Whale Wars - Activists or Terrorists

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That'd be news to the Yakuza, I think.

 

The Yakuza is a good example of how the japanese stand towards violence. When they do use it, it is excessive and swift. But mostly, japanese culture is fearful of violence, and avoids many forms of antagonism. Unorganised crime in Japan is practically non-existent, and they see this form of crime as totally barbaric. Getting robbed is their main fear when traveling abroad.
The japanese crew of whaling boats will be more tolerant of the annoyances that activists bring to their operations, and this serves both parties well in the Whale Wars. I doubt the crew would even consider arming themselves, simply because they know they couldn't be swift and effective in executing such violence.
Now, as for japanese culture being very non-violent, in principle this is true. But it has many downsides: Excessively lethal violence being used in organised crime is one. Nervously avoiding antagonism your whole life, is a very stressful way to live, and Japan is known to be one of the most stressed-out countries in the world. Don't believe me? Check out this article about stress levels in countries. Japan and the States both rank high in this regard.

 

How quaint. People commenting on Japanese society when they have had very little (if any) contact with it.

Shoshino:

I don't understand why our government doesn't just blow the whaling boats out of the water. Sure, the Japs would express their 'displeasure', but they'd get the message and resume trading with us. If not, well, we can make our own sweatshops.

 

Countduckula, just what the hell is this statement supposed to mean anyway?
What do sweatshops have to do with anything in this thread?

Coin how can you say that they aren't guilty of piracy when they
A) Rammed another nations ship(Act of Violence)
B) Put out a rudder fouling line to disable another nations ship(Act of Violence)
C) Threw a chemical weapon onto another nations ship(Act of Violence)
D) Illegally boarded another nations ship for the purpose of preventing them from engaging in lawful behaviour(Act of Depredation)
These all clearly fall under the definitions of piracy.
No matter how much you may hate whale hunting, they(the japanese) are allowed to take a certain number each year & the law requires them not to throw away or allow any to go to waste.

 

so if someone stole your boat, and you board it, then punch the thief, you are a pirate? This statement is so all-encompassing, that even a crewmate stealing a pen on their own ship could be called a pirate. I think that they intend this bit to at least be valid only when the crime committed is 'for private ends'. And activists wouldn't use force unlimited: they wouldn't let the crew drown if, say, they accidentally sunk the ship after ramming it.

No one contends that they have the law on their side. Whaling is morally objectionable, not illegal in their countries.
Perhaps greenpeace could fire explosive or toxic shells at the dead whales every time whalers try to haul one in. Then they killed one, as recorded by Greenpeace, but they can't use the meat. That's the kind of wastefulness even whalers can understand.

 

What do you think it means?

I'm simply expressing my amazement that 'civilised' countries stand by while the Japanese go harpooning perhaps one of the most intelligent mammals on planet. Why haven't we blown their whaling boats out of the water yet? It's really quite obscene. Nobody is going to miss a few whalers, there are way more humans than there are whales.

Here's an intelligent mammal (I'm not referring to humans, given that many humans strike me as markedly unintelligent) who climbed onto land, and then went to all that effort to return to the sea. Just imagine having to learn how to eat underwater, sleep underwater, time your breaths so that you wouldn't drown, and outcompete rivals who have been in the water for hundreds of millions of years without break (sharks). Whales had so many obstacles to overcome. And then some hairless apes come and harpoon you in front of your kids while you're peacefully swimming around minding your own business, catching krill.

I re-iterate. Why hasn't a civilised country used its navy to blow the whalers out of the water?

 

Because, while it may be objectionable to you, it is still a legal enterprise countduckula & you still didn't explain the sweatshop comment.
Your argument is silly on all points.
1) Since when did whales climb onto land only to return to the sea?
2) Whales aren't "rivals" to sharks they are food, just like buffalo aren't "rivals" of lions they are food

For the same reason we don't blow up any other lawful activity.

