Blackfish...pass it on

[Keroin]

And then what?

There will always be employees, managers, shareholders to replace the enlightened. "Sweet money," as you say, will bring them. So we're back, once again, to the average asshole buying a ticket.

It's possible that the film will have a material impact on park attendance, but I wouldn't bet on it. Even those who are exposed to the obvious truth somehow manage to cling to willful ignorance, as Netzach aptly put it.

The only real hope for shutting down the whale tanks, dolphin swims, etc., is legislation. And even if such legislation did somehow make it through Congress, it's unclear to me that it would withstand a court challenge. It pains me greatly to say this, but the USSC is the most pro-big-business court in memory.

I'm sorry to be so pessimistic, and I'm absolutely NOT saying that activists shouldn't keep trying.

I don't disagree with you. But the power of testimony from "insiders" goes a long way to changing minds and, eventually, changing/creating laws and legislation. When people used to shout about the dangers of smoking and the culpability of cigarette manufacturers, they were often dismissed as radicals. But when someone from inside one of those companies steps forward and says, "Here's the firsthand truth", people start to listen. So that's one of my hopes, that one of these Seaworld execs finally starts listening to their conscience.

But I consider this film, and those like it, just one piece of a larger puzzle.

 

[Netzach]

I really don't think you can equate the geopolitical complexities of Uganda and the fact that hiring young fresh-faced humans to cuddle up to gigantic predatory mammals is maybe...not a super idea? Kind of like locking a door to a sweatshop workroom?

If the Bronx Zoo decided that feeding its tigers in a much more Siegfried and Roy fashion would draw more visitors and be special, would anyone tolerate that as a new hire? Would anyone think that was cool?

 

[JMohegan]

Keroin - check this out, from today's NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/19/b...retort-to-a-critical-documentary.html?hp&_r=0

A curious strategy indeed.

Best line is from the comments section, in which someone quotes...

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

- Upton Sinclair

 

[Keroin]

Keroin - check this out, from today's NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/19/b...retort-to-a-critical-documentary.html?hp&_r=0

A curious strategy indeed.

Best line is from the comments section, in which someone quotes...

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

- Upton Sinclair

Thanks for that! Yes, I read Seaworld's retort and the film maker's response to it yesterday on the Blackfish website. I am happy that the park is now drawing more attention to the film because, really, their position is indefensible and it shows.

I am constantly amazed by humanity's sense of entitlement. Just because we "can" so something doesn't mean we "should" do something. This comment: "SeaWorld executives say that without access to the whales — which are now bred at the parks, rather than captured wild — humans would be denied a connection to large, intelligent animals with which many feel a bond." is a prime example.

The arrogance. The complete disregard for what the whale wants or needs.

And as far as the assertion that encounters with captive Orcas is what makes people care about them? Bullshit. Grey whales are not held in captivity and yet there has been a concerted, (and so far largely successful), effort to protect them.

 

[Netzach]

NOW they're worried and "protecting their people." Orcas aside, what an incredible crock. I'm really interested in this from a labor perspective, also.

 

[JMohegan]

Saw the film on Sunday night. James Earl Jones comes off as a total dick; didn't see that one coming.

To the obsessive orca-demonizers among us: You should definitely go see the movie, or watch it in October when it airs on CNN. You'll LOVE the footage of three-year-old Tilicum being captured in Puget Sound. Really fucking great stuff.

 

[midwestyankee]

Here's a very thoughtful review of the movie: Salon.

This paragraph in particular struck me:

As our awareness of the complexity of the animal world continues to evolve, and as the expanding human population puts the planet’s other inhabitants in greater danger, certain questions become irresistible. If we come to believe that orcas and other large marine mammals are conscious beings, individuals not unlike ourselves, then by what right do we arbitrarily abduct and imprison them for our entertainment? Or even, as SeaWorld would have it, for our education, for the advancement of science and for the furtherance of conservation efforts? One could argue that when Africans or Native Americans were kidnapped from their homelands and put on display in the great cities of Europe, it ultimately served to broaden human understanding. That doesn’t mean anyone would defend that practice today.​

 

[Keroin]

James Earl Jones comes off as a total dick; didn't see that one coming.

I didn't think that was physically possible.

Here's a very thoughtful review of the movie: Salon.

