Japan accepts court ban on Antarctic whaling

[Purple]

Don't know about the ecological repercussions, but I'd prefer to not add another notch to the "species wiped out by human jackassery"-stick, along with the Passenger Pigeon, the Dodo and who knows what else, thank you.

I am specifically interested in the ecological repercussions.

[Wing Commander MAD]

I imagine roughly the same as when you lose any other apex predator. Possibly a boom and then crash in prey species as they overshoot the carrying capacity of their environment. That in turn will ripple out and effect other species. Also, the fact that whales are also a prey species themselves, at least the smaller species and younger individuals of larger ones, will have an impact on their predators. This isn't even going into everything that will feed on their carcasses as they either sink to the bottom of the ocean or wash ashore.

We'll not even go into what happens in a couple hundred years when the whale probe shows up.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Don't know about the ecological repercussions, but I'd prefer to not add another notch to the "species wiped out by human jackassery"-stick, along with the Passenger Pigeon, the Dodo and who knows what else, thank you.

I am specifically interested in the ecological repercussions.

You are in luck. There is an ecologist in the room. Most baleen whales are less important in terms of their direct impact by way of predation on krill, and more important by way of nutrient cycling. They eat vast quantities of krill, and recent research suggests that their fecal material spreads nutrients that would normally become sequestered in deep water, back into surface waters.

Think of it like this. Nutrients like phosphorus well up from the deep water in certain areas and as the result of terrestrial runoff. Those nutrients are consumed by phytoplankton, and in turn zooplankton and small fish. Whales are major consumers of these organisms, and the byproducts of digestion get spread around the ocean, in much the same way that ungulate manure makes nutrients available in terrestrial soil.

Without them, said krill would die, their bodies would sink, and the nutrients they contain would be returned to deep water and only be made available (and subject to upwelling) by very slow hypoxic decomposition processes (not much oxygen down there in the abyss). Large portions of the pelagic zone dont have upwelling currents, and would be largely nutrient free and barren of much of their current extant life. There are a lot of other krill eaters, but whales are so big and eat so much that their effect is a rather large proportion of the total. It would be like losing wildebeast on the savannah.

[Purple]

That sounds bad.

[Alyrium Denryle]

That sounds bad.

That is one way of putting it, yes. Other organisms (like Whale sharks) might compensate in the immediate term (whale sharks and basking sharks are large pelagic filter feeders and are not currently in decli... Oh wait. Maybe certain large pelagic telios....oh.). If not, well it is an open niche and something will take their place...eventually.... by which I mean a few hundred thousand to millions of years. Yeah. Not good.

And now you know why we worry about a mass extinction.

[Broomstick]

There are already examples of problems when a major predator is removed from an ecosystem. Not pretty.

[Metahive]

Even if killing all the whales had no or little environmental impact, slaughtering them all out of greed, spite, stupidity or cultural posturing should be opposed on principle.

[Welf]

Welf, would you also be down for forcibly ending the practice of raising cattle for meat? It is, afterall, ecologically disastrous and inefficient on a much larger scale than anything the Inuits could ever hope to achieve. Arguably, small-scale regulated whaling (with its cultural and religious signifiance to boot) is actually environmentally friendly compared to the vast majority of modern agricultural and pastoral practices, not to mention when compared to modern fishing practices (which, let's face it, pretty much amount to aquatic genocide. Tasty, though!)

I don't support forcibly ending farming that eliminates other species, and I support taxation that puts the real economic cost on the bill of food.
(I also support higher minimum wages and stronger unions since I think meat once a week shouldn't be available for everyone.)

What food(s)?
Subsidized how?
Transported to where it is needed how?

You're talking about settlements where there are NO roads. People who live largely without cash. People who can not grow their own food due to the climate and environment (Inuit DO make extensive use of edible plants in their environment, from seaweed to land plants, but it's still only about 10% of their diet at best). A climate that puts great demands on the human body such that the base caloric needs of a human being can be double or even triple that needed in a more temperate climate. You're talking about a part of the world where dogsleds are still a significant means of transport and wild life like polar bears don't have a problem stalking and killing human beings.

You're also talking about convincing them to give up half their food supply.

WHAT are you going to offer them in return? How reliable will transport of this food be? Will you genuinely be able to guarantee that food supply forever?

Quick guestmate: a kilo of meat costs about 6 kilo; and I think those whales were smaller whales of about 2 or 3 tones making the cost for the food itself something around 4 million. I can't find data on how much air drop transport cost.

Ha ha ha. Right. And if we kill off the buffalo and send the kids to boarding schools where they're beaten for speaking their native language the Plains Indians will wither away in just a generation... except they didn't. And the survivors got pissed.

People have lived in the high arctic for thousands of years. Now, MY people have wandered the world so we aren't particularly attached to any one location but I'd still be mad as hell if someone attempted to coerce me to move by fucking with my food supply. For people who have lived in a region for thousands of years whose identity is rather tightly bound up with the land and waters do you seriously think their culture will just wither away and die willingly? Is there anywhere that has worked without a few massacres to help that along?

Truth is, there are STILL people living a nomadic lifestyle even in places like Europe - they're called gypsies and travelers. There are STILL subsistence cultures all over the earth, from the Hadza hunter-gatherers in Africa to subsistence farmers in the US. They're a minority culture, but they don't go away. Enough people want to continue to live in such a manner the lifestyles and cultures remain and as long as it is voluntary I see no reason to compel them to do otherwise.

In fact, given the limited resources of the high arctic, it's actually a good thing if a sizable portion of their children decide to live elsewhere, overpopulation in such a region would be devastating. Thanks goodness these days the population can be controlled by migration rather than death, like in the old days.

I know your heart is in the right place - you want to make things better for both the humans and the whales. What I don't think you grasp is that many of the Inuit don't regard the arctic as some hellish exile, it's their home. No one is forced to live in those little settlements and villages. They stay because they want to live there, rather than somewhere else.

Despite the fact that the populations of North American arctic people have declined up to 90% thanks to disease and various types of disruption the Inuit are still a majority of people in the Canadian province of Nunavut. I wouldn't count these folks out or assume they'll just disappear oh so conveniently.

My people have been living at my home region for about 12.000 years. 40 years ago they were almost all farmers and only a few craftsworker. Now they drive big BMW and Mercedes. I had a friend at school who always said he wanted to go to university to study agricultural economy to one day take over his parent's farm who then followed his dream and became musician. I remember how sad my grandparents were when they had to close our family's shop because none of their four children wanted to continue. And that shop existed for five centuries. These things happen. I'm pretty sure there a re a lot of Inuit with talent for music, philosophy, history, IT, writing, acting, painting, cabinetmaking, gaming or sports. Give them the chance to explore that and they will.
I think you're tainted by the various and cruel attempts to forcibly assimilate minorities in the US (not that they didn't happen in EU). Forcing a minority to get to adopt different costumes will fail, because this is based on racism and will them always make outsider. But it happens on it's own pretty quickly when you offer good schools, high paying jobs and TV. They will still call themselves whoever they are and be proud of their ancestors, but they will adopt modern lifestyles.
There are travellers and gypsies in the EU, but as far as I know most of these from poorer countries where they often were excluded from society and victim to racism.

