Watson, founder of Sea Shepherd and co-founder of Greenpeace, has been arrested on an international warrant and is facing charges including accomplice to assault and ship trespass
Sure we can do that, I just didn’t want to hijack a conversation about what makes killing whales ok with a bunch of other separate considerations.
Whales feel pain.
It’s wrong to inflict pain on others unnecessarily.
Killing whales is not necessary.
Therefore, killing whales is bad.
Separately, there’s the environmental impact. No matter how sustainable the whaling is, it’s not like they’re overpopulating and need to be culled or something. Whales are important in the ocean ecosystem, and they’re good at sequestering carbon on the sea floor for a very very long time when they die. It seems pretty obvious to me that killing whales is done out of self interest (we like eating them, it’s our tradition, etc.) rather than out of some altruistic sense of duty to preserve the ecosystem, and not killing them at all would be the most sustainable solution.
And finally, I don’t know a ton about it but evidently there are some pretty serious health concerns with eating whales, that makes it seem like you could argue for not eating them (and therefore not killing them) purely out of self-interest to maintain your own personal health.
It seems pretty obvious to me that killing whales is done out of self interest (we like eating them, it’s our tradition, etc.) rather than out of some altruistic sense of duty to preserve the ecosystem, and not killing them at all would be the most sustainable solution.
Is everything you do altruistic? If no, then why should we be altruistic specifically there, if yes, then how do you manage to lie to yourself on such a fundamental level?
No of course not. I was mostly just trying to make the case that killing whales isn’t good for the environment, or is at least strictly worse than not killing them. The sustainability of whaling mostly refers to killing just few enough that we can continue killing them indefinitely, rather than any sort of positive effect on the environment. Clearly if we were actually interested in environmental sustainability we just wouldn’t be killing whales at all.
Did you have any thoughts about the other two points I made? I’m also curious why you’re so passionate about defending people who kill whales, since this seems like a pretty uncommon opinion.
Sure we can do that, I just didn’t want to hijack a conversation about what makes killing whales ok with a bunch of other separate considerations.
Separately, there’s the environmental impact. No matter how sustainable the whaling is, it’s not like they’re overpopulating and need to be culled or something. Whales are important in the ocean ecosystem, and they’re good at sequestering carbon on the sea floor for a very very long time when they die. It seems pretty obvious to me that killing whales is done out of self interest (we like eating them, it’s our tradition, etc.) rather than out of some altruistic sense of duty to preserve the ecosystem, and not killing them at all would be the most sustainable solution.
And finally, I don’t know a ton about it but evidently there are some pretty serious health concerns with eating whales, that makes it seem like you could argue for not eating them (and therefore not killing them) purely out of self-interest to maintain your own personal health.
Is everything you do altruistic? If no, then why should we be altruistic specifically there, if yes, then how do you manage to lie to yourself on such a fundamental level?
No of course not. I was mostly just trying to make the case that killing whales isn’t good for the environment, or is at least strictly worse than not killing them. The sustainability of whaling mostly refers to killing just few enough that we can continue killing them indefinitely, rather than any sort of positive effect on the environment. Clearly if we were actually interested in environmental sustainability we just wouldn’t be killing whales at all.
Did you have any thoughts about the other two points I made? I’m also curious why you’re so passionate about defending people who kill whales, since this seems like a pretty uncommon opinion.