Japan to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission | Hacker News Reader

Japan to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission

bbc.co.uk

207 pointskn8233 comments

The article really doesn't do a good job of explaining what's going on, in particular:

> It means Japan will be able to freely hunt species currently protected by the IWC, like minke whales.

Japan has already been hunting Minke whale, in 2016 they killed more than 300[1].

What's changing here is not the facts on the ground, but a maneuver in international diplomacy. Japan, Iceland and Norway have opposed the IWC's total ban on whaling. Japan has, until now, decided to work around this by claiming the whaling is "scientific", an obvious farce. It's been commercial whaling in all but name. Iceland and Norway have made no such claim, but issued commercial quotas in defiance of the moratorium.

Now Japan is going to withdraw from the IWC entirely, which e.g. Canada did a long time ago[2] citing similar arguments.

They're also going to restrict their whaling to their "territorial waters and economic zones", i.e. stop hunting in the Arctic. This was arguably the most controversial part of what they were doing before, e.g. Iceland and Norway don't hunt whales outside of their EEC.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_Japan#Antarctica

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Whaling_Commissi...

People often defend these kind of acts with the rationale that it is a culture heritage. If so, shouldn't they be sailing the ocean with traditional wooden sailboats and relying only on wind and currents to take them where they should go?

I generally see that rational applied to whaling only when discussing indigenous populations such as the Inuit in Alaska. They are whaling in small boats and canoes using traditional techniques. Japan’s excuse for whaling is “scientific study.” I don’t think they are claiming to whale for cultural reasons, nor are they whaling for subsistence, which is allowed under international law.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_whaling

No, they're explicitly dropping the scientific study excuse, and using culture now. They're also only going to be whaling in their economic exclusion zone now, rather than going potentially thousands of miles.

Not exactly meaningful when talking about highly migratory species!

And way less fun for making edgy TV shows about stopping them.

No,they used to claim science, but the revent announcement is explicitly about it not being for research any more, and the ban on selling whale meat is also lifted.

Your argument doesn’t make more sense that saying we should farm crops like centuries before. The cultural part is about eating whale meat, not how to got it.

Certainly the act of whaling itself is also very cultural?

No, because they are free to mix and match from their cultural heritage, and keep some parts while developing others (and adding new stuff to it).

When we're talking about "cultural heritage", we mean respecting their choices regarding their cultural heritage (including abandoning parts of it). Not that they should absolutely stick to older practices on every aspect of life.

A few hundred years ago, men in many countries were allowed to beat their wives and children with few restrictions. Need I also mention that slavery and child labor were legal?

Historical legacy is absolutely no rationale for continuing to cause needless suffering in intelligent beings.

Well , by that logic any and all meat has to be banned.

That is unachievable at the moment.

It's saddening, that people willingly participate in extinction of a species however... that is what whaling has become after all.

Extinction is a bit too strong of a word here - the combined minke whale population (AFAIK, minkes in the northern and southern hemisphere are considered separate species) is numbered in the hundreds of thousands; Japan kills a few hundred a year, last year Norway caught 342.

Full disclosure - Norwegian, living in an area where whaling has been performed for hundreds of years, currently have about 12-15 pounds of whale meat in the freezer.

What is the texture and taste like (since whales are mammals) ? Does it have fat marbling like beef/pork ?

That depends on where it is cut from, but overall whale meat is very dark - almost black - and pretty lean, marbling being rare.

If you don’t overcook it, it is extremely tender, but quickly -very quickly- turns rubber-y if it spends too long in the frying pan. You can eat it raw - with a spoon, almost.

Taste is slightly liver-y, and if the meat is old it can take on a cod liver oil-like taste which is rather unpleasant.

I mostly eat it like beef (meat room-tempered, nutmeg-browned butter in the frying pan, meat in pan thirty seconds either side to get a nice surface, then pull aside to rest for a few minutes prior to eating) or as a stew - onions, black pepper, whatever mushrooms I can find, whale meat diced, fry for a short while, add copious amounts of heavy cream, simmer until potatoes are done, yumyum.

Who is to say what is "needless"?

Dictionary does a pretty good job. "Not Needed. Unnecessary."

There's a pretty valid point to be made that you don't NEED to eat whale meat. Or Cow meat. Or any meat really. There are economically available options in most areas that would allow for a nutritionally balanced, vegetarian (possibly vegan) diet.

This is specifically true about a developed nation like Japan.

There's counterpoints to be made (not all farm land is suitable for crop farming, so using it for husbandry is valuable; a complete one day flip without a slow phase out of meat would be economically devastating; freedom to eat animals is my right, etc) but you can't really say you NEED to do it. Science and nutrition doesn't back that up, and the economics are hazy at best.

>There's a pretty valid point to be made that you don't NEED to eat whale meat. Or Cow meat. Or any meat really. There are economically available options in most areas that would allow for a nutritionally balanced, vegetarian (possibly vegan) diet.

With that sense of "need" you also don't need to be on HN, or on the internet. Heck, you don't need clothes if you live in a warm climate, and neither do you need 99% of your processions (and surely not in that quality).

"Need" is not much of an argument.

People need food, and water so it is perfectly valid argument. Just not for slaughtering whales.

If by "need", you mean "need to survive", you could survive your entire life just by drinking human milk. By not eating plants, you'd be improving animal welfare even more, since agriculture kills many more animals than grazing-based animal husbandry (think all the pests that are eliminated: the rodents, insects, etc.)

I guess different between cow and whale is one is hunting and one is not. But then we have general fishing. Still muddy water.

Yeah I don't agree even a little bit with Japanese whaling policy but I don't think it's fair to dismiss any argument involving the preservation of culture with "well, why don't you live like your ancestors from 1000 years ago?"

will probably get down voted for this but cannibalism was part of some cultures.....just saying, things change.

The "tradition" argument is interesting: We'll keep on doing this, because we've been doing it for a while, so let's not consider whether it's appropriate.

That cliché argument is used not only by the Japanese to defend whale hunting but to any kind of violence towards all non-human animals.

Things change. Things need to change.

>The "tradition" argument is interesting: We'll keep on doing this, because we've been doing it for a while, so let's not consider whether it's appropriate.

No, it's more like:

"We do this for a long time, and we consider this part of who we are, and we like it, and want to keep doing it. We're not idiots to just do it because we did it in the past, and in fact, we have opted to drop tons of things that we did in the past that we don't like anymore, we're not stuck like that".

So why even argue that? Why not just say "I like whale meat"? I hate this "it's a tradition" bullshit. Just say it, stop hiding behind traditions.

Because they don't just like it like animals like stuff.

They like it as meat, but they also like the parts of their culture associated with it.

The same way an American would like the turkey AND the thanksgiving dinner, and would like to continue having both, and not just because of turkey meat, but as a combo.

So would slavery similarly be more justifiable if it was also done not only because slave owners liked it but because it was part of American culture?

Yes. That's also part of how it was justified back in the day. Or do you think that those practicing it thought it wasn't justified as they were doing it?

The fact that people have now changed their minds on that particular matter doesn't mean that anything people haven't changed their minds but consider tradition is equally wrong.

Or that there's some law-of-nature-style "right and wrong" aside what a culture deems as such. For all our modern posturing, if we were merely born 200 years ago in the US, heck, not even the South, we would statistically be far more likely to be in favor than against the practice (and still be considered perfectly "modern" for those times).

> The fact that people have now changed their minds on that particular matter doesn't mean that anything people haven't changed their minds but consider tradition is equally wrong.

No, but it does mean that tradition can be an obstacle for considering the rightness of an action.

> Or that there's some law-of-nature-style "right and wrong" aside what a culture deems as such.

Agreed. But if we assume some basic principles (e.g. like preventable pain and suffering should be avoided or human existence is good or whatever), then we can question whether something is right according to those principles.