First of all, you haven't advanced a policy to dissuade subsistence hunters and the high arctic peoples from their traditional hunting and fishing practices.

Second, the approaches required are completely different. In one case you have people based on land under sovereign or semi-autonomous governments. In the other case you have the high seas and international waters where no nation has sovereignty. It's not a matter of "splitting efforts 50/50", they are completely different problems requiring completely different resources and personnel.

Third, for the most part folks are far more concerned with commercial whalers than a few guys hunting from hide-sided kayaks. This includes the major opponents to whaling who are actually out there confronting whalers.

I still don't get why the US department for environment can't set up a work group to set up a agreement with the Inuit. Something like buying the whaling right for a certain amount of money with inflation adjustment that is paid in food delivery.

OK, what you are talking about is putting half their food supply off limits forever, and somehow suggesting that a different stack of food can be substituted, food that has to be produced thousands of kilometers away and transported much father than their traditional food supply. Why the hell would you think this could possibly have "overall less cost"? What makes you think it would have "better effect"? Do you know why the Inuit can live active, healthy, and normal-length human lives consuming a diet composed of 75% pure fat? It takes a fuck ton of calories to keep warm in their environment. Look it up - travel by humans hauling their own sleds uses about 6500 calories a day. Traveling by dogsled requires 5000 calories per day for the humans involved. Even using a modern machine like a snowmobile requires the traveler to eat 3300 calories per day. Compare that to the average 2000 required by the typical first-world human being. What the fuck do you propose to replace the calorie-dense traditional foods? Keep in mind, too, that much of these traditional foods also provide things like vitamins C and D.

What are you proposing to replace that? C'mon, I want to hear some actual suggestions.

Maybe herring? cow or pig fat? Vitamin pills?
When I said "overall costs" I meant the costs to the whole economy, including future burden from environment disaster. What Alyrium Denryle mentioned about whales keeping the plankton from falling to the ground sounded useful. If the average whale killed by industrial whalers is on average 4 times heaver than the average killed by Inuit that is still 2,2% of lost usefulness.

[Purple]

(I also support higher minimum wages and stronger unions since I think meat once a week shouldn't be available for everyone.)

There are two ways I can interpret this. And I will assume you meant it in the sane way. As in that meat once a week is far too little meat in a healthy diet and that it should be consumed at least once a day. If not, feel free to correct my assumption of sanity.

[Broomstick]

I don't support forcibly ending farming that eliminates other species, and I support taxation that puts the real economic cost on the bill of food.
(I also support higher minimum wages and stronger unions since I think meat once a week shouldn't be available for everyone.)

This didn't come out quite coherent. Please clarify.

Quick guestmate: a kilo of meat costs about 6 kilo; and I think those whales were smaller whales of about 2 or 3 tones making the cost for the food itself something around 4 million. I can't find data on how much air drop transport cost.

Er... that's another statement that needs clarification. But let me throw a few broad facts out.

Around here - where food and transportation costs are MUCH lower than the high arctic - meat ranges from $2/kilo or less (less desirable chicken parts on sale) to around $6 for ground beef (fairly low quality meat, safe and edible but nothing wonderful) to $12 kilo and up for steak and it can get crazier from there. Game meats are a little hard to value, but alligator meat is around $28/kilo (it's farmed, 'gator, though) and wild-caught Copper River salmon (which is readily available to those living along the Copper River in Alaska) hit around $45/kilo this year - which, by the way, reflects how the cost of transport can really kick up the price. (Being seasonal and limited also helps). Talking to deer hunters, adding in the various costs of hunting, they estimate the value of venison somewhere from $20/pound (call that a half-kilo) to $50/pound. This is, of course, why at some point most humans switched from bush meat to domestic animals - it's cheaper, even in a cashless society (measured in effort and resources invested), and more reliable.

So, if we view whale meat as a game meat it should probably be valued at $40-100 a kilo. Sure, we could supply beef/pork/chicken at much lower per unit of weight, but then he have to transport it up there. Between the weather, lack of infrastructure, and occasional erupting volcano aviation in Alaska is a little different than elsewhere. For a lot of these communities you're not going to be able to fly a huge cargo plane out to their village, it's going to be something more like a Cessna Caravan or even a small bush plane because there are NOT lavish, modern airports out there. You basically need something that can land in an open field. That's more expensive than loading up a B-747 for the tonnage required.

My people have been living at my home region for about 12.000 years. 40 years ago they were almost all farmers and only a few craftsworker.

I'm curious - where are you located?

Now they drive big BMW and Mercedes. I had a friend at school who always said he wanted to go to university to study agricultural economy to one day take over his parent's farm who then followed his dream and became musician. I remember how sad my grandparents were when they had to close our family's shop because none of their four children wanted to continue. And that shop existed for five centuries. These things happen. I'm pretty sure there a re a lot of Inuit with talent for music, philosophy, history, IT, writing, acting, painting, cabinetmaking, gaming or sports. Give them the chance to explore that and they will.

Meanwhile, the young Amish in my area are lamenting the difficulty in finding farmland to purchase because they don't want to modernize.

You are correct - there are many Inuit with all those other talents and there is no bar to them pursuing those interests. The have scholarships available to Native Americans, there is a healthy business in Inuit crafts already in place, They also probably have one of the highest percentages of pilots among small minorities simply because of the utility of flying for transportation. There is no reason they can't leave their villages, they aren't confined there, and as I noted the normal outflow of people is actually beneficial in preventing overpopulation in a marginal environment. A lot of them want to stay there, though, and you shouldn't assume they'll all simply melt away. There are, in fact, people from "civilized" areas that migrate to places like the high arctic because they prefer a more self-reliant lifestyle either for a certain period of time, or for a lifetime. That's why there are a fair number of Inuit wandering around Alaska, Northern Canada, and Greenland who have European or African ancestors in recent generations.

I think you're tainted by the various and cruel attempts to forcibly assimilate minorities in the US (not that they didn't happen in EU). Forcing a minority to get to adopt different costumes will fail, because this is based on racism and will them always make outsider.

Please don't whitewash what was done. It was NOT an attempt to force them into different clothing. It was tearing children away from their families and forbidding contact, forcibly trying to change their religion, and beating them severely for even an accidental word in their native tongue from the first day they arrived. It was so brutal there were appalling rates of child suicide.

But it happens on it's own pretty quickly when you offer good schools, high paying jobs and TV. They will still call themselves whoever they are and be proud of their ancestors, but they will adopt modern lifestyles.

The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, Seminole, and Chocktaw tried that in the late 1700's. They not only adopted the clothes, housing, and religion of the Europeans they also adopted farming practices, slavery, developed writing for their native language, and their chiefs were sending their sons to Harvard to become lawyers and doctors. In return they were evicted from their ancestral lands and force marched to Oklahoma and to hell with those too physically weak to make the journey. One third of them died on that forced march. So Native Americans are quite skeptical when you say they can assimilate. The were mistreated for three centuries, and only in the very last part of the 20th Century did anything get any better at all. Their experience has too often been that even when they willingly assimilate they are still horrifically mistreated.

