Bigotry and calls for violence come after tribal fishing treaty protest

[Thanas]

That is a bit troublesome. Unless measures of communication are established we will never know what exactly is going on. Whales and dolphins for example seem to be able to communicate and coordinate on some level, but we do not know what they are saying. Heck, until a short time ago we did not even know they gave themselves identities and communicated them to each other. Quite frankly, you are acting as if there is a finished product as if there is none.

No. No such thought or action is in my mind. My point is simple. We are watching whales be killed by orcas on a routine basis. And we are treating this as "not a problem."

And it should not be one unless you come up with a way to communicate with orcas. I shall note however that "predation by orcas" is definitely something that is being studdies, as is whale language.

We could be doing these things... IF we actually thought it was a problem in and of itself that whales are being hunted, killed, and eaten.

We don't.

Humans are not even able to prevent other humans from starving due to their own greed and you expect them to spent trillions on an unsustainable pie-in-the-sky plan? And you call yourself a realist?

Because I do not go and raid France, Italy or Poland if I need money, so there goes the tradition argument. And we are accepting plenty of higher costs. Many fishermen in Germany have lost their livelihood due to quotas, yet you do not see me raising a stink about it on here.

The quotas in question are imposed to stop fisheries from collapsing- a net long term good for all the fisheries, even if in the short term it means fewer jobs on fishing boats.

Whereas the decision to set a quota of "zero" rather than, oh, "two per year" for east Pacific gray whales is not required to stop the whale 'fishery' from collapsing. A ban on factory ships killing hundreds of whales a year is certainly needed, but a ban on people in small boats killing a few a year is not.

Thus, the rule being imposed does not serve the same kind of purpose, and the imposition is of a different nature.

It serves a purpose. It prevents the killing of animals (potential sentient beings too) via cruel and unnecessary means. Any action may not be outside a sense of scale. In this sense, killing a long-lived wild animal in a very cruel manner is a bad choice that has no weight on the scale.

I've never understood the mindset where it's okay to let a bad thing happen to someone as long as you didn't personally cause it.

When you have no method of preventing it morality does not factor into it.

[Flagg]

Was the fire ant introduced by humans, or did it come up naturally via Mexico? I'm inclined to think the latter... Burmese pythons are *definitely* a human introduction, though. One wonders if they couldn't just get some snake hunters in from Asia to clean house. I'd say introducing mongoose, but *those* are another kettle of fish as far as introducing invasive species goes...

I was under the impression it came from shipments from South America, at least that's what we were taught in school, but Florida ( ). There IS a small reptile species called an enole that came from Cuba in FL, but they are predated on by hawks and other animals. Unfortunately cats eat them as well and get liver parasites called flukes and I think they are a primary reason that none of the cats we got in Florida lived much longer than 10 years if that.

[Simon_Jester]

No. No such thought or action is in my mind. My point is simple. We are watching whales be killed by orcas on a routine basis. And we are treating this as "not a problem."

And it should not be one unless you come up with a way to communicate with orcas.

We could be doing these things... IF we actually thought it was a problem in and of itself that whales are being hunted, killed, and eaten.

We don't.

Humans are not even able to prevent other humans from starving due to their own greed and you expect them to spent trillions on an unsustainable pie-in-the-sky plan? And you call yourself a realist?

You still do not understand.

The argument is not "we should intervene to protect whales-" although I really don't understand why you assume we have to know how to talk to whales in order to protect them. I can think of multiple ideas for protecting whales from orcas off the top of my head that don't involve knowing how to communicate with cetaceans.

But that is beside the point. Again, the argument is NOT "we should intervene to protect whales from orcas." The argument is "if we view orcas preying on whales as a part of the natural order of things, we are saying that whale deaths are acceptable in order to achieve an instrumental good."

With human lives, we don't negotiate along those lines- we don't accept that it's okay to kill people for anyone's profit. Not the profit of other humans, not the profit of hungry animals.

With whales, if we are consistent, if it's okay for whales to die to feed animals... it is considerably harder to explain why it's unacceptable for whales to die to support the economy of small, impoverished groups of humans. Either they're sacrosanct, or they aren't.

The quotas in question are imposed to stop fisheries from collapsing- a net long term good for all the fisheries, even if in the short term it means fewer jobs on fishing boats.

Whereas the decision to set a quota of "zero" rather than, oh, "two per year" for east Pacific gray whales is not required to stop the whale 'fishery' from collapsing. A ban on factory ships killing hundreds of whales a year is certainly needed, but a ban on people in small boats killing a few a year is not.

