June 14, 2006

• ("position")
• Can someone more intimately familiar with Japan explain to me why they care so much about hunting some minke whales? Why they would go to the trouble and expense of bribing these other nations in order to control the IWC? Does minke whale hunting have extraordinary cultural significance in Japan, as whale hunting does for many arctic indigenous peoples? Is there some huge fondness for whale meat amongst Japanese, to the point where most Japanese would happily eat the last whale available? Or is it really pure stubborn-mindedness?
• In an attempt to answer at least part of my own question, I did some quick googling, but only came up with one useful link. According to that single data point, there is a glut of whale meat in Japan and most people don't like the taste. Young people hate it, old people are reminded of the lean times after WWII. The whaling industry is supposedly in financial difficulty, and subsidized entirely by the Japanese government. No word on whether whale hunting has any particularly fervent cultural significance in Japan.
• Your average Japanese person on the street is not particulary interested in eating whale. In fact when questioning my Boy about it once he said he wouldn't care to eat it, having tried it once. As for it being a cultural thing - it must be a very small core culture. Not really viewed by most people I know as a cool thing to do.
• Strange days, indeed.
• Why not contact the IWC, join an organisation like the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, the International Fund for Animal Welfare or the World Wildlife Fund, or cut straight to the chase, so to speak, and contact your local Japanese embassy (that's the UK one). I'm sure they'd love to hear from you.
• Or become a Greenpeace Ocean Defender. Go on, sign up, it's free.
• I think we should start hunting & eating the Japanese.
• Can someone answer me why it is wrong to eat whales, or to use whales for any number of purposes, when it is not wrong to eat lets say cod?
• "why it is wrong to eat whales, or to use whales for any number of purposes, when it is not wrong to eat lets say cod?" If you're not trolling, I'll get drawn in and say whales are rarer than cod, & have highly developed intelligence, akin to sentient humans. Whales have extensive & sophisticated nervous systems & highly developed brains, cod do not. Further, the harvesting method for whales is long, drawn out & incredibly cruel, due to their increased ability to be aware of what is happening to them, feel pain & emotions such as fear. There is a great deal of evidence that cetaceans are intelligent, self-aware, thinking beings. They are essentially an intelligent alien species with culture & language. Killing them is wrong. IOW: consciousness.
• Something that tastes so good can never be wrong, so long as the harvesting is responsible. The minke whale population is, according to the IWC figures, sustainable, if managed properly.
• So, the people who want to go out and shoot the whales are going to provide accurate and reliable figures on the sustainability of the very animals they want to go out and shoot? And, as for the 'cod' argument, I don't know what it's like everywhere else in the world, but here the cod is virtually an endangered species and so I won't eat it. Not even with chips. And peas. And red sauce. Nooo.
• "Something that tastes so good can never be wrong" That is insane. I mean, really, actually insane.
• I can see Chy's never tasted the kitfisto special sausage...
• Somthing that tastes so good can never be less filling.
• The IWC has the figures on sustainability. They do not take the whaling nations' word for it. And if the taste-of-the-meat argument is insane, so is entertaining the possibility that we will hurt the whales' feelings by harvesting the population. All in all, there is no right or wrong in this matter. It all depends on human emotions.
• So is the argument that we can fish a species to the brink of extinction, but if a whale comes along and does what it does naturally, and this impacts on the number of fish left for us to eat, then we must go out and shoot the whale. I'm with Cheech and Chong on this one anyway. Save the whale, but shoot the seal.
• > we will hurt the whales' feelings end the whales' feelings
• 'Hey whaley - you've got a massive arse!' Now that's how you hurt a whale's feelings!
• "if you'd stayed on the land, you guys would be running the place by now!"
• 'Yeah - check out these thumbs, blubber boy!'
