• kuttarbaccha [they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Fishing is not a sport. It's a profession for millions of working class people in the world. I don't see how it is cruel?

      • AlexisOhanian [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Fishing, the sport, is cruel because it consists of baiting out a living being, puncturing its body with a sharp piece of metal, pulling it out of the water into the air as it suffocates, in order to take a picture of it, and then release it again.

        Eating the fish is no less cruel, because people who fish often can eat food without causing harm to an animal.

        Fishing as profession is cruel because it is doing the same, unnecessary harm to trillions of living beings each year, and affects our global food chain on a scale unfathomable to a normal person, exacerbating harm to the populations of entire species of fish and every animal that relies on those fish as a food source.

        Any form of commercial hunting is unnecessary violence and cruelty, but fishing for sport is astoundingly so.

        • kuttarbaccha [they/them]
          ·
          edit-2
          4 years ago

          Fishing as profession is cruel because it is doing the same, unnecessary harm to trillions of living beings each year,

          What do you propose the fishermen who survive solely from fishing do? I have been to multiple fishing villages, I don't know if there is an English term for that, and a lot of these people are living day to day in extreme poverty. Where they live they don't really have the luxury or choice to do anything else, there is no room to farm, there are only rivers. Also I don't think any of them have ever even considered the idea that fishing can be considered cruel, I don't think I could even explain the idea to them in any way that would makes sense to them.

          Eating the fish is no less cruel, because people who fish often can eat food without causing harm to an animal.

          Where I am from majority of the population suffer from malnutrition, specially protein deficiency, taking fish out of the diet, which is a very cheap source of protein compared to meat, would do incalculable harm to the most vulnerable people in society who live in extreme poverty. Even if you agree that harming fish is cruel, which I don't know if I do, it's not right to say people who eat fish have other choices. Many millions of them absolutely don't.

            • Pezevenk [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              . It’s extremely frustrating as a vegan to say “hey, harvesting this particular animal product tends to have harmful outcomes” and then meat-eaters try to nitpick you by finding the most marginalized human being on earth who needs that animal product in some capacity to shame you as a privileged imperialist or something.

              It's not very hard though. There's just so, so many subsistence fishers in the world. Of course it isn't good for them either that huge companies are destroying populations of fish with their massive nets. But that's the main problem, not them.

              • Alaskaball [comrade/them]MA
                ·
                4 years ago

                Of course it isn’t good for them either that huge companies are destroying populations of fish with their massive nets. But that’s the main problem, not them

                It's literally the "you should stop using plastic straws to save the environment, sweaty." Argument, and it fucking pisses me off especially more when it's coming from someone who's far away and has literally zero clue what the material conditions are but want to dictate how others live based off of their arbitrary perceptions.

            • kuttarbaccha [they/them]
              ·
              edit-2
              4 years ago

              Yes I think I understand what you are saying, every argument that is made can only be fully understood within the context of the cultural experience of the person making it. And I am from what you would call a "third world" country, so when someone says fishing, I am not really thinking of the same thing that a western person is. So apologies if I misunderstood the concept entirely. That sort of mechanized and factory fishing is very rare where I am from, so I was thinking about millions of people who have been fishing for thousands of years in the many rivers of my country. I don't have the data to show it, but I am entirely certain the practice is very sustainable, since as I just mentioned these people have been doing it for thousands of years, their whole culture and custom is around fishing. They even have this very interesting collection of rhymes and songs that they pass down orally from generation to generation which contain valuable information regarding how to fish and when to catch what and stuff like that.

              Poor subsistence fishermen will need some kind of alternative method of surviving/feeding themselves once we kill all life in the ocean, so I’d want to help them find other options even without the inherent cruelty of fishing.

              Sorry maybe this is another cultural misunderstanding, but what you are saying sounds really callous to me. It's easy to say they have to find alternative method of survival, but how will they exactly? It's not like they are doing this for fun, it's a grueling existence, if they could do something else I am pretty certain they would be doing it already. This is the sort of statement the local capitalists make when they keep polluting the river and make fishing impossible, that these people need to find another line of work, without telling anyone what that work is exactly.

