The Political Thread

[NapalmKev]

I wasn't sure where to put this (definitely not 'science is drokking fantastic').

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15663982

Tis a fucking shame and no mistake!

Cheers

[The Legendary Shark]

Worth reading just for the words "Tarzan's chameleon".

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Here's a thought, just for argument's sake: Why bother trying to prevent extinctions at all? Extinctions have been going on practically forever and are a perfectly natural process. So what if tigers are cute? If they can't cope with the modern world then why should we carry them? Just let them go. In another ten million years, who's going to care? By that time, they'll be having extinctions of their own to worry about.

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Screw the black rhino - save the beef!

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Pigeons - cat; cat - pigeons...

[Jim_Campbell]

Here's a thought, just for argument's sake: Why bother trying to prevent extinctions at all? Extinctions have been going on practically forever and are a perfectly natural process.

Because there's nothing fucking natural about shooting the last surviving members of a species so you can hack of a part of its body and sell it to idiotic fuckwits who think it'll help them get an erection.

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Here's a thought, just for argument's sake

Phew, I'm glad this is just you trying to start an argument because if you actually believed the utter Jeremy Clarksonesque bullshit you wrote there I would say a certain fish "can't cope" and needs to be "let go"!

[The Legendary Shark]

I often find it amusing and informative to argue against things I believe in - I find that it encourages me to think. So, in that spirit...

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A fox will break into a chicken coop and kill every single bird. The fox would act the same if it attacked one of a trillion chicken coops or the last chicken coops on Earth.

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The elephant will strip vegetation and then move on with no thought that the trees and shrubs they're eating could be the last of their kind.

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The whale will continue to guzzle krill until there's none left.

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Granted, the whale, the elephant and the fox may not possess the abstract reasoning of the human animal but each has the potential to cause an extinction in another species. The only difference between a fox eating the last chicken and a human shooting the last rhino is that the human has a higher awareness of what he/she is doing.

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Extinctions happen - they're nothing to feel bad about.

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(Have we got any pigeons left?)

[Jim_Campbell]

The only difference between a fox eating the last chicken and a human shooting the last rhino is that the human has a higher awareness of what he/she is doing.

Umm... I would argue that "only difference" is all the difference that is needed. It's why we don't put sharks in prison for murder.

I genuinely have no idea what point you think you're making here. It's either trolling or it's cretinous, either way it does you little credit.

Cheers

Jim

[The Legendary Shark]

Just trying to debate, is all.

Of course, the more diverse an ecosystem is the more resilient it seems to be - which is for me a good enough argument on its own to protect as many species as we can.

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To explore the other side of the argument (and there clearly is another side else nobody would be shooting at things until there's none left) is, to me, a way of testing the side one believes in.

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The problem with a subject like the one I have (perhaps unwisely) chosen is that it is so emotive. I instinctively feel that it's "right" to protect other species but just because I feel a thing that doesn't automatically make it right. And my questioning doesn't, I hope make me a troll. I like questions. Questions are where Wisdom keeps her seeds (right next to the rusty old oil drum containing my pomposity).

[CrazyFoxMachine]

just because I feel a thing that doesn't automatically make it right.

And just because you think a thing doesn't automatically mean it needs to be debated - if you want to find out more about the precise nature of extinction and the ethical responsibilities of humanity in relation to it wikipedia covers it in a great deal more detail than we could possibly go into here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction

[The Legendary Shark]

Thanks, Foxy.

[Professor Bear]

So what if tigers are cute? If they can't cope with the modern world then why should we carry them? Just let them go. In another ten million years, who's going to care?

I always wondered what David Cameron did with his spare time.

[The Legendary Shark]

Bloody tigers, coming over here living in luxury in expensive zoos without paying a penny for their cages or their own upkeep, eating our beef and wowing our women with their cute, smug little faces...

What we need, people, is a Tiger Tax to show these stripey layabouts that nobody gets a free lunch!

Vote Conservative for the Tiger Tax - reject Labour's Lion Levy and ridicule the Lib-Dems' Cheetah Charge!

[Professor Bear]

Do you have any numbers or statistics to support these claims of feline freeloadery?  Only I can't help but notice that the vast majority of social security is spent on buy catnip for elderly tabby cats who read the Daily Mail, while actual state spending on immigrant tigers accounts for zero percent.
Also how do you respond to the claims that private firms employed to work as wardens at Yarl's Wood Zoo have been having intercourse with the animals?

[The Legendary Shark]

All of this might have been true under Labour, who consistently failed to act responsibly and cut spending on this thing of yours whilst at the same time more and more hard-earned taxpayers' money was poured into that thing of theirs, but under my party all cuts have been reclassified as Economy Dividends and all living things are much better off for it - cats included.

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Certain of the dastardly opposition have also been short-sighted about my new Dawn Chorus Charge. This country has one of the most beautiful dawn choruses in the world, thanks to this government's tireless and award-winning Minister for Songbirds, Robin Piggs, and so why shouldn't we charge people for listening to it? We have to find some way of paying off this un-payoffable government debt which we inherited from the previous party - who thought it was a good idea to try and run an economy using privately created interest-bearing credit instead of proper money.

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These taxes are not the whole solution, I can see that, but in combination with the proposed Atmospheric Cleanliness Tax, the new Existence Permit and Sunshine Rationing they may stave off the inevitable financial implosion just long enough for me to get out of office with a big house stuffed with gold.

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Don't forget to vote!

[M.I.K.]

Because there's nothing fucking natural about shooting the last surviving members of a species so you can hack of a part of its body and sell it to idiotic fuckwits who think it'll help them get an erection.

I get what Mr. Shark is saying and I'd argue that the human race is as much a part of nature as any other species and it's completely natural for them to massacre things out of existence and be idiotic fuckwits. They've been doing it for millennia, the horrible gits.

[NapalmKev]

Because there's nothing fucking natural about shooting the last surviving members of a species so you can hack of a part of its body and sell it to idiotic fuckwits who think it'll help them get an erection.

I get what Mr. Shark is saying and I'd argue that the human race is as much a part of nature as any other species and it's completely natural for them to massacre things out of existence and be idiotic fuckwits. They've been doing it for millennia, the horrible gits.

The way I see it is thus:

The Human race is apparently the apex of evolution on Terra, with our complex emotions, advanced thought, the ability to adapt to pretty much any situation; and yet we allow the world around us to be pretty much Fucked in the Ass by a corporate minority and self serving politicians.


This is not an intelligent way for a species to behave as far as I'm concerned. By destroying our own environment (and the life within) we are ensuring our own demise.


Cheers