This paragraph in particular struck me:

As our awareness of the complexity of the animal world continues to evolve, and as the expanding human population puts the planet’s other inhabitants in greater danger, certain questions become irresistible. If we come to believe that orcas and other large marine mammals are conscious beings, individuals not unlike ourselves, then by what right do we arbitrarily abduct and imprison them for our entertainment? Or even, as SeaWorld would have it, for our education, for the advancement of science and for the furtherance of conservation efforts? One could argue that when Africans or Native Americans were kidnapped from their homelands and put on display in the great cities of Europe, it ultimately served to broaden human understanding. That doesn’t mean anyone would defend that practice today.​

Love that bit, MWY. I like to hope that 50 years from now, future generations will look back on places like Seaworld and wonder how anyone ever let them exist.

 

[Netzach]

Mehh, I'm pretty uncomfortable equating Tilikum and Ota Benga. Can say they're both appalling for completely different reasons.

 

[JMohegan]

I would compare Tilicum to a lion in the zoo or an elephant in the circus.

The problem is not that we fail to recognize these creatures as quasi-human. The problem is that we fail to acknowledge Tilicum's claim to an unfettered existence in his own right.

I didn't think that was physically possible.

The film includes brief clips from videos shown to new animal trainers, and videos shown to park visitors. Jones appears as the mouthpiece for Sea World in both.

 

[Keroin]

The film includes brief clips from videos shown to new animal trainers, and videos shown to park visitors. Jones appears as the mouthpiece for Sea World in both.

Oh. Wow. Respect lost.

I wonder what he has to say about it.

 

[Keroin]

Mehh, I'm pretty uncomfortable equating Tilikum and Ota Benga. Can say they're both appalling for completely different reasons.

In the specifics, agreed. However, the general idea that some humans declare themselves "greater than" other races, species, life forms, etc, and use that as justification for abuse, that rings true for me.

 

[Evil_Geoff]

In the specifics, agreed. However, the general idea that some humans declare themselves "greater than" other races, species, life forms, etc, and use that as justification for abuse, that rings true for me.

Nature divides _all_ of life into two categories. Food and not-food.

I am not-food. I will, as a courtesy, put *most* humans and some other species in the not-food category because of their species survival and/or entertainment value...

Everyone/everything else is potential food. And I was a bad kid. I played with my food...

 

[Keroin]

Nature divides _all_ of life into two categories. Food and not-food.

I am not-food. I will, as a courtesy, put *most* humans and some other species in the not-food category because of their species survival and/or entertainment value...

Everyone/everything else is potential food. And I was a bad kid. I played with my food...

I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at Geoff. I'm no vegetarian. I have no problems killing and eating animals and being part of the food chain. I do have a problem with abusing or torturing animals just because, hey, I can.

I know there are plenty of sadists on this board, and I understand the mindset, but I've always thought that most still had some degree of ethics and a conscience? Are you suggesting that it's the natural order to take whales out of the ocean and abuse them for our entertainment?

 

[Evil_Geoff]

I know there are plenty of sadists on this board, and I understand the mindset, but I've always thought that most still had some degree of ethics and a conscience? Are you suggesting that it's the natural order to take whales out of the ocean and abuse them for our entertainment?

Not at all.

I'm suggesting that playing with your food is natural. Sometimes you don't have to eat the food, you just play with it.

Some seem to have forgotten how to enjoy that sort of thing.

 

[Keroin]

Not at all.

I'm suggesting that playing with your food is natural. Sometimes you don't have to eat the food, you just play with it.

Some seem to have forgotten how to enjoy that sort of thing.

So, in other words, you have no problem with Seaworld and whales in captivity for entertainment?

 

[Netzach]

without wanting to put words in Geoff's mouth, I think he's saying so-the-fuck-what if these creatures are meanies to their prey. I concur.

 

[Keroin]

without wanting to put words in Geoff's mouth, I think he's saying so-the-fuck-what if these creatures are meanies to their prey. I concur.

Ah, if that's it, I totally missed it. It just didn't seem to jive with the bit of mine he quoted. And if that is it, I also concur.

Just not clearly stated or I'm completely daft. Pick one.

 

[JMohegan]

Ah, if that's it, I totally missed it. It just didn't seem to jive with the bit of mine he quoted. And if that is it, I also concur.

Just not clearly stated or I'm completely daft. Pick one.

