As Usual, PETA is Wrong About Whaling

[Yopaz]

Firstly, your history is a little bit selective: the only people who tended to directly benefit from whale products in the past were the rich aristocratic classes who could afford to purchase them. Whalebone corsets and whale-derived cosmetics were the property only of the wealthiest ladies of the era. Likewise, very few houses could afford to be entirely lit by whale-oil lamps. For the working classes, who made up the majority of the population, such items were unaffordable luxuries.

Secondly, while we can look back pragmatically and say that whaling had its place in the industrialisation of western society, the sad fact is that the more and more we learn about whales, the more our rapid decimations of their population seems like a crime against nature. These are highly intelligent animals, possibly second only to humans in terms of cognitive ability. Not only have they developed advanced forms of sonar communication that allow them to communicate with each other over vast distances, certain species have developed complex songs that are repeated and slowly changed over time. Moreover, science is proving with ever greater certainty that certain whale species exhibit self-awareness, and may be capable of higher forms of cognition than we had ever though possible.

No matter how you feel about PETA, or whether whaling helped industrialise the West, whaling was wrong, just as slavery and apartheid were wrong. Wales never posed a threat to us. We had no need to venture into their territory and start killing them off in such huge numbers. That we did is one of the great shames of humanity as a species.

I would hope that Ubisoft will shine a light on the horrible ethics of whaling, but I doubt it. An annual series is not exactly the sort of place developers go to in order to write commentary on the nature of whaling, and if Ubisoft turn it into anything more than an 'action-packed thrill ride', I'll be surprised.

Are you saying we shouldn't venture into the territory of whaling because it's wrong? Should we ignore part of our history because it's unpleasant? Whaling had an important part of what eventually became our modern society. Industry, machines, engines. If we want to portray the past should we ignore the fact that whaling was a part of it? Should we ignore slavery because slavery is wrong? Should we ignore how racism was socially accepted? The Nazis were bad. Should World War 2's terrible events be put behind us and forgotten?

Personally I find that a lot more disturbing than including it. We need to be reminded of the errors of our past, we need to make up our minds by seeing the facts and combining those with our personal ethics. Sure Assassin's Creed 4 could show us that everyone was against whaling and thinking the practice to be cruel and inhumane. That would however be a blunt faced lie. If they want to portray whaling as what it was then let them. Leave it up to us to find the practice disgusting. We don't learn anything from being spoon fed false information.

Also claiming Wales never held a threat to us is a lie. England did the right thing when they seized power over them.

 

[Lightknight]

I'm sure they're just afraid that someone is going to play the game and then buy/rent a whaling vessel along with a crew of experienced harpooners to emulate the awesomeness displayed in the game. [/sarcasm]

Since PETA funds lawyers that defend actual terrorists that bomb facilities they feel are harming animals I place them in the highest level of contempt when compared with noble groups that advocate proper treatment of animals without encouraging and helping those that would do harm to humans or use illegal methods to achieve their goals.

Whaling is still an issue and needs to be stopped in real life, but video games aren't going to increase the activity of it or even suddenly make us think it's a good thing any more than video games make us think murder a positive thing to go out and do (let alone including the exorbitant costs involved in whaling). Though I do admit that I have an overpowering desire to purchase a whip or morning star and then go vampire hunting in large castles... so maybe they're onto something... [/ridicule]

 

[LiMaSaRe]

There's not necessarily anything wrong with lobbying groups focusing on one specific area over another. Look at what feminist lobbying groups have done for women and continue doing for women, even today in Western societies. It's good to have minority voices in a democracy. It stops the overwhelming masses from disregarding the plight of those who would otherwise be ignored. Then it's up to government, as a democratically elected body, to decide what balance to strike between different interests. After all, if all everyone ever talked about was humans, animals would never be given any attention at all.

This is definitely a peeve of mine. Feminist lobbying groups provide a "minority voice"? the minority of which ~51% of Americans are a member? open a dictionary.

 

[LiMaSaRe]

No matter how you feel about PETA, or whether whaling helped industrialise the West, whaling was wrong, just as slavery and apartheid were wrong. Wales never posed a threat to us. We had no need to venture into their territory and start killing them off in such huge numbers. That we did is one of the great shames of humanity as a species.

