure. And even more people have absolutely no problem with killing cows and eating them daily. Which is why I had the qualifier that if you don’t have a problem with cows you shouldn’t have a problem with whales. If you do have a problem with cows, that’s fine, and being against whaling is also fine.
As far as the fishing industry, it is chock full of environmental and sustainability concerns, but it can absolutely be done in an environmentally sustainable way, must like whaling could.
We have reason to believe whales are in the same ballpark as us. Also we should probably stop eating both but if we can’t save both at least we may be able to keep folks from eating the whales.
Dog meat in China is considered taboo and is something actively fought nowadays, it’s mostly popular among the eldest and resented by the youngest. And even then, there is only one (1) place in China where a dog meat festival happens. Yulin.
Eating predators is supposedly less healthy than plant eating animals for a few reasons. As I understand it, carnivores have a notably higher level of parasites, they share diseases with other carnivores more readily than herbivores, and they’re more lean and the meat is more tough/stringy.
As a meat eater the argument that we shouldn’t eat “intelligent” animals is bull. The livestock we eat all display a higher/equal level of intelligence as your pets. Ultimately we don’t eat certain animals because we like them and that’s it.
Personally if you’re going to eat meat you can’t pick and choose which animal is ok to eat and which one isn’t. It’s either they all are or none of them are
This is fairly bad logic it presumes we must either do no evil whatsoever or do however much evil we like because we refuse to do no evil. You could trivially extend it to eating people after all why are we picking which animal its OK to eat? Back in reality we should probable stop eating animals but a world where we do less harm is still better than one where we do more and most of us would race to stop the consumption of 3 children before we would endeavor to save 3 million chickens. The argument goes that the whales are closer to the children than the chickens. Even if you don’t think this is fair or reasonable nobody is going to save the chickens and there is political and moral will to save the whales so perhaps be happy with the good that we can do instead of insisting on all or none.
I see your point- and you are right, a world where we do less harm is better. It’s all grey areas though. Extending your example, if it was a choice between the death of 3 million chickens or 3 million whales, personally I would choose the chickens. 3 million cows or 3 million whales, however, has different implications. Even more interesting is smaller numbers- 300 cows or 300 whales? Considering how you get so much more resources for the same amount of harm in whales, I would probably choose whales.
My point had nothing to do with harm but with logic. The idea that some animals are more worthy than others when it comes to consumption makes no sense. If your argument is about harm reduction then the only issue with killing Whales would be killing so many it has food chain ramifications. Other then that there is no harm. If your argument is about its wrong to eat sentient beings you can’t kill any animal.
The only argument you can have against killing a chicken instead of a whale is we’ve always killed chickens which isn’t an argument. As for saving a baby instead of chicken were biologically programed to care for a baby to keep the humanity going and eating one is harmful to our health
If you actually read my comment you’d see I said we are biologically programmed not to kill or eat human babies. Which is why logically we have no reason to resort to cannibalism.
I argued theres no moral argument to claim its better to eat chickens instead of whales. If you weren’t so focused on just arguing you’d see that
Whales appear to have a higher degree of understanding of the universe I and others feel it is more akin to eating humans than chickens. If you don’t agree with that premise you probably wont agree with anything else.
Wolves too. They have their own cultures, wars, families, even special techniques like having one wolf chase goats up gullies on glaciers, while other wolves ski down the chutes to intercept the goats.
And humans mowed down the entire pack from helicopter. Recently, Montana massacred their packs in a similar way, killing over 100 wolves. It’s stomach churning. I’ve read a couple books on wolves, and some are so sad because the wolves are way too human when you give them more than a passing glance.
They are…unsettlingly smart. Which makes it all the more tragic when someone traps one and shoots it while trapped, and the wolf knows what’s going to happen, and calls out one final low goodbye as the human raises the gun. Jesus. I had to put that book down.
Recently listened to it. Appreciate them looking at the various angles. The history bits are excellent, once again I learned things about people of colour which I wouldn’t have otherwise.
I’ve actually been to Iceland several times, and once I took the chance to try whale after much assurance from a local that when it comes to ethics, it’s fine and within quota. That said, I wish I had the willpower to be a vegetarian. It would be ideal to me if we no longer needed any animals to sustain ourselves. But some foods are just too good and don’t have perfect replacements yet. I hope that with lab grown meats whale will also become an option. So that they can live free and full lives. Unless the one guy on the show was right about overpopulation. I didn’t feel he was the best source. But wildlife management is a thing, especially since we’re meddling in nature, so now we’re responsible too. It’s a tough and emotionally changed subject.
I’ve only heard about perfumes that once contained whale juices? …What do these whales produce in terms of raw and or commercial material. or is it for sport these days? not that any of it is okay.
Yes this they used to use wheel spinal fluid as a base for perfumes. Because of course they did.
I think that practise was banned years ago mostly because it isn’t remotely sustainable.
Iceland has this weird thing about wailing. You see all these whaling ships right alongside whale tour boats. It’s like they sort of get it but can’t quite get over the culture of whale hunting.