Coin, your example was flawed, they were not boarding their own ship but a ship that belongs to individuals of another country engaged in lawful activities.
It would be the same as if you were out collecting sea animal samples & a group came up to you and rammed your boat, threw butyric acid on you & disabled your rudder in an area full of icebergs & preventing you from doing the job you were attempting.
Can you honestly not consider that piracy?

 

Having studied Systematics and Evolutionary Biology as my master, I can say that I feel personally insulted when whalers use the guise of biological research to hunt an endangered species. The fact that a respectable country like Japan goes along with this legal trickery, is also very disappointing.

We know very little of the circumstances in which the whales live, and there are so many factors that can influence their population. Every individual hunted and killed, of such large species of endangered mammals, is a significant blow to a dwindling population. What we do know about population dynamics in general, is that messing around with top predators high in a food chain, can have disastrous and unforeseen consequences down the line. It's very likely that whales serve a balancing role in the oceans, and that their extinction may lead to ecological catastrophes, eventually affecting people. Since whales feed on other fish or plankton, they keep plankton numbers in check. Who knows what their removal from the system might mean. If plankton thrive as a result, this might lead to low oxygen in the deeper waters, causing underwater wastelands, and depletion of many fish stocks. Or maybe plankton will diminish, leading to a buildup of nutrients in the water. This would lead to red tides: massive growth of a single species of toxic red algae, killing fish, and darkening and choking the waters.
We really shouldn't be unbalancing the food chain, because although the food chain will find a new balance, the decades or even centuries it will take for high-biodiversity balance to be restored, will cause a global humanitarian disaster.

The japanese make the conclusion that whales can be hunted sustainably, while there isn't even close to enough research done to corroborate that. When the international community confronted them with their lies, they changed their whalers into 'research vessels'. These vessels are going to gather more data on the circumstances of whales by killing a set quota of them, processing the meat and selling it on the market. It's preposterous.
Research can be done on them without the need to kill and eat them, but that doesn't cater to the japanese demand. A small population can be diminished by something like disease or low fertility, and this can all be researched by sampling living whales. If the japanese blindly continue to hunt their annual quota, even if the population is unexpectedly low, it would push them over the point of no return; when populations are too low, they don't bounce back, they stay low or go extinct. We saw it with sardines in the mediterranean, and so many fish stocks are at risk nowadays.

I happen to know that shockingly few Americans know much at all about evolution, and belief in creationism is strong. So I'll keep it short:
Mammals evolved from fish, and ancestors of whales were land mammals, if you want more details about this: {Warning: Cursing and profanities in this video} Watch this video.

And as for your comparison martaug, this would be maritime vandalism. Piracy is always stealing for a profit. Pirates are often willing to kill, and aren't interested in making a statement, promoting awareness of them or their victims, or in what the ship that they rob is for.

And I also find the method by which whales are killed particularly painful, inefficient, and cruel.

 

Who cares if it's 'legal'? If a country such as the U.S.A suddenly declares whaling illegal and starts blowing Japanese whaling ships out of the water, what exactly will anyone do about it? Nothing.

The only reason civilised nations tolerate Japan's excesses in regards to whaling is because they are trading partners.

Their evolutionary ancestors did so in a gradual process over many many generations. This is why whales today have vestigial limbs.

False. I suggest you take Marine Biology 101.

So when the Nazis were 'lawfully' herding the Jews into concentration camps, resistance fighters were wrong to engage in sabotage.

 

Haha coin, once again, using southpark as an intellectual source is just so wrong.
Have you looked at the leaps they have made in trying to link modern cetaceans to the ancient ungulates all due to a similar ear structure?
These are the same ones who are saying that hippos & whales should share a clade(a single common ancestor) when the hippos anthracothere ancestor doesn't show up in the fossil record until Millions of years after the first "proto-whale"(their words not mine) Pakicetus.

