I haven't given it much thought, but it seems like a straightforward example of the tragedy of the commons. As long as no one owns the whales, the incentive is to hunt as many as possible as quickly as possible. The establishment of property rights over pods of whales (perhaps by tagging individual whales in order to homestead them) would create an economic incentive to preserve the population in an attempt to protect the future revenue stream derived from them.
Walter Block gives a good example of this, contrasting the fate of the buffalo to that of the cow. The two animals are practically identical, but the cow has never come within a million miles of extinction. Why? Because people have owned cows for millenia, but no one ever owned the buffalo.
ALthough I find some commonalities in your libertarian approach, I think that there is a proper place for government to regulate things that are held either in common or have natural rights on their own. Whales, as living creatures, cannot be excluded from the sphere of government protection.
If your view were to take hold, the whales would be dead by now.
ALthough I find some commonalities in your libertarian approach, I think that there is a proper place for government to regulate things that are held either in common or have natural rights on their own. Whales, as living creatures, cannot be excluded from the sphere of government protection.
If your view were to take hold, the whales would be dead by now.
Polman
This seems to be the most common reaction, blending of the "Superwhale" and "Commons" arguments that I found while writing my Thesis on whaling. I think the "Commons" approach is fairly clear (i.e. it is the role of government to save the whales), but could you elaborate on what you term "natural right" for the whales?
Whales kill each other and kill other animals. That is their nature, which they cannot change because they lack the reason to do so. They cannot have rights because rights require reciprocality. Humans have reason; we can choose to respect rights and do so almost constantly in our daily lives (except for governments and other criminals). Because we have that capacity for reason and reciprocality, we have rights.
On the more practical side of the matter, it is as Stephen Smith said, a tragedy of the commons. People hunt whales because there is a demand for whales as consumable goods, and there are no whale farms to create supply against that demand. It would be possible to make such a farm if the development of the ocean were not so strictly prohibited by the government.
And as for the idea of the whales going extinct if our views were to take hold - even if that were true, so what? Millions of species have gone extinct in the history of this planet. Yet billions more endure. Nature is both a creative and a destructive entity, and man is a part of it. No law can change that fact.
Still, my answer goes right back to the original point - if you want to save the whales, build whale farms.
__________________
Government is not a necessary evil. Rather, it is an evil of such great power that it has been able to convince us of its necessity.
I have a friend that grew up in Japan, and he says whale meat is very tasty.
It is my feeling also, that if people like whales that much, they should do all in their power to protect (and serve?) them. I'd like to see homesteading of the oceans as a way to utilize the resources of the ocean. This would serve the purpose of harvesting the bounty of the sea, but also would serve to protect the environs of the ocean.
I once had occasion to walk 450 miles of the Appalachian trail. While walking through the White Mountain National Forest, there was a tremendous amount of damaged trees, blow-downs, and litter (of the trees, not human generated trash). This caused me concern, as it was a particularly dry summer, and all it would take is a lightning strike, and considerable damage would be done to the environment due to fire.
When I got into Maine, there was a noticeable difference in the state of the forest. There were no blown down trees, and litter awaiting a forest fire. There wasn't much undergrowth in the forest either. Come to find out, I was walking through private land owned by Mead Paper. People told me that a guy named Bill Bryson talked about this in a book that he wrote about his experience on the Appalachian Trail.
You can't farm whales in confined spaces, they're migratory.
Did you know NASA still uses whale oil for lubricant? They claim that they have special needs, but private industry is forbidden.
I think we'd just be better off leaving the whales alone. It's an interesting problem when those with the live-and-let-live attitude don't have that option due to the migratory aspect. The Japanese would just as soon eat all the whales (given the opportunity). I'm reluctantly left to concede that Greenpeace engages in the only option available to those who don't want to see the whales killed. Some speculate that whales are sentient, so it's interesting to contemplate a non-aggression principle in that scenario.
Don't forget we're going to need at least two to talk to the Probe.
As far as Whales being migratory, in and of itself, that fact does not preclude them from being farmed. Game migrate all the time. Here in Utah, during the winter months, deer strikes by cars increase dramatically as the deer come down from the high mountain pastures to find better grazing in the salt lake valley. There certainly are venison farms. I bet cattle behaved the same way before they were domesticated. There are still a few undomesticated strains of cattle, but I couldn't find a link to them.
I saw this NY Times post about what to do if you don't want animals to go extinct.
I'd love to see whale served on the menu at Beni-Hana or Tempanyaki.
When researching this topic there were many free-market articles relating to eating whales, but nothing I could find about farming them. Maybe I'll work on this more in my spare time.