Which in fairness is part of their culture but they have a Costco there now as well so…
And if you lived in a country that has whaling there might be some legitimacy to your coup. But as it stands you’re going to have to try to bribe the CIA to intervene on your behalf. Good luck paying them more than the Norwegian government does.
Mink whaling is more responsible and sustainable than a lot of commercial fishing - compare the impacts of hunting a species that’s classified as “least concern” with deep-sea trawling, the hunting of certain endangered species of tuna, or the use of the eggs and/or young spawn of endangered fish as caviar or whitebait!
Whaling definitely needs to go but (non-Antarctic) whaling gets an oversized amount of attention and it’s not unusual for people who are opposed to it to be financially supporting even more destructive forms of kaimoana.
Simply being “not as bad” does not make it “good.”
This is just providing masculine jobs for guys who won’t do anything else, while enriching the terrible people who employ them. There’s no use to whaling.
I very intentionally did not say that whaling is good, because it’s not. However, I believe that it is hypocritical to call for the banning of Icelandic whaling without also applying the same zeal to banning other forms of harmful commercial seafood, and that whaling is somewhat used to distract from the harms of more “normal” seafood.
Or just standard livestock farming. I personally think that if people want to eat meat they should have to kill the first animal they eat in order to get a licence to eat meat.
Believe what you want. You’ve already decided that you are both offended and correct, so there’s nothing that anyone can say to change your mind. Just understand that not listening doesn’t make you right, it makes you a zealot.
Except can you really say “genociding native americans” and “slavery” are a part of American culture? Is it “customary” of Americans to kill native americans and slavery can be an American trait?
If you include the period before we split from England we spent centuries taking land that didn’t belong to us and building our economy at least partly on slavery. If you look at the South in that time frame slavery permeated their culture. It is as fair to say that slavery was if anything much more deeply embedded in Southern culture than whaling in Iceland.
Except can you really say “genociding native americans”
As a country, the US has spent more of its existence genociding native Americans than allowing women to vote, or having a standing army.
and “slavery” are a part of American culture?
The US currently has fully legalized privatized slavery. You, specifically you, can own a slave in the US right now. You can even treat them as if the constitution does not apply to them in any way. Simply buy a prisoner and get a judge to commit that prisoner to you for the length of their sentence. It’s so ingrained in our culture, we’ve never stopped the practice.
whales have something in their brain cavity that was considered valuable at the time, can’t remember what it was called or what it was used for but I think that was the equivilant thing they were going for in Avatar
Meat. Whale is tasty. Yum yum yummy in my tum tum tummy. Not even joking. People like whale. It’s a very versatile and lean meat which is very high in omega 3, iron and protein… And mercury but never mind that. Just try it next time you’re in a country that hunts them.
Sanction them. I love Iceland but the way I see it, sanction them and tell them to knock it off. Capitalism sucks but use whatever few means we have in that system to at least right some wrongs.
You gonna demand sanctions for every single country that hunts a wild species that’s classified as “least concern”? I think you’ll struggle to find any countries that don’t pull shit that’s at least as inhumane and environmentally harmful as killing some 100-150 whales per year.
They never really stopped bitching about Japan until China’s economy blew up. It’ll be all about China until some other country joins the 10+ trillion GDP club.
Its not just economics, there’s also a racism component. Even though the Japanese and South Koreans are treated by white westerners as “the good Asians”, they’re still kept out of the white westerner club by forms of cultural othering that can be hidden and deployed when convenient. Japanese food is amazing high cuisine (except they’re barbarians that eat whales). Korean pop music is great (except they’re all tricking us with their plastic surgery). Etc, etc.
China’s main crime as far as this dynamic goes is exceeding the West economically while having so much cultural confidence that it can simply not give a fuck how the West judges it.
Who cares if the whales die horribly and the species goes extinct, right? Oh yeah, new “regulations” make it “good” to do the same shit somehow, so no problem.
Do we have any experts in the fishing industry on lemmy? Is whaling really that profitable? Because it’s weird to go back on something like whaling if it isn’t profitable. Like I know the Japanese are subsidizing it heavily as a point of national pride, but that can hardly be the issue here.
It isn’t really profitable. The meat isn’t really in demand and they harvest far fewer than the limit that’s set by the government. This interview with a wailer from freakenomics was interesting and touched on a lot of these issues.
I’m currently reading Moby Dick and that book goes over the entire process of harvesting a whale. Even then they started it wasn’t necessarily profitable but the versatility of the whale s resources were went they are harvested. I also heard the meat sucks.
I could be wrong, but I thought the only reason Japanese whaling wasn’t profitable is that it’s for “research” so it can’t be for profit, and also all the physical harassment from “eco terrorist” groups.
as a sort of expert on commercial fishing/fisheries management and economics, absolutely not especially to the degree where it is worth the backlash this is getting. This strikes me as an incredibly dumb decision from a pr standpoint at the very least, and it’s the sort of thing that could lead to ramifications for the actually important parts of the Icelandic seafood industry if any countries decide to restrict seafood imports over the whaling (which has happened before in other circumstances)
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