Because it _is_ a tradition. They don't actually eat a whole lot of whale meat like they used to do. There's more supply for whale meat than there is demand.

The reason the whaling industry still exists is because it receives government support for being a "protected tradition".

Also, that is the real tragedy, and I hate the fact that the journalists often miss it: criticising people for killing sensing, feeling animals is hypocritical because we do the same thing for cattle, pigs, sheep and chicken. (Argument for whales being rare species are nonsensical because the minke whales that are being hunted aren't that rare.) What's horrible is killing sensing, feeling animals for no good reason.

To repeat one is raising them to be eaten. The other not. We do not eat elephant ...

Still fishing is a general hard field.

In my experience, the tradition argument doesn’t carry too much weight in Norway - local sentiment (I live within spitting distance of three whaling vessels’ home port) is more that whale meat is tasty (and, historically, much more accessible than other meats, as dairy farming is somewhat of an extreme sport on these small islands we call home) and also, whaling is more profitable than most other forms of marine harvesting, never (to the best of my knowledge) having received subsidies &c - it is commercially viable.

Hm but it depends whether there is a victim involved or not IMHO

Sure, but one can say that for eating burgers too.

Exactly (if the burger is made of animal flesh, that is; but fortunately there are many other ways of making burgers).

Yeah, just not real or tasty ones.

I'm cooking and eating burgers often, and they smell and taste quite real (as opposed to imaginary burgers made out of air).

Have you yourself tried a non-flesh burger, and did you genuinely find it bad? Was it from a shop or a cafe or was it homemade? Or do you have a dogmatic belief that there has to be real suffering and murder for a burger to be real?

It appears to be an issue with expectations for some people (including me). "Burger" is associated with a certain flavor, texture and appearance, so when I eat a veggie burger my subconsciousness is disappointed because it's too different. The veggie burger becomes a worse version of a regular burger rather than an independent dish. This is the main reason why I dislike so many "vegetarian alternative" dishes on our kitchen's menu like chili sin carne, while some "standalone" vegetarian dishes are among my favorites like pasta with spinach, tomato and feta in cream sauce.

I hope artificial meat will be introduced as a 'luxury' product and replace mass-produced fast food ground beef after it is well established as a genuine alternative and not some inferior knock-off like artificial cheese.

> The veggie burger becomes a worse version of a regular burger rather than an independent dish.

I can understand why some people can be put off by the taste. Having previously eaten non-human animals, I can say that I prefer the taste of veggie burgers and sausages, although most vegan cheese tastes absolutely disgusting (especially the ones pretending to be parmesan). But I really, really wish that more of us would be willing to accept a reduction in the tastiness of certain dishes to help prevent antibiotics resistance, non-human animal suffering, climate breakdown, dead zones and starvation.

And other times I really can't tell the difference, and to be honest it kind of scares me. Some brands go so far as to make the minced "meat" look red and bloody[0]. Then, I have to take someone's word that this thing that really looks like a shrimp and is all crunchy really isn't a shrimp[1]. It's like a whole new art form.

[0]: https://www.naturli-foods.dk/produkter/aertefars/

[1]: http://vegetarian-plus.com/product/vegan-shrimp/ (Note: The ones I tried looked more convincing)

I absolutely love this one particular brand (Linda McCartney) of mozzarella-riddled vegetarian burger they sell in the UK. I'm a lifelong meat eater, past redemption really, but my wife is vegetarian and introduced me to them.

I would rather eat these textured soya protein burgers than even the best beef burger I've ever had. They are that good.

Also, upvoted because a difference of opinion isn't what down voting is for, surely ?

> I absolutely love this one particular brand (Linda McCartney) of mozzarella-riddled vegetarian burger they sell in the UK.

Yea, and on top of that Linda McCartney products are cheap, free from plastic packaging and pretty much available everywhere.

> Also, upvoted because a difference of opinion isn't what down voting is for, surely ?

I've also wondered about the semantics of the voting arrows (because I'm working on a HN-like[0]). In the guidelines[1] it says how voting/karma works, but not what a vote is supposed to mean. Within the (rarely used) polls[2] the meaning is a bit clearer. Lobsters[3] requires you to pick a reason for down-voting (and "I disagree" is not one of those), which makes its purpose a bit clearer.

[0]: https://gitlab.com/hjek/undebatable

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll

[3]: https://lobste.rs

Yes, and lots of people do.

And even more don't. Like 5 to 1 more...

many people mindlessly throw plastic into the ocean, do drugs, are obese or in some other way show callous disregard for their own health or the health of the ecosystem they live in, what's the point?

Also Papuans ate their dead instead of burying or incinerating them and that's how they got prion diseases. Not all traditions are good.

And anyways, my understanding is that whaling was not a traditional practice. At least not in the amounts it is done today.

It stemmed from food shortages post-WWII.

This would make too much sense

And my culture has a history of bear baiting and torturing scotsmen. We also made a great game of burning various people who disagreeded with our religion. Cultures have to grow up and recognize a greater good.

You’re equating torturing human beings with killing a limited and arguably sustainable number of almost certainly non-sentient animals. What does that say about your opinion on Scotsmen?

Denouncing the consumption of meat from certain species of animals (like whales or dogs or foir gras) while happily eating burgers and chickens and tuna is utter hypocrisy.

We need to work with Japan and other whaling countries to set sustainable quotas. But the condescending moral judgements need to end. There's nothing inherently different about eating a whale and a hundred chicken.

Personally I try very hard not to be a hypocrite. I'll eat anything, and have tried many things people find objectionable (horse, whale, rabbit, shark, etc.). I know about myself that I'm not willing to go full vegetarian or vegan, and actively choose to eat meat. While I hate vegans that try to force their choice on others, I do appreciate the clarity and lack of hypocrisy of vegans who choose it for themselves. What I really hate is the hypocrisy of those who try to judge others for their choices while being no better themselves (meat eaters who complain about what other meats eaters eat)

This is much more complicated than it might initially seem. It can be argued that a whale can suffer at a higher level than a chicken can. Even though this clearly isn't your point, I agree wholeheartedly with your first sentence and I believe that we shouldn't kill any animals at all.

I believe the concern with whale hunting is less related to the suffering of the whales and more related to biological diversity. Hunting has already driven many whale species to extinction with several others on that same path.

Whales are of particular concern because, once their population is reduced, it is very hard for them to reestablish a large and healthy population. I believe because they have such low offspring rates.

Is it hypocritical to know sugar is bad for you and eat candy sometimes? If so, does it mean you should just not try to avoid candy and eat as much as you please, since otherwise you'd be a hypocrite?

I think it's much better to have a reasoned through moral viewpoint, and accept that you will try and often fail to live up to that standard. Don't judge others, but judge yourself. We live in a culture which eats meat, and so if you deem it morally wrong to eat meat, even partially going against the grain of wider society is a difficult but just act even if you fail to do so all the time. This is true for any social norm which you consider unjust.

Just throwing your hands up and saying that you may as well just eat any once-living creature on equal terms since it means you won't be a hypocrite seems worse than deducing what ought to be the right way to behave and then try to build a framework to, perhaps only in-part, act towards that end. You may conclude that all creatures are the same, and continue your actions, but it sounds like you just consider the risk of being a hypocrite being an overriding concern.

For me, I personally have tried to scale back my meat eating over time, since I believe it to be unclear how much animals suffer in farming conditions and how much they should have moral standing. I assume the degree to which these are true is somewhat proportional to how close these animals are in mental and physical form to humans.

So, I no longer eat any mammals and increasingly try to prefer fish over birds. I began by cutting off pork (which I now can no longer stomach) and then beef. The net effect of this lifestyle may mean I am a "hypocrite", since I still eat animals and even occasionally just yield to the temptation to eat a burger, but it likely results in less net suffering, and may in the long term result in transitioning completely off of meat.

