this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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I would highly recommend the recent Freakonomics Radio series about whaling. It's Episodes 549-551 and the bonus episode from 2023-08-06. If you're firmly against killing any living creature (or at least sentient creatures), I highly doubt it will change your mind (and I don't think that it should or that it tries to), but I also think it is really fascinating learning about the history of the whaling industry and hearing the perspective of a modern whaler in the bonus episode. Putting aside the obvious ethical issues with killing sentient creatures, it's interesting to consider things like whether there's a sustainable level of whaling, what a sustainable quota would look like, and how much we're in competition with certain whale species for harvesting fish as food for our own species. I personally appreciated how unbiased Freakonomics tried to be in their discussion of the topic.
Idk man. Whales are literally sentient, have culture, families, and fucking language with grammar.
I'm all for eating fish and cows and most animals. But whales are basically people that happen to live in the water. I can't get on board with that.
They (cows) possess substantial problem-solving skills, enabling them to interact effectively with their environment. This intelligence isn't confined to the tangible realm; it also extends profoundly into the emotional sphere. Cows form intricate social relationships within their herd
As a meat eater the argument that we shouldn't eat "intelligent" animals is bull. The livestock we eat all display a higher/equal level of intelligence as your pets. Ultimately we don't eat certain animals because we like them and that's it.
Personally if you're going to eat meat you can't pick and choose which animal is ok to eat and which one isn't. It's either they all are or none of them are
This is fairly bad logic it presumes we must either do no evil whatsoever or do however much evil we like because we refuse to do no evil. You could trivially extend it to eating people after all why are we picking which animal its OK to eat? Back in reality we should probable stop eating animals but a world where we do less harm is still better than one where we do more and most of us would race to stop the consumption of 3 children before we would endeavor to save 3 million chickens. The argument goes that the whales are closer to the children than the chickens. Even if you don't think this is fair or reasonable nobody is going to save the chickens and there is political and moral will to save the whales so perhaps be happy with the good that we can do instead of insisting on all or none.
I see your point- and you are right, a world where we do less harm is better. It's all grey areas though. Extending your example, if it was a choice between the death of 3 million chickens or 3 million whales, personally I would choose the chickens. 3 million cows or 3 million whales, however, has different implications. Even more interesting is smaller numbers- 300 cows or 300 whales? Considering how you get so much more resources for the same amount of harm in whales, I would probably choose whales.
My point had nothing to do with harm but with logic. The idea that some animals are more worthy than others when it comes to consumption makes no sense. If your argument is about harm reduction then the only issue with killing Whales would be killing so many it has food chain ramifications. Other then that there is no harm. If your argument is about its wrong to eat sentient beings you can't kill any animal.
The only argument you can have against killing a chicken instead of a whale is we've always killed chickens which isn't an argument. As for saving a baby instead of chicken were biologically programed to care for a baby to keep the humanity going and eating one is harmful to our health
You actually feel like killing chickens and killing people have equal moral weight? Ya you aren't worth talking with any longer.
If you actually read my comment you'd see I said we are biologically programmed not to kill or eat human babies. Which is why logically we have no reason to resort to cannibalism.
I argued theres no moral argument to claim its better to eat chickens instead of whales. If you weren't so focused on just arguing you'd see that
Whales appear to have a higher degree of understanding of the universe I and others feel it is more akin to eating humans than chickens. If you don't agree with that premise you probably wont agree with anything else.
Yeah the only thing stopping Whales from space travel and enlightenment is a lack of thumbs and the ability to sit
Lol, cry about it, bloodmouth.
I'd seriously eat human, if it weren't for the risk of prion diseases.
Wolves too. They have their own cultures, wars, families, even special techniques like having one wolf chase goats up gullies on glaciers, while other wolves ski down the chutes to intercept the goats.
And humans mowed down the entire pack from helicopter. Recently, Montana massacred their packs in a similar way, killing over 100 wolves. It's stomach churning. I've read a couple books on wolves, and some are so sad because the wolves are way too human when you give them more than a passing glance.
They are....unsettlingly smart. Which makes it all the more tragic when someone traps one and shoots it while trapped, and the wolf knows what's going to happen, and calls out one final low goodbye as the human raises the gun. Jesus. I had to put that book down.
I couldn't agree more. It is a excellent overview of whaling. I highly recommend the series to anyone who feels strongly about whales.
Or even if one doesn’t feel strongly about whales. It is still a superb program.
Thanks for the rec!
Recently listened to it. Appreciate them looking at the various angles. The history bits are excellent, once again I learned things about people of colour which I wouldn't have otherwise.
I've actually been to Iceland several times, and once I took the chance to try whale after much assurance from a local that when it comes to ethics, it's fine and within quota. That said, I wish I had the willpower to be a vegetarian. It would be ideal to me if we no longer needed any animals to sustain ourselves. But some foods are just too good and don't have perfect replacements yet. I hope that with lab grown meats whale will also become an option. So that they can live free and full lives. Unless the one guy on the show was right about overpopulation. I didn't feel he was the best source. But wildlife management is a thing, especially since we're meddling in nature, so now we're responsible too. It's a tough and emotionally changed subject.
There's a sustainable level of eating dogs, cats and drink human blood too. Should we open dog farms to create more jobs?
