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Instead of trying to impute hidden motives, you could just read it as the statement of fact that it was. I wasn't "going" anywhere with it. I've always been an avid conservationist and have actively worked on climate change for decades, I have a pretty good handle of the issues. But I also abhor the popular strain of ideology that believes we should obscure the truth or be dishonest about the reality when communicating with the public because we imagine they might engage in wrong think.

I discovered many years ago that almost everyone is surprised to find out that "endangered" in this context has little relation to "almost extinct" because that is their intuitive understanding of the term and people are encouraged to misinterpret it that way. It comes across as misleading at the very least, which fosters distrust. There is evidence on this very thread that people are confused by this distinction. Furthermore, this has historically been weaponized by activists in ways that are indefensible in the pursuit of other agendas.

If we are going to have adult conversations about these issues then it is imperative that everyone has the same understanding of the tradeoffs at stake and feels they are not being manipulated in bad faith. We have enough challenges with the environment, we don't need to invent new ones.

I still don't understand why you went to that point in a discussion of an animal that (1) isn't characterized as endangered because (2) the relevant conservation effort (decades ago!) was wildly successful.

I mean, do you or don't you disagree with the regulatory practice of labelling "Endangered" species? It sounds like you do. In which case, you're wrong. The Endangered Species Act is a cornerstone of US conservation policy and has saved literally hundreds of species at this point.

You're really reading too much into this. It's an interesting fact that I hadn't heard before, and I appreciated OP sharing it! And from what it sounds like that's exactly why OP shares it: because it's an interesting fact that makes people think.

Why do you persist in trying to assign any motive other than curiosity?

Sometimes people just share information that they have about a topic as part of a discussion, without there being a persuasive intent.

Seems to me like the post is just noting that if you want to postfix "in the US" to "endangered," you should more properly postfix "in the contiguous US." I have no idea why the DDT rant.

Pursuit of the truth is worthwhile in and of itself.

The word "Endangered" in this context (which, again, hasn't applied to the bald eagle for 30 years!) is defined by and used within the context of the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Inserting an "actuallly" argument is doing nothing but harming understanding.

It is common for people to have an understanding of terms which differs from their precise legal definition, and the difference between the two can be interesting.

Right, so you agree with me then that calling out ambiguous usage and citing the relevant definitions is valuable? People are getting outrageously bent out of shape in this thread when all I'm trying to say is that the Endangered Species Act is a valuable and important tool and that attempts to "define it away" with ambiguous rhetoric is bad.

The fact that I keep trying to pin you guys down on policy implications with no success tells me an awful lot about who I'm arguing with. (Again: do you or don't you want to return to the use of DDT? Do you or don't you agree that the bald eagle should have been listed as endangered until 1995? Do you or don't you agree that "Endangered" as a legal classification has been a good law? No one answers!)

I really got the strong impression from your comments that you were trying to say there was some hidden nefarious intent behind his comment. You haven't really done anything to dispel that impression.

Otherwise, to what are you referring with "attempts to "define it away" with ambiguous rhetoric is bad." ?

Don't know about "nefarious", but cryptolibertarianism is extremely common on this forum. People throw out points like that all the time and then (as here) run to semantic arguments when challenged. But the point was the challenge, not the intent.

Is it possible I'm wrong about intent? Sure! But the Endangered Species Act remains a really important law and a seminal moment in US conservation policy. And the fact that no one seems to want to talk about it is... suspicious. So I think I'm probably right. Both about the poster above and you.

But more importantly, I'm right about conservation law, even though no one wants to discuss it.

There is no libertarian bent in the argument. I suspect a lot of the drive to censor comes out of extrapolations like this, where people are reading into factual statements agendas that are not there.

In 2020, I had this chart showing the IFR for COVID (it's gone down since then due to widespread immunity from vaccination and natural infection) taken down by Facebook's "fact-checkers" because apparently providing the chart without context was "misleading":

Age Group | Low | Mean | High

-----------------------------

0-19 | 0.007% | 0.01% | 0.02%

20-29 | 0.01% | 0.02% | 0.03%

30-39 | 0.04% | 0.05% | 0.06%

40-49 | 0.08% | 0.1% | 0.1%

50-59 | 0.2% | 0.3% | 0.4%

60-69 | 0.7% | 0.9% | 1.1%

70-79 | 1.8% | 2.4% | 2.9%

80+ | 3.4% | 4.4% | 5.5%

-----------------------------

Total | 0.4% | 0.5% | 0.6%

Same "I don't like the agenda I suspect this is intended to push" rationale behind the censorship.

Counterargument: characterizing a comment literally asking a question of the commenter as a (ahem) "drive to censor" is even more of a "political extrapolation".

I wasn't suggesting that the commenter was pushing to censor. Just that the same kinds of extrapolations are the motivation and given-justification for a lot of censorship. I do concede that it was an off tangent point.

The comment very much did not just ask a question. It specifically mentioned trying to find out what the argument is, and mentioned inferring a libertarian bent where none existed.

> did not just ask a question. It specifically mentioned trying to find out what the argument is,

Trying to think of a scenario were "asking a question" and "trying to find out what the argument is" are not synonyms...