tablarasa

Ha yeah this is all pointless speculation... I can't help but point out though that in my observations of religious people, it's not hard to believe that a majority or even a large majority might (temporarily, occasionally, whatever) eschew some of the central tenets of their "belief" system.

Kind of like how lots of citizens can (temporarily, occasionally, whatever) eschew some of the laws. I'd hardly consider Americans <21 a solid no-alcohol control group even if it were valid to compare adolescents to adults as control and treatment in any study.

Offer a cheaper alternative and you don't have to worry about what they think

Not to be pedantic, but the roaring 40s are by definition not the trade winds. The trade winds are easterlies- they originate from the east and blow towards the west. The "roaring 40s" are westerlies, flowing in the opposite direction and categorically not the trades. Incidentally, NZ is an amazing place to take up wind sports, so I'm with you on the larger point.

Ooof yeah that's brutal. My friends and I held onto that for a long time though because we liked avoiding the fees but also having the hard copy classic tickets to put in scrap books and what not. I know you can still do it some places but I believe you that their numbers are dwindling.

You can usually still go down to the venue during business hours and buy tickets without TM fees, right?

What's hilarious is when I get mad at ticketmaster for charging me convenience fees when I am actively choosing not to walk, bike, or drive down to the venue and circumvent those fees since doing so would be inconvenient. I still make that choice while shaking my fist, and bask in my irony.

Yeah sorry I tried to anticipate and cover this response briefly by pointing out that the population of the world simply is not going to stop eating animal protein because you told them you find it unethical. Their beliefs are not morally dissonant because they do not share your view that killing a sentient being for food is wrong. This thread is about fisheries and my argument is in support of using both wild and farmed fish as a much better alternative for protein production than land-based agriculture, whether that be in support of livestock or soy milk. Your response is "everyone should eat plants exclusively because that works for me with minimal negative unintended consequences."

I also tried to point out the inherit issue with the comparison of "killing 100 billion animals each year" with "growing and eating plants" as though the latter avoids all 100 billion animal deaths. It doesn't. It might move those deaths to other species that you care less about or to a different time or make them lives that never existed rather than lives taken, but it still comes at a cost. So your premise is just incomplete and focuses entirely on the issue that seems to be most important to you personally.

If "you" want to minimize your impact, stop eating animals is an argument that only works for a subset of the human population and is only an accessible solution to a fraction of that. Putting aside the gross ethnocenctricity, it simply is not going to work as a solution. The converse is that "some land is not suitable for crop agriculture but is usable for grazing" and I also routinely see that argument abused even though it is true. Some livestock are raised totally sustainably and even provide ecosystem services (trampling is good for some systems and cattle do it in lieu of the native grazers that are now gone). But that doesn't mean that all cattle can be raised at no cost. You're making that argument, just about row crops, I guess.

FWIW, soy production in Brazil in the service of foreign markets is... not very sustainable even if it's not for feed [1].

I remember when I was younger and I was like, "I survive fine on <2 gallons of fresh water a day... how can there possibly be a water supply issue anywhere?" Or, more generally, "I can modify my behavior with few personal consequences to fit into a sustainable model." So that is great. Do it. But I would argue you are avoiding grappling with the full impacts of your own choices and, even if they'd be better alternatives anyway, you're failing to recognize that your choices are not available to everyone.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-98256-6

Huh, I had considered consumption to be necessary for my own persistence.

Most increase in land-based agricultural productivity in this day and age comes from intensification on existing land or removal of forested habitats. Those come at a huge cost to biodiversity and ecosystem services. They also have social costs to other humans.

> "Surely you can figure out how eating beans is a little more kind." I don't think this snarkiness is very productive, but I'm super used to hearing this sentiment; often the people who express this type of idea have really good intentions that I am totally aligned with, but they also fall into logical fallacies usually due to missing information around ecology, agriculture, and food systems. It makes perfect sense if you take a very narrow view of how food is produced and what alternatives there are for land and water use: just eat a bean because it doesn't scream! Totally. But growing that bean comes at a cost and ignoring that because you read Sinclair or can afford to shop for high-end foods isn't helpful. I think it is a fantasy to suggest that the problems will be solved if peoples and cultures around the world just subscribe to my view of what is ethical or desirable.

Any fish would prefer you eat a bean. But the animals and plants that would use the land on which its grown would prefer you eat a fish. Those of us working to build sustainable food systems that minimize the overall impact on natural systems, biodiversity, and ecosystem services will fail if we take such a simplistic and naive view of the tradeoffs.