If I recall correctly, in a discussion of varying levels of sadism Geoff admitted to personally tying up cats and/or animals and torturing them when he was a kid.

[Geoff, if I got that wrong, my apologies. I tried to find the post I'm thinking of, but "cats" is too short a keyword for this search engine.]

Not at all.

I'm suggesting that playing with your food is natural. Sometimes you don't have to eat the food, you just play with it.

Some seem to have forgotten how to enjoy that sort of thing.

I watched enough kids doing pointless & cruel shit to animals of all types to agree that such cruelty is as "natural" for individual humans as other personality traits. Not universal, but natural nevertheless.

I have no memory of an urge to torture animals, ever. I guess it's possible that I've "forgotten", as you say, that I had the urge socialized out of me by my parents so early that I can no longer recall it. But this raises an interesting nature/nurture question.

Assuming you're now down with the whole consent thing as an adult, and that your adherence to the consent rule governs your behavior with regard to animals as well as humans so that you no longer directly torture the non-consenting of any species (not simply to avoid prosecution, but because you've absorbed an ethical construct that governs your personal behavior)... how did that happen? What force or authority convinced you that a higher ethical standard should trump your "nature"?

 

[Netzach]

I'm completely down with shooting and eating anything tasty as long as there's a large enough population of said thing to do it, if that's your thing. Although "large enough" in the hands of a fairly corrupt and money grubbing DNR is up for debate.

I don't even see the dreaded leg hold trap in the clear shades of black and white that a person growing up far from the whole issue would, as I did in the past.

You can argue blood and thrills and we're the humans not the stupid animals in a lot of cases, but this just doesn't seem to hearken back to the food/not food level of id, taking your kids to see the romanticized captive thingie. More Victorian and nutso. I don't even see the bullfight as "playing with your food" while it is, technically.

We're humans, and we exaggerate our hunter natures. We're techophiles and homo-buildy-inventy-fixy. The minute we figured out how to build our food instead of chasing our food we were SO THERE, vast swaths of us. The minute the food chasers figured out how to preserve that snack on legs, my God, they were happier to sit at home and smoke and screw all winter.

So yeah, I'm not buying this Sea World phenom as some lost heritage of the food chain and the child smash id. I see it as an exploitation for profit of the fact that we're now in the position of stewardship for everything in the world, because we're capable of killing everything there is around us.

Seriously, the business model is to find a token, exploit the fuck out of it, exploit the fuck out of the people working with it, and claim important scientific and conservational milestones that don't exist, while still resorting to WILD CAPTURE which no zoo in its right mind is actually allowed to do in this day and age. If this was a land animal zoo and people switched on their brains for a split second they would have been out of business decades ago.

Sure makes places like the San Diego zoo come out smelling like a rose, you have to admit, even if you don't believe in zoos. I guess I'm more permissive and less theoretical - I'm not against an institution that strives really hard in substantial ways to be less wrong and demonstrates actual conservational value.

 

[Keroin]

I'm completely down with shooting and eating anything tasty as long as there's a large enough population of said thing to do it, if that's your thing. Although "large enough" in the hands of a fairly corrupt and money grubbing DNR is up for debate.

I don't even see the dreaded leg hold trap in the clear shades of black and white that a person growing up far from the whole issue would, as I did in the past.

You can argue blood and thrills and we're the humans not the stupid animals in a lot of cases, but this just doesn't seem to hearken back to the food/not food level of id, taking your kids to see the romanticized captive thingie. More Victorian and nutso. I don't even see the bullfight as "playing with your food" while it is, technically.

We're humans, and we exaggerate our hunter natures. We're techophiles and homo-buildy-inventy-fixy. The minute we figured out how to build our food instead of chasing our food we were SO THERE.

I eat animal flesh. Some I kill myself, the rest are killed by others. My concerns with the eating of animals are primarily: Is it sustainable? Has it been kept/killed humanely?

I agree with JM that torturing animals is so common that it's hard to dismiss it as unnatural. Personally, I've always been repulsed by the more visceral forms of animal torture but I have to confess I had a bird in a cage as a child and also a few other pets (fish & hamster) that I did not care for properly and often neglected. And, yes, I went to zoos, animal parks, and aquariums with whale and dolphin shows right up into my early 20's. I'd call what I did then abuse.

(FYI: I think putting kids in charge of animals with no overall adult supervision is a bad idea 99% of the time).