A few weeks back, I pitched the idea of homesteading and farming whales to the director of the whaling museum over here in Norway (a major whaling nation), and they were shocked by the very idea. After taking some time to explain to possible methods of radio tagging and close observation by scientists being conducted today, they seemed fascinated by the possibilty of having a solution to the problem where everyone gets what they want. Homesteading whales is very possible, although the idea needs more development, and very practical.
Migration presents a problem to monitoring them, but if a whaling company was liable for damages inflicted on a preservationist owned whale they would only hunt their own tagged critters. Whale rustling is very possible, but when compared to the current IWC paradigm where everybody hates everybody else, I am confident the new schema would fare very well.
And if if you were wondering, whale IS tasty. I had whale stroganoff.
You can't farm whales in confined spaces, they're migratory.
But you can farm whales, nonetheless. I would start with radio tags and GPS.
Quote:
The Japanese would just as soon eat all the whales (given the opportunity).
Just like Americans eat all the cows? Even if a farming scenario could not be worked out, there are far, far, far, far, far too many MINKE whales for them to possibly eat.
Quote:
I'm reluctantly left to concede that Greenpeace engages in the only option available to those who don't want to see the whales killed. Some speculate that whales are sentient, so it's interesting to contemplate a non-aggression principle in that scenario.
Greenpeace is an option, so long as they don't initiate force. The Sea Shepherds are not an option, because they always do. There is no scientific evidence that "whales" are any more intelligent than cows or deer (no, not even the humpbacks with their songs that have extensive structure). However, it is great for press.
Quote:
Don't forget we're going to need at least two to talk to the Probe.
No you haven't given it much thought have you do you think a whale understands property rights?
No, I don't think a whale understands property rights any more than a cow does. But I think a lot of people understand property rights, and that's probably more important.
Did you know NASA still uses whale oil for lubricant? They claim that they have special needs, but private industry is forbidden.
The Eiffel Tower still uses animal fats to lubricate the gears and other moving parts for the elevator.
bill_mcgonigle wrote:
Some speculate that whales are sentient, so it's interesting to contemplate a non-aggression principle in that scenario.
There is no doubt that whales are sentient. They obviously can feel pain, pleasure and any number of sensation, and are concsious of the world around them. They mourn when members of their pods die. But what is not understood is whether or not they have the ability to reason.
I haven't given it much thought, but it seems like a straightforward example of the tragedy of the commons. As long as no one owns the whales, the incentive is to hunt as many as possible as quickly as possible. The establishment of property rights over pods of whales (perhaps by tagging individual whales in order to homestead them) would create an economic incentive to preserve the population in an attempt to protect the future revenue stream derived from them.
Walter Block gives a good example of this, contrasting the fate of the buffalo to that of the cow. The two animals are practically identical, but the cow has never come within a million miles of extinction. Why? Because people have owned cows for millenia, but no one ever owned the buffalo.
- Stephen
- Stephen M. Smith
Whaling.
ALthough I find some commonalities in your libertarian approach, I think that there is a proper place for government to regulate things that are held either in common or have natural rights on their own. Whales, as living creatures, cannot be excluded from the sphere of government protection.
If your view were to take hold, the whales would be dead by now.
Polman
Really? When's the last time you heard of a cattle rancher machine-gunning his entire herd?
Whaling.
ALthough I find some commonalities in your libertarian approach, I think that there is a proper place for government to regulate things that are held either in common or have natural rights on their own. Whales, as living creatures, cannot be excluded from the sphere of government protection.
If your view were to take hold, the whales would be dead by now.
Polman
This seems to be the most common reaction, blending of the "Superwhale" and "Commons" arguments that I found while writing my Thesis on whaling. I think the "Commons" approach is fairly clear (i.e. it is the role of government to save the whales), but could you elaborate on what you term "natural right" for the whales?
Whales kill each other and kill other animals. That is their nature, which they cannot change because they lack the reason to do so. They cannot have rights because rights require reciprocality. Humans have reason; we can choose to respect rights and do so almost constantly in our daily lives (except for governments and other criminals). Because we have that capacity for reason and reciprocality, we have rights.
On the more practical side of the matter, it is as Stephen Smith said, a tragedy of the commons. People hunt whales because there is a demand for whales as consumable goods, and there are no whale farms to create supply against that demand. It would be possible to make such a farm if the development of the ocean were not so strictly prohibited by the government.
And as for the idea of the whales going extinct if our views were to take hold - even if that were true, so what? Millions of species have gone extinct in the history of this planet. Yet billions more endure. Nature is both a creative and a destructive entity, and man is a part of it. No law can change that fact.
Still, my answer goes right back to the original point - if you want to save the whales, build whale farms.
Government is not a necessary evil. Rather, it is an evil of such great power that it has been able to convince us of its necessity.
I have a friend that grew up in Japan, and he says whale meat is very tasty.