I don't think you're a hypocrite. I think your stance is actually great — you have your own values and you try to do what you can to change your lifestyle to match those values. That's commendable.

If instead you had come out and said that people who eat dog/whale/horse are immoral, whilst you still eat, say, chicken — then you'd be a hypocrite. If you had said that whilst being vegan — you'd be annoying for trying to force your ideals onto others, but at least not a hypocrite. (But, just to be clear, given you didn't make any judgements about others — I think you're an example of what we should strive for.)

Also — important distinction. Sustainability is more about the quantity of meat you eat than the animal it comes from. You'd arguably have a much more positive effect by eating meat only once a week, be it dog/whale/dolphin/horse/anything, vs. eating only beef and chicken every other day.

Can we please have a global moratorium on all fishing for a few years? We are fishing the seas empty. I'm more than happy to pay for my share of the unsold/uncaught fish. This is such a disheartening example of the tragedy of the commons.

No, that would be an over reaction that will harm more than it helps.

Controls are important but stop all legal fishing is not the answer.

For years I tried to only buy "sustainable" fish. It's almost impossible. Different lists give you different criteria. So much fish is endangered. So much fishing happens in ways that fish that's not even desired gets caught and thrown back in dead. Worth, some fishing techniques even damage the sea bed itself. On top of that most fish in stores is mislabeled making it downright impossible to enjoy fish without ruining the planet.

Do you consider the Seafood Watch program inadequate?

http://www.seafoodwatch.org/

Ultimately we are removing too much biomass from the sea, fish isn't a sustainable food source at the scale we remove it.

That’s why I don’t eat fish or any product containing fish. Simply can’t trust it.

I completely disagree. We are reaching a point where it would be incredibly difficult to do more harm than inaction. If we continue the way we're going now, there is going to be a moment in the future where a thermonuclear war would have been less harmful in the long run because it would have put a damper on our industry. It'll eventually get that bad, as horrible and unthinkable as that is. Wouldn't that just be unbearably ironic? If we end up regretting that the cold war never went hot because our daily habits are even worse on a long timeline?

We've already done damage that's difficult to even comprehend. There's dead zones all over the map, where there's nothing but a bunch of algae and isopods crawling around in the mud and bones on the sea floor. These are enormous amounts of surface area, but they also represent a huge depth, so it's actually a volume of completely ruined wilderness. It's many, many times worse than an equivalent amount of acreage on land turned barren. We don't really have the daily context to understand what a loss that is. If we cause a collapse of the ocean ecosystems, we are truly and fully ruined.

People like to think that rational responses to situations are always moderate and level-headed, but that depends on context. The rational response to what's happening in this context is to freak the fuck out. Literally any sacrifice is going to be worth averting this kind of catastrophe. We are quite literally like the frog which is slowly boiling in the pot; we are slowly boiling ourselves, but it's a generational process so nobody ever thinks it's time for drastic measures. We're not looking at a choice between winning or losing; we're looking at the difference between extinction and cataclysm. The choice between a death toll of merely hundreds of millions vs. billions. It's extremely likely that this situation is going to end both of our family lines at some point in the next several generations. It's awful, but unless we figure out time travel these are the choices we have.

We could just pay fishermen to not fish, just like we pay farmers for fallow land.

If you really wanted to accomplish this, have a conservation organization buy fishing days for the EEZ that hosts the species you want to protect.

If you wanted to fix this for all time, the US should buy the entire island nation of Kiribati, resettle the current occupants someplace where they can continue with a similar culture (maybe somewhere on the Texas coast), and then turn the Kiribati EEZ into an MOA for the US Navy. Tell the Chinese and Taiwanese that subs will be letting of torpedos there, or that there are mines to keep them out. That would give highly migratory species like tuna a safe area to rebuild their numbers.

I love the idea of buying fishing days. Iceland sells fishing quotas, I wonder if one could buy them with the intention of not using them.

I've always thought the fundamental problem here is that I cannot pay to not have a fish caught. Maybe there are in fact ways around this?

How do you tell who is a fisherman if the fisherman does not catch fish?

How do you tell who is a farmer if the farmer doesn't farm?

The farmer owns farmland that could be used but isn’t.

Of course it is problematic that land owners are actually rewarded for their wealth. But at least it's difficult to create new would-be farmland.

However if the would-be fisherman owns a fishing boat that could be used but isn't, then perhaps a lot of would-be fishing boats would suddenly be constructed so would-be fishers would be paid for their would-be fish catching.

> Of course it is problematic that land owners are actually rewarded for their wealth

No, they are rewarded for playing along with whatever scheme's currently running. Stop trying to demonize them.

In UK at least, land ownership is very concentrated, so these "farming subsidies" are not usually going to the people you'd expect:

> When our government says "we must help the farmers", it means "we must help the 0.1%". Most of the land here is owned by exceedingly wealthy people. Some of them are millionaires from elsewhere: sheikhs, oligarchs and mining magnates who own vast estates in this country. Although they might pay no taxes in the UK, they receive millions in farm subsidies.[0]

> Farm subsidies, which remain limitless as a result of the Westminster government’s lobbying, ensure that every household in Britain hands £245 a year to the richest people in the land.[1]

[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/01/farm-s...

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/03/landow...

Their tax return.

How would it harm, and how will ceasing voluntarily while there are still fish in the ocean be worse than stopping once the oceans are completely dead?

>that would be an over reaction that will harm more than it helps.

Explain.

Legal avenues for fishing are gone. Illegal fishing takes over with no controls. More deaths more over fishing.

Another scenerio. Farming fishing increases causing increase population which[p is then dumped into the clean water supply.

What no one is mentioning is the amount of radioactive waste Japan is pumping into the ovean still. This is bigger problem but one being ignored.

Got a citation for all that waste? A disaster for sure, but I feel the radiation talk is overblown. I am open to being set straight on the matter, but skeptical. I am particularly suspicious of anyone spouting baseless, and frankly antiscience 'nuculear power is bad' memes.

Nuclear power is great. Candu heavywater reactors have a great safety record.

The Japan pumping nuclear waste into the ocean problem is ongoing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_di...

I'm pretty sure there would be a lot less fishing if it was illegal. You would only be able to sell your fish on black markets at high markups. That would price out many customers.

According to the article “ Pro-whaling nations expected the moratorium to be temporary, until consensus could be reached on sustainable catch quotas.”

If this fishing is truly sustainable and doesn’t threaten the whales with extinction there shouldn’t be a problem. Why should whales get protection that pigs, cows, and other animals don’t?

If you are comparing pigs and cows to whaling you are comparing apples and oranges. Pigs and cows and such are farm raised animals for the purpose of slaughter.

If you compared it to hunting deer and moose and elephants and lions and whatnot that would be more of a comparison. Still the difference there is individuals are getting hunting licenses as opposed to an entire country.

You can compare tuna fishing and crabbing and that would probably be the best comparison, and depending on what you read even those have sustainability issues.

I think it is quite silly to hunt some species almost to extinction and ban it for awhile just to repeat the events of the past (lather, rinse, repeat i guess). But i am not Japanese and would not enjoy eating whale meat.

I actually mentioned pigs because they are supposedly quite intelligent and have even been human pets in some civilizations.

You’re right that this is a case of hunting wild animals vs farmed animals for the species I listed, but I don’t see farming animals as inherently more moral. Hunting is definitely problematic if it places a species in danger of extinction, but the article claims the minke whales aren’t anywhere close to endangered and my own internet searches seem to back this up.

>If you are comparing pigs and cows to whaling you are comparing apples and oranges. Pigs and cows and such are farm raised animals for the purpose of slaughter.

