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FWIW, I do not see how eating a dog or cat is morally worse than eating a cow. I am not a vegetarian, but honestly, that is mostly due to laziness and a fair am

by krylon 8y ago

FWIW, I do not see how eating a dog or cat is morally worse than eating a cow. I am not a vegetarian, but honestly, that is mostly due to laziness and a fair amount of hypocrisy. And yes, the thought of eating a dolphin or a humpback whale is kind of sickening. I guess that is largely due to Greenpeace and their "Save the Whales" stickers that I remember as being nearly omnipresent in my childhood. The difference, I guess, is that cows (and dogs) were not hunted close to extinction. OTOH, stopping the hunt for whales is one of the few things where a huge number of countries all over the world has been able to find a consensus before whales are a different memory known only from skeletons in museums. Japan is basically giving the rest of the world the finger, and not because they are facing starvation without that precious whale meat.

emodendroket 8y ago
But Minke whales are not close to extinction; isn't objecting to eating a Minke whale because blue whales are endangered something like objecting to eating chicken because passenger pigeons were overhunted?
- yayana 8y ago
  I don't think your analogy holds. The big issue with granting commercial hunting rights is that you have hunters (and related industries) launching political attacks to expand them using the income and playing the victim when you take them away due to resulting stock decline. Once they are out of minke they will legally or illegally hunt something else. (Whether it is one or the other is just a matter of how much money they have to corrupt policy verse hunting completely illegally like a portion of the fish industry sneaking around the coasts of poor nations.) If they can't play by rules they don't agree with now then they aren't going to play by them when they have expanded on minke, represent a larger portion of some GDP and are looking to keep their larger fleet financed.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    Taking this argument to its logical conclusion, fishing should be banned altogether.

by krylon 8y ago

emodendroket 8y ago

But Minke whales are not close to extinction; isn't objecting to eating a Minke whale because blue whales are endangered something like objecting to eating chicken because passenger pigeons were overhunted?

yayana 8y ago
I don't think your analogy holds. The big issue with granting commercial hunting rights is that you have hunters (and related industries) launching political attacks to expand them using the income and playing the victim when you take them away due to resulting stock decline. Once they are out of minke they will legally or illegally hunt something else. (Whether it is one or the other is just a matter of how much money they have to corrupt policy verse hunting completely illegally like a portion of the fish industry sneaking around the coasts of poor nations.) If they can't play by rules they don't agree with now then they aren't going to play by them when they have expanded on minke, represent a larger portion of some GDP and are looking to keep their larger fleet financed.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  Taking this argument to its logical conclusion, fishing should be banned altogether.