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Crazy that some seem to suggest you can’t care about whales heading towards extinction without being a level 6 Vegan.
Yup. I’m very opposed to whaling - they’re magnificent creatures - but I’m not giving up my hamburger any time soon.
I mean you can, you’re just somewhat of a hypocrite
How much experience does it take to level up, btw?
you’re right, I should actually support whaling.
Please explain how someone is being a hypocrite for caring about species that are heading towards extinction
By only caring about some species, while partaking in one of the most destructive habits a person (*that is not filthy rich) can do, thus driving up biodiversity loss and species extinction
You’re making a lot assumptions here.
For one. You don’t have to be a vegan to care about biodiversity. It is as simple as choosing to care and being selective in sourcing your groceries. That goes for produce as well. Since many farmers use pesticides that kill bees, or fertilizers that damages ground water.
I know you have different morals when it comes to choice of protein. But that does in no way prohibit one from caring about species as a whole.
Those Japanese bruh they savage.
If there were fish artists, do you think they would draw depressing pictures of whales obliterating entire colonies just to feed themselves, or humans doing the same for entire ecosystems?
I’m all for taking better care of our ecosystems, but let’s face it, a lot of animals are assholes whose lives literally depends on preying on other animals. I also don’t like to hear plants scream: https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/24473/20191218/a-group-of-scientists-suggest-that-plants-feel-pain.htm
Here’s the difference: humans are unique in our understanding of these systems and have the empathy and ability to make better choices.
I wouldn’t expect a whale to track the ethical and environmental impacts of its pod’s consumption, not because it shouldn’t, but because it literally does not have the intellectual capacity to do so.
The environment has been shaped by countless extinctions over millennia. The environment does not need white knights, it simply is. Another entirely is what we would like it to be. A whale “tracking the ethical and environmental impacts of its pod’s consumption” would be at a competitive disadvantage to those who don’t. specially given that they are carnivores who don’t have the privilege of omnivore white knighting. Not eating meat is them dying en masse unless one of them is able to survive off of plants somehow, if at all. Bulls will skewer anyone who go near their territory, and they are herbivores, nature does not share your concerns not because of intellectual capacity but because they don’t need to.
We can track the ethical and environmental impacts, but we only do so within our own perspective. It is a trait of any animal to show empathy for that which they do care about, and ignorance and even disdain for that which they do not. People who care about the feelings of animals, feelings they do have, do so because they have the luxury of not becoming fodder. Not only people, but animals in captivity who are fed and need not worry about where their food or if they are food have been shown to express this notion as well.
Life exists to survive. Don’t think your ethical and environmental concerns will afford you likewise considerations from other animals, from humans to whales alike. Just because you feel and because they feel does not mean they will care. You pick your fights, you want to care about whales, you might end up caring too much about everything before ever finding yourself getting kicked to the ground because of a dystopian hellscape that was too out of focus for you coming from your own species. Will you ask if the concerns you chose to erect walls around helped you out then?
Our ecosystems are doomed to change just as we are, but we should not accelerate their change unless we are ready to change ourselves. Unfortunately, the entire ocean is changing now, and if anything major governments driven by profits have made sure we are not ready to change. F-ing whaling is the least of my worries nowadays because so much more has become concerning.
To be fair, a lot of humans also seem to lack the intellectual capacity to consider the ethical implications of their consumption, specially when confronted with the unimaginable cruelty and suffering we cause to animals just to eat something tasty with low individual effort.
truth
It’s for scientific research though.
This is not an isolated issue. This is how we treat animals and other humans (regarding the harpooning, we only do it figuratively to other humans, not literally).
Go vegan.
We do it literally to other humans, look Gaza or South Sudan
What does veganism have to do with opposing whale hunting?
I thought I provided that connection by mentioning the harm we’re doing to almost all animals.
It’s not just whales, one could draw the same comic about other animals being hunted or factory farmed, it would be very traumatic to live through. In fact Disney made an animated one about deer.
Factory farming is indeed very bad. But the way to fix it isn’t to go vegan. The way to fix it is to campaign legislators to change the laws to stop factory farming. And being vegan, you’ve basically deleted yourself from that particular equation. Because now no one has any reason to listen to you on the subject.
Your point makes no sense.
💚
Go vegan.
but plants feel pain too
People’s morality about slaughtering meat is going to flip so hard once we get affordable lab grown meat, future generations will think of us as utter savages. But until then I don’t think it’s going to happen at scale
I doubt, it’s going to make any sudden jumps. We have various vegan meat alternatives already, which are good, and you still have plenty people that feel personally attacked by the existence of morals, because they base their personality on eating dead animals.
Maybe that’s because most of the vegan meat alternatives don’t taste like what they’re trying to replace, have a weird texture, or cause horrible gas/stomach problems.
We haven’t cracked a good meat substitute yet, at least not for people that enjoy the real thing. We’re close, but we’re just not there yet.
I think it’s a real shame too. I’ve had some fantastic veggie/potato burger. You gotta drop all pretense of the patty being meat, and instead just focus on making it tasty.
So you’re saying for you to stop causing unnecessary suffering, solely for the pleasure of your taste buds, you’d need a perfect 1:1 replacement, because otherwise you’re valuing a good meal more than not being a monster to animals?
Then let me ask, how many meat substitutes have you tasted so far? An estimate would do.
You’ve interpreted very different goal posts into my comment than I intended. My comment was deliberately unspecific, because I’m well aware that we all live in different situations. I can buy vegan meatballs in the shop, which taste like the real thing, but if I lived in a more rural region or in a different country, I might not be able to.