Perhaps that is true if you solely interact with food after it is dead and processed. Many people live much closer to their food production. I don't view the phrase "humane slaughter" as an attempt to insulate "us"; I think it is an acknowledgement by practitioners that they are mindful of what they are doing and to whom. It is also a direct reference to applicable laws where that term is codified.

Some people view killing animals for food as entirely humane, which is to say some combination of natural and ethical. You may not view any kind of animal slaughter as humane, but if pressed could you describe how humane your soy, wheat, etc. production is?

Slowly but surely we are seeing good traceability in seafood. It's hard though, so it's taking a while. Checkout https://legitfish.com/

Interesting video, but it doesn't show slaughter at all, just impressive machinery for quickly processing massive amounts of fish.

I disagree that having a person rather than a machine process food products is related to the ethics of animal consumption, but I tend to think about this stuff in terms of how do you continue to feed 9B people, around 3B of whom rely on seafood for their primary protein source. I consider it a great privilege to buy bespoke premium products that cater to my perceptions of the world, but it doesn't really solve the problems around mass producing enough healthy food to sustainably feed the world population. Having a human handle all of those dead fish and turn them into marketable products would drive their price up so much that it would push people to protein sources that are much more carbon-, water-, and nutrient-intensive. Making the processing humane is super important, but it needs to be rational and efficient.

You might find this paper interesting- it's focused on adapting fisheries management to climate change, but some of the core principles of fisheries management are touched [1]. Check out some of the figures.

There are some paradoxical concepts in fisheries management, not least is that the Maximum Sustinable Yield often supports aligned interests between fisherman (who want to profit/eat) and fish populations (who want to persist). Overfishing is a tragedy of the commons; managing those fisheries properly can produce MORE fish in the ocean even if yields go up. Not always, but this stuff is not cut and dry and the dynamics of population growth and extraction in these animals have to be understood.

[1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aao1378

"Wild caught is probably better than farm raised death wise."

I would be curious to hear your reasoning or evidence for this. From what I know, the ability to control conditions and processes is much easier in the farm context.

I'm not sure if there is a well-trusted authority on this akin to MBA but it is certainly a leading issue in the seafood industry. More governments are codifying an acknowledgement of animal sentience in various ways [1] and there is a lot of active research into the various slaughter methods used for ethical and quality reasons [2]. You can find a lot of research into existing and novel methods for "stunning" fish (i.e., rendering them unconscious to then slaughter), even the use of things like EEG to measure brain activity of animals [3]. This is not my area of expertise, but I think that the overall conclusion is that we could be doing a much better job of minimizing the suffering of animals in farmed and wild fisheries. The good news is that people are realizing that and working on correcting it.

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/08/farmed-fish-fe...

[2]: https://www.globalseafood.org/advocate/fish-producers-benefi...

[3]: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/are.14857

There are a lot of issues around ocean conservation worth caring about, studying, and accepting a cost to solve. However, it is worth pointing out that fisheries management works well and has been working where it is deployed to the extent that many many populations that were overfished and in serious trouble as recently as the 1990s are now healthy and can be ethically fished. Many issues around overfishing wild populations are occurring in regions of the world where fisheries management is difficult or impossible due to a combination of logistical (they're fishing in the middle of the ocean, not returning to shore for many months at a time) to political (they're from a country with a government that cannot or will not intervene in fishing practices) to technical (we need data on extraction and population dynamics to be able to manage fish populations) reasons.[1]

I take serious issue with the idea that the ethics of eating animals is related to how similar they are to humans ("it's ok to kill them for food because I perceive them to have low intelligence"), but I don't really think it is worth arguing over. Sustainable harvest is much more important than your personal feelings around the ethics of individual animal or plant extraction. If you kill one less wild fish, what will you eat instead and what are the impacts of that?

Eating things that are very old is not unethical persay, IMO, except to the extent that with fish populations older animals contribute disproportionately to reproduction (a 2x bigger fish produces >2x more eggs; I find it hard to convince people that the logical conclusion is that it is more ethical to take younger animals). It just comes down to whether they're being taken at a rate that is sustainable or not. I used to do rockfish research in California and individuals of species that are routinely taken as commercial and sport fish are well over 50 yrs old (China rockfish, vermillion rockfish, yellow-eye rockifsh)[2]; most consumers who have fish and chips or a "cod" sandwich or whatever in California are eating one of these species, but at the point of sale you can almost never find out which species. Is that an issue? I think so because I believe traceability is a key component of a good, modern, sustainable food system that I'd like to see. But it isn't a problem necessarily if whatever species it is was caught within the confines of a well managed fishery.