That's just an artificial distinction. They didn't began their lives as "farm raised animals for the purpose of slaughter".

>They didn't began their lives as "farm raised animals for the purpose of slaughter".

they did though, cows were domesticated from aurochs and pigs from wild boars for the express purpose of making them easier to slaughter as livestock rather than having to hunt them. Same for chickens. Is it humane? I don't know but they they wouldn't exist in their present form if not for humans domesticating and breeding them for their current characteristics

Just like the modern layer hen, which produces 2 orders of magnitude more eggs than its original wild ancestor (and all the added strain and suffering), or the modern broiler chicken which has been so evolved by humans so that it's feet can't even adequately carry it's grotesquely overweight body. We have evolved those animals for increased profit at the cost of vastly more suffering by sentient beings that experience pain, fear etc

> would not enjoy eating whale meat.

Why not?

> Whale and dolphin meat is also often loaded with mercury. In 2011, the EIA purchased whale meat in Japan and found that one sample contained 21 parts per million of the toxic metal, 50 times above Japanese safety limits

Cows and pigs are farm-raised, not wild. There are plenty of restrictions around hunting any wild animals in most nations, related to sustainability.

The question is, do we totally ban whaling in light of their endangered status, or do we allow limited whaling as long as it's sustainable?

Another moral question is in play, though. Whales are widely believed to be sentient, as intelligent as human beings. If that is true, is it ethical to hunt them at all?

> Whales are widely believed to be sentient, as intelligent as human beings.

This is not true. They are considered smart animals but not as smart as humans (obviously). I think a pig is supposed to have similar levels of intelligence.

For the record I oppose whaling, but I don't think making hyperbolic statements is going to help anything.

EDIT: If anyone would like to post some information showing that whales are as smart as humans I'd love to see it.

> not as smart as humans (obviously)

Why obviously?

Why should whales get protection that pigs, cows, and other animals don’t?

Most westerners do not consume whale meat, so there's no cognitive dissonance to prevent them from firmly opposing whaling.

For the same reasons that mountain gorillas do?

According to one of the first DDG results, “Mountain gorillas are one of the most endangered animals in the world”.

Supposedly this isn’t the case for the species of whale being hunted and the fishing is actually sustainable, according to other information posted here and on Wikipedia stating there’s a population of 500,000 minke whales and they are on a “least concern” list.

If you didn’t make them you don’t get to eat them?

I think a better way to state the premise more reasonably is to say that you don't get to engage in hunting/harvesting practices that risk extinction of the species. That is a position that can be logically consistent with both claims "Farming domesticated animals is okay" and "Whaling is a practice that should be heavily regulated with careful quotas"

You should not eat fish from the sea, then.

At least, we should eat much less fish from the sea. With fishing, as with hunting, the limits need to be what the eco system can sustain. The sad part is, due to our overfishing, the sustainable fishing rates are much lower today than they would have been 100 years ago. If we had not overfished, we could fish much more than we should today. Same applies to whaling in much stronger form.

While I agree with the first part of your point, I've come to the opposite conclusion: slaughtering cows and pigs is morally indefensible.

One aspect of this particular cognitive dissonance has always baffled me: you can, for example, see lots of pictures in reddit's "r/aww" subreddit of adorable pigs and cows, and in many cases the draw is the way these animals show behaviors analagous to humans, e.g. cuddling, or playing a game, or enjoying a pet by a human. And folks could coo over these adorable pictures while eating bacon or a burger.

And similarly people have no problem eating pork or beef, but express sheer disgust at the thought of eating horse or dog meat. At some point you realize that these distinctions are arbitrary.

This is certainly a very unpopular opinion in the population at large, but I've always been interested in how cultures can look back at earlier versions of themselves and be amazed at how wrong humans previously were, e.g. with slavery, treatment of women, colonialism, attitudes toward homosexuality, etc. I think that in the future societies will look back at our consumption of meat, especially factory farming methods, and wonder why it took us so long to change our attitudes on this issue.

I have been thinking about the issue of "saving the planet", which is similar to "saving the endangered spices from extinctions".

Ultimately I think humans are just selfish by nature and they only do things to ensure the continuation of humans as a spices. Everything else is sugar-coating it. So really, there is no morality to be discussed, it is just natural instinct.

My unpopular thoughts on global warming:

https://paradite.com/2018/11/06/extinction-is-natural-so-is-...

Humans are much more selfish than that. Almost nobody cares about the species. They care about themselves, their family, maybe their neighborhood, and if you’re really lucky they might care about their country.

> They care about themselves, their family, maybe their neighborhood, and if you’re really lucky they might care about their country.

Most of that is social construct.

Our biological imperative is too simple for most people to fathom-- if you concern yourself only with the welfare of yourself and your family, you're doing your part for the species by expanding it with viable offspring.

If ensuring the survival of you and yours means paying tribute to the local warlord or toeing a party line, then concern for the neighborhood or country will follow.

But make no mistake, it's not in your interests for the species to thrive. It's in your interests for your own offspring to thrive. Nature can't maintain its balance if the sick and infertile reproduce and the boundless demand for limited resources result in us driving everything else to extinction until we all run around sticking punji knives in each others' guts for lack of food anyway.

Does any other animal species care about things other than themselves? Natural selection would weed out individuals who were too altruistic, if you're looking for something to blame you're going to have to blame thousands of years of evolution selecting for the cruelest and greediest organisms

That's actually quite true, come to think of it. Maybe I was actually giving too much credit.

I read your link, and my biggest disagreement with it is that it (a) basically uses a very flimsy strawman argument that mischaracterizes the other side and (b) its conclusion is baffling and illogical.

Of course the reason we should fight global warming is that it will have huge deleterious effects on humans that are avoidable. Yes, I agree, "the planet" will continue with or without us, but most people would prefer the "with us" option.

Finally, you end with "All we are doing is making the earth more suitable for humans to live, that’s it." What?? Tell that to the billions of people that live along the coast, or say anyone that lives in Bangladesh.

> Finally, you end with "All we are doing is making the earth more suitable for humans to live, that’s it." What?? Tell that to the billions of people that live along the coast, or say anyone that lives in Bangladesh.

I think you misunderstood the meaning of that sentence. I mean "the effort to counter global warming" is to make the earth more suitable for humans to live, not the lack of effort.

I think there's a pretty reasonable argument that 1) conditions for livestock are actually much better than those endured by animals in nature, and 2) living to eventually be slaughtered is better than never having lived at all.

While I think both of those points are very debatable (just search YouTube for factory farming videos if you really think livestock conditions are better), they still miss the point. After all, both of your points could just as easily apply to dogs, cats, horses, whales, chimpanzees and heck, even humans. My main argument is that there is really no morally consistent way to think that eating dogs, cats, horses or whales is abhorrent but eating pigs or cows is OK.

I think you are correct, but agreeing with you on the lack of moral consistency does not drive me to cut meat out of my diet. I've never tried dog, but I certainly would. I keep dogs as pets and I would never eat my own dogs. They have emotional value to me, by my own design, as that's the purpose I've given them in my life.

There are many reasons to why we wouldn't eat certain animals. Cats hunt rodents, dogs are protective, horses provide transportation. Cows don't do any of those things well, and they also taste wonderful.

It’s strictly cultural. Every grocery store in Switzerland sells horse cold-cuts.

See my response here[0] on whether living in nature or on a factory farm is more more horrific. The gist is: each breeding pair of animals produces, on average, just two offspring who themselves live to reproduce. The implication is that the vast majority of animals ever born die of predation, starvation, or via exposure to the elements. Nature is a bloodbath.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18773106

We don't give equal moral weight to all humans, so why would we give equal moral weight to all animals?