                • kuttarbaccha [they/them]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  4 years ago

                  I am not saying it's your responsibility, I am not attacking you either. It's actually very encouraging to see people from rich capitalist countries embracing things like environmental conservation. I am just trying to explain to you that it's not possible for people to just stop doing the only thing they can to survive. There is no one who is waiting to give them jobs or an alternate way of living, if there was we could talk about how they are being cruel.

                  And if climate collapse does destroy their livelihoods completely that would be a disaster leading to the death of millions of them, and should we not instead try to stop that from happening instead of saying oh it's going to happen anyways so might as well disrupt their already precarious existence early?

                    • kuttarbaccha [they/them]
                      ·
                      4 years ago

                      All perspectives are welcome, I am here to learn all I can about the western leftist perspective. All my life I have organized only with people who are like me, think like me and grew up in the same culture as me, it's good to broaden my horizon.

          • AlexisOhanian [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            What do you propose the fishermen who survive solely from fishing do?

            Be provided government jobs through programs designed to eliminate fishing as an industry, perhaps through infrastructure that would also allow their communities to get produce shipments that would alleviate their communities from needing fishing to sustain themselves.

            Eliminating these people's jobs without some action to lift them out of the poverty that keeps them tied to them is not necessary.

            very cheap source of protein compared to meat,

            Fish is meat, and phasing out the consumption and stripping of fish from our oceans and waterways should also come with government assistance to provide those people with an alternative nutritional food source, which we have an abundance of but currently feed to the farmed animals to cultivate meat.

            • kuttarbaccha [they/them]
              ·
              4 years ago

              Be provided government jobs through programs designed to eliminate fishing as an industry...

              Fish is meat, and phasing out the consumption and stripping of fish from our government assistance to provide those people with an alternative nutritional food source

              This would be great of course, but the problem is capitalist governments don't really care about their people, and these people, thanks to their poverty are completely alienated from the political process, they have no voice, they have no power, they cannot change the government.

              • AlexisOhanian [he/him]
                ·
                4 years ago

                Luckily a capitalist government is unlikely to make the move of banning all fishing, so there wouldn't be a situation where we do one without the other.

                I'd say focusing on lifting people from poverty would always be the priority as a government moves left, so by the time we got to addressing animal rights and ecological damage we'd have given these people a viable alternative in their communities.

                • kuttarbaccha [they/them]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  Ok now I understand what you are saying, it's an aspirational goal not an immediate one. That's great 👍 .

              • AlexisOhanian [he/him]
                ·
                4 years ago

                There's a clear difference between living off the land out of necessity and fishing as a leisure activity.

        • spez_hole [he/him,they/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Any form of commercial hunting is unnecessary violence and cruelty

          let's just be clear, eating meat from the store entails more violence and cruelty than hunting an animal that roams free for eleven months of the year.

          • AlexisOhanian [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            eating meat from the store entails more violence and cruelty than hunting an animal that roams free for eleven months of the year.

            I would be surprised if someone to make the statement I did would argue against this.

            Any kind of slaughter of a living being, or imprisonment to exploit it for some resource, is cruelty.

            • kuttarbaccha [they/them]
              ·
              4 years ago

              There's no argument, I am just trying to understand everyone's perspective. Surely it's ok for a human to eat a fish for survival?

                  • PenisCunt [undecided]
                    ·
                    4 years ago

                    You changed the argument from "it isnt cruel" to "what if you had to eat a fish to survive". I'm making fun of you because this shit is extremely tired.

                    • kuttarbaccha [they/them]
                      ·
                      4 years ago

                      No, I think you misunderstood. What I am saying is how can it be cruel when people need to fish to survive?

                      • PenisCunt [undecided]
                        ·
                        4 years ago

                        Well that's not what you asked and it can obviously be cruel and necessary. But for 99.9% of people, it isnt necessary.

                        • kuttarbaccha [they/them]
                          ·
                          edit-2
                          4 years ago

                          Well that’s not what you asked

                          I know that's exactly what I asked, you can read my initial comment. I said millions of people rely on fishing to earn a living, so I don't see how it is cruel? Also I don't understand why you are being so hostile to me.

                          But for 99.9% of people, it isnt necessary.