• The IWC has the figures on sustainability. They do not take the whaling nations' word for it. I mean, if I understand the post correctly, isn't it the case that the whaling nations (or those representing the interests of the whaling nations) are in control of the IWC? If so, isn't that a bit like "the Project for a New American Century also has some figures on how cost-efficient and timely an invasion of Iraq would be." ? As for whales vs. cod, whales are mammals. Warm-blooded, live young, nursing infancy, etc. There's also the bit about the intelligence. Countered by my friend as the "we can eat chickens because they're stupid", which I refer to as the "Kang & Kodos argument". Now, I'm all about killing mammals for the taste, but just to clarify: killing a mammal will hurt its feelings. Is that a point of contention? Whaling seems anachronistic at best and cruel at least. I see a "right or wrong" in the issue, but if this is an "Is it okay to eat animals" thread then that's a different set of arguments. Plus I have to get out the cow suit.
• The whole "if it tastes good, eat it" brings up what I call the Albert Fish argument.
• I have no problem with the practice of hunting or otherwise killing animals for food. The only exception would be when the species in question is in such low number as to be threatened with extinction, as is the case with some whales. Why does Japan in particular have such a problem understanding that extinction of a species would be a bad thing?
• 'Cos they're Japanese.
• I take it by "the whales", you mean the minke, of which hunting has been stopped for years, waiting for the population to reachieve sustainability. I don't imagine Japan has an interest in extincting the species.
• of which hunting has been stopped for years Not really. The Japanese kill hundreds of minkes every year ... for "scientific purposes". Somehow their meat still ends up in restaurants though. I was in Tokyo on business once, and after the grueling all day meetings, they took us out at night for the wine and dine the customer ritual. I was offered some whale sushi, which I somehow declined. My impression was that it was a status symbol to be able to offer such rare fare. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the current Japanese stance is due to some old wealthy boys in the backroom deciding they're gonna get their whale sushi no matter the expense.
• Do you have a liiiiicense for your pet minke?
• Or become a Greenpeace Ocean Defender. Done - thanks, kitfisto.
• Once again, we have no right to an opinion on this unless we are vegetarians. You don't know that the whale is more conscious than a pig or cow, and even if it is, you're still drawing an arbitrary line and saying this level of consciousness deserves protection and this level doesn't. We too have overfished the oceans, unsustainably. I don't approve of the Japanese fishing for minke, because they could certainly survive happily without it, and the ocean would be better for it, but we don't have a leg to stand on to tell them otherwise until we clean up our own act. Its the same with Iran and nukes. Your future bombs are bad and immoral, but our past and present bombs are loaded with goodness and morality. Its the same with gay marriage. Our social arrangements are holy and protected (ignore that divorce rate and its effects on children), and sanctified by being the majority, your social arrangements are heathen and disgusting and an aberration against nature and a threat to children. /not a troll //seriously tired of all the sanctimony
• Heh, and as for Japan offering foreign aid to convince countries to side with them... I seem to remember a coalition of the willing that was built much the same way.
• "You don't know that the whale is more conscious than a pig or cow..." Bullshit. There are objective scientific proofs of the intelligence of cetaceans. If you wanna get into the whole ontological aspect of it, I don't have any proof that *you* or anyone else is conscious. That's a fool's game. At some point, you *have* to draw an 'arbitrary' line, except it's not arbitrary, because you're using measurable data & informed judgement as to where to make it. I'm making an arbitrary judgement that everyone else on the planet has a right to an opinion on this matter that is equal to mine, even though I don't see any evidence of them being smart enough to tackle it. Shall we dance? "...I seem to remember a coalition of the willing that was built much the same way." Well, that turned out well, didn't it?
• Chyren, I agree they are conscious. I also think dogs, cats, pigs, elephants, and goldfish are conscious. Thats never stopped anybody from eating them. Yes, you have a right to an opinion. You don't have a right to impose it on people unilaterally.
• Also, intelligence is not consciousness. If the whale is more intelligent than a mentally retarded human, is it now okay to eat the human?
• Yes, that's the Albert Fish argument. My exact point.