There is no inherent difference whatsoever from eating cats and dogs to eating cows or horses or sheep. Meat is meat.
Eating predators is supposedly less healthy than plant eating animals for a few reasons. As I understand it, carnivores have a notably higher level of parasites, they share diseases with other carnivores more readily than herbivores, and they’re more lean and the meat is more tough/stringy.
There’s also a realistic level of sustainable effort to farm raise a carnivore vs a herbivore. https://www.britannica.com/science/trophic-level
China already does
Dog meat in China is considered taboo and is something actively fought nowadays, it's mostly popular among the eldest and resented by the youngest. And even then, there is only one (1) place in China where a dog meat festival happens. Yulin.
https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/social-welfare/article/3138158/rescue-68-dogs-headed-slaughterhouse-spotlights
It is also kind of dishonest to ignore South Korea which does in fact have industrial dog meat farms.
https://m.workplace.com/scmp/videos/south-korean-dog-meat-farmers-push-back-against-consumption-ban/1003013387714217/
And it is very dishonest to say that China does this on an industrial scale with the government supporting this.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3086813/dogs-are-pets-not-food-says-chinese-agriculture-ministry
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3090059/dog-meat-festival-opens-china-activists-hope-it-last-time
It unfortunately is also all over asia... Not just China. But fortunately, there is pushback from animal rights activists.
https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/2151975/asias-booming-dog-meat-business-and-activists-seeking-en
Why not? I dont think that dog farms would be that profitable considering the price of dog food, but I dont see a reason why it should be illegal.
They're bad for dogs
Dog farms are no more unethical than pig farms.
Why not?
Whaling is no different then fishing as far as sustainability goes and ethically a whale is no different then a cow. If you have no problem with killing cows, you should have no problem killing whales, assuming it is done sustainably.
That's a pretty strong statement without any underlying argument. There are countless differences between whaling and slaughtering livestock. I'm not in favor of either one per se, but to say they're ethically identical is quite the leap.
It takes a lot less time to grow a new cow than it does to grow a new whale.
Sure and that is taken into account with the sustainability. While you can harvest something like a billion cows a year plus cows are domesticated the same concept applies to whale but it may be only a few thousand a year.
Ah yes "sustainability". Whaling is such a sustainable industry that basically every civilized nation has banned it. That's okay though, we've proven that we're really good at farming and fishing sustainably, so I'm sure we'll be just as good at whaling. We definitely aren't fishing the oceans to extinction, or releasing millions of tons of methane from factory cattle farming.
Oh wait...
Since when exactly are unsustainable industries banned?
Problem is fishing is one of the biggest contributors to plastics ending up in the oceans and sea floors being destroyed. If whaling is like fishing then that's still adding to the problem.
Whaling still uses harpoons, just more modern and sophisticated ones. It's more akin to hunting than fishing.
I get it's probably because people just aren't used to the idea of eating whale, but it's odd you're being downvoted when like that's kinda the stance I think a lot of environmentalists have here in Norway, though I think the comparison is more to like venison than cows, because venison's hunted but cows are raised. In the grand scheme of things, the beef industry does way more damage and has more ethical concerns than the strictly regulated whaling industry and we should be focusing our attention on that. I could be completely off though - I ain't from Oslo and whale is regularly available on the supermarket shelves in the season so I'm obviously somewhat biased here. I know a lot of people have ethical concerns but like, I don't get it. Pigs are smarter than a whale, but people aren't upset at pork chops.
Also idk how reliable it is because obviously it's a biased source, but according to the fishing industry pound for pound whale's actually way better for the environment than any farmed red meat because you're, y'know, not raising it.
Yea wild-hunted venison is probably a much better comparison, I'd probably agree that whale meat is better for the environment then farmed meat but ultimately you have to account for scale. It would be impossible for the world to live on whale meat alone, much like it would be impossible for the world to live on fish, or non-farmed crops. It's good to have a variety of food sources both for culinary enjoyment as well as food security and sustainability.
I'd also add to the discussion that the reason why Norway (and I think Iceland too) eat it as "tradition" isn't because it's some sacred animal or traditional or something, it's because up until very recently both countries were dirt poor and neither country is particularly great when it comes to arable land that you can grow veggies or animals on. Whale is a physically big source of red meat that lives not that far off the coast, and has tons of other uses besides food too. They're also small countries so using them as a food source isn't that damaging (hell I'm pretty sure out of the entire Norwegian fishing industry the whaling part is probably the least environmentally destructive part of it)
Also grilled whale is like, really nice. It's like if tuna was a red meat.
Funny you should take for granted no one has a problem with fishing, a practice absolutely chocked full of problems, environmental and otherwise. Also do you not realize a lot of people also has issues with killing cows?
Sure. And even more people have absolutely no problem with killing cows and eating them daily. Which is why I had the qualifier that if you don't have a problem with cows you shouldn't have a problem with whales. If you do have a problem with cows, that's fine, and being against whaling is also fine.
As far as the fishing industry, it is chock full of environmental and sustainability concerns, but it can absolutely be done in an environmentally sustainable way, must like whaling could.
We have reason to believe whales are in the same ballpark as us. Also we should probably stop eating both but if we can't save both at least we may be able to keep folks from eating the whales.
Lol wut. There is no sustainable way to raise animals for slaughter in this overpopulated planet.