RE: Hunting

From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Tue May 06 2003 - 18:46:19 MDT

  • Next message: Rafal Smigrodzki: "RE: Hunting"

    Greg wrote:
    > On Mon, 5 May 2003, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
    >
    >> Just curious, how many millions of acres of coca would you imagine
    >> would be planted in the US?
    >>
    >> I'd day, not enough to force even a single deer out of business.
    >
    > I don't see how, since these coca fields would be in addition (I
    > suppose) to the ag fields. Plus if all drugs were legalized, there'd
    > be the marijuana fields, etc. Where would all these acres/hectares
    > come from?

    ### I doubt that there would be a substantial acreage devoted to MJ and
    coca, since the demand (on a kilogram per thousand citizens) is quite low,
    much lower than the demand for e.g. grain. At the same time, drug-induced
    bliss and strokes (from cocaine) would reduce the activity of many humans
    who otherwise interfere with deer by driving around and proliferating.
    Predicting the exact balance of outcomes seems to be beyond our little
    discussion here.

    ----------------------------

    >
    >> ### You suggest sterilization not as a policy, but merely as an
    >> exercise in imagination and rhetoric, never to be the basis of your
    >> voting or lobbying? Somehow I can hardly believe it.
    >
    > Yep. In response to the hunters' claim that their hunting (which they
    > have always done anyway) is the only "rational wildlife management"
    > that can prevent overpopulation & starvation of wild animals. The
    > existence of an alternative (which some have implemented, not me, and
    > not officially that I know of) disproves their point.

    ### To quote a previous statement of yours, (Fri May 02 2003 - 14:17:19
    MDT):

    >
    > I don't propose policy, because I am in no position to create public
    > policy or even affect it by any significant amount. I suspect the
    > same is true of you
    <my answer is quoted above>

    It appears to me that you made this statement not to disprove the hunters'
    claim (it is nowhere to be found quoted in your post), but rather as a
    general remark. And as a general remark it is quite hard to accept. In fact,
    I doubt that there is a single Extropian who would be willing to believe,
    based on your stated convictions, that you would not vote or lobby for legal
    restrictions on hunting.
    ----------------------------

    >
    >>>> ### What kind of evidence would you like to offer in support of
    >>>> this claim?
    >>>
    >>> What evidence would you expect? I have a cousin who is a hunter and
    >>> I've never heard him exclaim, "Wow, I caught a really scrawny,
    >>> young, lame one today! Me big hunter!"
    >>
    >> ### Hearsay!
    >
    > So you are telling me all hunters deliberately try to catch the most
    > inferior animals?

    ### As Mike noted, what hunters try is one thing, and what they get is
    something else altogether.

    What they boast about is even farther away from the truth :-)

    -----------------------------

    >
    >> ### If enough people are really concerned about the welfare of deer
    >> and truly want to help them by sterilization, you will be able to
    >> gather enough funds. Of course, it's easier to ask the local
    >> congressman to do pay for it with other people's money, but I think
    >> I might be digressing here.
    >
    > People don't know what they want. Hunters know they want to hunt, and
    > the political system is designed to match their intentions. Animal
    > lovers are too disorganized, politically naive or unconnected, have
    > no political system (machine) in place. What people *want*, and how
    > many of them want it, is of only partial relevance to what happens.
    > People don't want smog in their cities, either, but there it is.

    ### You've been roundly castigated for this "People don't know..." remark,
    so I won't add much here, aside from noting that restrictions on hunting are
    being quite widely adopted, as a result of the relentless pressure from
    greenish organizations.

    No, freedom haters are neither disorganized, naive, nor unconnected.

    ---------------------------------------
    >
    >> ### If you were to say that hunters actually are *not* like child
    >> molesters, I could retract my assessment of your beliefs.
    >
    > I don't have to retract something I didn't say :) I said
    > *remunerating* hunters for not being able to hunt would be like
    > remunerating child molesters for not being able to molest children. I
    > suspect hunters would be rather above being bribed anyway - they want
    > to hunt - no amount of money would satisfy them to give up hunting.
    > And there is an analogy to that for child molesters, too. And to my
    > position - I would not accept any payment from hunters to compensate
    > for their devastation, because that would be utterly irrelevant.
    >
    ### Wow, we are getting here into industrial-strength hair-splitting!