                          I am certain that's not true. What if I told you there are millions and millions of fishermen just in my country who rely on fishing for survival? And that they don't have any other options. I am just relaying my personal experience and trying to understand yours. I do understand that this is not what fishing is by and large in developed countries, where things have been industrialized to a harmful degree, but to deny there aren't millions and millions of fishermen all over the world who need to fish for a living is wrong.

                          • PenisCunt [undecided]
                            ·
                            4 years ago

                            How am I denying anything? All I said is fishing is cruel... not "wrong". Everyone here is already aware that pretty much everyone everywhere has to contribute to something awful in order to make money, and that's a completely seperate issue. Fishing and eating fish is not necessary for our health and well being, we do it because fish tastes good so theres a market for that. I'm not saying fuck people who fish, if anything vegans are saying the opposite since fishing is so dangerous to the people doing it, and damaging to the environments humans occupy. As if I should hate people forced work in slaughterhouses only to have their hands cut off and permanent ptsd.

                            • kuttarbaccha [they/them]
                              ·
                              edit-2
                              4 years ago

                              How am I denying anything?

                              I never claimed you are denying anything, I was just trying to understand your perspective on the matter, and I was presenting my perspective, and my perspective is that fishing is not cruel when people are fishing to earn a living, of course factory fishing excluded. When you replied to me by saying that I should put a hook in my mouth to understand why fishing is cruel, I thought you are saying that human lives have as much value as fish lives. I misunderstood, so apologies.

                              Everyone here is already aware that pretty much everyone everywhere has to contribute to something awful in order to make money, and that’s a completely seperate issue.

                              Ok, that is good to know and this is where probably the misunderstanding is stemming from. I am not very well acquainted with the culture of this site and what is considered common knowledge and what is not. Which is why I was simply trying to understand what the person who said fishing is cruel meant, that's all. I hope that's the end of the misunderstanding. Your clarification if much appreciated, and I agree with it too.

                              • PenisCunt [undecided]
                                ·
                                4 years ago

                                Sorry for my unnecessary hostility, I assumed you were one of the fuck vegans people here, which seems to be almost everyone.

    • Chutt_Buggins [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Wtf?

      I am up on my traditional lands that my family can recall inhabiting long before any colonizers showed up. I know the exact spot where our family has been fishing literally since time immemorial and I don't do it for sport?

      All your responses on this thread I just came across seem really tone-deaf and pretty close to peak 'making up a guy online to be mad at' given how little you had to go off of from my comment.

      Colonizers tried to get us to stop fishing and colonizers will be the reason global fish stocks and environments disappear. Meanwhile, I run fish-management and hatchery programs and only take a few dozen out of the water every year, mostly to feed my family and friends.

      Go off king, but find some way to do it better.

      • AlexisOhanian [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        Most people are not minority native groups living on traditional lands. I hope that's understandable that when I reference sport fishing by the guy in the video I'm not talking about an Inuit tribe.

        • Chutt_Buggins [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          4 years ago

          Well good for that guy and for you missing the point of my post, just riffing on the BBQ classic.

          You also don't say anything about who you are directing the comment to when talking to me, I don't know anything about the clip other than the quote he said in it, so it reads like a direct response to me, because that's all you're framing it as.

          You need to be better at providing context and ramping up discussion in a personable way, rather than sounding so insufferable so quickly.

          Also, inuit don't have tribes my dude.

          I think i recall you from the old sub, for exactly this same reason.

          "Most people are not minority native groups living on traditional lands. I hope that’s understandable ... " lol you're such a dweeb, thanks for giving the impolite dumdum explanation to an indigenous person you dragged into your struggle session for no reason.

          • AlexisOhanian [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            4 years ago

            The context, hopefully, is at the top of your webpage given the thread we are in.

            It was not meant as an attack on you are your culture, as I can't possibly know you or those things.

            I did not use this name on the old sub, you may just be arguing unnecessarily with multiple people.

            • Chutt_Buggins [he/him]
              ·
              edit-2
              4 years ago

              I did not use this name on the old sub, you may just be arguing unnecessarily with multiple people.

              I didn't say I remember your name, I am saying I think I recall your stilted 'well ackshually statistically most people aren't subsistence hunters, sweaty' discussion style where I am used as a jump-off for first world veganism and shaming in a topic that was never really about the extremes suddenly being argued against.