Thus, the rule being imposed does not serve the same kind of purpose, and the imposition is of a different nature.

It serves a purpose. It prevents the killing of animals (potential sentient beings too) via cruel and unnecessary means.

And yet when the same animals die in equally cruel ways that are certainly unnecessary to them, not only do we do nothing, but we laugh at people who even raise the issue of it mattering. The fact that they are "potential sentient beings" notwithstanding.

Is it that carnivores have an inherently greater right to exist than the creatures they prey upon? Why shouldn't it be the other way around, if we are actually concerned about the prey as individual beings with a right to exist? After all, the life of one predator entails the death of several prey.

Or is it that there is a double standard here- that we ignore cruel deaths that are "part of nature" while fixating on equally cruel deaths that serve a human purpose?

I've never understood the mindset where it's okay to let a bad thing happen to someone as long as you didn't personally cause it.

When you have no method of preventing it morality does not factor into it.

[/quote]I can think of a number of methods of preventing orca predation on whales off the top of my head. Including methods no worse than the ones we use to prevent, for example, human cannibals from preying on other humans. Or to prevent tigers and other large animals from preying on humans.

[Thanas]

You still do not understand.

The argument is not "we should intervene to protect whales-" although I really don't understand why you assume we have to know how to talk to whales in order to protect them. I can think of multiple ideas for protecting whales from orcas off the top of my head that don't involve knowing how to communicate with cetaceans.

If whales are sentient Orcas are sentient too. How do you prevent them from killing whales without killing them or starving them to death? This is why communication is necessary.

But that is beside the point. Again, the argument is NOT "we should intervene to protect whales from orcas." The argument is "if we view orcas preying on whales as a part of the natural order of things, we are saying that whale deaths are acceptable in order to achieve an instrumental good."

That is your argument. My argument is that we cannot protect whales from orcas. There is no way we can control the whale or orca pods. Thus, this is an unattainable goal. You mgiht just as well argue against using medicine as people die either way.

[Simon_Jester]

If whales are sentient Orcas are sentient too.

Firstly, it is not a foregone conclusion that all whale and dolphin species are sentient, any more than all ape species are sentient. Some are, some aren't. But I will not use this fact as an excuse to avoid your next question.

How do you prevent them from killing whales without killing them or starving them to death? This is why communication is necessary.

It would be much more difficult to stop orcas without killing them.

Then again... I'm not sure we should feel compelled to try. If there were a tribe of humans, which hunted other humans as pretty much its sole diet*, and we could not realistically get them to stop for decades, and they were constantly killing people... I honestly find it hard to believe that we would do anything other than start killing off the tribe of cannibals for the sake of the safety and survival of the many, many other intelligent creatures they'd be killing.

Likewise, if whales are sentient, not only should people be prohibited from hunting them for economic activity, but in my book, whalers would be a type of pirate- hostis humani generis clearly isn't the right phrase, but it communicates the right idea. If the only way to stop a bunch of pirates is to put them to death, then I don't think that presents a problem.

But seriously, if orcas and whales are sentient, orcas fall into the same category as human whalers do. They are biologically capable of eating other prey, presumably have just as much ability to know whether whales are intelligent as we do (since they share an ecosystem with them), and are deciding to target the whales as prey anyway.
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*Orca populations have distinct prey specialization; the whale-hunting orca pods are a largely separate population from the fish-hunting and seal-hunting populations. If orcas are sentient, I would speculate that they are different cultures (who, incidentally, have different family life and range over different territories).

But that is beside the point. Again, the argument is NOT "we should intervene to protect whales from orcas." The argument is "if we view orcas preying on whales as a part of the natural order of things, we are saying that whale deaths are acceptable in order to achieve an instrumental good."

That is your argument. My argument is that we cannot protect whales from orcas. There is no way we can control the whale or orca pods. Thus, this is an unattainable goal. You mgiht just as well argue against using medicine as people die either way.

If all else fails, we could kill the whale-hunting orcas. Which is hardly more appalling or genocidal than any number of historical campaigns fought against 'uncontrollable' groups of pirates in the past.

Now, again, I'm not saying we should do this. What I'm saying is, I don't see how we can in good conscience avoid that conclusion IF we assume that baleen whales deserve the kind of rights and immunities we normally assign to humans. If orcas were doing to humans what they do to whales, I cannot imagine we'd have left the whale human-hunting orca pods alive this long.

