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I was just pointing out what I think is a major flaw in your logic. I think it’s entirely possible to have some stocks of whale which are endangered, and other

I was just pointing out what I think is a major flaw in your logic. I think it’s entirely possible to have some stocks of whale which are endangered, and other stocks of whale that are not endangered and are eating large amounts of fish and krill. Do I think that whales are decimating fish populations? Probably not, but I would need to see some data to say with any degree of certainty. And again, this is something you would need to look at in terms of local whale stocks and fisheries vs. just looking at all whales as a whole. > So I don't think your comment is relevant to the actual point being made. If OTOH you are just applying some factual editing so that my amazing comment can be printed in a newspaper, let's clean up that language sure! I think it is relevant to point out flawed logic or overly simplistic thinking in pretty much any discussion - regardless of whether or not it will be printed in a newspaper.

zzzeek 4y ago
> I was just pointing out what I think is a major flaw in your logic. I think it’s entirely possible to have some stocks of whale which are endangered, and other stocks of whale that are not endangered and are eating large amounts of fish and krill. OK see this is where you are wasting everyone's time. Japanese whaling fleets are targeting those exact whale populations that *are* endangered. Most of the international community opposes their practices and there are many international protections on various whale species that the Japanese whalers simply ignore. pointing out "flaws" in what random people are saying about some random NYT article that mentions it is irrelevant to understanding what is actually going in the world, things that are true and actually happening that you can confirm (or whatever you feel like) on your own, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_Japan. > Do I think that whales are decimating fish populations? Probably not, but I would need to see some data to say with any degree of certainty. And again, this is something you would need to look at in terms of local whale stocks and fisheries vs. just looking at all whales as a whole. your time then would be better spent *researching that* instead of wasting it nitpicking people. If I make a comment here, my audience are those people interested in making good faith interpretations. Sitting back and saying "hmmm, what if whales DO actually eat too much fish, and maybe the Japanese are only hunting whales that are not endangered? Here's one that's stopped being endangered for 8 months! ah HA! a flaw!" that's what we call a "bad faith" interpretation. it's non-constructive and reveals you aren't really very curious about the actual issue. I am not very interested in word games myself. > I think it is relevant to point out flawed logic or overly simplistic thinking in pretty much any discussion - regardless of whether or not it will be printed in a newspaper. The argument made by Japanese whalers in that quote is clearly idiotic, which you can confirm through a little bit of googling, where you would then know more about the subject. Correcting people who are failing to convince you of something due to small inaccuracies in their language OTOH fails to teach you anything new at all. Put another way. an actual rebuttal to my comment would be, "I'm a marine biologist, and here are whale species X, Y and Z that are not endangered at all, to which the ecosystem is now being improved thanks to the Japanese whaling industry wiping out a third of them, and here's why the vast majority of the international oceanic community is wrong on this issue in their opposition to Japan's killing fleets". That would be some argument for sure, since it doesnt exist, but if one did, would at least be an informed comment that's valuable to the discussion.
- freetime2 4y ago
  You say: > Japanese whaling fleets are targeting those exact whale populations that are endangered. But the wikipedia article you linked basically says the exact opposite - that Antarctic Minke whales are not designated as threatened: > Their objective is to hunt 3,000 Antarctic minke whales over 10 years, starting with 330 whales during the 2015–16 season.[citation needed] Antarctic minke whales have experienced an apparent decline in population, though the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) indicates that it lacks sufficient data to confer a threatened designation on the species of minke whale. It also says: > The 1985 IWC estimate put the Southern Hemisphere minke whale population at 761,000 (510,000–1,140,000 in the 95% confidence estimate).[179] A paper submitted to the IWC on population estimates in Antarctic waters using CNB gives a population of 665,074 based on Southern Ocean Whale and Ecosystem Research Programme (SOWER) data.[180] So Japan is planning to kill about 300 Minke whales a year out of a population of 500,000 or so (using the lowest estimates from the wikipedia page). That’s about 0.06% of the population per year, which definitely does not seem like enough threaten the survival of the species. With regards to: > Correcting people who are failing to convince you of something due to small inaccuracies in their language OTOH fails to teach you anything new at all In my opinion the inaccuracies in your comments thus far go far beyond mere "language" issues. I don't think any amount of careful rewording would fix them. These are factual and logical misunderstandings that are core to the very point you are trying to make. I also believe that I am acting in good faith by engaging with the things you have written so far and browsing the article that you have linked. If you have more evidence that you would like to cite to support your views (ideally something a bit more specific than telling me to "research it" on my own - citing the fact and then providing a link to the source is the generally accepted standard), I would be happy to have a look.
  - zzzeek 4y ago
    first off there are many examples in that article of currently endangered whale species still being killed by Japanese whalers. I did not say anything about "Minke" whales specifically. Per the article, killing of endangered species continues: > Japan kept official hunts of endangered species such as North Pacific right whales until 1994,[141] but intentional by-catches of endangered still continue to present in unknown scales. Secondly, the actual point is that Japanese whalers claim existing whale populations are bad for the environment because such populations are too large, which is ridiculous, given the endangered, recently endangered, or nearly endangered status of most of the whale species they have targeted, not to mention apex predators are not prone to overpopulation since they rely on lower levels of the food chain to survive. It does not matter which species are currently endangered and which are not. It is not my burden to disprove a made up fact. > So Japan is planning to kill about 300 Minke whales a year out of a population of 500,000 or so (using the lowest estimates from the wikipedia page). That’s about 0.06% of the population per year, which definitely does not seem like enough threaten the survival of the species. nor would it therefore have any impact on reducing overconsumption of other fish species, which is their actual claim, if in fact their population reduction across all whale species is extremely low. > In my opinion the inaccuracies in your comments thus far go far beyond mere "language" issues. I don't think any amount of careful rewording would fix them. These are factual and logical misunderstandings that are core to the very point you are trying to make. you are clearly very skilled at language which makes it all the more clear that your continued intentional misunderstanding of a point I was making is not constructive.