              The context for this thread is some guy out ice fishing. I didn't know he was sport fishing on the ice. The context for my post is me just talking about fishing in general, then you jumping off on a thing I was not directly referencing.

              If you made your own comment it makes sense, otherwise, if you frame your response as one directed at me without clarification, it is no surprise I feel like it's directed at me.

              • AlexisOhanian [he/him]
                ·
                4 years ago

                To be clear, I did not use you or your culture as a jump-off point for first world veganism. I could not know your culture, you just said "I just wanna fish!"

                If anything is sweaty, it's making an issue out of an identity or cultural attack where there was none.

                I think the "most people aren't in a survival situation where they need to hunt" is a very common argument against hunting, it's the one I see brought up most often, so you probably just run into a lot because you actually are in a survival situation.

                Next time I'll just comment it separately, had no intent to attack you as an individual.

                • Chutt_Buggins [he/him]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  If anything is sweaty, it’s making an issue out of an identity or cultural attack where there was none.

                  I am not making this about identity or 'cultural attack', I was just filling in context as a response to your poorly framed jump-off in direct response to what I said. I am just calling you an unconvincing dweeb poster, not some kind of racist.

                  And yes, next time you should just comment by yourself, or provide more context if you care to have more people engage in whatever line of discussion you wanna start and it differs from the person posting memes in response to a short clip that isnt expressly discussing what you want to talk about..

        • SerLava [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          4 years ago

          I really don't think even random white people throwing a pole in the water holds a candle to businesses blasting the fuck out of fish stocks.

          • AlexisOhanian [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            4 years ago

            How did you even get that out of this? That's like someone complaining about domestic child abuse and replying, "ah but I really don't that compares to child slavery in India."

            • SerLava [he/him]
              ·
              edit-2
              4 years ago

              It's really not like that at all. The cruelty of the sport really doesn't go away if it's helping marginalized groups, and I think if the cruelty was really the prime motivator here, there would be some kind of an acknowledgement that it's good not to fuck with natives right now, but that ultimately you'd like, force veganism on them or whatever, once the conditions become non-abusive. But just flatly supporting native fisheries means the resource depletion rate seems like it's part of the equation there.

              Looks like you do mention that somewhere down in these threads, so cool. But that's the context there.

        • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Most people are not minority native groups living on traditional lands.

          Most people don't fish.

        • jabrd [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          You didn't specify the states. It's still legal in Spain and Portugal. Shit I think cockfighting is still legal in many SE Asian nations like Thailand.

          Like I get where you're coming form but if you're going to throw around absolutes like "most cruel legal human sport" you should be more specific in your language

          • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
            ·
            4 years ago

            I mean, if we're truly going for "cruelest" I'd put boxing farther up on the list. That fish is going to be dead in a few minutes, but some poor kid with TBI is going to suffer for decades.

            • jabrd [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              Football has gotta be way up there for those reasons. Far more young kids grind their bodies and their brains to dust trying to find their ticket out a bad situation. Less incentive for that in boxing/other martial arts as it's less popular and makes you less money. Still though, as someone who has competed extensively in combat sports, it's super fucked up to have children taking part in something like boxing that can genuinely cripple your mind for the rest of your life. The number of helicopter parents trying to force their crying kid back onto wrestling mats I've seen has really soured my experience with these sports

              • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
                ·
                4 years ago

                On an individual basis, boxing/MMA is arguably worse. Football's horrible for the sheer volume of it. Literally hundreds of thousands of young people getting chewed up and spit out, so we can confidentially tell ourselves Tom Brady is empirically the best ball-throwing guy in the country.

                The number of helicopter parents trying to force their crying kid back onto wrestling mats I’ve seen has really soured my experience with these sports

                I did a few Tae-Kwon-Do tournaments growing up, and the nicest thing my mother every did was tell me "I'm not signing you up for that again." Didn't suffer anything worse than getting run off the mat, and I was horribly ashamed of myself, but she didn't bat an eye or give a shit. Just insisted its not worth my health and pointed me towards soccer instead.

          • AlexisOhanian [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            I just assume we're working off of the states because we're in a thread discussing American politics and American people fishing.