[Thanas]

So your strategy is genocide before there even has been an effective attempt at communication. And we better do it now, thereby risking collapse of the ecosystem. Great. Clearly, this is more important than stopping some idiots from whaling, which can be easily done, carries no risk for the ecosystem and does not require us to just assume facts not in evidence.

[Simon_Jester]

Nooo, that is not my strategy. But I'm surprised it isn't other people's strategy, if they think whales are intelligent.

See, I'm not proceeding on the assumption that whales are people*.

This is not a hard concept. I am pointing out an inconsistency between saying whales are sacrosanct due to their great intelligence, and saying that it is okay to tolerate other animals (which may or may not themselves be intelligent) preying on whales.

If you, like me, are not convinced whales are intelligent, that's different. If you're not saying that their persons are therefore sacred and not to be attacked for personal gain, for the same reason human beings aren't to be thus attacked, fine... but that then leads to other forms of the debate.

In other words, I am arguing "either A, or B. If A, then C, which most people strongly disagree with. Therefore, probably B, unless you have a strong argument in favor of A."

Do people have such a short attention span that they cannot remember this for ten minutes at a stretch? And just automatically assume that I'm advocating for position B, when I myself expressed skepticism about the concept A that leads to B?
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Now, if I were truly convinced that whales are intelligent and are being killed and eaten regularly by a certain population of orcas... exactly how could I justify anything but saying that the ongoing killing and eating of whales must be stopped, by force if necessary? Would we extend this to a population of humans who were being preyed upon by a population of other humans? Or for that matter, a population of nonsentient predators like lions or sharks? Would we just not worry about the killing because there's an ecology to protect and the ecology depends on ongoing killing of intelligent creatures?

What is this, a Star Trek episode where the Prime Directive justifies letting people be hunted and killed in the streets because "that's their culture" or something?
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*To clarify, when I say 'people,' I mean intelligent beings with all the rights and protections an intelligent being would be entitled to, including basic decency like "don't stand aside and let us be eaten by cannibals."

[Thanas]

What I am saying is that your point of view "We must do this now despite incomplete information" is complete nonsense. Point is, your strategy depends on killing Orcas (despite the fact they might be intelligent) because they kill whales (who might be intelligent). My argument is that we do not know that they are, but until we know for sure it is best we refrain from harming them. Which apparently is hard to grasp for you.

[Simon_Jester]

What I am saying is that your point of view "We must do this now despite incomplete information" is complete nonsense.

Perhaps the proposal is nonsense, but I do not believe we must do this thing.

I truly hope that makes it explicit enough for you to finally grasp that this is not in any meaningful sense "what I believe."

The thing I am trying to get across is that to the extent that we believe whales are intelligent and therefore sacrosanct, to that very same extent we have reason to believe that orcas are probably murderous pirates who routinely kill and eat innocent people. Or, alternatively, are nonsentient wild animals that, likewise, routinely kill and eat innocent people.

If we are confident enough of whale intelligence to categorically ban human hunting, then while violently stopping orcas may seem excessive at this time, it should not be treated with the level of shock and "you must be joking" sentiment that the suggestion actually receives.

My complaint here is not that there is some policy that should be enacted but is not being enacted.

My complaint is that it seems as though "don't harm the whales, they might be intelligent" is being used as a pretext, as an argument that we grasp at in order to support a pre-determined conclusion. But once you have grasped this argument in your hand, it has consequences, that people should be willing to think through seriously. Because once you claim that there are other intelligent species on this planet... that is not a small matter.

[Joun_Lord]

I think Simon you don't understand that when it comes to whale intelligence it is different from a human as it is different from a cow.

Think of the whales like gorillas. Gorillas, goddamn damn dirty apes, are highly intelligent creatures that many countries have laws against hunting them. Many people consider it wrong to hunt them because they are so intelligent. They have a special place in the human consciousness compared to a cow except in India.

But while they are protected from predation by humanity they are not from their own natural predators. If a damn dirty ape is attacked by another ape swinging a bone club, mauled by a lion, or swallowed by a crocodile or alligator, we rarely interfere. We do not stand around gorilla habitats touting assault weapons blasting anything that looks at them funny, we do protect them from anything but ourselves.

There are several reasons for this.

First and foremost while they are intelligent they are not at human level intelligence. They are wild stupid animals who eat their own poop and masturbate without the aid of pornography like savages. We do not assign as much value to them as we would a human, even a stupid human like a Bush or Palin (so topical!!!!). The resources necessary to protect apes from their predators exceed their value in our eyes.

