• Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    Yes this they used to use wheel spinal fluid as a base for perfumes. Because of course they did.

    I think that practise was banned years ago mostly because it isn’t remotely sustainable.

    Iceland has this weird thing about wailing. You see all these whaling ships right alongside whale tour boats. It’s like they sort of get it but can’t quite get over the culture of whale hunting.

    Which in fairness is part of their culture but they have a Costco there now as well so…

    • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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      1 year ago

      Genociding Native Americans and slavery are part of American culture too, but we mostly stopped that.

      Would you accept “ItS tHEiR cUlTuRe” if someone decides whaler hunting is part of their history?

      • Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Are you seriously comparing the responsible hunting of a sustainable number of minke whales to the deliberate genocide of an indigenous population?

          • cnnrduncan@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Mink whaling is more responsible and sustainable than a lot of commercial fishing - compare the impacts of hunting a species that’s classified as “least concern” with deep-sea trawling, the hunting of certain endangered species of tuna, or the use of the eggs and/or young spawn of endangered fish as caviar or whitebait!

            Whaling definitely needs to go but (non-Antarctic) whaling gets an oversized amount of attention and it’s not unusual for people who are opposed to it to be financially supporting even more destructive forms of kaimoana.

            • stewie3128@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Simply being “not as bad” does not make it “good.”

              This is just providing masculine jobs for guys who won’t do anything else, while enriching the terrible people who employ them. There’s no use to whaling.

              • cnnrduncan@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                I very intentionally did not say that whaling is good, because it’s not. However, I believe that it is hypocritical to call for the banning of Icelandic whaling without also applying the same zeal to banning other forms of harmful commercial seafood, and that whaling is somewhat used to distract from the harms of more “normal” seafood.

                • Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  Or just standard livestock farming. I personally think that if people want to eat meat they should have to kill the first animal they eat in order to get a licence to eat meat.

          • Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Believe what you want. You’ve already decided that you are both offended and correct, so there’s nothing that anyone can say to change your mind. Just understand that not listening doesn’t make you right, it makes you a zealot.

        • spez_@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yes, it’s genocide. They’re barbarians who need to be put in their place for killing whales. I support a coup on the government

          • Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            And if you lived in a country that has whaling there might be some legitimacy to your coup. But as it stands you’re going to have to try to bribe the CIA to intervene on your behalf. Good luck paying them more than the Norwegian government does.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        I don’t think you know what “culture” means. It’s not just stuff that people did in the past, it’s what traditions are based around.

        How do you think Iceland traditionally got food? They’re not exactly surrounded by arable land are they?

      • ComplexDonut@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        Except can you really say “genociding native americans” and “slavery” are a part of American culture? Is it “customary” of Americans to kill native americans and slavery can be an American trait?

        • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Yes, it was explicitly part of American culture, and is written into our very foundational documents.

        • michaelrose@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          If you include the period before we split from England we spent centuries taking land that didn’t belong to us and building our economy at least partly on slavery. If you look at the South in that time frame slavery permeated their culture. It is as fair to say that slavery was if anything much more deeply embedded in Southern culture than whaling in Iceland.

        • escapesamsara@discuss.online
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          1 year ago

          Except can you really say “genociding native americans”

          As a country, the US has spent more of its existence genociding native Americans than allowing women to vote, or having a standing army.

          and “slavery” are a part of American culture?

          The US currently has fully legalized privatized slavery. You, specifically you, can own a slave in the US right now. You can even treat them as if the constitution does not apply to them in any way. Simply buy a prisoner and get a judge to commit that prisoner to you for the length of their sentence. It’s so ingrained in our culture, we’ve never stopped the practice.

      • jcit878@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        whales have something in their brain cavity that was considered valuable at the time, can’t remember what it was called or what it was used for but I think that was the equivilant thing they were going for in Avatar

        • Roboticide@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Whales have been used for a number of resources in the past.

          Oil from blubber was a big one, and used in everything from lamps to soap.

          Ambergris was a perfume base.

          Spermaceti, the substance in the head of sperm whales, was used for candles and also lamps, as it was a higher quality.