Empathy, for many if not most, is learned. Also, culture plays a big role. I had to get used to living in countries where cats and dogs were frequently kicked, beaten, or starved. When I stand up on my soapbox and shout about the "wrongness" of marine animals in captivity, part of what I hope to do (along with an ever-growing number of voices) is change how our cultural views this behaviour.

It is Victorian and weird and creepy. And bullfights are horrific.

 

[Netzach]

I eat animal flesh. Some I kill myself, the rest is killed by others. My concerns with the eating of animals are primarily: Is it sustainable? Has it been kept/killed humanely?

I agree with JM that torturing animals is so common that it's hard to dismiss it as unnatural. Personally, I've always been repulsed by the more visceral forms of animal torture but I have to confess I had a bird in a cage as a child and also a few other pets (fish & hamster) that I did not care for properly and often neglected. And, yes, I went to zoos, animal parks, and aquariums with whale and dolphin shows right up into my early 20's. I'd call what I did then abuse.

(FYI: I think putting kids in charge of animals with no overall adult supervision is a bad idea 99% of the time).

Empathy, for many if not most, is learned. Also, culture plays a big role. I had to get used to living in countries where cats and dogs were frequently kicked, beaten, or starved. When I stand up on my soapbox and shout about the "wrongness" of marine animals in captivity, part of what I hope to do (along with an ever-growing number of voices) is change how our cultural views this behaviour.

It is Victorian and weird and creepy. And bullfights are horrific.

I was a pretty horrible child and unsuited for pets for a while, until I was about 8 or so. I don't really know what flipped that switch for me, just went on one day.

I've got some karmic atonement to do, for sure.

Bullfights, horrific or not, are not my culture and go back to Crete, possibly, and aren't really for me to comment on. If it's a panda fight it becomes my problem as a world citizen.

I consider the bullfight something I don't like, but I don't have to. In some places, kitten = tasty delicacy. Rock on. I could probably eat cat or dog, even, just not here. The whole meaning of cat or dog shifts elsewhere, and I'm ok with that.

Being part of the warped patch of the world that DID create Sea World, I see it as my problem and my culture to say WTF to.

 

[JMohegan]

If everybody's Fern, then Wilbur lives to a ripe old age and dies fat and happy even without the spider. (But humans are in serious danger of not getting enough protein and B-12.)

Seems to me that a certain level of brutality must be hardwired into omnivores like us as a matter of course, though that doesn't negate Netzach's description of us as "techophiles and homo-buildy-inventy-fixy." I also agree with her summary of Sea World's business model and motives.

But none of that explains - from the spectator's perspective - the appeal of Rome's Colosseum, dog fighting in North Carolina, bears riding bikes in a Chinese circus, or the long and seemingly interminable history of animals kept in cages just for the gawking. In the collective human genome, curiosity clearly trumps empathy and a lust for vicarious thrills trumps compassion.

At least now we've got XBox and Netflix instead of real gladiators. Maybe high-def TV and some education will turns folks away from Marineland and the average county zoo, but I wouldn't bet on it.

 

[Evil_Geoff]

If I recall correctly, in a discussion of varying levels of sadism Geoff admitted to personally tying up cats and/or animals and torturing them when he was a kid.

[Geoff, if I got that wrong, my apologies. I tried to find the post I'm thinking of, but "cats" is too short a keyword for this search engine.]

Apology accepted.

I watched enough kids doing pointless & cruel shit to animals of all types to agree that such cruelty is as "natural" for individual humans as other personality traits. Not universal, but natural nevertheless.

&
... from the spectator's perspective - the appeal of Rome's Colosseum, dog fighting in North Carolina, bears riding bikes in a Chinese circus, or the long and seemingly interminable history of animals kept in cages just for the gawking. In the collective human genome, curiosity clearly trumps empathy and a lust for vicarious thrills trumps compassion.

These points, precisely!

 

[Keroin]

These points, precisely!

OK. I don't disagree with you. But just because something's natural to a certain segment of the population, doesn't mean that it should be acceptable. A certain percentage of humans like to rape children, that's how they're wired up. But we, as a society, don't say, "Well, it's in their nature, so we should let them do it."

Just because some humans are wired up to enjoy being entertained by animals with no concern for the animals' welfare, doesn't mean that we all have to accept and allow it.