There are travellers and gypsies in the EU, but as far as I know most of these from poorer countries where they often were excluded from society and victim to racism.

The Romany and Travellers in the US will be quite surprised to find out that there adopted territory is a "poorer" country. There are about a million Rom in the US (not sure about the Irish Travellers but they're here, too), more than currently live in Austria or Belarus or Boznia or Belgium or a lot of other European nations. Where they aren't systematically oppressed (that racism you mentioned) it turns out that they do quite well and even adopt legitimate professions as well as cons and crimes. But they don't automatically give up their identity, their language, their culture, or their wandering ways (though quite a few of the American Rom have, in fact, adopted a more settled lifestyle).

Maybe herring?

Herring catches are falling every year world-wide. Who do we convince to give up herring for the Inuit to have them?

cow or pig fat? Vitamin pills?

A "balanced" Inuit diet is about 75% fat and 25% protein, with some minor carbs/vegetables thrown in. I suppose we could attempt to supply a more typical diet (budgeting for their higher caloric needs), but then we're back to forcing them, aren't we?

When I said "overall costs" I meant the costs to the whole economy, including future burden from environment disaster. What Alyrium Denryle mentioned about whales keeping the plankton from falling to the ground sounded useful. If the average whale killed by industrial whalers is on average 4 times heaver than the average killed by Inuit that is still 2,2% of lost usefulness.

OK, get it through your head - the aboriginal subsistence hunters are NOT the problem here. If we allow them to continue hunting at their current rate while efficiently stopping all other whaling the whale populations will still recover. They aren't destructive enough to make a difference. They are not taking whales at the rate they were doing so even around 1900, much less earlier in history when their numbers were greater and their hunts more numerous. Yes, in a perfect world they'd give up whaling voluntarily. We don't live in a perfect world. But if you're talking about whale survival the aboriginal hunters are irrelevant. They are too few and too restrained to matter.

[Welf]

I shouldn't post when I'm involuntarily doing the model diet.

There are two ways I can interpret this. And I will assume you meant it in the sane way. As in that meat once a week is far too little meat in a healthy diet and that it should be consumed at least once a day. If not, feel free to correct my assumption of sanity.

What I meant was: if we reduce meat production to more reasonable levels the price will increase, putting pressure on food budgets for people with lower incomes.
Are you surre you need to eat meat daily? NHO suggest about 70g per day, but that is average value. Not that I'm a vegetarian or anything like that, I like to eat stuff that had parents.

This didn't come out quite coherent. Please clarify.

See above, I was a bit incoherent these days >_>

Er... that's another statement that needs clarification. But let me throw a few broad facts out.

Around here - where food and transportation costs are MUCH lower than the high arctic - meat ranges from $2/kilo or less (less desirable chicken parts on sale) to around $6 for ground beef (fairly low quality meat, safe and edible but nothing wonderful) to $12 kilo and up for steak and it can get crazier from there. Game meats are a little hard to value, but alligator meat is around $28/kilo (it's farmed, 'gator, though) and wild-caught Copper River salmon (which is readily available to those living along the Copper River in Alaska) hit around $45/kilo this year - which, by the way, reflects how the cost of transport can really kick up the price. (Being seasonal and limited also helps). Talking to deer hunters, adding in the various costs of hunting, they estimate the value of venison somewhere from $20/pound (call that a half-kilo) to $50/pound. This is, of course, why at some point most humans switched from bush meat to domestic animals - it's cheaper, even in a cashless society (measured in effort and resources invested), and more reliable.

So, if we view whale meat as a game meat it should probably be valued at $40-100 a kilo. Sure, we could supply beef/pork/chicken at much lower per unit of weight, but then he have to transport it up there. Between the weather, lack of infrastructure, and occasional erupting volcano aviation in Alaska is a little different than elsewhere. For a lot of these communities you're not going to be able to fly a huge cargo plane out to their village, it's going to be something more like a Cessna Caravan or even a small bush plane because there are NOT lavish, modern airports out there. You basically need something that can land in an open field. That's more expensive than loading up a B-747 for the tonnage required.

I tried to make a quick estimate to fill the terms "expensive" and "cheap" with numbers. My referred method would be to drop off packets by parachutes or sending by ships. If they can hunt whales they must have access to open water.

My people have been living at my home region for about 12.000 years. 40 years ago they were almost all farmers and only a few craftsworker.

I'm curious - where are you located?

I grew up in southern Germany. So I'm not really sure if those people in the caves were my direct ancestors, or just the people who got murdered by the people who got murdered by the people who got murdered by my ancestors.
It's that cave. I used to visit when I felt like making a slighter longer walk with my dog.

Meanwhile, the young Amish in my area are lamenting the difficulty in finding farmland to purchase because they don't want to modernize.

You are correct - there are many Inuit with all those other talents and there is no bar to them pursuing those interests. The have scholarships available to Native Americans, there is a healthy business in Inuit crafts already in place, They also probably have one of the highest percentages of pilots among small minorities simply because of the utility of flying for transportation. There is no reason they can't leave their villages, they aren't confined there, and as I noted the normal outflow of people is actually beneficial in preventing overpopulation in a marginal environment. A lot of them want to stay there, though, and you shouldn't assume they'll all simply melt away. There are, in fact, people from "civilized" areas that migrate to places like the high arctic because they prefer a more self-reliant lifestyle either for a certain period of time, or for a lifetime. That's why there are a fair number of Inuit wandering around Alaska, Northern Canada, and Greenland who have European or African ancestors in recent generations.

Aren't the Amish a group that more or less forces people to stay within their group because they otherwise lose their social contacts? That gives leaving a high price. But correct me if I am wrong, I only have "knowledge" from TV so I very well could be wrong.
There are over 300 mln people in the US, some will always want a different life style. And if it makes them happy them they should be allowed. But in my eyes that weakens the case for the preservation of traditions since this is something they voluntarily choose. And sooner or later the turnover means a high percentage of people living there will have ancestors from outside.

Please don't whitewash what was done. It was NOT an attempt to force them into different clothing. It was tearing children away from their families and forbidding contact, forcibly trying to change their religion, and beating them severely for even an accidental word in their native tongue from the first day they arrived. It was so brutal there were appalling rates of child suicide.

You got me wrong on that, I didn't want to whitewash, I wanted to say the opposite. Those were terrible crimes some by people who were full of hate and contempt. I like the whales but they are not worth that kind of crap.

The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, Seminole, and Chocktaw tried that in the late 1700's. They not only adopted the clothes, housing, and religion of the Europeans they also adopted farming practices, slavery, developed writing for their native language, and their chiefs were sending their sons to Harvard to become lawyers and doctors. In return they were evicted from their ancestral lands and force marched to Oklahoma and to hell with those too physically weak to make the journey. One third of them died on that forced march. So Native Americans are quite skeptical when you say they can assimilate. The were mistreated for three centuries, and only in the very last part of the 20th Century did anything get any better at all. Their experience has too often been that even when they willingly assimilate they are still horrifically mistreated.

