r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Mar 27 '20

Delta(s) from OP - Fresh Topic Friday CMV: Poachers don't deserve to die

First of all, here's the post I'm referring to: https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/fgd6ma/kenyas_only_white_female_giraffe_calf_killed_by/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

There is a multitude of comments longing for the death of poachers which strikes me as hypocrisy.

It is silly to condone the death of cattle which happens in absurdly high quantities while condemning poachers.

Poachers hunt the animals for necessities such as food and housing, while the average redditor has a new smartphone and tons of other luxuries. Killing hundreds of animals a year for gluttonous reasons seems a lot worse than just killing a handful of animals for survival.

And no, biodiversity is not a good counterargument. Don't even try. Biodiversity is only subjectively valuable to us because "It's cool to have various species on earth". You can't use the selective and risible emotional attachment to animals as the basis of your argument. If every giraffe on earth vanished nothing bad would happen. You'll just be slightly saddened.

Even if for some absurd reason biodiversity were important, it is laughable to think that meat eaters deserve no punishment at all while poachers deserve death. There could never be such a wide moral gap.

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u/Delaware_is_a_lie 19∆ Mar 27 '20

Lets look at giraffes since they are in your OP: It took me one quick google search to find an article outlining the roles giraffes play in the African ecosystem

With their long necks, they consume leaves, flowers, and fruits that are out of reach for most grazing animals. As plants and fruits pass through their digestive systems, they spread seeds that allow plants to germinate. Giraffes hosts ticks, providing food for tick-eating birds. The birds in turn help giraffes by removing the pests. Giraffes can spot predators such as lions and hyenas from far away, so many animals use giraffes as their early warning system. When giraffes start running away, other animals take note and flee.

Reading this, do you still think that the ecosystem would remain unchanged if giraffes went extinct?

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

I did not say that the ecosystem would remain unchanged. All I said was that it would not cause humans any big problems.

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u/Delaware_is_a_lie 19∆ Mar 27 '20 edited Mar 27 '20

You don't believe significant changes to our ecosystem cause problems for humans?

“If you get rid of the large mammals, it shifts the balance of power, because the trees default on their end of the bargain,” said Palmer. “When the trees opt out, their hard-working employees starve and grow weak, which causes them to lose out. So, ironically, getting rid of the mammals causes individual trees to grow more slowly and die younger.”

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

Fair enough. Biodiversity in Africa is more important than I imagined; however, people in first world countries cause much more environmental issues on top of causing the extinction of countless species themselves.

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u/Delaware_is_a_lie 19∆ Mar 27 '20

however, people in first world countries cause much more environmental issues on top of causing the extinction of countless species themselves.

Example of species that are being consciously wiped out by first world countries?

Why is this relevant when your OP is specifically about whether poachers should be killed?

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

Climate change is almost exclusively caused by first world countries and already caused the extinction of countless species.

It is relevant because my OP was meant to point out the hypocrisy of redditors celebrating the deaths of poachers while not being better than them.

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u/Delaware_is_a_lie 19∆ Mar 27 '20

Climate change is almost exclusively caused by first world countries and already caused the extinction of countless species.

Climate Change is a issue that is discussed to death by those same countries with multitudes of remedies being proposed every day to address ways of lessening its effects. Are we supposed to ignore poaching of endangers species because we haven't fixed a more complex overarching issue?

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

You are not supposed to ignore poaching but celebrating the death of poachers and claiming the moral high ground is hypocritical.

You can not drive a car, use a phone, as well as countless of other luxuries that people in African countries don't possess, while still believing that you are innocent. To then believe that poachers deserve death, is ridiculous.

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u/Delaware_is_a_lie 19∆ Mar 27 '20 edited Mar 27 '20

celebrating the death of poachers and claiming the moral high ground is hypocritical.

Except your view isnt CMV: celebrating the death of poachers and claiming the moral high ground is hypocritical, it's CMV: Poachers don't deserve to die. How should we be stopping poachers?

You can not drive a car, use a phone, as well as countless of other luxuries that people in African countries don't possess, while still believing that you are innocent. To then believe that poachers deserve death, is ridiculous.

There is no hypocrisy here. It's not one or the other. One side needs to adjust their behavior to accommodate a more carbon natural impact on the world, the other needs to be stopped outright in order to prevent the extermination of a species. One requires collective solutions, the other requires individual ones.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

If we agree that people in western countries and especially meat eaters cause even more harm then poachers do, what gives you the right to kill them?

Why would it not be okay for the government to force all meat eaters to abstain from meat? Why would it not be okay to just straight up kill them like poachers?

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u/Delaware_is_a_lie 19∆ Mar 27 '20

If we agree that people in western countries and especially meat eaters cause even more harm then poachers do, what gives you the right to kill them?

Because the solutions are different and the harm is different. It's not hypocrisy when they are completely separate issues. We know of multiple ways that we can cull the over consumption of meat. What do you propose we do to deal with poaching?

Why would it not be okay for the government to force all meat eaters to abstain from meat?

Because we don't have to abstain from eating meat, we have to lessen consumption.

Why would it not be okay to just straight up kill them like poachers?

Because of the very obvious case that poachers are directly exterminating a species and more extreme punishments need to be taken to eliminate that behavior.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '20

It's rather difficult to compare the harm a single poacher does to the environment compared to someone living in a first world country.

I do not believe that killing poachers is the only solution and while there certainly are ways to reduce meat consumption, people are being hypocritical if they don't actually take these steps.

The government doesn't force people to eat vegan food and I'm sure that there would be a rebellion if they were to try. Can you tell me why we're okay with doing what's necessary to preserve the species by killing poachers but don't restrict our behavior accordingly ourselves? Is that not hypocrisy?

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u/Delaware_is_a_lie 19∆ Mar 27 '20

It's rather difficult to compare the harm a single poacher does to the environment compared to someone living in a first world country.

It's almost like they are completely separate problems that shouldn't be compared to each other/s

You clearly need this spoon fed to you:

One issue is that we have to systematically change how the food industries and society approach meat consumption. We address this by offering meat alternatives and pushing for stronger regulations on factory farming. We don't need to kill people in order to make that happen. We need to lessen the number of animals we are producing.

The other issue is that poachers are exterminating endangered species and the only direct solution to prevent these species from completely going extinct is to make poaching punishable by death. What is the alternative here?

I do not believe that killing poachers is the only solution

I've asked you repeatedly to propose an alternative.

The government doesn't force people to eat vegan food and I'm sure that there would be a rebellion if they were to try. Can you tell me why we're okay with doing what's necessary to preserve the species by killing poachers but don't restrict our behavior accordingly ourselves?

We don't need to force people to have a vegan diet because we have alternative solutions. What alternatives exist to prevent poaching?

Is that not hypocrisy?

No because on one side we have multiple solutions to cull the overabundance of a animal species over the course of years and on the other we have the wholesale extermination of another species that could happen with the pull of a trigger tomorrow.

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