There are a lot of documentaries (Earthlings, Dominion) or books (Eating Animals, Fast Food Nation) on animal agriculture that would give you a better counterpoint to #1 than I will in this comment. Or just Google image search "factory farm", "battery cage", "gestation crate".

If #2 justified animal agriculture it could also be used to justify human slavery, provided you intentionally bred humans for that purpose.

Regarding factory farming vs. life in a state of nature: on average, each breeding pair of animals will produce just two offspring that live to maturity and reproduce. Which means that the vast majority of animals ever born will die of something other than old age. And mostly those deaths will come via predation, starvation, or by freezing to death (in northern climates). In other words, the scale of death and misery in nature is massive.

And regarding my second point somehow justifying human slavery: that's only true if your moral system somehow makes humans and animals out to be equivalent. But we don't even make different classes of humans morally equivalent to each other, so why would we make animals morally equivalent to humans?

A life of pain and suffering on a factory farm is worse than a natural life, where there is at least the possibility of joy and natural behavior. The only thing many factory-farmed animals ever touch is steel, concrete, and their own waste; they never see the sun nor feel the wind. Many are artificially inseminated, so they don't reproduce naturally. Many never see live plants, let alone eat them, so they don't feed naturally. Many live in cages so small they can't turn around or stand up, others so packed together that they go crazy and resort to cannibalism. To mitigate or prevent cannibalism, pigs and chickens are mutilated in various ways. From lack of exercise and intense weight gain many can't stand on their own for the later portions of their short lives. The scale and degree of cruelty that factory farming inflicts on animals is really incredible, and I think it says something horrible about humanity.

Thankfully one needs no morals to eat meat. Only ideologues require morals for eating.

> I think that in the future societies will look back at our consumption of meat, especially factory farming methods, and wonder why it took us so long to change our attitudes on this issue.

How would future societies propose we feed ourselves if we don't eat meat?

Is that a serious question? As one small example, the 500 million or so vegetarians in India seem to do just fine.

Yes it's a serious question. Many people love meat and it's a staple part of their diet (as has been the case with humans for all of humanity). As for India, you may want to update your numbers:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpellmanrowland/2017/12/1...

None of your statements strengthen your argument. Many people also love it when other people are forced to work for them for free and it was the basis of the economic systems of many societies for centuries. Yet somehow we've managed to survive and thrive without large scale slavery.

As to your comment on India, no one is arguing that meat doesn't taste good or that most people don't like to eat it. But whether the number is 300 million or 500 million, clearly meat isn't necessary for a balanced diet, and no one seriously disputes this.

Comparing eating meat with slavery is exactly why people won't stop eating meat. It's impossible to take such an argument seriously.

> no one is arguing that meat doesn't taste good or that most people don't like to eat it.

That's pretty much the final word on the subject. People will never stop eating meat. It's part of being human (yes some humans don't do it, but we are omnivores).

> It's impossible to take such an argument seriously.

Why? It seems you are exactly proving my point: you've compartmentalized one as "ok cause we like it and do it now" and the other as "evil because it's bad and we don't do it anymore", but provide no argument as to why they are logically so incomparable. And your "final word on the subject" is apparently "meat tastes good and people like it." Forgive me if I'm not pursuaded by your "logic".

> Why?

Because it's a non-sequitur. Slavery and diet have absolutely nothing to do with each other. You could pick any good or bad example of something and strap it to your argument, but it doesn't make it convincing.

> And your "final word on the subject" is apparently "meat tastes good and people like it." Forgive me if I'm not pursuaded by your "logic".

Yep, that's why people will continue to eat meat; it tastes great. Do you honestly think people will ever stop? I know I never would and I'm sure I'm not alone.

It's seems obvious that if you are raised to not eat meat then you will be very unlikely to introduce it into your diet later on, especially if it is socially frowned upon. People who have been vegetarians for a long time often are unable to stomach meat. Also, it's clear that some kinds of meat are already not eaten: do you think the reason people don't eat dog in the US is because it doesn't taste good?

So, while it's certainly likely that people alive today will always eat meat, generational turn-over could result in a world without meat eaters.

(I eat meat but do not eat mammals.)

> slavery and diet have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

No one is talking about diet. The part where you eat the animal isn't relevant morally. The part where the animal's freedom is restricted and is treated as an object purely for the pleasure of humans is.

What you're experiencing is cognitive dissonance. You're not a bad person for being raised in a culture that encourages you to not think about these things. You should try to look into where your food comes from even though our cultural biases that will make us try to avoid doing so or justify the atrocities when we do see them.

Please stop. We don't need another generic flamewar about this.

I thought there were a few required proteins that were very hard to supply in the body without an animal source

No, that myth was debunked decades ago. You can get all essential amino acids from a normal variety of plant foods, and the body combines them naturally. Or in case of some all essential amino acids are in the same plant.

Tell that to the doctors that have to save malnourished vegan children.

All amino acids originate from non-animals (plants, microbes). Where do you think other animals get their essential amino acids? They eat plants or eat an animal that ate plants. All plant proteins have all of the essential amino acids. The only truly “incomplete” protein is gelatin, which is missing the amino acid tryptophan, so the only protein source you couldn’t live on is Jello.

Basically all of your comment is false. Humans can synthesize many amino acids. That is the defining difference between non-essential vs. essential amino acids.

And there are lots of plant sources that are missing or insufficient in essential amino acids. Beans, for example, are lacking in methionine, which is why corn and beans are eaten together in some traditional diets.

Sorry, all essential* amino acids come from plants or microbes. Beans, e.g. pinto, do have methionine, but corn has even less, so I don't see your point.

Besides, you probably don't want a lot of methionine in your diet (it's linked to feeding cancer) [1..7].

Further, you're recycling the tired myth that "protein comibing" is necessary. Our body maintains pools of free amino acids by dumping protein into the digestive tract, which are broken down and reassembled, i.e. it does the protein combining for us, it's not necessary to explicitly do it through meals if you're otherwise eating a varied diet that sufficient in calories.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22171665 [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18789600 [3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15955547 [4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18252204 [5] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22342103 [6] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11603655 [7] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14585259

Soylent is vegan and nutritionally complete, so there are definitely cheap-to-produce ways to make it work.

I thought the same. I get the sense people gloss over this in their promotion of vegetarianism/veganism

Surely if killing animals is wrong, so is exploiting them for eggs and milk? So the only moral option (currently available, in the absence of lab-grown meat) is veganism, which is deadly (it's missing some B vitamin I think).

You aren't even sure which vitamin it is, but you're sure that veganism is deadly? It's B12, which is from bacteria in the soil and water, but because of water purification and washing vegetables, we don't get it so much naturally. So vegans take a B12 supplement. But even animals raised as food are also given B12 supplements, and it's often recommended for non-vegans to take a B12 supplement as well. You know what else is deadly? Atherosclerosis from eating animals.

Yes exploiting animals for eggs and milk (and all the death that accompanies it) isn't moral when it's for pleasure and not for staying alive. No a plant based diet is not deadly, in fact vegans tend to live longer healthier lives. The longest lived population studied was essentially (over 95%) vegan.

> Surely if killing animals is wrong, so is exploiting them for eggs and milk?

Prefacing an argument with "surely" doesn't make it a stronger argument. I don't see why it follows at all that raising animals for eggs or milk could not be done humanely.

What happens to males in eggs and milk? Is that (to take one example) humane?

Well, the argument agains killing animals seems to be "you wouldn't kill humans" (I don't consider "animals suffer" a valid argument, because there are viable killing methods that don't cause suffering), so then you can use the same argument "you wouldn't enslave humans" with any kind of farm-raising. Like, the only possibly moral alternative would be foraging - picking unfertilized eggs of wild birds - but I don't think that would scale...

