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Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

Killing trees for short term gain is just hatefully stupid.

This is "selling the last harvest before the storm" behaviour. You would think an olive stealing gang knew there was a smaller crop next year if you chainsaw the limbs of the tree off.

"I don't care" is awful. Analogies to the hive stealing in NZ come to mind, Manuka honey is so valuable, its frequently stolen by the same bike gangs which do meth dealing.

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It is said that Solon, the most revered law-giver of Athens, made cutting an olive tree punishable by death. I've also heard that because of their slow growth, planting an olive tree is something you do not for yourself but for your children.

EDIT: one more bit of historical perspective. Myth says that Athena and Poseidon had a contest to see who would be the patron of Athens. Poseidon gave the gift of a saltwater spring (to which I guess the Athenians said, "uhh, thanks, I guess."). Athena gave the gift of the olive tree. Obviously Athens is named after her. So that's how much they valued those trees.

My family is Sicilian and I don't think people understand how much olive trees mean to us. We have family in Sicily and if you did something to harm their olive trees it would be one small step below doing something to harm a family member.

That's interesting. What should the modern punishment be for this?

Israel’s Campaign Against Palestinian Olive Trees

http://yris.yira.org/global-issue/6018

https://www.newarab.com/news/israeli-settlers-destroy-350-tr...

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/11/6/our-hearts-burn...

https://archive.ph/nkfc3

Thanks for sharing this. Looking into Kedumim Settlement.

Salt was pretty valuable back then. Poseidon wasn't misguided, but I guess Greeks had enough saltwater around for it to be specially convenient.

> I've also heard that because of their slow growth, planting an olive tree is something you do not for yourself but for your children.

I believe that's said because the olive trees live for a long time (hundreds of years), not because they grow slowly. They reach maturity in less than 10 years, producing around 40 kg of olives, so if you are not very old you would probably see the fruits of the tree you planted.

Not very old and don't get bombed off the farm...

"The good man plants a tree whose fruit will be tasted by his grandson" is a proverb I came across once about date trees. There are a few varieties of this for various precious trees which can take generations to bear reliable fruit.

> Killing trees for short term gain is just hatefully stupid.

Like any other kind of poaching. Killing elephants for their tusks, or killing sharks for their fins.

People are fucking selfish, short-sighted assholes.

I mean killing elephants and sharks is terrible but thats the only way to harvest those parts so its a bit different, its not like you could carefully remove them and they'd grow another set for harvest next year.

You have a point on the shark fins, but Elephant tusks for sure grow back!

Elephant tusks are teeth, they don't grow back. Rhino horns on the other hand are hair, so they grow back.

So are 'milk teeth' hair, and adult teeth teeth?

More seriously - that's a funny evolutionary result isn't it, (exactly) two sets of teeth in life?

You're born with both sets of teeth, no hair teeth here, usually unerupted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_tooth_development

Yeah, if you've never seen one, take a look at a child's skull: it's freaky-looking. Most people have no idea because we don't normally see these, only adult ones.

For elephants you can simply wait for them to die of natural causes.

Yes, I had a small piece of a tusk for research purposes that was harvested from an elephant that had died naturally, there was a bunch of paperwork that accompanied it. Paper published here for those who might be curious: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/nn3049957

> People are fucking selfish, short-sighted assholes.

Orcas kill great white sharks only to eat the liver. Your intestinal bacteria will kill you (and themselves with you) if they escape into your circulatory system.

There are many more examples of creatures being fucking selfish, short-sighted assholes. I guess it's inevitable when life evolves competing for resources, although we, as higher intellects, should know better.

> Your intestinal bacteria will kill you (and themselves with you) if they escape into your circulatory system

That's why you are constantly generating a mucus layer with extreme diversity of sugar linkages, so that they are fed without one bacteria being able to take over the whole area (basically taming them). If instead you try to eradicate them with antibiotics (i.e. nuclear bombs) then you will inevitably breed ones that will kill you.

Killing trees increases the market price of olive oil, so it's to the crime syndicate's advantage. So it's just hateful, not stupid.

It depends actually. If the thieves have to find new fields every year, it will be a logistics problem

That sounds like next years problem. If global mega corps already struggle with looking past the next quarter when it comes to consequences why would you expect people who are living off of crime to have a longer term view?

There are many factors at play here. It might be different levels of consciousness involved. Cutting down the whole tree is a bigger barrier and requires another level of ruthlessness.

...you know that organized criminals kill people, right?

Do all organized criminals kill people at every possibility?

Do they cut down trees at every possibility?

Start out as thieves then pivot to a protection racket for the remaining farmers.

I didn't know Chapo Guzmán had a HN account.

Nah, I just think like a detective or prosecutor when it comes to the potential for nefarious activity.

It's going to bite them long term when people lose the habit of consuming olive oil as much because it's too expensive. Their mistake is treating it as zero sum

> Killing trees for short term gain is just hatefully stupid.

Reminds me of the Bologna/Aquino Paper on society collapsing due to excessive deforestation: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6?error=coo... Thrill read.

If they elect to take the long position, usually a crime syndicate will move in on the industry and capture it. That doesn’t mean they can’t also opportunistically profit from industries they aren’t interested in managing.

Most likely they don't kill the trees. Farmers prune the trees every year as well

Not during fruit bearing time, and I suspect with more of an eye to future yield.

actually some pruning is necessary to harvest very unruly/tall branches. Besides, pruning takes place right after harvest.

A few years ago yea, not anymore the ass fell out of the manuka market.

ok, so, you think petty thrives have more long term incentives than what most capitalist endeavors have shown?

Those short term thinking Italian farmers only leaving the trees in for 150 years for their short term profits shakesfist /s

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