Pigs and cows never posed a threat to us. Carrots and spinach never posed a threat to us. I'm not sure " not posing a threat to us" is much of a reason not to harm other species, because then we would not be able to kill any other living thing on Earth.
And as has been pointed out, no, whaling is not the same as slavery or apartheid, and your opinions are not facts anyway, there is no wrongness meter you can consult.

 

[Farther than stars]

There's not necessarily anything wrong with lobbying groups focusing on one specific area over another. Look at what feminist lobbying groups have done for women and continue doing for women, even today in Western societies. It's good to have minority voices in a democracy. It stops the overwhelming masses from disregarding the plight of those who would otherwise be ignored. Then it's up to government, as a democratically elected body, to decide what balance to strike between different interests. After all, if all everyone ever talked about was humans, animals would never be given any attention at all.

This is definitely a peeve of mine. Feminist lobbying groups provide a "minority voice"? the minority of which ~51% of Americans are a member? open a dictionary.

OK, first of all, America isn't the world.
Secondly, it's completely true that women are not a minority. However, that doesn't stop the media from portraying women's issues as minority issues, since they've been neglected in the past in the same way the issues of actual minorities have been neglected. Also, historically women have been oppressed in the same way other minorities have. So there are definitely parallels.
Thirdly, I didn't call women a minority. I named feminist lobbying groups as an example of lobbying groups and then I went on to talk about the importance of minority voices. So while you might be able to fault me for having a fairly weak link between my explanation and my illustration, I made no gross semantic error.

No matter how you feel about PETA, or whether whaling helped industrialise the West, whaling was wrong, just as slavery and apartheid were wrong. Wales never posed a threat to us. We had no need to venture into their territory and start killing them off in such huge numbers. That we did is one of the great shames of humanity as a species.

Pigs and cows never posed a threat to us. Carrots and spinach never posed a threat to us. I'm not sure " not posing a threat to us" is much of a reason not to harm other species, because then we would not be able to kill any other living thing on Earth.
And as has been pointed out, no, whaling is not the same as slavery or apartheid, and your opinions are not facts anyway, there is no wrongness meter you can consult.

More importantly, however, just because something is common practice, doesn't mean it's morally right. Saying that it is, is a very slippery slope, because you could start making cases in which the Holocaust would be OK.
And I definitely think that there is a strong principled case to be made for not killing animals, especially in the vein of vegetarianism:

-Healthwise, it's better for the individual not to eat meat.
-It's better for the environment not to eat meat.
-Not eating meat frees up resources which could be used to feed people in developing nations.

Just because people do kill animals and eat their meat, doesn't mean that's necessarily right, despite widespread consensus. In that same way people of the Dark Ages were wrong about the sun revolving around the earth, despite the fact that everyone thought that at the time.

 

[LarenzoAOG]

God forbid I play Assassin's Creed 4 and head out to a boat into the frigid water of the Arctic Circle for month after dreary month of harpooning defenseless whales.

Because you know, I'm a person, and according to PETA we're evil and even the slightest depiction of whaling will give me the worlds largest and most turgid erection for killing aquatic mammals, because... you know... reasons.

 

[Edguy]

"Gosh, how horrible that we can kill whales!!"

-Person playing game where (s)he murders dozens of humans.

 

[Jedi-Hunter4]

Bloody PETA... doing more to harm animal welfare then Cruella De Vil... Anyone who donates to that group is a moron and should be slapped around the head. Give your money to the RSPCA or ASPCA depending on where you are.

Look I think whaling is an odious practice, hell I think my government (Australia) needs to grow a set of balls and send ou navy down to the Antarctic waters we claim and sink the damn whaling boats 'conducting research' that's how much I'm against it... but from a historical perspective it happened, like the article said it was a vital part of the economy of the times, hell I grew up in a city that was literally founded (oldest in my state btw) as a place to hunt whales, there are still whaling artefacts around for the tourists.

If you're writing or making something set in a historical time period you really should do your research, as it seems the makers of AC4 are doing, PETA is just attention whoring again, like the author said in the article whaling, as terrible as it is, is something that needs to be involved as it is a historical vital bit of information, and gaming are increasingly becoming a medium for teaching things.