And if the whites back then weren't hateful douchbags it would have been the start of a much better America. I think I missed my point. I did not mean that the natives should try to assimilate themselves, or be forced to do that. I meant that this will happen on it's own if the majority accepts and respects them and simple gives them opportunities they may take or not. Then they will keep their names and pride but will act like the majority.

The Romany and Travellers in the US will be quite surprised to find out that there adopted territory is a "poorer" country. There are about a million Rom in the US (not sure about the Irish Travellers but they're here, too), more than currently live in Austria or Belarus or Boznia or Belgium or a lot of other European nations. Where they aren't systematically oppressed (that racism you mentioned) it turns out that they do quite well and even adopt legitimate professions as well as cons and crimes. But they don't automatically give up their identity, their language, their culture, or their wandering ways (though quite a few of the American Rom have, in fact, adopted a more settled lifestyle).

America is on average richer than Europe, but has a big variance. Is there a map with where Romani in the US still travel and what the local wealth level is? I speculate that this is a again a case of lack of opportunity and willing to offer integration by the majority.

A "balanced" Inuit diet is about 75% fat and 25% protein, with some minor carbs/vegetables thrown in. I suppose we could attempt to supply a more typical diet (budgeting for their higher caloric needs), but then we're back to forcing them, aren't we?

Then ask them what they want in exchange? I don't want to force them to do anything, I want to offer them a contract where they both sides get something.

OK, get it through your head - the aboriginal subsistence hunters are NOT the problem here. If we allow them to continue hunting at their current rate while efficiently stopping all other whaling the whale populations will still recover. They aren't destructive enough to make a difference. They are not taking whales at the rate they were doing so even around 1900, much less earlier in history when their numbers were greater and their hunts more numerous. Yes, in a perfect world they'd give up whaling voluntarily. We don't live in a perfect world. But if you're talking about whale survival the aboriginal hunters are irrelevant. They are too few and too restrained to matter.

[/quote]

And I prefer 100% solutions to 98% ones. And maybe we can try to live in a perfect world even if it doesn't work.

I also probably shouldn't late at night. Then again it looks perfect at the moment.

[Purple]

What I meant was: if we reduce meat production to more reasonable levels the price will increase, putting pressure on food budgets for people with lower incomes.
Are you surre you need to eat meat daily? NHO suggest about 70g per day, but that is average value. Not that I'm a vegetarian or anything like that, I like to eat stuff that had parents.

It's not about need. I just like eating meat. And I find the thought that someone would even contemplate measures which would make it difficult for me to do so to be repugnant.

[Mr. Coffee]

What I meant was: if we reduce meat production to more reasonable levels the price will increase, putting pressure on food budgets for people with lower incomes.
Are you surre you need to eat meat daily? NHO suggest about 70g per day, but that is average value. Not that I'm a vegetarian or anything like that, I like to eat stuff that had parents.

As a confirmed meat-eater I reject this out of hand. It's part of my diet for a reason, and I like the taste (not whale, the one time I tried t I damn near spat it out again). But pressuring meat producers in order to raise prices just rubs me wrong simply because you'll be forcing the poor to use other, lesser substitutes for protein intake (Hey, it turns out poor people need that shit too, who knew) and the poor have a hard enough fucking time providing food for the table.

Seriously, just stop, bro. Broomy has explained it far better than I, the Inniut ain't the problem, yadda yadda. Just concede and move on, homie.

[Broomstick]

What I meant was: if we reduce meat production to more reasonable levels the price will increase, putting pressure on food budgets for people with lower incomes.
Are you surre you need to eat meat daily? NHO suggest about 70g per day, but that is average value. Not that I'm a vegetarian or anything like that, I like to eat stuff that had parents.

Do you mean 70g of protein per day?

No, you don't have to eat meat every day, but there are several factors at work here.

First, a lot of people are accustomed to eating animal-source foods. That includes things like dairy and eggs. It's a pretty good source of nutrients. Cutting it down to once a week is going to be tough for most people. Having a few meatless days a week is theoretically doable though it would be tough and make meat even more of a status symbol than it already is. You'll probably have to make sure things like eggs and dairy are available on meatless days.

Second, there are people for whom a vegetarian diet really is a medical issue. (I happen to be one of them - it wouldn't be impossible for me to go meatless but it would be very difficult and limiting). While not a large percentage of the population, in absolute numbers they do add up to a considerable number. I am not willing to sacrifice them in an attempt to attain an unlikely perfection.

Third, there are some places where converting plants to meat IS the most efficient means to produce food for humans. People can't eat grass or a lot of scrub vegetation but ruminants can. Maintaining a sustainable level of grazing makes sense. It does not, however, have to be cows. It would be a good thing, in my opinion, if people diversified their taste for meat to other options from guinea pigs to sheep to goats to even insects. It reduces the number of monocultures, it allows a more nuanced utilization of the landscape, and so on.

People who live in the high arctic, and I suspect there will always be a certain number of them, really should be eating mostly meat if they eat a local-based diet because that's what the landscape produces. People living in other landscapes should, ideally, likewise try to eat locally although I think some importation from elsewhere is good for maintaining a diverse diet and for evening out localized food failures.

I tried to make a quick estimate to fill the terms "expensive" and "cheap" with numbers. My referred method would be to drop off packets by parachutes or sending by ships. If they can hunt whales they must have access to open water.

One whale can potentially feed a village for a year or more. They don't need and don't have year-round access to open water (although that might change with global climate change). People living in that environment basically scramble all summer to put away enough food for a VERY long winter.

Sending by ships is again the same problem with airplanes - there is not the capacity for large cargo carriers. The natives are not launching from what the most of us would consider a dock, they're often launching from undeveloped beaches. There are very few ports, and most of those are geared to heavy industry. Delivery would have to be by small boat to numerous small settlements, which are water-accessible for only part of the year. Parachute drops might be the most cost-efficient, but I'm not sure if the logistics really work out for those.

Meanwhile, the young Amish in my area are lamenting the difficulty in finding farmland to purchase because they don't want to modernize.

You are correct - there are many Inuit with all those other talents and there is no bar to them pursuing those interests. The have scholarships available to Native Americans, there is a healthy business in Inuit crafts already in place, They also probably have one of the highest percentages of pilots among small minorities simply because of the utility of flying for transportation. There is no reason they can't leave their villages, they aren't confined there, and as I noted the normal outflow of people is actually beneficial in preventing overpopulation in a marginal environment. A lot of them want to stay there, though, and you shouldn't assume they'll all simply melt away. There are, in fact, people from "civilized" areas that migrate to places like the high arctic because they prefer a more self-reliant lifestyle either for a certain period of time, or for a lifetime. That's why there are a fair number of Inuit wandering around Alaska, Northern Canada, and Greenland who have European or African ancestors in recent generations.

Aren't the Amish a group that more or less forces people to stay within their group because they otherwise lose their social contacts? That gives leaving a high price. But correct me if I am wrong, I only have "knowledge" from TV so I very well could be wrong.

