• DessertStorms
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    12811 months ago

    Fuck poachers, don’t get me wrong, but fucking hell, I wish people had the same kind of energy when it came to billionaires, who are literally responsible for the deaths of millions of humans (by virtue of hoarding so many resources as well as creating and maintaining a system that relies on exploitation and suffering to benefit them and only them).

    If only society cared about oppressed and marginalised people as much as it does about cute animals.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      Society doesn’t care about cute or endangered animals. The rangers represent a minority.

      • DessertStorms
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        2411 months ago

        Society doesn’t care about cure or endangered animals

        That’s bullshit.
        I’d agree that not enough people care, but significantly more people care about cute endangered animals than they do marginalised and oppressed human beings.

        It doesn’t take a study to see the difference in attitudes and engagement (though studies have been done, feel free to invest your own time looking them up).

        The fact that you’ve responded to me to focus on the animals but not on the people my comment is actually about is a perfect illustration of my point.

        • @[email protected]
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          1711 months ago

          The fact that you’ve responded to me to focus on the animals but not on the people my comment is actually about is a perfect illustration of my point.

          That’s all a narrative you created in your head. Besides, many of the same solutions that would protect endangered species would also protect marginalized people. You’re trying to make this into a Trolley Dilemmas for some reason. Who do you think are the ones buying dick powder made form Rhino horns?

    • @TopShelfVanilla
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      -2911 months ago

      Your attitude is the only real reason for any gun control in America.

      • DessertStorms
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        2111 months ago

        Yes - the rich and powerful don’t want those they oppress and exploit to rise up against them.

        • @TopShelfVanilla
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          -3511 months ago

          Wow, watch me get down voted by all the redditors flooding the site. Wish they would take their bootlicking back where they came from if they enjoy the oppression so much

            • @[email protected]
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              1611 months ago

              His down votes must be because of redditors, so he doesn’t even CARE what they think! 😭

            • @TopShelfVanilla
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              -3211 months ago

              If you really don’t know, then you probably can’t understand. If you’re being ironic, you missed and hit moronic.

          • R0cket_M00se
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            1111 months ago

            Bro, your opinion is like the majority of reddit are you high?

            • @TopShelfVanilla
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              -611 months ago

              What opinion? The only reason any piece of gun legislation has ever passed is to keep minorities and poors from arming themselves against oppression. That’s fact. Reddit is a bootlicking hellscape of do nothing liberals who want dasy government and mommy corporate to keep them safe and busy.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 months ago

            My guy, it’s okay if you get downvoted here. This instance blocks brigading trolls so they’re likely legit.

            I’ve been downvoted here on like two comments so far and I really, really don’t care. You can manifest the same attitude within.

            • @TopShelfVanilla
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              -1011 months ago

              Oh I’m not mad, just saw the instant emotional response to a simple statement of fact and it felt like I was back in the centrist circle jerk again.

                • @TopShelfVanilla
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                  -511 months ago

                  Yeah it’s whatever. I’m not here looking for friends, especially not in a meme community.

    • @[email protected]
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      3111 months ago

      While I like the idea of every poacher being neutralised, I also understand that the “poach police” may intentionally/inadvertently kill innocents with their blanket immunity; plus many poachers may be poor af hired-guns that aren’t the actual source or root cause for the market, and may not dent the trade at all… Hope I’m wrong.

      • @[email protected]
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        1111 months ago

        I also understand that the “poach police” may intentionally/inadvertently kill innocents with their blanket immunity;

        Is there any evidence that that has been happening? (This article is from 2017, and it mentions “more than 20” poachers being killed in 2015, but doesn’t mention any non-poachers being killed, which it seems it would have, given it’s talking about the downsides.)

        While I agree that taking the fight to the people financing the poaching, reducing the number of poachers - and providing a very clear disincentive for other “poor af” hired-guns to take up the mantle - could still help.

        Personally, I don’t think any implied sanctity of human life extends to people who are killing endangered animals for profit.

    • @[email protected]
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      1111 months ago

      Holy shit. Thanks for this counterpoint. I thought I was onboard with this and now I realize there’s more to this issue. As always…

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      Dude I genuinely thought this was satire at first seeing it’s on the memes community. It’s real? What the actual fuck?!

    • @[email protected]
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      1311 months ago

      Average Hogwarts student: Charms homework is so difficult, but later we’re going to prank that annoying ravenclaw by putting slugs in his hat lol.

      HL Protagonist: If I can group these goblins and dark wizards together, I can kill a dozen of them with a single killing curse. Excellent!

    • @[email protected]
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      2511 months ago

      Poverty hardly justifies crime. It is a cause not a justification. They are still poachers doing illegal hunting for protected animal on protected land. Also poaching is rather lucrative, even if the government raises income 200% poaching will still stand out.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 months ago

        Yes, no matter how rich you are, sleeping under a bridge is illegal and immoral ! Shoot on sight !

      • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
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        1811 months ago

        yeah no if I can feed my starving family by killing some animal I would take that in a heartbeat. In contrast, if I can work in a factory and make enough to live decently I’m not going into the woods to try and kill something that can kill me back and risking getting into trouble with the law. Have fun in perfect actor land where you live though.

        • @[email protected]
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          411 months ago

          They can choose to hunt deer or I don’t know monkey to feed their family or even steal food. All justified. Poaching is extremely lucrative. Its like saying I’m robbing my sixth bank because I’m poor. They are not eating the rhino. I’m not OK with gunning these people but it is a shit act even if you are poor

          • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
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            311 months ago

            Like yeah it’s a bad thing to do, but I can see why someone might do it once to try and set their family up. Yes they should be stopped and punished, but should we personally hold them in contempt? There’s definitely better off people involved with it, fuck them, and fuck the shit heads who are making the market.

        • @[email protected]
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          311 months ago

          This is all relative. Their paychecks are nothing compared to what people have in the west, they are not eating lobster. Its like you get 1 usd a day for manual labor or 100 usd for a single rhino shot. So the difference is multiple fold. They know what are they getting into. It’s like someone asks you to sell coke. You know you will get easy money and you know the risks as well.

      • @[email protected]
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        111 months ago

        Poverty does justify crimes. When you need to eat, killing a rhino not so bad.

        I hate this mentality where poverty crimes are evil but any rich guy destroying the lives of millions of people through financial schemes or to make a better profit are considered almost like good guys. This is completely fucked up.

        • @[email protected]
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          1411 months ago

          So if they are poor and eradicating a species off the face of the planet, then they should get a pass? They have the equipment and skills to hunt non-endangered animals which would provide food for themselves and their family. Excess meat could likely be traded or sold. Poaching is not a crime of necessity.

          • @[email protected]
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            311 months ago

            What if we shoot the wealthy people buying the horns instead? Wouldn’t that be better? I think so.

            It’s like fighting drugs by arresting the last guy in the chain selling the stuff in the street.

            But it’s always easier to blame and punish the poor guy at the end of the food chain.

            • @[email protected]
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              11 months ago

              You are using 2 different analogies that contradict each other. The poachers are cultivating a product, similar to poppy and coca plants, not the street dealers, and the wealthy are the buyers / “users”.

          • @emergencyfood
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            111 months ago

            The problem is that under Indian law, hunting non-endangered species such as deer and rabbit is just as illegal (most of the time).

            • @[email protected]
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              411 months ago

              And if they were hunting non-endangered species for food, then I would be outraged by a lethal response, but that’s not the case here.

              • @emergencyfood
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                111 months ago

                My point is that the forest laws and forest departments in India are set up to criminalise tribals whatever they do. Most of the rules date to the British era, when the government wanted to protect game animals from the tribals and farmers. So when tribals, who have been hunting boar and other common animals for thousands of years, are suddenly told that hunting for food is a crime, they have no option but to break the rules. Now they have a choice - keep hunting boar and deer every week and risk arrest each time, or kill a rhino and get enough money to last a few years. If we could relax the laws on hunting common species, I expect to see rhino poaching go down automatically. Some Indian states have more liberal hunting laws (for tribals) than others, and in those places you do see reductions in human-animal conflict.

                If you don’t want to take my word for this, or would like to read more, I would suggest the last two sections of An Ecological History of India by Prof. Madhav Gadgil and Ram Guha.

                • @[email protected]
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                  111 months ago

                  I am happy to take your word for most of it, but it does not change my view. I am completely in favor of identifying and taking steps to remediate the underlining cause of all forms of crime rather than simply punishing violators. That being said, the hubris that an individual, or group of individuals supercedes the survival of an entire species is repugnant to me. I have no sympathy for anybody that actively contributes to the the extinction of another species (except mosquitos).

                  The one point of your argument that I do question is the “kill a rhino and get enough money to last a few years” claim. While I have not looked into the details in India, as I understand it, poachers in Africa can make roughly the equivalent of an average 1 month salary for killing 1 rhino. If, in India, they make enough money to last a few years than either poachers are almost exclusively first timers, which seems highly unlikely to me, or they are doing it for greed rather than survival, which would negate your argument of the restrictive hunting laws.

        • @[email protected]
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          611 months ago

          There is a broad spectrum of crimes, from stealing an apple to mass murder other people. When you decide to steal food from the supermarket to feed your family it is justified. Hunting… I don’t know… deer or hogs is justified so they can feed their family. But picking a very lucrative business and say you are doing it coz of poverty is kinda fucked. Just for clarity: I’m not agreeing with gunning these people down.

        • @[email protected]
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          111 months ago

          No, stealing is justified. Not wiping out endangered species. Morality is complex and there is nuance in this discussion.

      • PosadistInevitablity [he/him]
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        -111 months ago

        Hunting is perfectly normal and has been a key to human survival since the dawn of man. It’s suddenly immoral because some capitalist country said so?

        Rethink what crime is.