How many people learned more about the Crusades in AC1 than they did in their 'history classes', even after stripping the fantastical elements out, you can slip a lot of real information into a narrative if your careful.

Amen to sending the navy after them, the new Canberra carriers would do the job nicely (using aircraft to find offending ships then either guiding warships to intercept or sinking it themselves.

And risk a massive international incident that may lead to war. Great Idea. I hate whaling as much as the next guy, but sinking the ships won't solve anything in the long term.

They would be ordered to surrender etc, sinking would be if they tried to run. By entering our waters and refusing to surrender, the ship would under international law be a legit target. Same way the US sinks drug boats coming from south America.

And the whaling ships operate around Antartica, which is (with the exception of McMurdo) almost entirely unclaimed and therefore is not covered by any countries whaling laws.

Actually a HUGE chunk of it and it's waters belong to Australia, though Japan doesn't recognise it. Traditionally the only way to prove you own something is to defend it... so let's let the defence begin. According to recent poles a VAST majority of Australians are violently against Japanese whaling, and if they are in OUR waters we should make that point CLEAR.

Yer I don't see how that could back fire at all, I mean Japan only has a population 6x greater than that of Australia and a Available Military personnel 3.5x times bigger than Australia. They also have an economy that dwarfs Australia and are world leaders in numerous industry's that if turned to war production could provide untold advantages.

The other big name in the region for whaling is South Korea who have an astonishingly large Military of over 5 million nearly a quarter of the population of Australia.

It doesn't matter if Australia owns the those regions of sea, if they start killing significant amounts Japanese or Korean citizens, or imprisoning them for periods their governments deem intolerable Australia could be looking at consequences like trade embargoes/Military blockades across waters that could be catastrophic to the economy. Let alone (although I doubt due to the links Japan/South Korea/Australia have to other significantly powerful country's it would be allowed to escalate to open conflict without peacekeepers coming in) if it went to open conflict.

The reason Australia does little about it is because they can't, if thing's escalated to put it in basic terms they would be ****ed. I know numbers aren't everything but both Korea and Japan are significantly advanced technological nations with much larger defense budgets as well, they would not tolerate a significantly weaker country on the global stage killing or detaining their citizens, for activity's they either allow or half heartily try to stop.

 

[xdiesp]

Fact: japanese whaling does not harm the whales population even remotely as much as the british practice did, which reduced the species to near extinction. So Wrong People No 1 shouldn't act like the hero champions of enviromentalism against Wrong People No 2, it's just as hypocrital.

 

[Lightknight]

Fact: japanese whaling does not harm the whales population even remotely as much as the british practice did, which reduced the species to near extinction. So Wrong People No 1 shouldn't act like the hero champions of enviromentalism against Wrong People No 2, it's just as hypocrital.

Holding people responsible for historical actions (particularly history from before they were even alive) is silly, especially after policies have changed. Should Americans not speak out against current slave trading activities just because the US had slaves one and a half centuries ago? That's ridiculous. Wrong is wrong and people should speak up about regardless.

Interestingly enough, PETA itself makes me feel like whaling more than any game ever could.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Welcome to the darker side of "non-profit". Have you seen what pay-offs Amnesty International CEOs have been getting lately?

Yes, actually. Not-For-Profit is a surprisingly profitable business practice.

 

[bl4ckh4wk64]

I kinda just skimmed the comments, so if I'm repeating anyone, let me know. First off I'd like to say very well informed article. However, I would also like to point out that a large majority of PETA would never read it. First off, it goes against their ideals/beliefs/whatever they're saying at the time. This organization is like a little child. If you say something they don't like, they ignore it or chastise it. Secondly, you used logic and common sense as a basis in your argument, something PETA has never done. Adding in the larger vocabulary that they can't comprehend and the article turns into something no PETA member would read because they either don't want to or they can't. It really is a shame though because you use intelligent reasoning and it seems like you're just preaching to the choir here...

 

[I.Muir]

I'm not about to listen to PETA after I found out how many animals they have been personally responsible for killing.
Distracting people with overblown advertising campaigns from organizations that actually help.