> Well, the argument agains killing animals seems to be "you wouldn't kill humans"

That's not my argument, so I'll try to explain my personal reasoning. To me, the main real reason we have for not killing or hurting other creatures is that we believe they have some level of emotional life, and are capable of things like happiness, love (at least in some form), sadness, fear, and suffering beyond just physical pain. We love our dogs, cats, etc. because we believe at some level they are capable of loving us back (perhaps a stretch for cats I know).

Thus, for me personally I draw the line at mammals because I believe they possess all of these qualities. I will eat poultry, fish and shellfish because I don't believe they have the same capacity of "emotional sentience" as humans, though I'm fully open to the idea that my ideas about poultry are wrong.

Thus, while I "wouldn't enslave humans" I also believe it's possible to keep hens and cows for eggs and dairy in a manner where the animal does not suffer, and I don't see this as any kind of "enslavement".

You can eat plants perfectly fine which in addition is much easier on the environment. At a minimum meat consumption could be reduced a lot.

some plants would kill the planet as well. let's take almonds for example, they need a huge amount of water. and still more and more products will include them.

if everybody eats plants we would also need a huge amount of water/field sizes to feed everybody. guess the best thing is a healthy mix of everything.

> if everybody eats plants we would also need a huge amount of water/field sizes to feed everybody.

Keeping non-human animals for the purpose of eating their flesh requires even huger amounts of water/field sizes; so much in fact that half of the world's crops are fed to non-human animals[0].

[0]: https://www.treehugger.com/green-food/half-of-world-crop-is-...

Those numbers are way off, even if industrial animal husbandry is highly inefficient. You may want to read Meat: a benign extravagance by Simon Fairlie: https://www.amazon.com/Meat-Benign-Extravagance-Simon-Fairli...

Here's some numbers from a peer-reviewed analysis from 2018[0]:

> The new analysis shows that while meat and dairy provide just 18% of calories and 37% of protein, it uses the vast majority – 83% – of farmland and produces 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions.

I know I was responding to a specific comment about land usage, but I probably wouldn't read that book as I also believe that we should prevent unnecessary pain and suffering, e.g. even if we hypothetically found out that the smoke from the ovens in concentration camps didn't contribute significantly to air pollution, they still wouldn't be a good idea, so of course I object to a book that describes ongoing mass killings as "benign".

But if you have the specific numbers from the book handy, I'd still like to give them a look.

[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding...

Animals need even more water and space, both for themselves and for the huge amount of plant crops we grow to feed them. Which one do you think is more effecient to eat?

How much grass can a human eat? There are huge swathes of land where nothing but grass grows. Animal can graze it and people can eat animals.

This argument that certain areas _only_ support grass / ruminants gets brought up a lot but isn't accurate. Grasslands are some of the richest areas for growing plant-based crops in the USA.

https://i.imgur.com/qBxCYma.png

Ignoring the whataboutism going on here, there are a lot of other glaring issues with this comparison. Whales are not farmed. Their populations have been in decline since the dawn of sailing. Some organizations consider the targeted whale species (Minke?) to be endangered.

Which organizations consider Minke to be endangered? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minke_whale#Population_and_con...

1) its not actually sustainable

2) whales are sentient, or pretty close to it

As opposed to? Aren't pigs or cattle sentient?

The most intelligent Cetaceans are Orcas and Bottle-nosed Dolphins. Both pass the mirror test* while other whales have failed. The same applies for pigs and most other mammals.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

To be fair, there are problems with the mirror test.[0] Not being able to replicate, reading into animal's behaviors that isn't there.

[0]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-self-aware-fish-raises-doub...

Are you suggesting that pigs or cows can't feel anything (pain or pleasure) because they don't understand how a mirror works?

Awareness of oneself is a completely different matter. The Mirror Test is far from perfect, but it does demonstrate that some individuals of some species are indeed capable identifying themselves as individuals in a group, indicating at least rudimentary sentience. There are also other tests for animal sentience, though I suspect it's hard to test many animals due to logistical reasons.

Most multi-cellular life is able to feel pain, and probably pleasure too. That includes both pigs and cows (and whales for that matter). Heck -- even plants have chemical responses to damage, even though they don't have nervous systems. Individual plants can even communicate with each other and let others know of the pain it experiences. In other words: if pain to the living being that you are consuming for food is a concern, then you should stick to eating fruit and things that are already dead.

> Individual plants can even communicate with each other and let others know of the pain it experiences.

The way cows, dogs, pigs, cats, sheep and horses express pain is very similar to humans: screaming and squirming or trembling, trying to escape, sweating, increased pulse and blood pressure, etc.

Responding to damaging stimuli is not necessarily the same, and I'm therefore not convinced that plants can "feel pain"; but perhaps neither are you? Surely you'd have a harder time grabbing a red hot iron bar and poking a puppy than poking a turnip with it? (There's a reason the killing is done behind closed doors[1].)

> The Mirror Test is far from perfect, but it does demonstrate that some individuals of some species are indeed capable identifying themselves as individuals in a group, indicating at least rudimentary sentience.

What about the individuals that fail it? I expect tiny infants to be able to fail the mirror test. That wouldn't make it ok to eat them, of course? Same argument for blind people; and of course the kind of people who, when they wake up after they've been drugged and strapped firmly to a chair in front a mirror, don't consider investigating a sticker on their shoulder as a first priority (because that's how that test works, right?).

Also pigs seem to be able to understand mirrors anyway:

> They found that pigs:

> • have excellent long-term memories

> • are whizzes with mazes and other tests requiring location of objects

> • can comprehend a simple symbolic language and can learn complex combinations of symbols for actions and objects

> • love to play and engage in mock fighting with each other, similar to play in dogs and other mammals

> • live in complex social communities where they keep track of individuals and learn from one another

> • cooperate with one another

> • can manipulate a joystick to move an on-screen cursor, a capacity they share with chimpanzees

> • can use a mirror to find hidden food

> • exhibit a form of empathy when witnessing the same emotion in another individual

Source: https://www.seeker.com/iq-tests-suggest-pigs-are-smart-as-do...

> In other words: if pain to the living being that you are consuming for food is a concern, then you should stick to eating fruit and things that are already dead.

I think it should even extend beyond personal diet to preventing others from inflicting pain on the living, just like slavery was not considered a personal choice by abolitionists.

[1]: https://www.peta.org/videos/glass-walls-2/

I was going to write a long rant as a reply, but it all really comes down to this:

> I think it should even extend beyond personal diet to preventing others from inflicting pain on the living

If we assume a lion (or another predatorial animal) has at least a rudimentary form of counciousness, would that mean that a lion that ate a human would feel bad about it's actions?

Lion's are not on a mental level where we can demand that of them.

Similarly vegans are generally also not arguing for dogs to have drivers license, or to give cows the right to vote, because they don't have the mental abilities to do so.

But really, the behavior of lions doesn't have anything to do with the question of whether we should keep pigs in factory farms, and whether it's ok for us to murder.

No, pigs and cattle are not sentient.

Sentience is a complex question, but it mostly revolves around language and symbol-making/recognition. There's substantial evidence that whales actually have language. Pigs and cattle do not.

(edit: I'm misusing the word "sentience" here. The problem is that it's not the right distinction. Cows/pigs are sentient, in that they can feel emotions. But they cannot reason. So it's not just that whales are sentient, but also that whales can reason. At any rate, whales are considered by most experts to be able to think similarly to the way humans think - language, symbolism.)

I believe the important distinction is not whether or not pigs and cows are sentient/language capable. Instead the real question is can they suffer. And if they can is it acceptable to cause that suffering simply for entertainment value?

Ask yourself if dog fighting is acceptable. That is clearly animal suffering for purely entertainment purposes. If you live in a situation where you can survive and thrive without eating meat, how is eating meat any different than watching dog fighting? It’s animal suffering for enjoyment purposes.