But what’s essentially universal to the human experience is that there’s some decent vegan protein source, which folks could be eating more of, if they wanted to. So, I’m not talking about switching over wholesale here. I’m saying most people could be eating more nuts, peas, beans, lentils, hummus, tofu, vegan meatballs, whatever. You’re gonna find something.
Lots of folks don’t even engage with that option, though. Either they’re too lazy to learn something new, or they’re psychopaths who don’t care about morals in the first place, or they’re caught up in identity politics of “I need to be strong, because I’m suffering from toxic masculinity, and to be strong, I need to be eating meat”. And particularly in the last case, they often associate meat and manliness with their food having bled out.
As such, in terms of actual morality, lab-grown meat will
- maybe catch a few of the lazy folks, because they really don’t have to exert even the slightest thought anymore, whether it’s equivalent to what they usually eat,
- not get through to the psychopaths, because those never care about morals, and
- have a hard time with the toxic masculinity crowd. Maybe some of them will be rational enough that it’s the same thing in the end, and so even though they’re irrational in their belief that they need it for manliness, they might still accept it. But especially if the lab-grown meat isn’t immediately perfect, I expect there to be persistent pushback, that it’s not the real deal and whatever. The meat industry will gladly spread propaganda to reinforce that.
If you eat basically any form of meat, I have some bad news for you…
There’s whale meat in my steak!?
I do give deer hunting a pass because they’re overpopulated in places (because humans wiped out their native predators).
Feel free to try and change my mind so I can wipe that off my ever-shrinking personal “ethically ok to eat meats” list. For all I know this is one of those lies I was raised with that I’ve not examined since childhood. Edit: context is in Kentucky, USA 20 years ago. I don’t know about deer populations elsewhere and elsewhen.
Former vegan, current pescatarian here.
Dont stop hunting, please. Humans did a phenomenal job of ensuring a required hunting season for deer by wiping out all the natural predators, now without them we have to have culls. If you participate in said culls, PLEASE eat the meat, use the pelt, give the antlers to your dog. We’ve forced ourselves into a position where some of us MUST take up the mantle of predator. If you choose to, just be responsible with the carcass so it didn’t die for no good reason.
Edit: accidentally lied, I’m not a vegetarian I’m a pescatarian who outside of her 6 shrimp a week is vegan.
To add a wrinkle: there’s now “farmed deer”. It’s supposedly more environmentally friendly than farmed cow, but I don’t like it because •vague feelings I’ve not fully examined•.
So don’t assume any venison you find in the grocery store was hunted.
Farmed cervids are why CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease) is a thing. It’s a prion disease. Farmed venison has a high probability of being CWD positive.
It’s called a high fence operation. Rich fucks actually pay for a canned hunt inside the fence so they get a big antlered wall hanger.
Myself and my family like to eat does. Curbs population faster and tends to be better meat. We live in a county that is overpopulated with white tail.
I mean yes, but what do you think happens to regular fish
Many of us are against that too. Whales just happen to be exceedingly intelligent and capable of forming powerful emotional bonds
So are pigs.
Counterpoint: bacon
vegan bacon
Real vegan recipes >>>>>> any vegan fake meat
oh absolutely - 100%. I was just trying to point out that there’s no reason to eat bacon if there’s vegan bacon
I disagree on that. I’m yet to try a vegan meat that’s not disgusting. I’ll rather have a proper bean patty with vegetables than vegan beef with vegan bacon.
Of course taste is subjective.
I don’t mean to be that guy but, whales are delicious. And you get approx 3500kg of meat (low estimate) from a minke whale, whereas you’ll get about 75kg from a commercially farmed pig. Meaning you have to kill 46 pigs to get the same amount of meat as 1 whale.
Both pigs and whales are intelligent and emotionally developed animals. Whales live free and normal lives up until the point of their harpooning, whereas pigs are kept in filthy overcrowded conditions and kept alive with antibiotics because they wouldn’t last long without them. They are of course eventually killed, but unlike cattle they don’t get a quick death from a bolt gun to the head. No pigs are asphyxiated with carbon dioxide. They spend the last moments of their tortured existence choking to death.
That doesn’t take into account the massive environmental impact of large pig farms. Because pigs eat more nitrogen rich food than other farm animals, their feces leads to over nitrification of anything downstream and eutrophication of waterways.
So if you are sitting there chomping a bacon sandwich and bitching and moaning about whaling, take a long hard look in the mirror, because the pig farming you support is immeasurably worse both ethically and environmentally.
It’s amazing that you can type out that novel and not once realize that whales are going towards extinction.
Probably because they were busy hunting the other ones…
Mink whales are not the only whales. But good on you for finding one that isn’t yet critically endangered
Where I am it’s the only whale species that’s legal to hunt and there are strict quotas.
I get the point you’re trying to make but if people ate whale the same way we ate pig the entire ocean ecosystem would have collapsed by now.
Not to mention almost all whale species are on their way to being endangered right now, while factory farmed pigs aren’t.
Maybe just go with the line all meat is murder rather bacon is worse then whale flesh lmao.
We did almost hunt whales to extinction, but it wasn’t meat we were hunting for, it was their oily fat.
Exactly, most people don’t actually like it that much.
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I don’t think harm free cultured meat exists yet.
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And where does it say this is harm-free? This requires a biopsy on the animal, which is inherently not harm-free.
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I don’t have a problem with people eating meat. I eat meat. I just don’t like the way it’s farmed what I’d propose is a largely vegetarian diet punctuated by fish or wild meat every so often. Like fish twice a week and venison on Sunday or something. As for whale, it’s not really commonly eaten in many places and as long as people don’t take too many, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
