A Tuna's Worth | Hacker News Reader

A Tuna's Worth

hakaimagazine.com

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Such beautiful animals. It's a shame we haven't found a way to fish them responsibly.

I wonder. Have humans managed as a collective to do anything responsibly in their entire history?

Australian aborigines managed a whole continent the size of the USA sustainably for 60,000 years.

http://www.workingwithindigenousaustralians.info/content/His...

At an unimaginably low standard of living.

If you lack imagination and don't get out into nature much, you might not get it. But read Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn and you'll gain some understanding for how rich traditional aboriginal life was.

Standard of living is a different metric than cultural richness. I'll keep access to modern medicine, indoor plumbing, food availability and the options to provide for myself that don't involve hazardous physical labor.

Nature is great, but can also be a harsh mistress.

Indoor plumbing is awesome.

Food availability is a double edged sword.

Climate change is the harshest mistress of all.

I would not want to live in a world where the average life expectancy was 25 years, and where most people died from exposure to the natural elements, easily curable diseases, or being eaten by wild beasts.

Sure, they may have enjoyed a life free of that ol' 9-5 grind, but I much prefer air conditioning and vaccines to stoning rabbits to death to evade starvation every week.

Compared to aboriginal life, Huck Finn might as well been aboard the deck of the Starship Enterprise. Steamboats, cannons, metallurgy, the beginnings of modern medicine. The mid-nineteenth century was during the industrial revolution. I'd say your life today is closer to Huck Finn than a typical aboriginal person.

I'd probably take it over the average lower class European's standard at the time.

They still ate all the megafauna within a couple thousand years of their arrival, and, arguably, significantly contributed to deforestation of the continent.

So, not that different from the Homo Sapiens anywhere else.

Regarding deforestation, prebrov, that didn't happen in the way that, for example, the Amazon was deforested in 20th century South America by clear felling old growth forests to produce coffee and soy mono-cultures.

Australian aborigines used fire to cultivate the land in mosaic patterns of cleared grasslands forested conserves. The result was an altered landscape which retained natural ecosystems whilst supporting human and animal populations sustainably.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/indigenous-burning-be...

One big difference, I imagine, is the population that forest is being extracted for. The Amazon isn't only being extracted while sustaining 100s of millions of South Americans (prior to colonization AUS had fewer than a million inhabitants), but also serving the world's demands. So I think it's different although in balance both unsustainably.

Yes, it's a vastly bigger population now, mc32, and that's what is unsustainable. The vastly bigger population is still increasing at a rapid clip, but the forests and the oceans are not.

I don’t argue that it happened the same way. Impact sure took longer than what we can achieve with modern technology, but the fact remains. Humans arrived into the last jungles of Pangea, and by the time of European colonisation, Australia was a Red Continent, with Eucalyptus being the dominant large plant.

There seems to be a strong indication that human activity contributed significantly to the climate change in Australia.

Not belittling the choices humans make to opt-out of the modern civilisation, but romanticising and mythologising “closeness to nature” just isn’t productive. Profound effect on the environment is a feature of all life forms, and sustainability isn’t really on any life form’s agenda.

Who’s to say that Cyanobacteria aren’t “close to nature”? Yet buggers were so successful, and polluted atmosphere with oxygen so badly, nearly all life went extinct. Even that worked quite well in the end.

I believe they did wipe out much of the mega fauna, so not necessarily sustainable in a modern sense.

This May 2020 article presents a different perspective

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/may/19/humans-austr...

Huh I guess the jury is still out then

Lumber is currently close and I bet could potentially totally be if you reverted to wood burning energy sources. That said, I’m unsure if having more trees is actually responsible given the fire risk.

Despite popular belief, it is not a great idea to release a shitton of CO2 in a hot minute just because over 200 years, a newly grown tree can consume it back.

Bit of an overstatement in both directions. If you burn an entire tree each year and maintain a woodlot of 20 trees that take 20 years to grow, you’re neutral. Scale as necessary.

It’s bad for local air quality.

Also need to be clear on whether we’re talking individual home wood heating or industrial centralised systems.

Pollarding(removal of the upper branches of a tree, which promotes the growth of a dense head of foliage and branches) seemed pretty responsible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollarding

Developing vaccines and the declaration of human rights (after 2 World-wars)...but yeah there is really not much more.

Apparently not beautiful enough to avoid being killed at all, though. It's a shame we haven't stopped eating animals.

Ah yes, pesky humans. If only nature didn't have those killer humans it would be all peace and harmony.

Absolute false argument. Humans are the cause of nearly every extinction for the last several hundred years. Nature wouldn't be peaceful, but it sure as shit would be more balanced. By arguing that nature is violent and chaotic (and thus we are only doing what is natural) absolves us of our responsibility to try and undo the damage we have wreaked on this planet for centuries. We are the enemy of every creature on this planet, and we need to face that.

That's a bit of straw-man, I never said any of that. You have extended the conversation far beyond eating animals which is natural and can be done responsibly.

I mean you pretty much tacitly said it with irony so...

Nature is wild, unpredictable and senselessly gruesome. What distinguishes human beings from animals is the ability to speak on behalf of evil. Crime is a symbol of our freedom -- Jacques Vergès

Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous -- indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose. -- Richard Dawkins

To put it another way, consuming animals is neither good or evil in and of itself.

>What distinguishes human beings from animals is the ability to speak on behalf of evil.

When was the last time you spoke with a animal? And why do you think Humans are not animals too?

I take "speak" in the broad sense of "expressing something", saw animals (mainly dogs and cats) understanding what I say (not only my voice tone), expressing what appears to me as many types of sentiments and opinions, and often learn surprising related facts or theories... but aren't aware or anything about a non-human being expressing something on behalf of evil.

The (interesting) debate "are humans animals?" doesn't seem pertinent to me here. The author probably thinks they aren't, but his point isn't about this debate.

It is extending your argument, but I don't recant what I said. That kind of casually indifferent attitude towards 'oh well why bother because nature is chaotic' has caused so much destruction of the natural world. The attitude of resigning yourself to 'nature taking its course' long after we set it on the path it is on attempts to absolve us of our responsibilities to fix the damage we as a species do daily.

It's an issue because our collective footprints grow, and we all have an environmental footprint regardless of what we consume. You could extend this to: it's a shame we haven't stopped decimating forests, it's a shame we will continue to encroach on land so long as our population grows, it's a shame that as a result of this growth more animals will die through conventional agriculture i.e. plants, etc.

Hmm, the article was somewhat interesting, but after spending 15 minutes with it, I felt it just ended up rambling without a clear point.

Not that that's a bad thing -- there's something to be said for long narrative. Or reading something for atmosphere.

But especially for a coastal eco-website/magazine, I would think the writer would try to emphasize more of a focused point or question / issue for the reader to ponder. Like the need for fisheries management, or the cost of shipping fish around the globe, or the struggle of a quota'd fishing boat, or something like that.

This one wandered among several different topics, touching each one briefly but never really sticking to a theme and driving the point home. Even the last paragraph, which usually ends up with a question or big point, read just like any other paragraph or sentence. Ah well.

One day I hope to spear one myself. I have a few friends that have been hard working and lucky enough to spear one and the food that they share from that is incredible. Sushi for days. Then again, these are the smaller bluefin about the size of a man, no one is spearing the giants.

You would need some serious clips and line... and maybe a boat as your float.

Even other species of tuna that get relatively large look like an absolute life event to spear. There are albacore in the blue waters where I live, and some day I’d absolutely love to drop on a school of those. They get over four feet long!

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