zzzeek 4y ago

> I was just pointing out what I think is a major flaw in your logic. I think it’s entirely possible to have some stocks of whale which are endangered, and other stocks of whale that are not endangered and are eating large amounts of fish and krill. OK see this is where you are wasting everyone's time. Japanese whaling fleets are targeting those exact whale populations that *are* endangered. Most of the international community opposes their practices and there are many international protections on various whale species that the Japanese whalers simply ignore. pointing out "flaws" in what random people are saying about some random NYT article that mentions it is irrelevant to understanding what is actually going in the world, things that are true and actually happening that you can confirm (or whatever you feel like) on your own, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_Japan. > Do I think that whales are decimating fish populations? Probably not, but I would need to see some data to say with any degree of certainty. And again, this is something you would need to look at in terms of local whale stocks and fisheries vs. just looking at all whales as a whole. your time then would be better spent *researching that* instead of wasting it nitpicking people. If I make a comment here, my audience are those people interested in making good faith interpretations. Sitting back and saying "hmmm, what if whales DO actually eat too much fish, and maybe the Japanese are only hunting whales that are not endangered? Here's one that's stopped being endangered for 8 months! ah HA! a flaw!" that's what we call a "bad faith" interpretation. it's non-constructive and reveals you aren't really very curious about the actual issue. I am not very interested in word games myself. > I think it is relevant to point out flawed logic or overly simplistic thinking in pretty much any discussion - regardless of whether or not it will be printed in a newspaper. The argument made by Japanese whalers in that quote is clearly idiotic, which you can confirm through a little bit of googling, where you would then know more about the subject. Correcting people who are failing to convince you of something due to small inaccuracies in their language OTOH fails to teach you anything new at all. Put another way. an actual rebuttal to my comment would be, "I'm a marine biologist, and here are whale species X, Y and Z that are not endangered at all, to which the ecosystem is now being improved thanks to the Japanese whaling industry wiping out a third of them, and here's why the vast majority of the international oceanic community is wrong on this issue in their opposition to Japan's killing fleets". That would be some argument for sure, since it doesnt exist, but if one did, would at least be an informed comment that's valuable to the discussion.

freetime2 4y ago
You say: > Japanese whaling fleets are targeting those exact whale populations that are endangered. But the wikipedia article you linked basically says the exact opposite - that Antarctic Minke whales are not designated as threatened: > Their objective is to hunt 3,000 Antarctic minke whales over 10 years, starting with 330 whales during the 2015–16 season.[citation needed] Antarctic minke whales have experienced an apparent decline in population, though the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) indicates that it lacks sufficient data to confer a threatened designation on the species of minke whale. It also says: > The 1985 IWC estimate put the Southern Hemisphere minke whale population at 761,000 (510,000–1,140,000 in the 95% confidence estimate).[179] A paper submitted to the IWC on population estimates in Antarctic waters using CNB gives a population of 665,074 based on Southern Ocean Whale and Ecosystem Research Programme (SOWER) data.[180] So Japan is planning to kill about 300 Minke whales a year out of a population of 500,000 or so (using the lowest estimates from the wikipedia page). That’s about 0.06% of the population per year, which definitely does not seem like enough threaten the survival of the species. With regards to: > Correcting people who are failing to convince you of something due to small inaccuracies in their language OTOH fails to teach you anything new at all In my opinion the inaccuracies in your comments thus far go far beyond mere "language" issues. I don't think any amount of careful rewording would fix them. These are factual and logical misunderstandings that are core to the very point you are trying to make. I also believe that I am acting in good faith by engaging with the things you have written so far and browsing the article that you have linked. If you have more evidence that you would like to cite to support your views (ideally something a bit more specific than telling me to "research it" on my own - citing the fact and then providing a link to the source is the generally accepted standard), I would be happy to have a look.
- zzzeek 4y ago
  first off there are many examples in that article of currently endangered whale species still being killed by Japanese whalers. I did not say anything about "Minke" whales specifically. Per the article, killing of endangered species continues: > Japan kept official hunts of endangered species such as North Pacific right whales until 1994,[141] but intentional by-catches of endangered still continue to present in unknown scales. Secondly, the actual point is that Japanese whalers claim existing whale populations are bad for the environment because such populations are too large, which is ridiculous, given the endangered, recently endangered, or nearly endangered status of most of the whale species they have targeted, not to mention apex predators are not prone to overpopulation since they rely on lower levels of the food chain to survive. It does not matter which species are currently endangered and which are not. It is not my burden to disprove a made up fact. > So Japan is planning to kill about 300 Minke whales a year out of a population of 500,000 or so (using the lowest estimates from the wikipedia page). That’s about 0.06% of the population per year, which definitely does not seem like enough threaten the survival of the species. nor would it therefore have any impact on reducing overconsumption of other fish species, which is their actual claim, if in fact their population reduction across all whale species is extremely low. > In my opinion the inaccuracies in your comments thus far go far beyond mere "language" issues. I don't think any amount of careful rewording would fix them. These are factual and logical misunderstandings that are core to the very point you are trying to make. you are clearly very skilled at language which makes it all the more clear that your continued intentional misunderstanding of a point I was making is not constructive.