• Well, you're muddying the water with your objective tests of intelligence. Consciousness is something different, ie., being aware of yourself in relation to your environment. Pigs get scared, that doesn't stop us from eating them. At the point that the animal understands that SOMETHING BAD is going to happen to it, I get real ethical goosebumps. That understanding and corresponding fear happens VERY VERY low on the evolutionary ladder. Well keep drawing your arbitrary lines. The whales aren't part of our society and until they are, we are going to have to negotiate with Japan and come up with some shared set of lines we all can live with. The fact that countries with no coastlines get a say in this is a credit to our collective unanimity. The fact that they vote their selfish interest comes also as no surprise. I really wish people could rally around "saving the stink slug of northern Montana" but we mostly seem to decide these things based on whether the animals act like us or not, that is, complete cultural and species bias.
• Consciousness is not measurable, intelligence is. Neurologists can't even agree what makes up consciousness, or even if it is just an illusion in our own brains, so arguing about that is somewhat of a red-herring. Stick to intelligence & emotions. You can demonstrate them to exist in others, unlike consciousness, which is just as much an anthropic concept as bias for human-like animals.
• My parrot can do arithmetic. I'd like to see the whales do that. Oh right, intelligence is objective and demonstable. No. Certain kinds of problem solving abilities are demonstrable. Lets see the whales make tools? Oh, well, check that off the intelligence list. Emotions? Objective? Demonstrable? No, blushing could mean something completely other than embarassment in another species. Happiness? How do you know? Because the whale smiles at you? Right.. they can't smile. Everything you have listed is bias based on our understanding. Maybe we should just start counting the number of nerves they possess, by which standard, the whale actually should be eating us.
• My parrot can do arithmetic. I'd like to see the whales do that. Oh right, intelligence is objective and demonstable. No. Certain kinds of problem solving abilities are demonstrable. Lets see the whales make tools? Oh, well, check that off the intelligence list. Emotions? Objective? Demonstrable? No, blushing could mean something completely other than embarassment in another species. Happiness? How do you know? Because the whale smiles at you? Right.. they can't smile. Everything you have listed is bias based on our understanding. Maybe we should just start counting the number of nerves they possess, by which standard, the whale actually should be eating us.
• I gotta goldfish that can run mazes--er, never mind. So we've got gay minke whales with nuklear weapons now? Somehow I just wasn't following the gist of that troll argument.
• Nuke the unborn, gay minke whales for Jesus.
• Hey, has anybody thought of force feeding these whales grain through a funnel?
• Once again, we have no right to an opinion on this unless we are vegetarians. Well, *I* don't eat minks. And I advise you not to either.
• As a vegetarian, I feel that everyone has a right to opinion on the matter. Whales are intelligent... I'd like to take this moment to quote Mark Twain's excellent essay What is Man? Y.M. Do you believe that many of the dumb animals can think? O.M. Yes—the elephant, the monkey, the horse, the dog, the parrot, the macaw, the mocking-bird, and many others. I conceive that all animals that can learn things through teaching and drilling have to know how to observe, and put this and that together and draw an inference—the process of thinking. ... O.M. Well, canary-birds can learn all that; dogs and elephants learn all sorts of wonderful things. They must surely be able to notice, and to put things together, and say to themselves, "I get the idea, now: when I do so and so, as per order, I am praised and fed; when I do differently I am punished." Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can. ... Y.M. Oh, come! you are abolishing the intellectual frontier which separates man and beast. O.M. I beg your pardon. One cannot abolish what does not exist. Y.M. You are not in earnest, I hope. You cannot mean to seriously say there is no such frontier. O.M. I do say it seriously. The instances of the horse, the gull, the mother bird, and the elephant show that those creatures put their this's and thats together just as Edison would have done it and drew the same inferences that he would have drawn. Their mental machinery was just like his, also its manner of working. Their equipment was as inferior to the Strasburg clock, but that is the only difference—there is no frontier. ... O.M. On quite simple ones. "Dumb" beast suggests an animal that has no thought-machinery, no understanding, no speech, no way of communicating what is in its mind. We know that a hen HAS speech. We cannot understand everything she says, but we easily learn two or three of her phrases. We know when she is saying, "I have laid an egg"; we know when she is saying to the chicks, "Run here, dears, I've found a worm"; we know what she is saying when she voices a warning: "Quick! hurry! gather yourselves under mamma, there's a hawk coming!" We understand the cat when she stretches herself out, purring with affection and contentment...We understand a few of a dog's phrases and we learn to understand a few of the remarks and gestures of any bird or other animal that we domesticate and observe. The clearness and exactness of the few of the hen's speeches which we understand is argument that she can communicate to her kind a hundred things which we cannot comprehend—in a word, that she can converse. And this argument is also applicable in the case of others of the great army of the Unrevealed. It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
• )))!