I've never understood this part of the vegetarian argument. Cows and pigs wouldn't exist if we didn't eat them. Is it better that they not exist at all, than that they should suffer briefly?

I say yes. Can we breed humans as slaves and say “would it be better that they didn’t exist than live a horrible existence?” to justify breeding them? Because that is the exact logic slaveowners used.

Same with dogfighting. If we breed dogs for dogfighting that wouldn’t otherwise exist, does that make dogfighting acceptable?

I am pretty sure we do not want to go down the 'cannot reason so can be eaten' path.

Pigs are incredible intelligent. Yet even for sentient beings that aren't at the same level, that doesn't mean they should be exploited (think through the ethical consequences of that world view)

Yes. The way we treat them is wrong, too.

Are you serious? Because a pig or calf can be bought for a few hundred bucks, few thousand tops, and raised in a suburban back yard. Because there is zero chance they are keystone species.

An adult sperm whale weighs over 100 tons and eats about a ton a day. Do you not see the practical implications of that with regards to irreversible damage?

Edit: missed the sustainable part of your post. Whaling afaik can't be sustainable because the demand in Japan is high enough that whale populations simply can't replenish fast enough. They have a very slow reproductive and nurturing cycle.

I thought the demand in Japan was so low they had trouble selling the whale meat they hunted in the past couple of years. But I haven't been able to find a reliable source for that.

I always figured the Japanese stance was borne of out of politics and nationalism -- and possibly cronyism, I'm sure somebody is getting rich -- rather than driven by consumer demand.

One source, albeit a little bit old (2012): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/933082...

From the article:

"Today, whale stocks are carefully monitored, and while many species are still endangered, others - like the minke whale that Japan primarily hunts - are not."

Just recently I learned that Japan is not the only country that hunts whales. It seems Norway also does it and to a larger scale.

This isn't an excuse for Japan, just sharing this info for others that might unaware that Japan isn't alone in this.

Yes, there's a plot at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling#Greenland comparing Japan to Scandinavia.

Japan used to whale way more than any other country though (pre 80's), so hopefully this move doesn't signal returning to those levels.

I don't even eat meat but I find it difficult to be angry about this when at the same time at home we have millions (billions?) of farm animals live in absolutely terrible conditions. Reminds me a little of the outrage in CA about horse meat. There are plenty of people who think eating horse meat is morally wrong while at the same time they eat some salad with bacon on top. Why is a horse better than a pig? Certainly not because they are smarter.

The only difference I see is that whales are more in the open while the suffering of farm animals is neatly hidden away from most of us.

We should strive to treat animals much, much better but that should apply to all and not just to a few favored ones like whales while forgetting others.

I don't think this is a fair comparison because we breed these animals for farming, so technically we could breed as many as we need to sustain our habits.

On the other hand there is no way to breed whales. There is some finite number of them in the wild and we cannot actively endeavor to create more.

Commercial farming of farm animals will not cause the extinction of farm animals; commercial farming of whales will cause the extinction of whales.

" I don't think this is a fair comparison because we breed these animals for farming, so technically we could breed as many as we need to sustain our habits."

They still suffer greatly. Maybe a little extreme but by the same logic we could breed humans for slavery and say that it's OK because they got bred for it.

"commercial farming of whales will cause the extinction of whales. "

Not if done with proper quotas. It's not different from any other type of fishing.

Again, I don't even eat meat, but we should be a little more rational.

> Not if done with proper quotas.

And there lies the rub! People ignoring quotas are the whole reason this kind of fishing needs strong cooperative regulation.

> It's not different from any other type of fishing.

Actually, it is categorically different. You'd be hard pressed to hunt salmon to extinction even if you tried because they spawn hundreds of eggs per female each year. The same cannot be said for any species of whale.

> Maybe a little extreme but by the same logic we could breed humans for slavery and say that it's OK because they got bred for it.

The day an animal can articulate that, I'll agree with you.

Until then such comparison bears no meaning.

That's wrong. What matters is the capacity to suffer. There are humans who do not have the mental capacity to articulate such a thing either. I'd highly recommend as it deals with such arguments in greater length. http://lockeanliberal.com/2014/11/02/what-a-conservative-col...

Suffering wasn't brought up. Just the comparison of being bred for food vs slavery.

"The day an animal can articulate that, I'll agree with you."

They can if you keep your eyes open just a little.

So if I can't speak the language of my torturer, my suffering rightly has no meaning to them?

We also don't make everyone who can't speak our language suffer.

Historically, we do. However, we are able to communicate even if we don't know a specific language.

So a retarded person would likely not be able to articulate that. Is it ok to murder them, then?

> we breed these animals for farming, so technically we could breed as many as we need to sustain our habits.

I'm not sure this justification works. After all, if someone started breeding dogs or African Greys for human consumption in the U.S. in a way that was sustainable, people would still be outraged by it.

In fact they find SUCH a difference between "pet" animals and "farm" animals that we ban horse, dog, and cat meat for human consumption. Because you shouldn't eat cute things or something.

In my opinion, the people who constantly bring up the point you are responding to know full well. Read the rest of the comments here: It's repeated over and over. "Why do we care about whales if we don't care about cows?"

And then people like me and you respond with this same response: "Cows are not going extinct." They don't want to hear an answer, they want to shill veganism.

I've made the same reply a few times in this thread, and both times my comments were down-voted and flagged less than a minute after posting.

edit: Am I saying these people are coordinated? Yeah. Absolutely I am.

So it’s only immoral if the number of the animals is really low? Seems like an arbitrary trait to determine whether animals deserve to live or not

The implication of your comment you're arguing that allowing a species to risk extinction is somehow equivalent to breeding animals for slaughter as a food source. That a person cannot both be at ease with such farming of animals an at the same time, without contradiction, see value in preserving some other species from risk of extinction.

This is a rather obtuse outlook on your part. It should not be difficult to see that these positions on killing animals are not logically equivalent, or logically exclusive of each other.

Even forgetting about any concept of morality or ethics for a moment, from a purely utilitarian viewpoint raising animals for food isn't mutually exclusive with wanting to preserve the balance in an ecosystem in which whales play a part, and whose disruption could have far-reaching implications.

All other things being equal, killing an animal that is in danger of extinction is worse than killing one which is plentiful.

Agree. But generally irrelevant here, since the minke is not in danger of extinction.

How many cows, chickens etc do you think would survive if humans all of a sudden decided to stop breeding and exploiting them? It's not like those animals can survive in the wild (unless, of course, humans continue protecting them and killing their predators).

Extinction is a problem. Culling isn’t.

Reminds me a little of the outrage in CA about horse meat. There are plenty of people who think eating horse meat is morally wrong while at the same time they eat some salad with bacon on top

There was of course an extensive horse meat scandal in the UK as well, but I didn’t encounter anybody at that time describing the consumption of horse meat as “morally wrong”. Mislabelling of products, fraud, and food safety - those were the problems.

I've seen plenty people defending horses and dogs as "friends, not food".

The issues with that is that different cultures have different expectations of what is a 'friend' and what is a 'food'.

The U.K. is next door to France where eating horse is common. Many if not most British kids will have at least tried horse on a school trip to France. The French also eat frogs and snails.

It is not that easy to get horse in France in restaurants (easier in Belgium) while you can buy it in supermarkets for home cooking, I doubt that most British kids have had it.

1/3 of British kids will have eaten horse meat if they ate meat at all in 2013.

I don't think the most effective argument against whaling comes from concerns about their suffering. Same with horse meat.

That would be persuasive to some vegans and vegetarians, but they represent a small subset of the population.

