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Comment by FrustratedMonky | Hacker News Reader

"perished due to becoming bycatch"

So sorry we accidently killed you. In order to give your life some meaning, we've come up with "unique opportunity to have their livers provide valuable products"

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That's all we can ask for in many careers

I doubt I will ever provide as much value as a shark liver's worth of biodiesel.

Your employer frantically googling how much biodiesel can be produced from a human liver

In modern capitalism your life only has meaning if you produce products.

To who? As opposed to?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_...

That isn't an argument that Capitalism is good, or better. In Capitalism, if you don't work, you don't eat. So finding a quote about communism that says same thing, is not making any point that one is better or worse.

The difference is in Communism, there should always be 'some work'. If you are willing to work, there is work. Even if it is some public works project.

In Capitalism, maybe not. Nobody is looking out for you. If you don't have the skills for what is in demand right now, then so sorry, go ahead and die.

sure. 'some work' under communism will yield you a bed and and a few bowls of gruel per day.

in the US, there are 'working poor'. under communism, there are 'working poor and starving'.

at the time when skilled blue collar workers in the US had two story houses and multiple cars per family, the same people in the USSR lived in communal apartments (with 3-4 people per room and 3-4 families per bathroom and kitchen) and commuted to work in overcrowded buses.

even towards the end, in the 80's, after several decades of relative peace and prosperity, even engineers and scientists had a standard of living far below the level of 'working poor' in the US. having a small concrete box in a commie block and a shitty car (that you had to wait several years for the privilege of being allowed to buy for a very sizeable amount of money) was the Soviet dream.

1. Often the failure of the USSR is used to say communism failed. This totally ignores the after effects of WW2, where the US had rapid industrial growth to supply arms, and critically, did not get bombed. And USSR had been pretty much destroyed. The starting lines were pretty different.

2. And. Different point. These quotes on working to eat, also are meant to apply to the rich. In the US, the rich can just sit by the pool and do not contribute to society. The communist quote is meant to mean, everyone contributes. Whereas in capitalism, you can live off inheritance or interest rates, and not contribute anything. Be a parasite.

This seems overly cynical.

If sharks are purposefully being killed like this then thats one thing. But that’s not being alleged.

If sharks are accidentally killed then it’s good that they’re making use of them to some extent. Hopefully they can make even more use of them.

They could reduce the amount of bycatch, like they have with dolphins. They won’t if there is economic incentive not to.

But dolphins and giraffes are cute. Sharks and cattle aren’t.

Legions of toddlers demand you review the body of work from Pinkfong, and then reconsider your inclusion of sharks as "not cute".

They are being killed through the use of specific fishing techniques. Anyone using those techniques KNOWS that this is going to happen.

Adding a financial incentive to continue harmful practices is NOT a good thing.

You're essentially saying that accidental shark death is bad, so we should make it on purpose.

We should be punishing bycatch, not incentivizing it.

This idea really disgusts me. If an animal is “accidentally” killed then the first action should be to punish the people who did this and then take steps to ensure it does not happen again. Just allowing capitalism to continue to wreak havoc on our planet is so obviously not moral thing to do.

I'm not sure it's possible to be "too cynical" in the commercial fishing space. If there is even the remotest financial incentive to do something, we should expect people to maximize profits and do it. The concept of "intent" doesn't really need to enter the discussion, I don't think.

There's no effort being made to avoid catching sharks, just catching everything in the area, and preventing anything else from living in the area anytime soon by environmental destruction

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