The Amish require every young adult to make a conscious choice to join the group for life. Hence the rumspringa period which, while not wanton freedom, is a tolerance for relaxing the rules the full members live under. They actually want the kids to have some notion of what they'd be giving up by leaving the community before they make the choice.

IF the decision to leave is made before baptism in an Amish congregation then social contacts are maintained. About 1/4 of the Amish children decide to leave their communities, some of them going on to advanced education and very modern lifestyles and others simply joining less restrictive but very conservative churches. As I said, as long as this occurs prior to becoming a baptized Amish that person is free to return for visits and interactions. Some social distance typically occurs, but it's not banishment.

Only if the person leaves AFTER baptism does shunning occur (and, people being people, it's not always strictly enforced).

There's a regular exchange of population between the highly conservative Amish and the somewhat less conservative Mennonites in the region. To a lesser extent there's some exchange between the Amish and the wider world. The Amish are also allowed to have non-Amish friends, business contacts, etc. They tend not to have a lot of them because their social life is focused mostly within their own community, but the isolation is not nearly as complete as the media would have you believe.

There are over 300 mln people in the US, some will always want a different life style. And if it makes them happy them they should be allowed. But in my eyes that weakens the case for the preservation of traditions since this is something they voluntarily choose. And sooner or later the turnover means a high percentage of people living there will have ancestors from outside.

The thing is, some traditions have very important survival value. If people are going to live in those environments the survival-important traditions do, in fact, need to be maintained and in the high arctic that includes subsistence hunting and fishing.

And if the whites back then weren't hateful douchbags it would have been the start of a much better America. I think I missed my point. I did not mean that the natives should try to assimilate themselves, or be forced to do that. I meant that this will happen on it's own if the majority accepts and respects them and simple gives them opportunities they may take or not. Then they will keep their names and pride but will act like the majority.

Unfortunately, after several centuries ranging from oppression to outright genocide it's going to take many more generations before trust can be built.

Even then, not all groups assimilate. People have been trying to get the Jews to assimilate by either persuasion or force for several thousand years. Hasn't worked yet. Yes, they adopt some of the local culture, customs, and laws but those darn Jews remain stubbornly Jewish!

America is on average richer than Europe, but has a big variance. Is there a map with where Romani in the US still travel and what the local wealth level is? I speculate that this is a again a case of lack of opportunity and willing to offer integration by the majority.

Keep in mind a lot of mainstream Americans view Gypsies/Rom/Travellers as almost mythical, and there has never been the bias against them here as in Europe. It has always been easier for the nomads to assimilate to a greater or lesser degree, there were never the legal disabilities that existed in Europe, and they tend to blend in with all the other foreigners and refugees.

From what I've been able to find on-line, including talking with one or two of them on line, there are Rom in most major US metropolitan areas, and they tend to favor the urban areas. They certainly continue to travel, at least some of them, but it's usually city to city. Highest concentrations are reported in Maine, Washington State, New Jersey, West Virginia, and Utah which is quite a range of places. A lot of the American Rom will report being of the nationality they were in prior to leaving Europe rather as "Rom" when asked for ethnic identity which makes them even harder to track.

Basically, the Rom are found all over here... if you know to look for them. They've assimilated to the extent of blending in with everyone around them and often taking up various professions, but maintain their language, customs, and religion at home.

A "balanced" Inuit diet is about 75% fat and 25% protein, with some minor carbs/vegetables thrown in. I suppose we could attempt to supply a more typical diet (budgeting for their higher caloric needs), but then we're back to forcing them, aren't we?

Then ask them what they want in exchange? I don't want to force them to do anything, I want to offer them a contract where they both sides get something.

They seem to want to maintain their economic independence (what is left of it) by maintaining their traditional hunting rights... including whaling. As noted, some of them have voluntarily given up the practice. It's a high risk endeavor and some people live farther from open ocean than others, among many other factors. Personally, I think if we allow them the right to hunt while trying to increase other opportunities it will continue to wither away, although unlikely to vanish entirely in our lifetimes or our children's. Whaling is a group activity, you don't go after one solo, it's a lot harder for these folks to poach than in a lot of other instances. If you don't have at least a small village helping you it just won't happen.

And I prefer 100% solutions to 98% ones. And maybe we can try to live in a perfect world even if it doesn't work.

When we've solved the other 98% then lets revisit the aboriginal whaling question. Until then, leave them alone and spend our energy on the big offenders.

[Welf]

What I meant was: if we reduce meat production to more reasonable levels the price will increase, putting pressure on food budgets for people with lower incomes.
Are you surre you need to eat meat daily? NHO suggest about 70g per day, but that is average value. Not that I'm a vegetarian or anything like that, I like to eat stuff that had parents.

As a confirmed meat-eater I reject this out of hand. It's part of my diet for a reason, and I like the taste (not whale, the one time I tried t I damn near spat it out again). But pressuring meat producers in order to raise prices just rubs me wrong simply because you'll be forcing the poor to use other, lesser substitutes for protein intake (Hey, it turns out poor people need that shit too, who knew) and the poor have a hard enough fucking time providing food for the table.

Seriously, just stop, bro. Broomy has explained it far better than I, the Inniut ain't the problem, yadda yadda. Just concede and move on, homie.

It's nice that you support a friend. However:

One of the basic principles of economics is that prices need to reflect costs. If that is not the case you have a "externality".

Example: Someone heats with coal and pay 100 USD per month for it. But the fumes from burning the coals destroy their neighbour's garden and the neighbour has to pay 200 USD extra per month to clean. A way to solve that is that the contaminators pays 300 USD for their coal and 200 USD of that go to the neighbour. Or a law that forces them to buy a filter. Either way, without transfers or laws the sum of all wealth is reduced or unfairly distributed.

Which brings me to meat production:

Modern industrialized meat production causes A LOT of environmental and health issues. It is one of the major drivers for deforestation of rain forest. Which destroys living space for both animals, plants and indigenous tribes.
And is also significant source of global warming because of energy used in producing it and methane "emitted" by livestock.
Increasing beef production is also a driver for food prices. To produce a kilo of meat you need roughly one magnitude more of animal feed (can be more or less depending on energy density). That motivated a group of British MP's asked Brits to eat less beef to dampen price increases.
And bonus effect: The overuse of antibiotics for faster growth of livestock creates resistant bacteria.
So with all that those hidden costs the price for meat should rise to cover the environmental and health hazards.

Where I want to go with this: it seems like you don't know much about this kind of stuff, so I can't help but to feel confirmed by your rejection. But at least we can agree that Broomstick made a better point.
Oh, and in my earlier post I already asked for higher minimum wages.

What I meant was: if we reduce meat production to more reasonable levels the price will increase, putting pressure on food budgets for people with lower incomes.
Are you surre you need to eat meat daily? NHO suggest about 70g per day, but that is average value. Not that I'm a vegetarian or anything like that, I like to eat stuff that had parents.

Do you mean 70g of protein per day?

No, you don't have to eat meat every day, but there are several factors at work here.