It is my feeling also, that if people like whales that much, they should do all in their power to protect (and serve?) them. I'd like to see homesteading of the oceans as a way to utilize the resources of the ocean. This would serve the purpose of harvesting the bounty of the sea, but also would serve to protect the environs of the ocean.
I once had occasion to walk 450 miles of the Appalachian trail. While walking through the White Mountain National Forest, there was a tremendous amount of damaged trees, blow-downs, and litter (of the trees, not human generated trash). This caused me concern, as it was a particularly dry summer, and all it would take is a lightning strike, and considerable damage would be done to the environment due to fire.
When I got into Maine, there was a noticeable difference in the state of the forest. There were no blown down trees, and litter awaiting a forest fire. There wasn't much undergrowth in the forest either. Come to find out, I was walking through private land owned by Mead Paper. People told me that a guy named Bill Bryson talked about this in a book that he wrote about his experience on the Appalachian Trail.
You can't farm whales in confined spaces, they're migratory.
Did you know NASA still uses whale oil for lubricant? They claim that they have special needs, but private industry is forbidden.
I think we'd just be better off leaving the whales alone. It's an interesting problem when those with the live-and-let-live attitude don't have that option due to the migratory aspect. The Japanese would just as soon eat all the whales (given the opportunity). I'm reluctantly left to concede that Greenpeace engages in the only option available to those who don't want to see the whales killed. Some speculate that whales are sentient, so it's interesting to contemplate a non-aggression principle in that scenario.
Don't forget we're going to need at least two to talk to the Probe.
As far as Whales being migratory, in and of itself, that fact does not preclude them from being farmed. Game migrate all the time. Here in Utah, during the winter months, deer strikes by cars increase dramatically as the deer come down from the high mountain pastures to find better grazing in the salt lake valley. There certainly are venison farms. I bet cattle behaved the same way before they were domesticated. There are still a few undomesticated strains of cattle, but I couldn't find a link to them.
I saw this NY Times post about what to do if you don't want animals to go extinct.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/dining/30come.html
I'd love to see whale served on the menu at Beni-Hana or Tempanyaki.
When researching this topic there were many free-market articles relating to eating whales, but nothing I could find about farming them. Maybe I'll work on this more in my spare time.
A few weeks back, I pitched the idea of homesteading and farming whales to the director of the whaling museum over here in Norway (a major whaling nation), and they were shocked by the very idea. After taking some time to explain to possible methods of radio tagging and close observation by scientists being conducted today, they seemed fascinated by the possibilty of having a solution to the problem where everyone gets what they want. Homesteading whales is very possible, although the idea needs more development, and very practical.
Migration presents a problem to monitoring them, but if a whaling company was liable for damages inflicted on a preservationist owned whale they would only hunt their own tagged critters. Whale rustling is very possible, but when compared to the current IWC paradigm where everybody hates everybody else, I am confident the new schema would fare very well.
And if if you were wondering, whale IS tasty. I had whale stroganoff.
I haven't given it much thought, but it seems like a straightforward example of the tragedy of the commons.
No you haven't given it much thought have you do you think a whale understands property rights?
You can't farm whales in confined spaces, they're migratory.
But you can farm whales, nonetheless. I would start with radio tags and GPS.
The Japanese would just as soon eat all the whales (given the opportunity).
Just like Americans eat all the cows? Even if a farming scenario could not be worked out, there are far, far, far, far, far too many MINKE whales for them to possibly eat.
I'm reluctantly left to concede that Greenpeace engages in the only option available to those who don't want to see the whales killed. Some speculate that whales are sentient, so it's interesting to contemplate a non-aggression principle in that scenario.
Greenpeace is an option, so long as they don't initiate force. The Sea Shepherds are not an option, because they always do. There is no scientific evidence that "whales" are any more intelligent than cows or deer (no, not even the humpbacks with their songs that have extensive structure). However, it is great for press.
Don't forget we're going to need at least two to talk to the Probe.
OK, you got me there, great movie.
No you haven't given it much thought have you do you think a whale understands property rights?
No, I don't think a whale understands property rights any more than a cow does. But I think a lot of people understand property rights, and that's probably more important.
Did you know NASA still uses whale oil for lubricant? They claim that they have special needs, but private industry is forbidden.
The Eiffel Tower still uses animal fats to lubricate the gears and other moving parts for the elevator.
Some speculate that whales are sentient, so it's interesting to contemplate a non-aggression principle in that scenario.
There is no doubt that whales are sentient. They obviously can feel pain, pleasure and any number of sensation, and are concsious of the world around them. They mourn when members of their pods die. But what is not understood is whether or not they have the ability to reason.
I suppose I always took "sentient" to mean "able to reason". No, those cows of the sea are not sentient, but they sure are cool!
Animals are sentient. You are thinking of sapience. ;)