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from the ♪but-there-ain't-no-whales-so-we-tell-tall-tales-and-sing-this-whaling-tune♫ dept.
Japan says it's time to allow sustainable whaling
Few conservation issues generate as emotional a response as whaling. Are we now about to see countries killing whales for profit again? Commercial whaling has been effectively banned for more than 30 years, after some whales were driven almost to extinction. But the International Whaling Committee (IWC) is currently meeting in Brazil and next week will give its verdict on a proposal from Japan to end the ban.
[...] IWC members agreed to a moratorium on hunting in 1986, to allow whale stocks to recover. Pro-whaling nations expected the moratorium to be temporary, until consensus could be reached on sustainable catch quotas. Instead, it became a quasi-permanent ban, to the delight of conservationists but the dismay of whaling nations like Japan, Norway and Iceland who argue that whaling is part of their culture and should continue in a sustainable way.
But by using an exception in the ban that allows for whaling for scientific purposes, Japan has caught between about 200 and 1,200 whales every year. since, including young and pregnant animals.
[...] Hideki Moronuki, Japan's senior fisheries negotiator and commissioner for the IWC, told the BBC that Japan wants the IWC to get back to its original purpose - both conserving whales but also "the sustainable use of whales". [...] Japan, the current chair of the IWC, is suggesting a package of measures, including setting up a Sustainable Whaling Committee and setting sustainable catch limits "for abundant whale stocks/species". As an incentive to anti-whaling nations, the proposals would also make it easier to establish new whale sanctuaries.
Previously: Japan to Resume Whaling, Fleet Sails to Antarctic Tuesday
122 Pregnant Minke Whales Killed in Japan's Last Hunting Season
(Score: 3, Interesting) by archfeld on Friday September 07 2018, @07:57PM (18 children)
My objection to whaling is the probability that whales are/will be determined to be sentient, along with dolphins and the higher order apes.
Bender: Who wants dolphin? [The crew gasps.]
Leela: Dolphin? But dolphins are intelligent!
Bender: Not this one. He blew all his money on lottery tickets!
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday September 07 2018, @08:02PM (5 children)
Geez how many Futurama refs can we pack into this story?
So... anyone watch Disenchantment?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 07 2018, @08:10PM (3 children)
All of the Star Trek fans died off
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday September 07 2018, @08:52PM
Fascinating.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday September 07 2018, @09:17PM (1 child)
Shouldn't that be "He's dead, Jim."
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 07 2018, @10:50PM
"He's cooked, Jim."
Or, "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a sous chef!"
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday September 08 2018, @01:13AM
Meh. Groening and Groening-derived shows are good, but I won't give them a chance until I'm certain that their political mentality makes fun of everybody equally and thus has left the Obama era.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by acid andy on Friday September 07 2018, @08:36PM (6 children)
The way you phrase that implies that you think it probable that most animals are not sentient. If so, this strikes me as silly. Shouldn't the default assumption be that they are, given that we are animals? To discuss this in more depth, we'd also need to agree on a definition of sentience.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 07 2018, @09:23PM (1 child)
A definition of sentience is nearly pointless. It is probably shades of grey.
If that mattered, then... are there fetuses we can eat? Is it OK to impregnate women in order to create tasty meals? What about people in vegetative states? If somebody gets a bad case of dementia, can we eat them?
It sounds like we aren't going to draw the line at sentience. Whale is on the menu.
(Score: 4, Informative) by acid andy on Friday September 07 2018, @10:27PM
OK, I'll bite (pun not intended ;) ).
Most probably. That's why it's better, ethically, to only eat those things that seem mostly likely to correspond to the darkest shades of grey possible (the least sentience).
I draw the line at total abstention from all food sources, as my own suffering counts too, so I still eat plants. Hypothetically, if food could be entirely generated through chemical processes without involving cellular life at all, I might be tempted to switch to that, provided it wasn't too expensive, was tasty, and had everything the body needs.
Not sure if this is just plain trolling, but, it's not clear cut how sentient each of those cases is, so sentience could still be relevant. However, even if there's no sentience, I'm sure people will raise other concerns involving such practices violating social norms, offending people (perhaps violating the memory of a friend or family member), or breaking religious conventions.
Not precisely at the boundary, no. But things we consider likely to have a high degree of sentience should probably be off the menu. Also, as stated above, people will usually want some things with questionable or no sentience to be off the menu too, for a variety of reasons.