First, a lot of people are accustomed to eating animal-source foods. That includes things like dairy and eggs. It's a pretty good source of nutrients. Cutting it down to once a week is going to be tough for most people. Having a few meatless days a week is theoretically doable though it would be tough and make meat even more of a status symbol than it already is. You'll probably have to make sure things like eggs and dairy are available on meatless days.

Second, there are people for whom a vegetarian diet really is a medical issue. (I happen to be one of them - it wouldn't be impossible for me to go meatless but it would be very difficult and limiting). While not a large percentage of the population, in absolute numbers they do add up to a considerable number. I am not willing to sacrifice them in an attempt to attain an unlikely perfection.

Third, there are some places where converting plants to meat IS the most efficient means to produce food for humans. People can't eat grass or a lot of scrub vegetation but ruminants can. Maintaining a sustainable level of grazing makes sense. It does not, however, have to be cows. It would be a good thing, in my opinion, if people diversified their taste for meat to other options from guinea pigs to sheep to goats to even insects. It reduces the number of monocultures, it allows a more nuanced utilization of the landscape, and so on.

People who live in the high arctic, and I suspect there will always be a certain number of them, really should be eating mostly meat if they eat a local-based diet because that's what the landscape produces. People living in other landscapes should, ideally, likewise try to eat locally although I think some importation from elsewhere is good for maintaining a diverse diet and for evening out localized food failures.

I was mostly quoting a linkI found. I'm generally aware what I should eat, but never got around to actually bother to research details or change my diet.
Meat is tasty and an important part of diet. I wouldn't want to live without my Spaghetti Bologna or my breakfast milk. From what I remember my great grandparents used to have animals to make optimal use of all ressources. They had pigs as living trash cans, cows that could graze on fields that were not in use for a year and chickens and geese to eat bugs and weed. But I believe the current levels of consumption and production are not healthy or sustainable.

One whale can potentially feed a village for a year or more. They don't need and don't have year-round access to open water (although that might change with global climate change). People living in that environment basically scramble all summer to put away enough food for a VERY long winter.

Sending by ships is again the same problem with airplanes - there is not the capacity for large cargo carriers. The natives are not launching from what the most of us would consider a dock, they're often launching from undeveloped beaches. There are very few ports, and most of those are geared to heavy industry. Delivery would have to be by small boat to numerous small settlements, which are water-accessible for only part of the year. Parachute drops might be the most cost-efficient, but I'm not sure if the logistics really work out for those.

That is something I don't understand. They organize a hunt on a whale, then process it and move it to their villages. Can't they just replace the whale hunt with docking to a ship? They already have the other logistics in place.

The Amish require every young adult to make a conscious choice to join the group for life. Hence the rumspringa period which, while not wanton freedom, is a tolerance for relaxing the rules the full members live under. They actually want the kids to have some notion of what they'd be giving up by leaving the community before they make the choice.

IF the decision to leave is made before baptism in an Amish congregation then social contacts are maintained. About 1/4 of the Amish children decide to leave their communities, some of them going on to advanced education and very modern lifestyles and others simply joining less restrictive but very conservative churches. As I said, as long as this occurs prior to becoming a baptized Amish that person is free to return for visits and interactions. Some social distance typically occurs, but it's not banishment.

Only if the person leaves AFTER baptism does shunning occur (and, people being people, it's not always strictly enforced).

There's a regular exchange of population between the highly conservative Amish and the somewhat less conservative Mennonites in the region. To a lesser extent there's some exchange between the Amish and the wider world. The Amish are also allowed to have non-Amish friends, business contacts, etc. They tend not to have a lot of them because their social life is focused mostly within their own community, but the isolation is not nearly as complete as the media would have you believe.

This is quite interesting. Here we have the problem that farmers have often problems convincing their children to continue their farms. Or even find wives. The reason is often that small farms require a lot of work and have only small gains. No I wonder if I missed something about my own home, or if and why America is so different.

The thing is, some traditions have very important survival value. If people are going to live in those environments the survival-important traditions do, in fact, need to be maintained and in the high arctic that includes subsistence hunting and fishing.

They do. I was l more thinking about the justification for environmental protection laws. If an Inuit who's ancestors have been living there for centuries or millennia has to kill a whale to survive you can't just outlaw that and force him to move into a town and get a job as clerk. If a town clerk wants to move to Alaska and then had to kill whales to survive I see no reason to not outlaw that. He can stay in his job as clerk even if he hates it and I won't think his rights to live free have been affected unreasonably.

Unfortunately, after several centuries ranging from oppression to outright genocide it's going to take many more generations before trust can be built.

Even then, not all groups assimilate. People have been trying to get the Jews to assimilate by either persuasion or force for several thousand years. Hasn't worked yet. Yes, they adopt some of the local culture, customs, and laws but those darn Jews remain stubbornly Jewish!

I think we have different meanings in mind when we talk about assimilation. I was meant how people act, not how they feel about themselves. Could you identify all the Jews in your town just by looking at them? How different are they? I would assume the average American Jew is not very different from the average US Goi.

Keep in mind a lot of mainstream Americans view Gypsies/Rom/Travellers as almost mythical, and there has never been the bias against them here as in Europe. It has always been easier for the nomads to assimilate to a greater or lesser degree, there were never the legal disabilities that existed in Europe, and they tend to blend in with all the other foreigners and refugees.

From what I've been able to find on-line, including talking with one or two of them on line, there are Rom in most major US metropolitan areas, and they tend to favor the urban areas. They certainly continue to travel, at least some of them, but it's usually city to city. Highest concentrations are reported in Maine, Washington State, New Jersey, West Virginia, and Utah which is quite a range of places. A lot of the American Rom will report being of the nationality they were in prior to leaving Europe rather as "Rom" when asked for ethnic identity which makes them even harder to track.

Basically, the Rom are found all over here... if you know to look for them. They've assimilated to the extent of blending in with everyone around them and often taking up various professions, but maintain their language, customs, and religion at home.

I think that is close to what I described above; they stayed their own people but act like the average.

They seem to want to maintain their economic independence (what is left of it) by maintaining their traditional hunting rights... including whaling. As noted, some of them have voluntarily given up the practice. It's a high risk endeavor and some people live farther from open ocean than others, among many other factors. Personally, I think if we allow them the right to hunt while trying to increase other opportunities it will continue to wither away, although unlikely to vanish entirely in our lifetimes or our children's. Whaling is a group activity, you don't go after one solo, it's a lot harder for these folks to poach than in a lot of other instances. If you don't have at least a small village helping you it just won't happen.

In a way it saddens when traditions and cultures wither away and the world becomes more uniform. But often it's better for all of us.

When we've solved the other 98% then lets revisit the aboriginal whaling question. Until then, leave them alone and spend our energy on the big offenders.

So basically we agree to 98% and seems we won't agree on the remaining 2%.

[Broomstick]

I was mostly quoting a linkI found. I'm generally aware what I should eat, but never got around to actually bother to research details or change my diet.