 

[asro94]

Bloody PETA... doing more to harm animal welfare then Cruella De Vil... Anyone who donates to that group is a moron and should be slapped around the head. Give your money to the RSPCA or ASPCA depending on where you are.

Look I think whaling is an odious practice, hell I think my government (Australia) needs to grow a set of balls and send ou navy down to the Antarctic waters we claim and sink the damn whaling boats 'conducting research' that's how much I'm against it... but from a historical perspective it happened, like the article said it was a vital part of the economy of the times, hell I grew up in a city that was literally founded (oldest in my state btw) as a place to hunt whales, there are still whaling artefacts around for the tourists.

If you're writing or making something set in a historical time period you really should do your research, as it seems the makers of AC4 are doing, PETA is just attention whoring again, like the author said in the article whaling, as terrible as it is, is something that needs to be involved as it is a historical vital bit of information, and gaming are increasingly becoming a medium for teaching things.

How many people learned more about the Crusades in AC1 than they did in their 'history classes', even after stripping the fantastical elements out, you can slip a lot of real information into a narrative if your careful.

Amen to sending the navy after them, the new Canberra carriers would do the job nicely (using aircraft to find offending ships then either guiding warships to intercept or sinking it themselves.

And risk a massive international incident that may lead to war. Great Idea. I hate whaling as much as the next guy, but sinking the ships won't solve anything in the long term.

They would be ordered to surrender etc, sinking would be if they tried to run. By entering our waters and refusing to surrender, the ship would under international law be a legit target. Same way the US sinks drug boats coming from south America.

And the whaling ships operate around Antartica, which is (with the exception of McMurdo) almost entirely unclaimed and therefore is not covered by any countries whaling laws.

Actually a HUGE chunk of it and it's waters belong to Australia, though Japan doesn't recognise it. Traditionally the only way to prove you own something is to defend it... so let's let the defence begin. According to recent poles a VAST majority of Australians are violently against Japanese whaling, and if they are in OUR waters we should make that point CLEAR.

Yer I don't see how that could back fire at all, I mean Japan only has a population 6x greater than that of Australia and a Available Military personnel 3.5x times bigger than Australia. They also have an economy that dwarfs Australia and are world leaders in numerous industry's that if turned to war production could provide untold advantages.

The other big name in the region for whaling is South Korea who have an astonishingly large Military of over 5 million nearly a quarter of the population of Australia.

It doesn't matter if Australia owns the those regions of sea, if they start killing significant amounts Japanese or Korean citizens, or imprisoning them for periods their governments deem intolerable Australia could be looking at consequences like trade embargoes/Military blockades across waters that could be catastrophic to the economy. Let alone (although I doubt due to the links Japan/South Korea/Australia have to other significantly powerful country's it would be allowed to escalate to open conflict without peacekeepers coming in) if it went to open conflict.

The reason Australia does little about it is because they can't, if thing's escalated to put it in basic terms they would be ****ed. I know numbers aren't everything but both Korea and Japan are significantly advanced technological nations with much larger defense budgets as well, they would not tolerate a significantly weaker country on the global stage killing or detaining their citizens, for activity's they either allow or half heartily try to stop.

Actually, I think it wouldn't be necessary to go as far as sinking, they could always sail along them, making a lot of noise and scaring the whales off. That way they would avoid them from catchin anything, making whale fishing unprofitable. Best of all, this can be done in international waters too, because (correct me if I'm wrong) sailing along someone isn't forbidden, especially if they are "protecting" them. (Bonus points if, officially, it is to protect whalers from whales)

 

[Jedi-Hunter4]

Actually, I think it wouldn't be necessary to go as far as sinking, they could always sail along them, making a lot of noise and scaring the whales off. That way they would avoid them from catchin anything, making whale fishing unprofitable. Best of all, this can be done in international waters too, because (correct me if I'm wrong) sailing along someone isn't forbidden, especially if they are "protecting" them. (Bonus points if, officially, it is to protect whalers from whales)

Yer I mean if Australia wants to do that, they should have at it, was just counter-pointing the more extreme idea that Australia should be gunning down Japanese/Korean boats which would be an awful idea.

I really wouldn't know if it's illegal to do it in International waters, my guess at best it's probably frowned upon, but being as under international law whaling is essentially illegal doubt people would do anything about it.