Seaspiracy

[Fadl]

@neutralempty

Quote

it is just another industry. those people think they are saving the world, maybe they think they are heros or sth, they need to stop watching spider man movies.

 

On 7/4/2021 at 10:35 PM, Fadl said:

Not really, your problem is with capitalism not with me, this western white man capitalism made every thing look ugly.

 

 

[Boethius]

There seems to be a basic "leap" in logic that is present in both this thread and in the movie (I'm speaking from having watched the entire thing and not just the trailer). On the one hand, the movie begins by exploring the notion of sustainability, in terms of the over-fishing of the oceans that might lead to the collapse of fishing markets in 2048. After going through a series of atrocities (murder of dolphins and whales, slavery in the fishing industry, disingenous NGO's, the filthiness of fish farming, etc) the narrator shifts focus from sustainable fishing practices to the sacredness of our oceans and the animal life contained therein. He concludes the movie by proclaiming that the best way to "protect" our oceans and its life is by not eating seafood. At the end of the day, what starts as a pragmatic concern about fishing systems morphs into a moralistic impulse to honor the sacredness of our oceans.

Putting the moral argument aside, are there ways an informed person can consume seafood so as to protect the health and integrity of our remaining fish populations? This seems to be a more holistic problem, and one whose solution cannot be to go vegan. After all, assuming our goal is for the entire human population to be able to consume seafood in ways that are sustainable, then by definition the solution is not for every human being to go vegan (and in these terms, for an individual person to go vegan is effectively saying that they are willing to eat less fish so that others can eat more!)

Edited April 11, 2021 by Boethius

[Fadl]

1 hour ago, neutralempty said:

the heck was that response, is there any rhyme or reason in what you wrote?

If you are a vegan then it is normal that you won't understand.

[Boethius]

54 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

The point the documentary is trying to make is that sustainable fishing doesn't exist in a decimated ocean.

Like I said, I'm not greatly interested in the film's "moral" message about honoring the sacredness of ocean life. My interest is in how we could manage fish harvesting to be sustainable. The film does not make a systematic argument for the impossibility of doing as much. As for the Amazon rain forest, I'm sure some people do have a sentimental attachment to it, but again my concern would be more about the sustainable harvesting of resources.

58 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

Why? Could you explain why you think the solution to overfishing cannot be to stop eating fish?

Because overfishing is a concern for me only insofar as it threatens the sustainability of harvesting fish populations to feed the human race. Again, I'm not thinking about these problems in moral, spiritual, or sentimental terms but instead in terms of the sustainable harvesting of resources.

[Boethius]

1 minute ago, Zeitgeist said:

Having reached a point where 87% of fisheries in the world are fully exploited or overexploited, I don't think there's anything related to fishing that we can do in the ocean that you could remotely call "sustainable". At this point the sustainable thing to do is to just leave it alone. You don't need the heavy metals and toxins you get from fish in your body anyways.

And let's not forget the that, as a consumer, in practice, you have no way to determining if the seafood you buy is "sustainable" as the documentary has shown.

Meh, I remain hopeful that our governments are still capable of figuring something out.

One thing I saw after researching some of Seaspiracy's claims is that government subsidies of the fishing industries leads to overfishing. (maybe that was in the movie? I didn't hear it.) So something we can do, as informed citizens, is to petition the government to not subsidize the fishing industry and to support environmental groups in such petitions. In fact, one of the organizations that Seaspiracy "called out" was the NRDC (an organization I myself have been faithfully supporting for a few years now), and the NRDC takes action on these exact concerns:

https://www.nrdc.org/issues/stop-overfishing-and-restore-fisheries

I feel like Seaspiracy could have been a much more useful movie had it not set a goal of proselytizing on behalf of veganism and instead just provided the viewer with tools for taking action.

[Boethius]

5 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

The best long-term solution to overfishing is to drastically reduce the demand for fish. And the best way to do that on an individual level is to stop eating it.

I am doubtful about the effectiveness of this (even as an individual action). After all, if I stop eating fish then sure the demand goes down, but so does the price of fish overall. And with a lower price other people might be more likely to buy fish than they were before. So are a fewer # of fish harvested overall?

11 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

I'd argue that it's also better for you given how contaminated fish is these days.

As long as the government says it's safe I'm not that worried about it. If you think governmental regulations are somehow inadequate or have been subject to industrial corruption, that's another conversation altogether.

13 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

Not to mention the benefit of avoidance of countless deaths of sentient beings.

You assume it's self-evident that consuming fish is a moral/spiritual evil. Not all religious traditions agree with that. Refer to Romans 14:2 for example.

[Boethius]

1 minute ago, neutralempty said:

@Boethius well veganism is the tool for taking action. so what is he gonna do when you demonize it.

I'm not attempting to demonize veganism, honestly. I have total respect for a person who makes the choice to become vegan, whether that be as a moral choice, a religious choice, a personal choice, or whatever. But I'm also not going to pretend to agree that veganism is the only or best choice to the (very real) problem of overfishing. Because I don't agree with that claim and I don't believe his movie made an effective argument for that claim either.

[Boethius]

3 minutes ago, neutralempty said:

well since veganism would get rid of vastly most of fishing, i don't see why it would not be.

The argument I made above: "I am doubtful about the effectiveness of this (even as an individual action). After all, if I stop eating fish then sure the demand goes down, but so does the price of fish overall. And with a lower price other people might be more likely to buy fish than they were before. So are a fewer # of fish harvested overall?"

[Boethius]

4 minutes ago, neutralempty said:

What are you doubtful there of? If the demand is lower the price will be low only temporarily, in the long run it will get more expensive.

I'm saying that market corrections will result to the same # of fish being harvested overall, so that the problem of overfishing quite possibly remains as much of a problem as it was before. And since I'm not an economist I don't know that for sure, so I could be wrong. It seems to me that the most effective thing an individual can do to address the problem of overfishing is to petition their government to regulate the fishing industry more stringently and to not subsidize an industry that is already over-harvesting.

But if someone else wants to fight the problem of over-fishing by becoming a vegan, it certainly won't harm anything! So I do respect that decision even if it's not the one I am making personally.

[Boethius]

18 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

wonder why it is that you're resisting these ideas so vehemently

I try to take responsibility for my consumer choices, and I shop at a place that makes public declarations of being engaged on these issues:

https://www.wegmans.com/about-us/making-a-difference/sustainability-at-wegmans/seafood-sustainability/

If I took Seaspiracy's claims at face value, I would have to believe that Wegmans is a part of the "conspiracy" as well. Which would be inconvenient given that I generally buy 1/2 pound of fish each week ?

That's why I've been using this forum to "work out" my ideas on this topic (if you look at my initial posting I included a question about what it is we should be doing as individuals to help address the problem of over-fishing and then in a later post settled upon the answer of supporting organizations like the NRDC that have the resources necessary to petition the government to regulate the fishing industries). I have no criticism of the vegan lifestyle, but it's not for me. And so while my approach may not be perfect, at this point I do feel like I've done my due diligence in thinking through my participation in the larger fishing system.

Edit: wrong link

Edited April 11, 2021 by Boethius