Interesting. Most places I've seen say list a serving of meat, such as red meat, to be around 115 grams, not 70. That's still half what the average American eats as a serving of red meat, and let's not even start to talk about "steak houses" - or maybe we should. If you don't eat meat every day then sitting down to 250 or 500 g of steak once in a while isn't a problem. It's doing it every day that's the problem. There are strategies for eating vegetarian the majority of the time and having red meat or, for that matter, any other animal flesh, as a sort of "feast". For most of history that probably was the typical human diet. Royalty might eat meat daily but the masses ate a lot of beans and peas with grains, maybe some dairy and eggs, and at meat on holidays or, if more affluent, maybe once a week for Sunday dinner.

I'm a big fan of saying "average" when it comes to human diets. It's not really natural to eat the same things in the same amounts day after day, boom-and-bust and seasonal food sources are arguably more natural.

Anyhow - let's say average flesh consumption over a week being the equivalent to 70 g/day, whether that's a slice of roast beef every day or saving it all up for Sunday dinner. The point is to reduce over consumption of animals, be they mammals, fish, birds, lizards, or something else.

But I believe the current levels of consumption and production are not healthy or sustainable.

I think we can agree on that.

One whale can potentially feed a village for a year or more. They don't need and don't have year-round access to open water (although that might change with global climate change). People living in that environment basically scramble all summer to put away enough food for a VERY long winter.

Sending by ships is again the same problem with airplanes - there is not the capacity for large cargo carriers. The natives are not launching from what the most of us would consider a dock, they're often launching from undeveloped beaches. There are very few ports, and most of those are geared to heavy industry. Delivery would have to be by small boat to numerous small settlements, which are water-accessible for only part of the year. Parachute drops might be the most cost-efficient, but I'm not sure if the logistics really work out for those.

That is something I don't understand. They organize a hunt on a whale, then process it and move it to their villages. Can't they just replace the whale hunt with docking to a ship? They already have the other logistics in place.

I don't think you quite grasp aboriginal whaling techniques.

You get a really, really big kayak with a bunch of guys:

This is what Inuit use to hunt whales. Note that it is not a particularly big boat by modern standards. Personally, I think these guys must have giant brass balls to hunt whales in something like this, even the smaller species. Whales can, and have, smashed boats such as these during hunts with fatal results to the hunters in such cases. It's a lot more even contest than the ships folks like the Japanese use these days.

This is a boat launching.

Not only is there no dock or other "logistics", in this particular instance there might not be a beach under the snow, they could be launching from an ice shelf. This is what I mean by no docking facilities. Inuit seamanship is based on launching off undeveloped beaches or ice using boats small enough to be maneuvered by manpower. That is also the only sort of boat that can reach these villages as there are no facilities built whatsoever, for either small or large boats.

So, anyhow, you have a bunch of these guys paddle out to sea, find a whale, harpoon it, kill it, attach blown-up sealskins to it in order to keep it at the surface (the sealskins are attached to the harpoons before they're thrown), then tow the whole carcass back to land. Think about that - towing a multi-ton whale solely with human muscle power. (Maybe a small outboard motor these days, that might be allowed, but you're not going to get a big motor on a boat like that) Processing whales at sea was a 19th Century innovation. They drag the whale up onto the beach/ice and the whole village turns out to carve up and cart away as much as possible before predators like polar bears show up and start fighting for a share of all that meat.

It's dangerous, it's back-breaking, and you can see that there are definite limits on just how big a whale they could bring back, which is why they tend to go after the relatively small species like beluga and no one in their right mind is going to take on, say, a blue whale in a rig like that. They're going to go after the smaller and weaker whales in a pod, and in that sense they're behaving more like natural predators than industrial butchers.

The aboriginal hunters aren't allowed to use industrial methods, they are required to use traditional means (although these days firearms are OK, as are mechanical snow machines instead of only dogsleds). This applies even to things like the salmon fisheries - only during the regular, commercial season are they allowed to use commercial boats, nets, etc. For subsistence hunting the rest of the year they are required to use older and less efficient means that can allow a person to obtain food for themselves and their family but will not allow commercial levels of catch.

That's why I don't worry about these folks. They simply can't take significant numbers with these techniques and tools. Keep in mind, too, that these folks aren't stupid and each generation is getting more and more educated. They want to keep the whales around, too. In the same way the US got buy in from the Native tribes for the current laws protecting eagles which are extremely restrictive - the tribes want to keep eagles around, and if that means they're basically restricted to road kills and zoo specimens dying of old age for their religious bits they'll do it. They've kept to the agreements, and where a member has broken the law they've cooperated to bring that person to punishment under the laws. That's what it took to keep the bald eagle from going extinct. Likewise, Inuit/First Nation people are pretty darn cooperative about following current agreements about whaling which restrict their hunting compared to the past but help preserve both their traditions and the whales necessary to those traditions. They've accepted limits and moratoriums. They aren't the problem. First world nations cheating, and disguising whaling as "scientific research" are the problem.

The thing is, some traditions have very important survival value. If people are going to live in those environments the survival-important traditions do, in fact, need to be maintained and in the high arctic that includes subsistence hunting and fishing.

They do. I was l more thinking about the justification for environmental protection laws. If an Inuit who's ancestors have been living there for centuries or millennia has to kill a whale to survive you can't just outlaw that and force him to move into a town and get a job as clerk. If a town clerk wants to move to Alaska and then had to kill whales to survive I see no reason to not outlaw that. He can stay in his job as clerk even if he hates it and I won't think his rights to live free have been affected unreasonably.

What if that town clerk has Inuit ancestry?

But more seriously - if someone permanently moves to the arctic, if they marry into the tribe, and they adopt the culture and lifestyle I don't have a problem with them joining in on a such a hunt provided they abide by the same rules as everyone else. Let the tribes decide who is and is not a member and allowed to engage in such a thing. Fact is, damn few people from outside will bother, it's not a problem. I would object to a pack of tourists hopping a ride, or using it as a destination vacation sort of thing (sort of like what climbing Mt. Everest has become, sadly). Given the hazards of such a hunt no tribe is going to allow an outsider to join without that person living with them for a considerable period of time and taking the required training and time (probably measured in years) to be able to contribute meaningfully without being a hazard to everyone else in the boat. Again, it's not a problem worth worrying about.

Unfortunately, after several centuries ranging from oppression to outright genocide it's going to take many more generations before trust can be built.

Even then, not all groups assimilate. People have been trying to get the Jews to assimilate by either persuasion or force for several thousand years. Hasn't worked yet. Yes, they adopt some of the local culture, customs, and laws but those darn Jews remain stubbornly Jewish!

I think we have different meanings in mind when we talk about assimilation. I was meant how people act, not how they feel about themselves. Could you identify all the Jews in your town just by looking at them? How different are they? I would assume the average American Jew is not very different from the average US Goi.

Not very different but Jews have a long history of not compromising on a few key points. They only worship one god - not too much of a problem now but back when Paganism was the majority more than a few chose death over worshiping anything other than their god. Awhile back there was a lengthy discussion here on whether Jews would or wouldn't give up circumcision if circumcision was outlawed. They'll assimilate, but only so far.