Apes nor their predators can be reasoned with. We can sometimes stop human conflicts because we can talk to each other, we can work out deals and compromises. We can at times stop human predation of animal species because we can talk to them, find alternatives to hunting those species at times, find out their needs and wants and desires. We can make humans understand the wrongness of certain acts, humans are intelligent enough to learn from mistakes, to solve problems amicably. Apes, lions, tiger and bears oh my we cannot talk to, we cannot teach to hunt something else, we cannot work out a compromise with, we can do nothing but attempt to alter animal behavior and fail miserably.

Look at the most successful animal who has been domesticated, the dog. Despite thousands of years of being beside humans, being altered mentally, instinctually, and even physically by mankind, becoming an entire other species from the wolf forebears, we still can only control them so much. Dogs will still bite people, will still shit on carpets despite telling them not too a billion times, will still chew up shit, will still act like barely restrained instinct driven barely intelligent animals. So what are we to do with apes and their predators?

Finally, its hard to alter natures balance. Nature is remarkably balanced. Entire ecosystems thrive in harmony. Apes are part of this harmony. They have a set part in nature, they live and they die as nature through millions of years of adaption intends them to. To try to alter the balance creates turmoil that results in far more damage then letting things die naturally as God or Zod or Nature or the Cosmic Plan or Random Chance intended.

Humans are not really part of nature, we do not live in harmony, we exist outside the ecosystems in many ways. We for the most part are not reliant on a delicate balance of predator and prey to survive, we are the king of the hill, we alter nature to suit our needs.

But we can alter nature so much and only through the combined intelligence of humanity. Trying to do so with relatively unintelligent animals who cannot alter their environment, cannot understand reason or compromise, is most likely nearly impossible.

All we can ever do is really work with humanity, the human intelligence, on issues. Humans can protect themselves, humans can protect others from ourselves, but to protect others from others is considerably harder to do.

Thats why we can at time stop poachers from hunting apes, maybe sometimes stop Natives from hunting whales, protect bald eagles from douchebags and fence in endangered fishes to protect them from drunken rednecks but do little to protect them from other animals.

Sapient non-human animals are not people, soylent green is people, nor are they sapient like humans and thus treated differently as they are treated differently form non-sapient animals. Thats about the whole fuck of it. Or something. I dunno, maybe people just want to protect the whales and monkeys because of emotional connections and their supposed intelligence means fuck all.

[Simon_Jester]

I think Simon you don't understand that when it comes to whale intelligence it is different from a human as it is different from a cow.

See, everything

Just to spell this out. One last time. My argument is as follows...

[And so help me, if one more person somehow fails to understand or even notice this if/then structure I have mentioned like three or four times in a row, this structure that I have described over and over in increasingly baby-talk formats, I am going to scream.]

1) Either A is true, or B is true.
2) If A, then C.
3) C is not widely accepted. This is shown by how many people have patronizingly explained to me that C is not true.
4) Therefore, A is not widely accepted, and is certainly not the opinion held by the people rejecting C.
5) Therefore, B is true, or at least we act as though B is true.
6) Now, given that B is true... if B, then D.

I hope people can comprehend logic on this level.

A is "whales are smart like humans."
B is "whales are smart like clever animals."
C is "then whales deserve our protection from things that hunt and eat them. We would protect humans from tribes of cannibals or wild beasts, regardless of whether the 'circle of nature' or whatever somehow mandates that the humans be eaten, and if whales are smart like humans, they have the same rights we do."

[takes deep breath]

I would just like to emphasize that this thing C... this is not a thing I am claiming is true. This is a thing I am claiming is a logical consequence of A. I do not know if A is true. If one more person falsely attributes to me that I believe C, I am going to scream, as noted above. Moreover, the proposition "C is true" is not part of my argument. In fact, your attempts to disprove C help my argument, because my step (3) is basically "C is not true, or at least people don't think it is."

If people wish to attack my step (2), the connection "If A, then C..." Then that makes more sense. But to attack that connection you would have to start from the premise that A is true, then disprove C. Most people seem reluctant to do this, or have used only bullshit arguments in an attempt to do this.
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So, to recap. If A, then C. C is routinely attacked and seen as ridiculous, so I assume C is likely not true, or at least we don't expect other people to behave as if it is. Therefore, people don't actually believe A or expect others to behave as if A is true.

In other words, people don't really believe whales have human-level intelligence. They believe, at most, that whales have gorilla or dog-level intelligence.

Now, given that this is the case...
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We reach D. And D is "the debate over the value of whale life is something we need to have at length. Not something we can just shut down with a one-sentence declaration."