        • @[email protected]
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          1211 months ago

          There’s a bit of a difference between hunting a gazelle for its meat and another for poaching an endangered rhino for its horn.

          • PosadistInevitablity [he/him]
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            11 months ago

            Because otherwise rich people won’t get to see them on safari.

            No animal life is inherently more valuable than one another. The concept is absurd and so full of contradictions.

            I’m not about to cheer the violent murder of a human being to preserve a fucking safari.

            • ɠισƚԋҽϝʅσɯ
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              11 months ago

              Nah fuck humans. The worst animals of them all. I wont advocate violence but I wont shed a tear over a dead poacher nor rich horn buyers. Humans can just make more humans, with ease. Rhinos aint never called me bad names. Im im the Rhinos corner.

              • PosadistInevitablity [he/him]
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                11 months ago

                Eco fascist drivel.

                You’ll be cheering when they start killing climate refugees in a couple decades

                “Crossing the border is illegal!!!”

    • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
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      11 months ago

      Honestly, this is the biggest thing that sets off my 👁 senses whenever some version of this post goes around. It squicks me out in the same way as the “Somali pirates OWNED” genre of content that was popular a while back. Stuff that encourages and socially conditions us us to cheer the killing of people who’s have been brought to this point by hostile economic conditions.

    • @[email protected]
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      1011 months ago

      Yes, this is why financial crimes and financial crime laws don’t exist in rich countries!! Oh…

  • @[email protected]
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    511 months ago

    I know a well-connected resort liaison in South Africa. This is what happens on game reserves with predators/scavengers, nature has a way of cleaning up the evidence.

  • Polymath
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    311 months ago

    It is important to note here how well-indoctrinated the US and Europe are to “point the finger” and absolve responsibility…

    We don’t refer to stuff as “deforestation,” we call it “urban planning” or “development.”
    We don’t talk about “poaching,” we just accept that farmers and the agriculture industry finds natural predators inconvenient, so we allow them to kill off coyotes, foxes, mountain lions, etc.

    We have just as many people doing similar, but for some reason we’re only taught to lose our minds over conservation elsewhere, in the places where the US intentionally destabilizes (with Europe) to keep prices low for us. After all, it’s what our economies are built upon: ruin everywhere, so we can call ourselves the heroes for killing off indigenous folks to areas just for the crime of living and wanting things to feel fair.

    Check yourself. This isn’t “the way”

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      Well, that’s naive and misinformed. And also irrelevant; endangered species are too important to the environment for poor people to justify killing them off to buy food. Poor people have agency and therefore responsibility for their actions too. Your stance is both anti-environment and anti-working class.

      We can and should help the poor in ways that don’t involve absolving them of responsibility for driving endangered species extinct.

      • @[email protected]
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        911 months ago

        Well articulated. We can’t absolve people of responsibility just because they are poor, unless we absolve them of all responsibity and treat them like children, and put the ones who have no caregivers in a foster care system. I’m fairly certain nobody wants that.

        Yes, I am aware poverty is not something you can just wish away, but they know what they’re doing. Same as the people illegally cutting down forests in Eastern Europe. They’re also poor but they’re also assholes. They also have a penchant for shooting people who try to stop them. Pretty sure them rhino poachers would do bad stuff to anybody getting in their way as well.

      • Polymath
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        511 months ago

        That’s exactly it: we’re taught “white good; everyone/everything else bad” and it seeps into our conservation and environmentalism efforts, getting spun into a tizzy about what happens in the Amazon or Africa, but, telling-ly, not really having the same depth and strength of emotions for wildlife conservation at home.

  • @[email protected]
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    211 months ago

    no, fuck murder.

    Don’t get me wrong, fuck poachers, but murder is never the solution, it just breeds escalated violence.

    • @[email protected]
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      1311 months ago

      Actually they tried the normal way, where they didn’t shoot and asked the poachers to surrender / tried to arrest them. But the rangers would get shot and the animals would continue to get poached.

      Seeing this as a problem, a new executive order / law was passed allowing shoot at sight orders at national parks / protected zones.

      Poaching has reduced, the number of rangers getting shot has reduced. The number of poachers getting shot has reduced (they don’t wanna fuck around anymore).

      Overall it has increased peace.

    • @[email protected]
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      711 months ago

      Murder is bad, but humans are the problem. And humans being stupid chaotic creatures, it often devolves in to dirty things like killing. You can say all you want about right and wrong but this is a messy situation and this is the solution they have been forced in to using, after trying the peaceful method for years

    • @[email protected]
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      611 months ago

      It’s not murder, it’s legal punishment. The poachers use gun violence against rangers, so it’s a reasonable escalation.

      • PosadistInevitablity [he/him]
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        11 months ago

        It clearly says “on sight”

        You don’t want to wait for them to shoot first, you just want to murder them.

        No society on earth considers shooting on sight to be legal punishment

    • @[email protected]
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      311 months ago

      Endangered-animal lives are much more precious to me than humans-who-are-willing-to-murder-endangered-animals lives, so I disagree.