There's assimilation that's "we agree on common rules so all these different groups can co-exist" and there's assimilation of the sort that is "you'll give up everything we demand you give up, you don't get a say in what you keep, which won't be much".

Keep in mind a lot of mainstream Americans view Gypsies/Rom/Travellers as almost mythical, and there has never been the bias against them here as in Europe. It has always been easier for the nomads to assimilate to a greater or lesser degree, there were never the legal disabilities that existed in Europe, and they tend to blend in with all the other foreigners and refugees.

From what I've been able to find on-line, including talking with one or two of them on line, there are Rom in most major US metropolitan areas, and they tend to favor the urban areas. They certainly continue to travel, at least some of them, but it's usually city to city. Highest concentrations are reported in Maine, Washington State, New Jersey, West Virginia, and Utah which is quite a range of places. A lot of the American Rom will report being of the nationality they were in prior to leaving Europe rather as "Rom" when asked for ethnic identity which makes them even harder to track.

Basically, the Rom are found all over here... if you know to look for them. They've assimilated to the extent of blending in with everyone around them and often taking up various professions, but maintain their language, customs, and religion at home.

I think that is close to what I described above; they stayed their own people but act like the average.

There are still some serious problems. Both groups - the Rom and the Irish Travellers - tend to marry their girls off young, traditionally at ages now considered below the age of consent. So, yes, they've assimilated in some ways but the groups still marrying 14, 13, or 12 year olds to men 20 and older are having some problems in modern America. There are also problems with them not properly educating their children. Those still traveling may not be sending their kids to school at all, it's a problem.

Education used to be a problem with the Amish, who have very different views on educational goals than mainstream America, and they fought all the way to the Supreme Court over it. The compromise was that Amish children have to be schooled until 14 and must meet certain goals to ensure they are literate, numerate, and understand the laws of the nation. This ensures that Amish who do choose to leave have sufficient education to get by in the larger world, or even go on to higher education (the path in that instance is typically Amish school > GED > community college > higher university and skipping high school altogether) so education, or lack of it, doesn't become a trap. It's worked well for the Amish. Other groups, though, haven't bought into such a compromise so for the wandering Rom and the like it's a serious problem. (Settled Rom almost always send their kids to local schools, so less of a problem for them.) Not such a problem for the Jews, who traditionally started their children on reading and writing earlier than most First World nations start primary schooling, they have other issues with the outside world.

That's just one area of compromise for minority cultures. The whole assimilation/respect for tradition thing is a minefield.

They seem to want to maintain their economic independence (what is left of it) by maintaining their traditional hunting rights... including whaling. As noted, some of them have voluntarily given up the practice. It's a high risk endeavor and some people live farther from open ocean than others, among many other factors. Personally, I think if we allow them the right to hunt while trying to increase other opportunities it will continue to wither away, although unlikely to vanish entirely in our lifetimes or our children's. Whaling is a group activity, you don't go after one solo, it's a lot harder for these folks to poach than in a lot of other instances. If you don't have at least a small village helping you it just won't happen.

In a way it saddens when traditions and cultures wither away and the world becomes more uniform. But often it's better for all of us.

It's one thing for a tradition to wither and die of its own accord, it's another to pass laws that kill it off either intentionally or not. I don't think it's necessary for the world to become uniform, I think there is room for traditions and cultures that diverge significantly from each other. On the other hand, there are some things (like human sacrifice, as an example) that would be hard to impossible to find a compromise to allow.

When we've solved the other 98% then lets revisit the aboriginal whaling question. Until then, leave them alone and spend our energy on the big offenders.

So basically we agree to 98% and seems we won't agree on the remaining 2%.

Probably not.

[Mr. Coffee]

One of the basic principles of economics... Blah blah blah, my point went sailing over your head at 5km and climbing...

Where I want to go with this: it seems like you don't know much about this kind of stuff, so I can't help but to feel confirmed by your rejection.

Thank you for ignoring what I was talking about for sources of protein being hard enough to get for the poor. Also, thanks for continuing to ignore everything Broomy and me are telling you concerning the fucking Innuit hunting a handful of goddamn whales annually having zero fucking effect on whale populations. I can't help but feel completely justified in being as much of a condescending dick to you as I possibly can now.

But hey, you go right on with your econ 101 masturbation festival, champ.

[Metahive]

Not very different but Jews have a long history of not compromising on a few key points. They only worship one god - not too much of a problem now but back when Paganism was the majority more than a few chose death over worshiping anything other than their god. Awhile back there was a lengthy discussion here on whether Jews would or wouldn't give up circumcision if circumcision was outlawed. They'll assimilate, but only so far.

There's assimilation that's "we agree on common rules so all these different groups can co-exist" and there's assimilation of the sort that is "you'll give up everything we demand you give up, you don't get a say in what you keep, which won't be much".

Just a sidenote, this overly simplifies things. There have always been groups of Jews who were happy to try new things, starting with the very notion of monotheism itself which was most likely influenced by persian Zoroastrianism. It's just that hatred against Jews often made this the less desirable option. When spanish Jews after the Reconquista for example converted to Christianity, they were still treated as unbelievers because the attitude was that Jews were untrustworthy.
During the jewish emancipation in Western Europe in the late 19th century, many Jews used the opportunity to drop Judaism and assimilate into the christian majority, the only problem was that by then the Jew-haters had decided that Jews are a different breed of human after all and so it didn't matter how they behaved, they were still reviled. Theodor Herzl was an assimilated Jew, but seeing as to how even giving up on their culture was treated as insufficient by the haters, he threw the towel and went the other way.

So you're wrong, the Jews were actually willing to compromise quite a lot, it's just that there was so little in it for them.

[Broomstick]

Just a sidenote, this overly simplifies things.

Of course it does - I'm trying for a BRIEF excursion off topic in a thread and it would be inappropriate to write a highly nuanced 50,000 word post on the subject.

There have always been groups of Jews who were happy to try new things

Of course there were and are - "the Jews" is a group composed of individuals, they aren't stamped out from an identical personality. That does not negate the Jews who were NOT willing to give up certain cultural memes and customs, and were even willing to die rather than give them up.

When spanish Jews after the Reconquista for example converted to Christianity, they were still treated as unbelievers because the attitude was that Jews were untrustworthy.

While there were some sincere converts there were also quite a few paying only lip service who continued to practice Jewish customs in secret. Wow, different Jews were different who would have thought? Some of them weren't trustworthy when it came to conversion, but of course, Jews have to be all alike so if one is a hypocrite they must all be.

During the jewish emancipation in Western Europe in the late 19th century, many Jews used the opportunity to drop Judaism and assimilate into the christian majority

And millions of them did not assimilate. So what is your point?

So you're wrong, the Jews were actually willing to compromise quite a lot, it's just that there was so little in it for them.

In other words, not much different from the Five Civilized Nations in what is now the south east US - they assimilated then were still treated like shit.

Also, I never said the Jews weren't willing to comprise, I said there were a few points on which they wouldn't compromise, implying a willingness to give on other points.