I've had many dinner parties with too many academic ecologists (I am/was one of them) and I get that they can be depressing because many are so focused on things going poorly. I think it is worth being reminded that when we take cooperative approaches grounded in decent science, we can all win, Earth first and foremost.

[1] One example paper: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1909726116 [2] https://www.bookdepository.com/Rockfishes-Northeast-Pacific-... I don't have a copy of this book or institutional access any more, but this is the one place I have ever seen a whole bunch of age-growth curves of Sebastes printed in a single location; it is a great reference if you are curious about these species or about these issues in the context of California ecosystems.

Big native plant ecology lover here, so I am stoked to hear when people are excited about plants. It sounds like you're interested in botany but also potentially plant ecology, soil ecology, and maybe agronomy. They're big topics and I feel like I can relate to a sense of not knowing where to begin. For me, the ecology side has always been the most interesting, so I'll add that perspective.

I'd consider approaching the topic by researching the ecology of the plants that you have around you, whether those you cultivate at home or the ones you see on your walks, etc. (Lots of good apps for helping you cheat the learning curve for identifying species or groups of plants). You might start to notice patterns in their distribution (if they're growing relatively naturally). Just learning some interesting facts about their adaptations to their native range can be a great way to start into botany. Those observations are all pieces of the puzzle that you can eventually start to see describe the plant: the preferred or required soil characteristics, symbiotic relationships, light or moisture levels, natural enemies, and the ranges of toleration of a given species (or even individual with a given history and health). I've typically had a harder time holding my attention when coming at those topics from a more theoritical or high-level apporach... I guess meaning I am more engaged with something like, "Why are some of Californian's oak trees evergreen?" than "How do nutrient concentrations affect plants?".

But it depends what excites you. Perhaps purchasing an inexpensive loupe (a.k.a. hand lens, or jeweler's lens; you can also just look through binoculars backwards as an effective way of magnifying specimens close at hand) would be a nice way to get to know plants differently. When I hear "botany" (as opposed to plant ecology, or any other number of related fields). I think pistils and stamens (parts of flowers) and leaf shapes and growth forms. But I also I think variation in modes of photosynthesis (C3, C4, etc.). I think about the difference between thorns, spines, and prickles- all poky, but with different ontogeny. Just learning about the plants around you, looking at them from very close up and from far away, smelling, touching, and tasting them (using reasonable discretion), and trying to learn what they're called and how they're related to each other can be a super effective way to pick up usable knowledge of all of the topics you've mentioned.

It's all cool to someone (me), but I'd just start in from the angle that you find most interesting because in the end you'll find it is all connected in a rather beautiful way. Pick a thread and pull. There are a million books- I'd go with one that will help you get to know the specific organisms around you.

Hm. I think it’s a great thing to debate, but I think the issue, as identified by the author, is how calculus is taught to various audiences. I think it is a bit short-sighted to suggest people with ambitions in the life-sciences do not need to know how calculus can be used to describe the world.

I think my experience suggests that even outdoor types who are drawn to field work should learn calculus in some functional way if they want to do science. I did an undergrad in environmental sciences and biology, but understanding the role of modeling in theory and practice is key to those fields and makes heavy use of calculus. I went on to get a PhD in ecology, but I used calculus explicitly and implicitly routinely. There is great satisfaction in writing out ideas and hypotheses about the world and then translating them into math and then code so that you can play with those ideas. Sometimes that just requires algebra, but it usually pulls in calc.

The other risk is that by not learning broadly about the fields that are foundational to conducting science you simply limit your options. Maybe that field tech job loses its luster after a while and you start to want to understand how plate tectonics affected how the dirt got this way. Need calc. Personally, I switched to industry and do a combination of data science and engineering and calculus continues to be useful to me in practice and as a way of reasoning about the world.

On the flip side, you can always learn it later when it does become explicitly needed. But again I think the problem is teaching geologists and biologists to do epsilon-deltas but not showing them how to specify and simulate a model based on rates of change of growth or propagation of waves or whatever. A lot of coursework is not thoughtfully conceived or delivered and the concept of weeder courses is super lame. But thats not the fault of calculus.

+1 for requiring statistics too but virtually all of the above applies there too.