    I would bet that the majority of the readers of your initial statement:

    >>> I don't feel any need to remunerate hunters for loss of "hobby", any
    >>> more than I would feel the need to remunerate child molestors for
    >>> depriving them of the ability to molest children.

    would see it as putting hunters into the same class as child molesters, an
    expression of scorn, and possibly a psychological manipulation, well beyond
    the tame interpretation you advanced above.

    Just admit it - you hate hunters! :-)

    ----------------------------------------

    >> ### As in: "We just voted that you can't hunt, here or everywhere.
    >> It makes us quite happy to vote, you know."
    >>
    >> I noted before that your ethics is incommensurate with mine, but I
    >> think the difference lies not in the superficialities of money but
    >> in the value of freedom - this is the bedrock of my ethics, but not
    >> yours. It leads to happiness, too.
    >
    > IMHO freedom is a means to an end, not an end. Freedom not exercised
    > well, thoughtfully, beneficially, with other goals in mind, is just a
    > blank check of power. It can be abused, lost, sold to the highest
    > bidder.

    ### But what is the end to which we have freedom? Happiness? Thoughtfulness?
    Beneficence?

    Why bother being happy?

    Life, freedom and truth, for their own sake, are what I want, all else is a
    bonus.

    ------------------------------------

    >
    >> ### Blowing a hole in the brain isn't painful. Being shot in the
    >> chest with a large caliber hunting rifle for a human is hardly
    >> painful at all in the beginning (there are descriptions of
    >> survivors), so animals couldn't feel much pain, either. Much less
    >> than the pain of being eaten alive by a wildcat.
    >
    > Any pain caused by humans is pain the humans are responsible for, and
    > if unnecessary, it is their fault, and its meaning and significance is
    > well known to humans, and cannot be blamed on instinctive nature
    > (such as wildcats). I would remind you that not all hunted animals are
    > killed with a single shot to the head (pace hunters' intentions), or
    > killed in a single instant. It's my understanding that many hunters
    > actually enjoy trailing the wounded animal. Also, it is illogical to
    > argue that any wild animal not shot by a hunter would immediately
    > then otherwise be eaten alive by a wildcat. There is such a thing as
    > living a longer life, having more enjoyable experiences, that are not
    > insignificant to the animal and should not be insignificant to us.

    ### You are anthropomorphizing deer. They do not attach significance to a
    longer life, since they do not have the concept of a time-invariant self.
    Therefore killing them is ethically neutral, and if it results on average in
    reduced suffering (freedom from wildcats, diseases of old age, accidents,
    etc), like a shot to the heart, it is clearly ethically superior.

    Attaching ethical significance to longer life of deer is like attaching
    significance to the wishes of inanimate objects, so common in animists.

    ------------------------------

    >
    >> ### You can have fun doing the rational thing, too.
    >>
    >> Only Puritans though anything that feels good must be bad.
    >
    > Oh no, I am sure feeding and sterilizing wild animals is quite fun.
    > And I bet it also makes a person feel good inside, proud of
    > themselves and their compassionate relationship with the animals.

    ### How many deer have you sterilized? Was it fun?

    -------------------------------------

    >
    >> ### But deer are fungible automatons, not irreplaceable individuals
    >> or sentimentally important works of art.
    >
    > Here is the proof of the incommensurability of our philosophies. This
    > statement is the exact opposite of what I believe.
    >
    ### Deer are "individuals"? How do you know? How many have you talked to?

    -------------------

    >> ### The developers have only as much money as their clients are
    >> willing to pay. If clients become rich enough to dream about
    >> unspoiled nature, they will build it, too. It's all a question of
    >> demand and supply. If human happiness demands the last inch to be
    >> built up, or every inch to be turned into a forest, the market will
    >> provide. Really.
    >
    > "The market will provide" has almost a religious ring to it. The
    > market will not provide me or anyone else Tasmanian wolves or woolly
    > mammoths, no matter how much I would be willing to pay for them (and
    > believe me, there are people in this world who would and could pay
    > vast fortunes for them).

    ### Just wait a few decades and even this will be possible, thanks to the
    market-driven and government-supported progress of science. All you need is
    to clone the DNA, assemble it into a genome, and voila, you have your
    mammoth steak, and T.Rex-safari.

    ------------------------------

    >
    > Some stupid mistakes are irrevocable. And wiser folks cannot always be
    > everywhere and rich enough to buy off fools.

    ### Yep, this is right.

    Rafal



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