For moral purposes, we generally agree that the cash value of a human life is utterly enormous, if not infinite. You can't say "I'm sorry I had to carry out a contract killing on this guy, but I really needed those million dollars to provide medical care and shelter for my impoverished rural village." That is just plain not acceptable. There is no amount of money I can offer to pay you, that will make murdering someone the right thing to do. No matter how poor you are.

For moral purposes, in the modern era, we behave as if the cash value of an entire nonhuman species is, likewise, enormous or maybe infinite. You can't say "I'm sorry I exterminated that bird species down to the last birdie, but I had a logging contract to fill for fifty million dollars." While the amount of effort we're prepared to make to save a species is limited, we don't accept the idea that you should be able to just pay a pile of money to make up for wiping out a species.

However, we do NOT behave as if the lives of individual members of nonhuman, nonintelligent species have this kind of "probably infinite" value. When a species is not endangered, most of us will accept the idea that killing one or two members of that species is not in itself a serious problem IF the consequences for a group of humans are important enough.

As a society, we are willing to send dogs into dangerous situations where we would not send humans, with a risk of death we would not accept for humans. Because bluntly, a dog's life is something we can put a fairly defined, limited value on, and there are plenty more dogs where this one came from.

[The dog handlers themselves might disagree- but we already know they are massively sentimental about their dogs, that's why they're the dog handlers in the first place]

So when dealing with a species of smart-like-a-gorilla animal, that is NOT endangered, and where small-scale human hunting could make the difference between total abject poverty and less-total poverty for a marginalized human society... without endangering the species...

In my honest opinion, it is seriously debatable whether the hunting should be forbidden, especially when there are issues of legality and ethics tied to how we go about banning it.

Or something. I dunno, maybe people just want to protect the whales and monkeys because of emotional connections and their supposed intelligence means fuck all.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case... And I wouldn't mind. But then you definitely can't ask anyone to accept poverty purely because of other people's emotions. I can't ask you to live in a run-down shack because it would hurt my feelings for you to pull together enough money to upgrade to a nice warm trailer.

You need an ethical argument that crosses cultural lines, and that isn't just about my hurt feelings, to justify a thing like that.

[Ziggy Stardust]

You are still making some rather odd and unrealistic logical leaps there, Simon (and, to be honest, taking a pretty obnoxiously condescending tone in doing so. Remember, if every single other person seems to be misinterpreting what you are saying, the problem is likely on YOU, not EVERYONE ELSE). For example, let's take this:

C is "then whales deserve our protection from things that hunt and eat them. We would protect humans from tribes of cannibals or wild beasts, regardless of whether the 'circle of nature' or whatever somehow mandates that the humans be eaten, and if whales are smart like humans, they have the same rights we do."

You seem to be extrapolating to this point to some scenario where we need to exterminate orcas in order to protect whales, as if that is what we would do to protect humans, even though this is summarily not the case. We DON'T go around exterminating predators just to protect humans (at least, not anymore). For the most part, the way we try to protect people from dangerous animals is by educating the people themselves, not by harming the animals (again, at least in a modern context) unless its necessary in a very immediate sense (like the recent gorilla situation, though let's not distract the thread by arguing about that case specifically). For the most part, we try to protect BOTH, though there will always be certain fringe circumstances where priority is given to one or the other; when a man goes hiking in the wilderness and gets eaten by a bear, nobody goes around talking about how we need to kill all the bears to protect the people, like your logic necessarily claims must be the case. So already your line of logic falls apart, because what you are claiming is an inherent contradiction is based on a flimsy premise on your part that isn't actually borne out by reality.

[Simon_Jester]

[Blinks]

Oh, right. This thread.

When I have to repeatedly state that I am not saying X, and people keep telling me I must be wrong or crazy for saying X, after a while I start to lose my equanimity. So, yes, that affected my tone.
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Ziggy, you're using a false analogy in your effort to invalidate my argument.

Humans no longer kill off predators that attack humans because it is easy for humans to protect themselves from predators. Moreover, we have already thinned out predator numbers (by our historical act of killing many of them) to the point where they are a greatly diminished threat. And no threat at all, in the areas where most humans live. Therefore, we have the luxury of avoiding the question "is the balance of nature worth sacrificing a steady stream of human lives every year?"

Grey whales do not have that luxury. They lack the physical ability to defend themselves against orcas as effectively we would defend ourselves against tigers- no guns. They live in the same ocean as the orcas and cannot move away into areas where most or all of the orcas have been killed, as we concentrate ourselves in areas where bears, tigers, and other large predators don't live.

