Slashdot Mirror
EBay Pressured To Block Sales of Ivory Products
RickRussellTX writes "eBay is being pressured
by an animal welfare group to ban sales of ivory and animal tooth
products on its site. Although eBay is in compliance with the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species when it warns users that
such postings may be inviolation of national and international law, the
International Fund for Animal Welfare
is demanding that they go a step further to search for and delete any
posting of ivory products."
Where there is a demand, someone will supply, and a market will spring up. Perhaps eBay should get out on moral grounds, but if these folks think it will make a dent in the trade, they are naive.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
That will work great for my new eBay listing...
African Elephant - tusks removed - contains 0% Ivory!
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
Ohh, and I was going to buy that Ivory backscratcher!
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Well then - how am I going to sell my old piano then?
eBay isn't going to do anything about it.
Ebay isn't interested in policing the existing business to protect users, so you can be damned sure it won't do anything for elephants.
Law is the law... why give any attention or weight to what yet another "save this thing fund" wants to bitch about. If it's not Do It For The Children, it's Do It For The Planet/Animals.
Give me a break.
They're too busy doing away with important things like virtual items in MMOs!
Ebay does not give a crap, so long as they get their cut. Want proof? Go ahead and report any of the THOUSANDS of Taiwanese bootleg anime DVDs on Ebay and see if even one gets yanked.
I'll save you some time - they won't. Last time I tried (and this, I will confess, was almost a decade ago) I was told to provide proof that I was the copyright holder.
Time for me to start re-selling Ivory Soap on eBay if they do. I love to help other folks train their word filters. Like the NSA. God is great, isn't he?
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Yeah but black markets exist already and for many people the desire to possess such an item is not large enough to get involved with the black market.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
What am I going to do with my warehouse full of Ivory Bar Soap? I was just about to launch all my ebay auctions and make a fortune. I'm ruined!
Reading the story, it doesn't seem like there's a single demonstrated case of illegal ivory sale on EBay, just a lot of numbers being thrown around about ivory sales overall.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
As long as eBay is following the law they should tell those bleeding hearts to go pound sand.
I have no problem with this at all. No one in the world is supposed to be permitted to sell anything but antique ivory. So why would eBay be exempted from this?
Now, it won't do much to hamper the trade but it will do something so why not do it since it doesn't require that much effort? The fact that the dent is likely to be tiny is not an excuse not to do it.
Commercial enterprise complies fully with the law, but private lobby group pressures them to go further and restrict everyone, citing a reason best paraphrased as "it's the only way to be sure no one is doing something illegal with it!!"
We'll be drawing plenty of parallels to every other current event when we cover this on the news at 11.
But you can buy any old shit on ebay ...
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
The article is not 100% clear on whether an item must be older than 100 years or just older than the 1989 ban to still legally be sold.
Does anyone know?
I collect old straight razors, and have been looking to sell an old piano (not 100 years old, though) so the issue affects me personally.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
So just because there's no magic bullet everyone should just let them do it unimpeded?
Same for drugs, kiddie-porn and nuke warhead sales?
With that mentality, why bother doing anything which isn't easily accomplished in one small step!
Seems to me that the authorities would be better off to LET these sales happen over eBay so that they can more easily find the wretched scum...
How could they? The sellers can just lie and say it's pre-CITES. What' eBay supposed to do? Have everyone who wants to sell ivory get some sort of certificate and mail it to eBay before listing? Or eBay inspects everything? The only recourse is to ban all ivory sales.
I sell my Ivory on Craigslist so I don't get double banged on the eBay/PayPal fees. Although, I'm anticipating the day where eBay starts mandating PayPal for Craigslist face to face purchases.
...Live together in perfect harmony.
(let's sing together !)
-- Rastignac was here.
... that somebody's gonna try selling a few bars of ivory soap on Ebay and their auction will get deleted?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If you outlaw all ivory products then the legitimate ones get screwed over too.
/. will likely be ok with that.
Then again that is the same premise behind gun control so
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
(Disclaimer: I'm the OP.)
The issue that bothers me, and it has nothing to do with elephants or ivory, is that eBay is merely a silent broker in these transactions. Could you realistically expect the relevant carriers of information to ban exchanges of ivory arranged over e-mail? Over postal mail? The telephone? At swap meets?
eBay has built the smoothest, most liquid, easiest-to-use method of arranging private sales between geographically disparate private parties. That results in transaction volume that far exceeds the capability of any single person to review it (and read TFA and you'll see that even IFAW built its statistics by doing the most basic text searches -- they didn't actually try to verify anything).
Organizations that like to tell people what to do and get themselves in the news, like the IFAW, hate such liquid markets. They want all transactions involving their particular interest to be monitored, filtered, verified, etc. Even though they are not willing to do it themselves.
So if we monitor, filter, and verify transactions involving ivory, where do we stop? Do we ever stop? Does private enterprise go away and get replaced by "monitored and certified enterprise"?
I am the stupider for having read that inane babble. Please remove yourself from the internet posthaste.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare is just trolling for attention. It's a tried and true technique. Attack a large and popular entity and charge them with the responsibility of handling your pet project to save the world.
How about this "International Fund for Animal Welfare"? Instead of bitching real loud, how about you bid for the ivory, then tell the sellers that you will pick it up. Show up at the seller's door with law enforcement.
Oh, I see. That doesn't get you free advertisement for your fund raising efforts.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Stop going after the the big company because it is easier, you should be going after the person that is actually selling/posting the item.