Now as to the current whaling practice, the japanese harvest 900 minke whales a year out of a population that is listed at 665,000.
Thats 0.13 of 1%, Do you really think this is going to cause the extinction of the whole species?

Coin, the first part about piracy specifically lists acts of violence. As noted the first 3 acts were acts of violence. piracy = unlawful act of violence so unlawful act of violence= piracy. there is no way you can argue with this.

Now as to how the whales are killed, i agree that it appears very painful & cruel however i don't know if it inefficent. It may be the most efficent way to catch whales.

Again just what does this have to do with sweatshops? Are you implying that all japanese products are the results of sweatshops?

The whales in question are baleen whales, you know the kind that feed on krill(little itty-bitty shrimp)(plus the occasional small fish).
They are in no way "rivals" for sharks(except possible whale sharks, which don't spend time in the antartic waters, so no direct competition)

You will notice that the only whale on the apex predator list is the sperm whale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apex_Predators#In_aquatic_environments

Nothing the nazis did to the jews was lawful & it was very distasteful of you to try to compare the 2. thats just a troll move, you can be better than that.

 

martaug:

Take it as you will. I'm just saying that we could replace whatever Japan produces in exports with our own sweatshops, so incurring Japan's 'displeasure' isn't really that important in the grand scheme of things.

Whales don't need to eat sharks to be their 'rivals'. Adult baleen whales remain virtually untouched, because sharks know better than to mess with them. Elephants don't eat tigers, but they will flatten them if they get too uppity.

And the orca whale. Both of whom *eat sharks*. In fact, the Orca whale is considered to be *the* apex predator of the marine world. You would know this, if you had bothered to read your own sources. But you didn't, and now you've got egg on your face.

Wrong. The Nazis passed a number of anti-semitic laws which made it perfectly legal for them to disarm, dispossess, and summarily imprison the Jews. And hey, if it's legal, by what right did those terrorists attack Nazi stormtroopers and sabotage Nazi war machines?

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So you're choosing to skirt around the very real inconsistencies being demonstrated here? "OMG ANTI-WHALERS ARE BREAKING THE LAW HOW DARE THEY!"

But when I point out that resistance fighters (oh, sorry, terrorists) broke the law when hiding Jews, and committing acts of violence and sabotage against Nazis, the same people go crying 'waa waa, whales aren't Jews".

Irrelevant! What I want is consistency. If 'breaking the law' is some sort of indicator of wrong-doing, then I want the people who work by that measure to also condemn German citizens who hid Jews from the Nazi party.

My guess is that they won't. Why? Because like me, they think it's acceptable to break the law in order to prevent (or mitigate) some act which they find reprehensible to their moral system.

 

Apples to oranges? Why does it matter that the whales are not Jews? A lot (if not all) of what the Nazis did to the Jews was legal. So it must have been OK, right?

And is it really that different? Does a whale suffer any less than a Jew when it has been harpooned? Do you think its orphaned children are any less traumatised? The only significant difference is that the Jews had an inkling of what was coming, the whale did not.

 

So, now you're advocating the use of sweat-shops in the US?

Actually, to be a rival, you generally have to compete for resources. A mountain is a threat to tigers, too, if there's a land-slide. That doesn't mean the mountain is a rival to the tigers.

Except that we're talking about Baleen whales, here, as has already been stated. They don't eat sharks, sharks eat them (when young, injured, or ill). Simply put, Baleen whales aren't top predators. I think that was the whole point of this, though I'm not sure what the point of that was.

 

I'm gonna have to agree with the rest here that the comparison doesn't completely hold up. Although many antisemitic laws were passed, the general public in Germany was led to believe that jews were being sent out of the country, not exterminated in concentration camps. In the scheme of all the injustices the German public put up with, I honestly don't know if they would have tolerated genocide as well, had the gov't admitted it outright. The actual killing of jews was made possible by government order, but it was not made legal even by their own laws.
What I do agree with, is that breaking the law is not always morally wrong, no one contests that it's illegal, but not everyone makes a direct connection between what's illegal and what's wrong. martaug and countD seem to be on different wavelengths in this case.

martaug, piracy = robbery at sea.
Unlawful acts of violence shouldn't become the new definition for piracy, for as I said before, it will make the word piracy lose more of its meaning.