And on the rare occasions where a predator does pose an ongoing threat to human safety, we take steps. If the predator is moving about in the wild they are typically hunted down and killed or captured. If they are a caged animal at a zoo or something, then the cage is reinforced and measures are taken to ensure that humans are protected from the dangerous animal.

The point is that we do not simply do nothing. We do not totally ignore this threat and treat it as part of the natural, unavoidable condition of things. And unlike the balance of power between humans and animals that eat humans, the balance of power between grey whales and orcas is not permanently tilted in favor of the prey and against the predator. So we cannot sidestep the question

...

IF we suppose that grey whales are sapient creatures with the same right not to be murdered that a human has...

Is the "balance of nature" that involves many grey whales being eaten alive every year worth the sacrifice of those lives? What if the grey whales do not want to be eaten? Are they entitled to protection by an outside party?

Here's a thought-experiment.

If there were a tribe of cannibals who ate dozens of people a year, and we had no way of helping the victims to protect themselves, would we shrug and say that this situation was part of the natural world? Or would we try to find a way to stop the cannibalism? And if there was no way to stop it, short of killing the cannibals, then would we shrug and do nothing?

I don't think most humans would never simply tolerate an ongoing situation in which dozens or hundreds of humans a year were being killed and eaten by either wild animals or other sapient creatures. We would either kill the predators, drive off the predators, evacuate the victims, or arm the victims. We'd at least make an effort.

Are you arguing that this is not true?

Now, if you do not claim this is not true when applied to humans, then for what reason would it not apply to sapient whales?

Are whales less worthy of human protection than other humans are, assuming they're sapient?

Do orcas somehow have a unique right to eat sapient creatures alive that overrides the whales' safety?

Or does the very existence of a creature that preys chiefly on species X mean that it is somehow 'right' for members of species X to be eaten alive?

[Flagg]

Whales aren't people, Simon. There's also the distinct possibility that Orcas are smarter than the whales we are trying to protect them from. What then, simple Simon?

[Thanas]

Orcas are the only creatures besides humans where their culture influences their evolution, Simon. They are more sentient than whales and the only living beings who have achieved something similar to us, namely changing their genes due to cultural choices and traditions.

That alone should give you pause.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Oh god... alright. I will step into this mess.

Simon, one of your fundamental assumptions is just wrong. Namely this one:

But seriously, if orcas and whales are sentient, orcas fall into the same category as human whalers do. They are biologically capable of eating other prey, presumably have just as much ability to know whether whales are intelligent as we do (since they share an ecosystem with them), and are deciding to target the whales as prey anyway.

We only just figured out that other species are extremely intelligent, because we have a scientific understanding of the world and have been able to perform controlled experiments. Orca dont have this. They have no way of knowing that other cetaceans are intelligent. Unlike pirates, they are not making a moral choice, and killing them for it is just ethnic cleansing. Without this assumption of yours, your argument completely collapses.

Additionally, even mammal hunting pods only consider whales a sometimes food, typically during the annual migrations up and down coastlines to and from the arctic. It should be possible, particularly once we have a means of communication, to wean them off. We did not kill off cannibal tribes, we persuaded them to give up cannibalism.

The solution is to wait. Whales have been preyed upon by Orca and other predators for millions of years, they can wait a little while longer for us to learn how to speak Orca.

The point is that we do not simply do nothing. We do not totally ignore this threat and treat it as part of the natural, unavoidable condition of things. And unlike the balance of power between humans and animals that eat humans, the balance of power between grey whales and orcas is not permanently tilted in favor of the prey and against the predator. So we cannot sidestep the question

We absolutely do nothing on a great many occassions. In parts of Africa, being eaten by crocodiles is considered an occupational hazzard. Yes people protect eachother in those regions, but they dont go on revenge sprees or start croc-culling either.

It all depends on the relationship with nature humans have in any given culture.

Orcas are the only creatures besides humans where their culture influences their evolution, Simon. They are more sentient than whales and the only living beings who have achieved something similar to us, namely changing their genes due to cultural choices and traditions.

Other dolphins, elephants, and other ape species do as well.

[Flagg]

What gets me is this total black/white fallacy that completely disregards degrees of intelligence. And Orca being predator species (like all Dolphins IIRC) are likely much smarter than baleen whales. For instance, Sperm whales (not baleen whales, obviousely) do not often allow themselves to become Orca prey, using their diving ability and sonar to avoid/ drive Orca off.

