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Silly lawmakers, thinking that a boat that sticks nets in the water is a different business with different concerns than an on-land factory that takes fish as a

Silly lawmakers, thinking that a boat that sticks nets in the water is a different business with different concerns than an on-land factory that takes fish as an input. BTW, this is Newfoundland where, left to their own devices free from interference from “nanny state lawmakers”, the local fishing industry used improved technology and salt-of-the-earth rural knowhow to … deplete fishing stocks so quickly and efficiently that the cod catch fell to 1% of historic levels by the time a 30 year moratorium was declared in 1992. The maintenance and management of the illusion that the Newfoundland coast’s core industry, and the “outport” communities like the Change Islands that depend on it, are viable, and the softening of the landing of their decline, has been a project of that annoying nanny state for like a half century at this point. There’s no fish processing facility on those islands because there are eventually going to be no little fishing boats and no town. Stand back a bit, and it’s 185 people whose net-negative presence on some remote islands is being subsidized at a massive loss by the rest of society.

hcurtiss 4y ago
That’s a rather uncharitable take. Managed properly, fisheries are a renewable resource. Atlantic Cod stocks are recovering.[1] We need protein as a society, and there’s no reason to entirely outlaw this source. If you do, it will only increase pressure on other sources. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/c0da63a0-6bc5-11e7-b9c7-15af748b60d0 https://www.ft.com/content/c0da63a0-6bc5-11e7-b9c7-15af748b6...
- elgenie 4y ago
  The 1992 moratorium to allow the stocks to the recover is it being managed, correct. It’s an example of a coordination problem that that darn nanny state is decent at handling. But restarting fishing won’t help the outports much if at all, because the efficient solution to the problem of someone needing to go out into the ocean to get a bunch of cod changed from being a town acting as an aircraft carrier for small fishing boats into a large fishing boat that returns straight to a larger port, and the industry as a whole employing an order of magnitude fewer people.
  - engineer_22 4y ago
    > It’s an example of a coordination problem that that darn nanny state is decent at handling. I agree with you, but I think you're being condescending. I agree with you that the industry has changed and certain ways of life wont be sustainable in that context. It's unfortunate.
    - empyrrhicist 4y ago
      > I think you're being condescending. I share some of the attitude, because farming and fishing get weirdly good branding compared to other extractive industries. This thread is full of people opining about how things would be better if only the government would stop pushing regulations they don't understand on hardworking farmers who know better. I live in the US state of Iowa and it's a truly laughable sentiment. There was a recent local public radio call in show where water quality experts and environmental engineers were told by a caller to "try riding along in a combine sometime to see what it's really like out there". These people are experts in their fields and have absolutely studied farming, but get talked down to by large agribusiness concerns like they're naive little kids. It makes me really angry to see, when the environmental harms agriculture in my state commits are so well documented. With that context, I tend to come to these conversations with a lot of extra salt.
      - randomdata 4y ago
        > These people are experts in their fields and have absolutely studied farming, but get talked down to by large agribusiness concerns like they're naive little kids. Presentation is everything. If, say, experts started pushing regulation to require that developers practice TDD, even if we’ll justified, without consultation with the developers to hear out their concerns you'd get the exact same kind of pushback. "try programming alongside me sometime and see what it is really like" There are plenty of exports who are actually out there in the combine, both metaphorically and quite literally. It is not a novel approach to get closely engaged with farmers when your research affects farmers, just as you would expect in any other industry. Those who fail to participate with the actual people their research involved end up looking like they are the ones talking down to others like they are little kids, and that's where you get the emotional reactions.

hcurtiss 4y ago

That’s a rather uncharitable take. Managed properly, fisheries are a renewable resource. Atlantic Cod stocks are recovering.[1] We need protein as a society, and there’s no reason to entirely outlaw this source. If you do, it will only increase pressure on other sources. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/c0da63a0-6bc5-11e7-b9c7-15af748b60d0 https://www.ft.com/content/c0da63a0-6bc5-11e7-b9c7-15af748b6...

elgenie 4y ago
The 1992 moratorium to allow the stocks to the recover is it being managed, correct. It’s an example of a coordination problem that that darn nanny state is decent at handling. But restarting fishing won’t help the outports much if at all, because the efficient solution to the problem of someone needing to go out into the ocean to get a bunch of cod changed from being a town acting as an aircraft carrier for small fishing boats into a large fishing boat that returns straight to a larger port, and the industry as a whole employing an order of magnitude fewer people.
- engineer_22 4y ago
  > It’s an example of a coordination problem that that darn nanny state is decent at handling. I agree with you, but I think you're being condescending. I agree with you that the industry has changed and certain ways of life wont be sustainable in that context. It's unfortunate.
  - empyrrhicist 4y ago
    > I think you're being condescending. I share some of the attitude, because farming and fishing get weirdly good branding compared to other extractive industries. This thread is full of people opining about how things would be better if only the government would stop pushing regulations they don't understand on hardworking farmers who know better. I live in the US state of Iowa and it's a truly laughable sentiment. There was a recent local public radio call in show where water quality experts and environmental engineers were told by a caller to "try riding along in a combine sometime to see what it's really like out there". These people are experts in their fields and have absolutely studied farming, but get talked down to by large agribusiness concerns like they're naive little kids. It makes me really angry to see, when the environmental harms agriculture in my state commits are so well documented. With that context, I tend to come to these conversations with a lot of extra salt.
    - randomdata 4y ago
      > These people are experts in their fields and have absolutely studied farming, but get talked down to by large agribusiness concerns like they're naive little kids. Presentation is everything. If, say, experts started pushing regulation to require that developers practice TDD, even if we’ll justified, without consultation with the developers to hear out their concerns you'd get the exact same kind of pushback. "try programming alongside me sometime and see what it is really like" There are plenty of exports who are actually out there in the combine, both metaphorically and quite literally. It is not a novel approach to get closely engaged with farmers when your research affects farmers, just as you would expect in any other industry. Those who fail to participate with the actual people their research involved end up looking like they are the ones talking down to others like they are little kids, and that's where you get the emotional reactions.