Can we stop this childish games, please? Wherever humanity appears large mammals and birds dissappeared, either directly or indirectly. In this case by predation ofthe food source. And this whole "what extinction, by what humans" is the "what Armenians" of developmental history of our species. The whole rhetoric device is just so boring, the dialog tree looped. It's just a sound of denial now, not really worth engaging, a noise disclosing the bunkered in mental state of the producer. It never added much to the conversation to begin with but now it's just..
We, collectively, are probably best served when asking questions doesn't result in an unrelated harangue.
In this case, the poster is asking about the claim that the orcas were hunted to be consumed by humans. You didn't provide any evidence that this is the case---and in fact suggested a reasonable alternative---so I suspect you also either question or deny that claim as well.
I think you've fallen into a trap. You've allowed the very people you are trying to rail against here to convince you that anyone asking questions is an enemy of yours and worthy of your derision.
As in every open source forum were people "demand" code, games and features-and where no effort was made to show a effort was made :"Linklist of reading up is welcome!"
I didn't object to the knowledge you shared. I objected to your gross mischaracterization of the person's question and ignorance of the context in which it was asked.
I'm well aware of the anthropogenic effects on various animal populations especially megafauna, but it's a particular kind of claim to lump an oceanic apex predator with a flightless bird relegated to its island environment. Thanks for the paper, I'll be giving it a thorough read!
You won't find documented evidence for all of the species we've killed off, but that doesn't mean we haven't been doing it since prehistoric times. Within living memory (and just outside of it) humans have made many species extinct simply for fun. Buffalo had an extremely narrow escape. We've killed off species by not managing their numbers. We've killed off yet more because we saw them as pests. We've also killed off species to make way for others, or to kill a food source for a species (or race) that we didn't like. Extinction is something were fucking good at. Demanding documented evidence for it is a bit like the "clearing the decks" logical fallacy. I would err on the side of assuming that extinctions are caused by humans, rather than assuming that they're not.
However, if there is documented proof it would make interesting reading, so...
If you were to scroll down just a bit you would see my comment showing I am fully aware of anthropogenic biosphere changes. I asked for a source out of curiosity, not to set up a trap of some sort.
I don't believe that's the case for the orcas in the article. I used to live in Eden, and they have a legendary reputation there, going back well into pre-colonial history. Killing them would be sacrilege. That's not to say that some weren't killed, but not on that scale.
I see, that makes sense. Perhaps primed by the article talking about interspecies cooperation I didn't imagine they would not only compete for food but steal it.
I gather that global orca populations have a variety of spoken treaties they uphold, so only they pass this information on to each right now
While the humans don’t know them anymore, except in a couple small hunting populations
Following this theory, I found a similar treaty as the “law” mentioned in this article, amongst some of the Salish people in the Pacific Northwest, a lot of the indigenous groups with their own national identities in North America don’t have organized written records and especially not on the internet to reach the broader collective conscious and I think people assume otherwise.
if this phenomenon in the article was reportedly going on for a millennium in that one region of the world, I could see there being cross-drift to other regions
this is supporting my idea that the orcas still communicate it, and act that way towards us because of it, as opposed to any innate symbiotic relationship or general disinterest in violence towards humans
Well, they seem to innately be disgusted by we as food. They also seem to have some "respect" for we as hunters or something like that (but then, this one is easy to acquire). And differently from almost every other predator on Earth, that "respect" doesn't innately lead to fear.
Since both of those are reciprocal, it's as much an innate relation as you can get with thinking social animals.
Their usual source of food like seals taste better because they have much more fat to keep them insulated and mariners are generally leaner people. Once they get a taste of the average sedentary American and their corn fed blubber, I’m sure they’ll acquire a taste for manflesh.
If the Orca can get their evolutionary efforts in gear, there's good eatin' to be had.
I'm open to the idea of another species demonstrating a higher position on the food chain. We've been resting on our laurels for too long, ready for an injection of new energy.
if someone genetically modifies octopus to survive sexual maturity, we’d probably have a contender
they have a mutation where their digestive tract closes as soon as they can mate, but they reproduce so thats the only thing optimized for in natural selection
Orcas that hunted alongside orcs might be extinct.
:(
Wish humans were better stewards of earth. As a human it’s frustrating to watch others engage in destroying the planet instead of taking even simple steps to at least try.
> the civilised world has dug a grave we don't know how to escape from
We do, but politics is a part of reality - in every situation - and needs to be dealt with. Saying 'we'd solve the problem but for the politics' is like a ship captain saying 'I'd sail but for all that water'. The worst tactic for dealing with politics is to say it's somehow static and hopeless, though political opponents love it.
Again, people love to spread despair! In fact, without much thought probably all of us can remember many examples of doing exactly that.
(And even if we had never done it, that is not a barrier.) The only thing we have to fear is despair. We are wealthy, young, capable and powerful; we can accomplish enormous things. No wonder the status quo loves to spread despair - they have no other defense: Imagine if people left behind all that despair and started acting!
Just look at what you are saying - more despair! :) So many people have made themselves into advocates of despair.
Yes, the concept is that simple, and the action needed by you and me is that simple. Just forget all the doubts and just get to work!
(I don't mean to berate you with the exclamation points. I'm excited by the possibilities. LFG! :) )
If you want to grasp how that could happen, it's just people following social norms. The norm is despair: if you are in a meeting and everyone says such-and-such is hopeless, raising your hand and saying otherwise is not only socially hard but a bit transgressive. My hypothesis is that the status quo powers political messaging has pushed despair - after all, what else will preserve the senseless, unpopular status quo (look at climate change!)? It's the only defense they have.
I can't remember the name of the book I read this from so grain of salt/do your own research, but it was on the topic of why farming replaced hunting/gathering/migratory patterns.
One of the reasons mentioned was because despite hunting/gathering generally providing better nutrition (due to the variability in food), farming produced more calories. So the decision became (these number are made up) "we can farm and provide high quantities of poor nutrition to keep all of us alive", vs "we can hunt/gather to keep 75% of in great health, while 25% of the group dies."
Basically once a certain population threshold is reached the group has to enter a cycle of farming -> allows more babies to survive -> farm more. Your comment and this anecdote reminds of the capitalism cycle of consume more -> produce more value -> consume more.
If true, we've been unable to escape this cycle for thousands of years.
> we've been unable to escape this cycle for thousands of years
Modern agriculture produces varied, nutritious and plentiful foodstuffs. It also produces nonsense filler. But it’s simply not correct to claim that we’re stuck in the tradeoff our ancestors made when they settled down to farm.
>But it’s simply not correct to claim that we’re stuck in the tradeoff our ancestors made when they settled down to farm.
I mean we are because if we go back to hunting/gathering billions of people would die.
The point is that that at the time, farming produced worse nutrition, but despite that we couldn't go back once we started. There's a whole lot of other variables today that obviously prevent us from going back to hunting/gathering.
> if we go back to hunting/gathering billions of people would die
And those who survive wouldn’t be much healthier. This isn’t a tradeoff. It’s a net gain. The original tradeoff was a worse but more-stable food supply. Today we can reliably produce nutritious food. No tradeoff.
