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Comment by PretzelPirate | Hacker News Reader

> but as a supporter of Bison

If you support Bison, why commend someone who killed them for a profit?

I support them as wildlife, a food source, and ecological resource. If people in the US ate bison instead of cows, it would be a huge benefit for the climate, ecosystem, and our health.

If he had not created a profitable enterprise, there would not be 45k wild bison roaming free with the same amount of dollars.

It's not like I want bison to die, but if an American is going to eat a bovid, it's much better for it to be a bison. The American great plains are big enough to support vast wild herds and sustainable, profitable enterprises, but in order for that to happen, Americans need to eat bison, not cows.

Because the person who killed then for a profit also paid to have them exist, gave them a home and food. In wanting to eat bison meat, he paid to have more bison exist, so there are more bison than if he hadn't killed some of them for eating.

I 100% agree. However, I do think there is room for discussion for someone to ask is that a good thing? It is good if there is more of them if they only exist to be killed? I don't think things like this are black and white. If they only existed in the worst conditions in factory farms my answer would be no. If they can live a good life and be slaughtered humanely my answer would be yes. I think it's easy to dismiss comments like the one you responded to, but I would argue it's always good to think about these things.

it's hard to argue that decreased genetic diversity will help humans. Maybe we don't need hundreds of thousands of new exotic huge bovines to shit methane into the air all day every day, but it should be seen as fairly vital that we try to keep genetic diversity as high as we can in order to maximize future opportunities that may arise from research and development for the sake of humanity.

> it's hard to argue that decreased genetic diversity will help humans.

Nobody was arguing about what is best for humans.

If the choice of existence for all pigs (randomly selected as an animal commonly used for food) was to live in factory farming conditions or for pigs to go entirely extinct, I'd rather they go extinct. Not for the benefit of humanity, but because never existing is a better outcome for those would-be pigs than living lives full of nothing but suffering.

As someone who lives near one of the herds, this isn't a factory farming situation. They live pretty good lives on open space with a bit of population management that ends up with meat and hides that help offset the cost of managing the herd.

That's good to know (genuinely).

I wasn't specifically talking about the bison here which is why I randomly selected some other animal to talk about and made the choice more binary than it is in the real world.

I was just making a point that what is best for humans is hardly the only criteria to use to make these sorts of decisions for some people (myself included).

he also gave LIFE - people need food for survival AND full protein to grow muscles and brain.

Meat is super efficient for protein - thats why every successful Civilization does it

>If you support Bison, why commend someone who killed them for a profit?

Because they wouldn't exist otherwise.

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