[Alyrium Denryle]

What gets me is this total black/white fallacy that completely disregards degrees of intelligence. And Orca being predator species (like all Dolphins IIRC) are likely much smarter than baleen whales. For instance, Sperm whales do not often allow themselves to become Orca prey, using theI diving ability and sonar to avoid/ drive Orca off.

Baleen whales dont have the option. Yeah there are degrees of intelligence, but for my money it is too close to be OK with us killing baleen whales.

The reason baleen whales dont have as many options has nothing to do with intelligence, in this case.

A) Most of them cannot dive as deep
B) They lack active sonar to the extent the toothed whales do, so they cannot weaponize it.
C) They are almost always hunted when they have calves, and the orca go after the calves.

They do their best. They engage silent running in areas killer whales inhabit (and mom knows where these places are), and when they try to drown the calf, mom does what she can to hold said calf out of reach, but against a dozen orca there is only so much she can do.

[Flagg]

What gets me is this total black/white fallacy that completely disregards degrees of intelligence. And Orca being predator species (like all Dolphins IIRC) are likely much smarter than baleen whales. For instance, Sperm whales do not often allow themselves to become Orca prey, using theI diving ability and sonar to avoid/ drive Orca off.

Baleen whales dont have the option. Yeah there are degrees of intelligence, but for my money it is too close to be OK with us killing baleen whales.

The reason baleen whales dont have as many options has nothing to do with intelligence, in this case.

A) Most of them cannot dive as deep
B) They lack active sonar to the extent the toothed whales do, so they cannot weaponize it.
C) They are almost always hunted when they have calves, and the orca go after the calves.

They do their best. They engage silent running in areas killer whales inhabit (and mom knows where these places are), and when they try to drown the calf, mom does what she can to hold said calf out of reach, but against a dozen orca there is only so much she can do.

No, you misunderstand me. I'm against humans killing whales full stop. There's no reason to. We drove them to the brink (and I don't remember but maybe some past that) of extinction. We had "our fun" now we need to knock it the fuck off. I'm talking solely Orca predation, period.

The reason I don't really have this issue is because 1) Orcas, to my knowledge, pose no threat of extinction, 2) The only way to stop them currently, with my knowledge, is with machine guns, and 3) the one I'm most pliable on, I don't like fucking with nature. When we do so, it often ends badly, though not always.

[Simon_Jester]

Ah. Hello, Alyrium. Thank you for taking the time to actually comprehend and analyze my argument, and identify what I will concede are some of its weaker points. Points I had perhaps underestimated the importance of, or simply not had sufficiently broad knowledge of biology to address.

Oh god... alright. I will step into this mess.

Simon, one of your fundamental assumptions is just wrong. Namely this one:

But seriously, if orcas and whales are sentient, orcas fall into the same category as human whalers do. They are biologically capable of eating other prey, presumably have just as much ability to know whether whales are intelligent as we do (since they share an ecosystem with them), and are deciding to target the whales as prey anyway.

We only just figured out that other species are extremely intelligent, because we have a scientific understanding of the world and have been able to perform controlled experiments. Orca dont have this. They have no way of knowing that other cetaceans are intelligent. Unlike pirates, they are not making a moral choice, and killing them for it is just ethnic cleansing. Without this assumption of yours, your argument completely collapses.

[blinks]

I will be honest. This question crossed my mind. The thought that orcas could themselves be sapient,* and that gray whales are sapient, and yet orcas might be unaware that grey whales are sapient.

I rejected the idea out of hand. I did so mostly because I can't easily imagine failing to notice that other creatures are intelligent, over a period of thousands of years, when one can listen and observe them if not actually understand them as such. Perhaps I was not imaginative enough.

Would you mind expanding on why you think I was wrong to reject this idea?

*(I should be saying 'sapient' consistently, I think)

Additionally, even mammal hunting pods only consider whales a sometimes food, typically during the annual migrations up and down coastlines to and from the arctic. It should be possible, particularly once we have a means of communication, to wean them off. We did not kill off cannibal tribes, we persuaded them to give up cannibalism.

The solution is to wait. Whales have been preyed upon by Orca and other predators for millions of years, they can wait a little while longer for us to learn how to speak Orca.

Out of curiosity, would there be any span of time you would deem "too long" to wait?

What if, hypothetically, grey whales turn out to be about as smart as humans, but orcas turn out to be about as smart as gorillas? What should we do then?