• I had a calculator once. It could do all sorts of whizzy math type things. It was a bit temperamental, for some reason it would only work in bright sunlight, if your shadow passed across it for more than a few seconds the silly beggar would throw a wobbly and simply 'forget' what it had been displaying. From it's behaviour I surmised it was not only conscious but far more intelligent than my electrical kettle. Naturally it was made in Japan, by a race of tiny weeny biological automatons that are said to inhabit the place. Lovely.
• Mord I like your spunk, I really do, but has it occurd to you that you may be morally deficient? As a saved-one I shall pray for you.
• Randomaction ate his calculator!?!
• Here's an older whale-centric thread.
• randomaction, the calculator comparison is totally specious. I would point you at a few biology papers, but it looks like you already have made up your 'mind'.
• Morals are for sheep, Ethics are for men.
• Once again, we have no right to an opinion on this unless we are vegetarians. Is that like, "if you don't vote, you don't have the right to complain about the government"? Bah. Since when is one required to be part of a group in order to have a say-so about it? Is direct knowledge or participation the only credible vantage point? I don't have to eat dog crap to know it's not delicious.
• You don't know what you're missing.
• . . . we don't have a leg to stand on to tell them otherwise until we clean up our own act. Huh. Well, back to bed!
• Hello sailor!
• Skrik, I hope you have a lovely haiku that will invest me with the proper appreciation of poo.
• mallard fizz for me, please.
• No, its more like, If you wish to criticise Japan for this, then you should be fully prepared to take criticisms and possibly allow other countries to tell you what food you can eat.
• And I should add, that the U.S., ignores the U.N. when its convenient, doesn't give a damn what Canada wants it to do with its timber industry, puts tariffs on incoming textiles, but won't accept tariffs on outgoing steel, the list goes on and on. So when Europe decides, that your farming methods on chickens are cruel, I expect you to abide by it, even if its really really tasty chicken.
• And maybe, you should allow Japan to dictate the standards on your exported beef, instead of trying to do end-runs around the guidelines, outright lying about what standards the beef has passed, what it BSE infected cows it contains etc.
• I'll have a twist of lemming.
• eeeeeeeeee!
• > If you wish to criticise Japan for this, then you should be fully prepared to take criticisms and possibly allow other countries to tell you what food you can eat. there is a difference between whaling in international waters and whaling within a country's maritime jurisdiction. your analogy may be valid in the latter case, but international waters are generally recognized as a common good or shared resource. activity in international waters is subject to consensually agreed (or majority-voted) regulation.
• So when Europe decides, that your farming methods on chickens are cruel Not bloody likely! *munches tofu-drumstick*
• Oooh - I miss those tofu drummies! I always wanted to make a tofurkey with a dozen of those attached.
• Whole Foods halts sales of live lobsters not a legal change or anything, just sayin'.
• Lemming? Step right this way, ladies 'n' gents.
• pete, you play drums with tofu sticks?
• 'twould be a snare and a delusion not to see the tofu as a cymbal of a whole life attitude, a completely different kettle of fish, really.
• i find myself in bassic agreement.
• Oy. Beater to rimain calm thank to crash a good punroll.
• So roryk, what you are saying, is that by analogy, I should have used the Kyoto protocol?
• Whaling summit setback for Japan Ha ha /nelson
• 
• "TOKYO - To woo young customers more fond of burgers than traditional whale cuisine, a Japanese restaurant has come up with a new taste sensation: the fried whaleburger." blargh.
• As a sentient I often lament others pain.
• Good for the whales. Does not change the fact that we better start being better world citizens if we want to pursuade people to do the right thing.
• Japan Accuses Animal Planet of EcoTerrorism Prior to “Whale Wars” Premiere