Not in this restaurant.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Saturday September 08 2018, @04:34AM
You have a valid point. I am not sure where to draw the line. Any creature that exists is technically sentient, I guess I am making excuses for my decidedly omnivorous nature. I think perhaps the ability to perceive events and action from a perspective outside of oneself and the long term effects of such actions. Cause and effect. Either way I am still enjoying a hamburger and fries while not eating a dolphin or a whale.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday September 08 2018, @12:32PM (2 children)
The right yardstick is whether or not understandings can be reached, and whether or not moral agency can be demonstrated. If pigs were capable of communicating, then we could make a deal not to eat each other. But lacking that capability, we know they will eat us whether we eat them or not. Recognition of rights is bilateral. You are obligated not to kill your neighbor *because* your neighbor is obligated not to kill you as well. If your neighbor comes to kill you, he breaches the peace, he breaches the obligation - and in doing so he ends it for you as well.
With the pig, there's just no effective way for this to be bilateral. The pig will kill you and eat you if he can. There's no point in blaming him for it, there's no point in calling him names, that's just what a pig is. You can't obligate him. He isn't bound by your rules, and you can't make him be bound by them.
That being so, it's nonsense to think he can obligate you. It works both ways. It's not immoral for the pig to eat you - so it's also not immoral for you to eat the pig. (Not that I'm recommending you do that either - I'm just explaining why I wouldn't support outlawing it.)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday September 09 2018, @01:41AM (1 child)
An eye for an eye just makes us all blind. You should turn the other cheek.
I can see where you are coming from, but I still don't agree that a human, animal or any other kind of entity has to be able to understand rights in order to have any. Elsewhere you made a point about the rights of children. A newborn baby is a good example. I agree it wouldn't work well for them to have criminal responsibility or be allowed to drive cars, for example. But they cannot engage in a debate about their rights and yet any reasonable person would accept that they should have them. The right not to be attacked or killed are a couple of obvious examples.
I could go further -- it could be considered unethical to drain a lake or destroy a mountain -- when these natural entities almost certainly have minimal sentience. You could frame these ethics in terms of their having a "right" to exist. I realize I may be stretching the concept here, but it's worth remembering that even if you don't allow animals to have "rights" in the way that you define them, that doesn't make it ethical to kill or mistreat them.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday September 09 2018, @02:05AM
This is true, but they have something important that none of the non-humans can claim. They are extremely likely to *become* moral agents in a short period of time. It's demonstrable that this happens constantly, young children become older children, then adolescents, then adults. And if their development is not completely stunted, this means they become moral agents - certainly by adolescence, if not even before.
There's not a single recorded instance of a pig, or a dog, or a whale doing the same.
"I could go further -- it could be considered unethical to drain a lake or destroy a mountain"
Why?
That seems a profoundly stark claim that simply demands some sort of evidence or argument, rather than a bare assertion.
If it's unethical to destroy a mountain or a lake, why not say the same of a hill or a pond?
Landscaping qua landscaping is an *ethical* problem now?
"it's worth remembering that even if you don't allow animals to have "rights" in the way that you define them, that doesn't make it ethical to kill or mistreat them."
Absolutely. I do not advocate mistreating any animal, for any reason. Inflicting more pain than necessary on another living being is an act that damages the actor. It's the moral equivalent of cutting, it's almost a form of suicide. You don't need to believe animals have rights to treat all living things with respect.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday September 07 2018, @11:44PM (1 child)
How about this argument: it's not ethical to kill animals unless we need to control the population or we intend to eat the meat?
Japan's reasons for hunting whales is more of a "FU" to the West these days. Japanese people no longer want to eat whale meat.
https://www.wired.com/2015/12/japanese-barely-eat-whale-whaling-big-deal/ [wired.com]
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 09 2018, @05:49AM
It was perfectly fine back when jolly old England went a-whaling. Shiploads of Britain's dodgiest loaded up and based themselves in places like Russell, New Zealand - to great havoc on whales and the locals alike. But anyone ELSE but that Empire, and we have to protest, loud and long.
Personally, I hate the idea of whaling by anyone for any purpose at all. Those times are long gone and should be kept record of only in history.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Saturday September 08 2018, @09:50PM (2 children)
We are determining that many humans are not even conscious [1 [psychologytoday.com]][2 [scientificamerican.com]]. So you believe the stupidest among us should be treated worse because of their deficits?
(Score: 1) by The Vocal Minority on Sunday September 09 2018, @06:51AM (1 child)
That is not the conclusion of either of the magazine articles you referenced.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Sunday September 09 2018, @01:06PM
I disagree.