The point is that we do not simply do nothing. We do not totally ignore this threat and treat it as part of the natural, unavoidable condition of things. And unlike the balance of power between humans and animals that eat humans, the balance of power between grey whales and orcas is not permanently tilted in favor of the prey and against the predator. So we cannot sidestep the question

We absolutely do nothing on a great many occassions. In parts of Africa, being eaten by crocodiles is considered an occupational hazzard. Yes people protect eachother in those regions, but they dont go on revenge sprees or start croc-culling either.

It all depends on the relationship with nature humans have in any given culture.

Hm. Perhaps my over-familiarity with cultures that habitually cull dangerous predators led me to over-generalize.

Personally, I cannot imagine tolerating the presence of dangerous predators that humans cannot easily avoid, and consider the idea of backing up and sitting with folded hands while other people are regularly being eaten alive more than a little repugnant. Intellectual curiosity leads me to wonder how others can feel differently, but I recognize that they may feel differently.

The thing is, that is itself a moral proposition- that it is acceptable to tolerate death from predator attacks, because it is worth sacrificing human lives to preserve the state of nature in which predators attack humans. It's something we could reasonably have a debate about. Something I wouldn't take for granted.

==========================================

More generally, statements not specifically pointed at Alyrium:

I am reluctant to agree that predators are necessarily smarter than 'grazing' animals. Many herbivores are stupid, but gorillas and elephants are among the most intelligent of all animals, and both species are herbivorous. It strikes me as somewhat prejudicial to assume that predators have to be cleverer than the animals they hunt, especially when they have other natural advantages

While I recognize the concept of degrees of intelligence, I also think that the lower the degree of an animal's intelligence, the less credible we can make an absolute prohibition on hunting them.

If a whale is as smart as a human or near-human hominid, killing the whale to sell its meat is always wrong.

If a whale is as (relatively) stupid as a deer, killing the whale to sell its meat is acceptable, at least by most people's ethical standards.

If a whale's intelligence is somewhere in between... again, that's a conversation that one has to actually have, one can't just short-circuit to the desired conclusion of "always leave them alone" without analyzing the reasons for doing so in detail.

...

One interesting argument Flagg just made is that there is an argument of justice against continuing to hunt a species that was put into severe danger by past human hunting.

As a possible counterexample... Bison are not intelligent animals. Reckless, destructive, gratuitous human hunting drove them to the brink of extinction. Now, their numbers have partially rebounded... but some of those numbers are herds kept and ranched for meat by humans. Would it be better if we did not do that thing? Or does it even matter, when dealing with an animal like the bison?

[Flagg]

Yet chimps "hunters" tend to be smarter than gorillas, by human (hunters) standards. So I do wonder how much anthropotmation goes on even when dealing with admittedly intelligent species.

Then we get the the octopi...

[Simon_Jester]

Not sure what you mean by anthropomation; if you mean to refer to anthropomorphization, I don't really see how the term applies.

I can believe that there is a correlation between hunting and high intelligence in animals.

But there are plenty of other things that could be drivers for evolving intelligence. Say, being more reliant on vision rather than scent and hearing to navigate one's environment- hypothetically it might place higher demands on the brain to process visual data than sound or smells. That's purely speculative, mind.

Or (and this is better founded) the main driver could be whether an animal is social or solitary. Solitary animals mostly only profit from intelligence if it helps them overcome environmental challenges. And there are a LOT of ways to adapt to deal with your environment, so intelligence isn't particularly favored out of all possible 'solutions' evolution might select for.

By contrast, for many social animals there will be definite benefits to being able to outwit rivals within one's own social group... and it's harder to use a purely physical advantage to serve the place of a mental one. Moreover, this promotes an evolutionary arms race toward higher intelligence, theory of mind, and so on, whereas overcoming environmental challenges will just pose a "you must be this smart to enter" cutoff and stop exerting selection pressure beyond that point.

[Flagg]

Meant anthropormofphization, which isn't a word, but basically "seeing humanity in the way some animals act and interpreting it as though it were the same as a human". Like smiling at a chimp will tend get your face ripped off because they smile to show how big and sharp their teeth are so you won't fuck with them, not how happy they are to see you.

[Simon_Jester]

That's what I thought you meant.

You were speculating on the level of anthropomorphization that "goes on," but I'm not clear on what you mean by that or how it fits into the overall discussion.

[Flagg]

That's what I thought you meant.

You were speculating on the level of anthropomorphization that "goes on," but I'm not clear on what you mean by that or how it fits into the overall discussion.

I mean in how "lay people" view which animals are and are not "intelligent" and worth saving. At one time White sharks were deeply endangered due to people hunting and killing them because of 'Jaws' despite their apex predator status, yet species of seals who didn't need it were being protected despite their not being endangered.