A much larger group will respond well to concerns about their extinction. I want my son, and someday my son's kids (if he has any) and their kids to be able to go whale watching. I don't want them to go to school and learn about extinct species that my generation wantonly destroyed.

Unfortunately, this common desire runs afoul of other cultural activities that a few small minorities want to maintain: they want to follow their parents, and allow their kids to follow them, in hunting and eating whale.

A question for you: the banana tree is at risk of extinction, many historical variants have been pushed out of existence by massive cultivation of sterile farmed varieties. Blight, disease, and other issues put this large population of identical plants at risk.

The difference between the whaling problem and the banana problem is that bananas don't have the ability to experience suffering[citation needed]. Do you think it would be meritorious to advocate for the preservation, cultivation, and careful stewardship of bananas?

"Do you think it would be meritorious to advocate for the preservation, cultivation, and careful stewardship of bananas? "

It would be less meritorious than reducing the suffering of animals.

"I don't want them to go to school and learn about extinct species that my generation wantonly destroyed."

They will learn about that anyway, whales or not. We are destroying habitat of a lot of animals.

Whether or not you believe that, there's also the objection about conservation: whales are definitely dwindling and those fishing them are making no efforts to renew them, and people don't like eating them anyway, so why not focus that attention on animals we've domesticated?

It doesn't have to be about suffering or intelligence specifically to still be objectionable to hunt whales.

>Why is a horse better than a pig?

I never knew this before reading this article(1), but a pig was put on trial. It ate off a kid's face. Was tried and hanged.

They lived among humans, eating our garbage and feces, and the occasional human or corpse, earning them a bad reputation.

Still is no comparison to what humans have done to them, and continue to.

I personally try not to eat them, in paeticular.

1-https://www.wired.com/2015/05/pigs-may-eat-crap-shouldnt-tre...

Three facts.

1. Most of Japanese people have exactly zero interest about whaling.

2. Nor they do not understand why western people get so upset about it. ("What's so different with, say, tuna fishing?")

3. Anti-whaling protesters (e.g. Sea Shepherd) are really worsening the situation. Their "activism" (like stealing whale meats) is perceived as, at best, stupid.

This is really a communication problem, guys. Whaling could have been ended many years ago, if no one made such a big deal out of it.

> This is really a communication problem, guys. Whaling could have been ended many years ago, if no one made such a big deal out of it.

I don't follow that conclusion at all. Really doesn't seem like that's how it would have played out to me; maybe it wouldn't have been worse than it is today, but I can't imagine they were simply being encouraged to whale to be ornery.

Well they never really stopped, they just claimed it would be used for research and the meat was sold after the research was done.

From the article "Japan has caught between about 200 and 1,200 whales each year, saying it is investigating stock levels to see whether the whales are endangered or not."

> Government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said commercial whaling would be restricted to Japanese territorial waters and economic zones.

Someone needs to invent an underwater whale call (like a duck call) to lure the whales away from Japanese water.

Disappointing. We share one planet. Nations need to be held accountable by each other for the amount of resources they consume and how they do so. And in this case whales are not even within Japanese territory...

Well, according to the article:

> Government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said commercial whaling would be restricted to Japanese territorial waters and economic zones.

> As a result, Japan will stop hunting in Antarctic waters and the southern hemisphere, a prospect conservation groups had welcomed before it was formally confirmed.

And:

> Japan offered a package of measures, including setting up a Sustainable Whaling Committee and sustainable catch limits "for abundant whale stocks/species".

> The proposal was voted down.

In other words: Japan will keep the whaling within their own territorial water, and has indeed tried getting a consensus regarding quotas for sustainable whaling. Others refused to come to terms, so Japan has decided to do their own thing.

I realise it's an unpopular opinion to have, but wouldn't regulated and sustainable whaling be better than various rogue states? It's not this is going to result in anything but criticism from other countries anyway, so blocking a desiscion on sustainable whaling will only result in others doing what Japan does.

We need to international agreement to stop hunting wild animal outside of the country territory. However, if even one nation will disobey it, it will not work. To make it work, we need to _force_ all nations to obey common law, i.e. we need central government with forces. It doesn't look doable without one or two world wide wars. And the global exchaution of resources is the fastest way to perform these wars.

So, to win, we need to create mess first, then clean up.

> We need to international agreement to stop hunting wild animal outside of the country territory.

This isn’t enough. Whales pass through many countries waters, so killing them in Japan’s waters doesn’t only affect Japan.

You are of-course assuming that a) anyone will care to wage a world war over whales, b) the 'right' side will win such a world war and c) A victory in such a war will be any better than defeat with irradiated lands and oceans.

But yes, in principle you are right - a common world government will need a world war. Such a government will also, by necessity, need to be a un-elected tyranny in order to exist as a common world government.

It's never about nation. It is always about people who support it.

What's a sustainable level of whaling?

Whale beef is totally delicious, but I'm wondering if Norways catch is sustainable and I can continue to enjoy it.

Is there anything you could compare it to, for people who haven't had the chance? I'm vaguely aware the postwar British government promoted corned whale meat an unrationed alternative to normal meats, and that it (unsurprisingly) tasted quite like corned beef.

It tastes like a good steak, just with more umami and tenderness and perhaps a slight hint of fish oil, depending on how it's prepared. There's also something about its deep dark red wine color that feels luxurious.

It's easy to avoiding the fish oil taste of you're careful.

whales are definitely sentient, have language and culture - enjoy eating something else

I don't understand this "whales are definitely sentient" thing going around in this thread. How is this tested? What evidence do we have?

As one commentator, Michael Cucek, pointed out (0), this could result in less whales being killed. There isn't that much of a market for whale in Japan and whaling operations have mostly been subsidised for "research" purposes. (0)https://mobile.twitter.com/MichaelTCucek/status/107560724374...

That is one of the stupidest parts of all about this whole affair, nobody even wants whale meat in Japan, so the entire thing is just a senseless stunt.

There is zero reason for whaling in Japan beyond the governments desire to protect a dying industry and a political need to look strong to conservative / right wing / nationalist voters. I have spent a considerable amount of time in Japan (collectively nearly 3 years) and visit once a month for work. None of my Japanese friends or colleagues will eat whale. They find the whole thing silly and feel the industry should just end. Their collective ages are between 30 to 70 and they represent a good cross section of backgrounds. This is a nitch right wing issue.

Well this is quite rational policy (tongue in cheek). As population of Japan is getting older and older it makes less and less sense to bother with longer term perspective on sustainability of the planet.

On the "silver lining" side of that, is it conceivable that once this generation dies out the pressure for whale goods decreases? Is the younger generation also asking for this?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35397749

But Junko Sakuma thinks the answer lies in the fact that Japan's whaling is government-run, a large bureaucracy with research budgets, annual plans, promotions and pensions.

"If the number of staff in a bureaucrat's office decreases while they are in charge, they feel tremendous shame," she says.

"Which means most of the bureaucrats will fight to keep the whaling section in their ministry at all costs. And that is true with the politicians as well. If the issue is closely related to their constituency, they will promise to bring back commercial whaling. It is a way of keeping their seats."

with climate change, the jokes on them

As far as I am concerned, as a Canadian, I would remove the 'most favored nation' status from Japan. This would add import duties to all Japanese imports to Canada. that would far exceed any whaling profits. If you can not persuade them peacefully, 'club them to the ground' by adding the USA to also deny them MFN status.

Canada is not part of the IWC, we left in 1982. The aboriginal communities in our northern territories regularly hunt whales in small numbers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_whaling

As a Canadian you should probably first work on getting your country to stop overfishing tuna so the supply doesn't crash like cod did: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/our-failure-to-pr...

A country can work on several things at once.

Is that even (legally) possible as long as Canada and Japan are part of WTO?

Is 'club them' a reference to the baby seal clubbing that happens in Canada?

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