Earbone structure has proven to be an important indicator of large evolutionary links, from reptiles all the way to birds and mammals, because it changes more gradually than the rest of the skeleton. And as for the whales ancestor: When it entered an entirely new environment (living in the water), it came under a great deal of selective pressure to evolve (make retard-babies and have b****** with a shark) into an effective marine creature, so it changed much more significantly from Pakicetus, than hippos did from their common ancestor. If your ground for disbelief is the great metamorphosis in the relatively short evolutionary time, I hope that this served as an explanation. The common ancestors of whales and Artiodactyla (most living hooved mammals, except horses, tapirs and rhinoceri) were the ancestors of hooved animals, the Condylarthra. illustration

Minke whales are one of the most hunted species of whales, and it is likely that their population was decimated in the mid-19th and early-20th centuries by the demand for whale oil, baleen and meat.
Even the whaling commission itself can't make estimates of past stocks of Minke whale, they admit this when say "The Commission is unable to to provide reliable estimates at the present time. A major review is underway by the Scientific Committee."
A recent study has uncovered evidence that represents a major setback for countries that advocate lifting a 17-year moratorium on commercial whaling established by the London-based International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Harpooning may be the most efficient way in which we are capable of killing whales, but I think it's still very inefficient, inhumane and cruel.

 

Yeah because obviously incurring the displeasure of the world's second largest economy is allways a good idea especially when you consider their importance as investors and creditors to the United States. I'm not sure why you are belittling the importance of Japan in the "grand scheme of things" but in my opinion you are seriously erring. Japan is geographically an important ally to US in Asia and the economical co-dependence makes a trade war with Japan destructive for both countries.

Like a few others I'm also somewhat confused by the sweatshop comment. It's not like Japan is low-wage country. Most exports from there are capital intensive and not labour intensive as they tend to be in countries with sweatshops.

 

A lot of attention has gone to whaling by Japan. The japanese whaling is most objectionable, since they don't just hunt Minke whales. Japan is a unique culture, and like most asian countries, conservation isn't taken to heart as much as it is in the west.
But even Minke whale hunting by Norway and Iceland is bad, since they continue to hunt whales, effectively undoing all the good that a ban on whaling in other countries has achieved.
The International Whaling Commission approves of whaling only when whale populations are at 54% of their normal pre-whaling levels, and this arbitrary figure is still too much to inflict upon such an important part of the ecosystem.
Norway and Iceland have objected to the IWC's whaling guidelines, and proceed to kill whales even below 50% of the original population. It can be contested that these countries are continually preventing the Minke whale populations to grow to acceptable levels to allow the resumption of whaling by other countries, so they are potentially stealing whales from countries who abide by the rules.
With all this talk about piracy, I think I should make a case for viewing the countries of Japan, Norway and Iceland as international pirates, since they ignore international rules for whaling, and are robbing the rest of the world of natural resources. They break international rules and steal others' riches at sea, for personal gain - what more do you need, to call it piracy?
Environmental activism is more like vigilantism, as citizens feel the need to tackle these 'pirates' to keep the neighbourhood safe from 'burglary' and 'vandalism'. Because the 'authorities' are unable to do anything about it. Whaling boats shouldn't be blown out of the water, because even a vigilante who kills is still a murderer. But disabling and escorting the vessel back to port for breaking international whaling guidelines, is a good idea. The problem is, that the IWC's already very poor whaling guidelines, are optional, and countries who refuse to participate, reap all the benefits that participating countries deny themselves. It should be made law, not optional. The environment is just as important as human rights, and violating it is just as bad if not more so.

 

are you aware that much of the worlds technological progress comes from Japan? they are a major player in the world economy