I love how the commenters on this site so easily flip their arguments when it is a company they don't like. As long as ebay is in compliance with the law, they should not give into pressure by special interest groups.
1. Profit!
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
Neil Armstrong reached the moon in one small step. Seems to me that's all we really need...
There is a female human on Slashdot. Please don't be so hasty.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The "right of the people" to keep murder weapons is archaic and backwards. We abolished slavery because it was unnecessary and wrong, and we should abolish gun ownership because it is unnecessary and wrong. Everyone likes to cite police response times as a factor in gun ownership but if the police did not have to worry about armed vigilante citizens they could go in with the knowledge that they are better-armed than whoever they might encounter and with no fear of being shot. Response times would improve and officer morale and safety would be increased a thousand times.
As far as I am concerned, there is no such thing as a legitimate gun trade.
Where you gonna get a nuke warhead?
For the rest of your stupid argument - yes. Kiddie porn is already made, and drugs fall under "my body, my right."
Unless it's an ivory gun or something, selling ivory that was yanked off of an elephant isn't going to kill anyone. If you want to help, target the people stealing tusks and selling new ivory, rather than those with a bit too much stuff in their attics.
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
Darn it, Where am I going to get my Ivory soap is Ivory is banned from ebay?
... sigh...
Do you EVER listen to people?
A) there is more to gun ownership than killing people
B) outlawing guns will do NOTHING to ensure that the police will be better armed than whoever they're about to encounter. You know, the whole "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" thing.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Where there is a demand, someone will supply, and a market will spring up.
You know that some elephants are not endangered by far (e.g. the African elephant)? Do you know that elephants are being culled because there are too many of them and they fuck up the environment?
I suspect that this moratorium on ivory has nothing to do with conservation â" just like the ban on whaling has nothing to do with conservation (btw there are almost 200,000 minke whales â" they are by far not endangered, and sustainable use is possible).
This ban on ivory (and other products based on elephants) has a lot more to do with an agenda that certain âoeGreensâ push.
Actually, from Ebay. Google told me so.
"Find new and used" nuclear weapons or black people. They've got everything.
http://www.reubenyau.com/black-people-on-ebay-again/
And I was going to buy that ivory backscratcher...
If there are victims then the activity should be illegal:
ivory: victim = animals & ecosystem => illegal.
drugs: victim = user => legal
kpron: victim = kids => illegal (think of the children)
nukes: victim = many many => illegal
I agree with your overall point though. This would be a very small step in stopping the illegal ivory trade, but a step nonetheless.
Anyone who believes all these things should be legalised should live with a drug addict for 6 months. Believe me, it's not pretty.
Ivory is a renewable resource. The problem is in determining when the source is legal. There aren't many elephant and walrus farms. There are some legal sources of ivory...and why does Wikipedia say eBay banned ivory in 2007? If it's already banned, what are we talking about? Don't make me RFTA!
*sarcasm* Oh, you're right! Nobody ever committed murder until the invention of the firearm, so if we divest ourselves of this terrible invention, we'll also eliminate murder!
Newsflash, a-hole. People have murdered each other since there were people, and they will continue to do so, be it with a knife, a club, or even a spoon. That is the problem with you liberals. You want to try to turn a dangerous world into a warm and safe cocoon for everyone, but the only way you can do so is through fascism. Your beliefs are as dangerous as they are ignorant. The data is overwhelming that gun bans only create victims. If someone is intent on committing murder, do you really think that a lesser law like a gun ban is going to stand in their way?
I'd say drug abuse definitely has a victim. In fact, anyone who's seen pictures of Amy Winehouse's skin condition has grounds to sue for emotional distress.
If the laws weren't such that the prices become artificially inflated you would not have that problem as the drugs would be easily and cheaply available to the addicted.
eBay needs a competitor who is willing to sell all the things eBay won't (lawfully acquired ivory, concert and sporting tickets of all types, legal second-hand copies of AutoCad, Scientology e-meters), along with everything else. Also one who takes payments other than PayPal. Someone like that ought to eventually eat eBay's lunch.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
That makes the HUGE assumption that I was actually involved in the selection of my government.
And, I'll note that the US Constitution specifically states that people have the right to bear arms... and one huge reason for that is in the event that they DO need to rebel against their government.
...or my old 19th- and early-20th-century scrimshaw? Much scrimshaw is passed down as heirlooms and was made when it was still legal to make it.
Have you driven a fnord... lately?
You must wait a little bit before using this resource; please try again later.
Gun Control: The theory that 110 pound women should have to fistfight with 220 pound rapists.
It is not ebay's responsibility to enforce the law. Law enforcement is responsible for that. If some organization wants to monitor ebay in order to find and report crimes, they can do so using ebay's APIs.
Next thing you know, they'll want me to give back my elephant's foot ergonomic chair and my Siberian Tiger solar-powered coat ...
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
|For the rest of your stupid argument - yes. Kiddie porn is already made, and drugs fall under "my body, my right."
At least until you wind up addicted and so far out of your mind you'll mug little old ladies to get your next fix.
Then I go to jail for mugging little old ladies. Problem solved.
Yes, the world is black & white. No shades of grey, oh naive one.
Or, Rather getting out on moral ground, go the other way. Give eBay rights to share the sellers information to head hunters.
well what about old ivory? things originally purchased in the 30's or 40's that you've found or have had forever and want to sell? how would this affect those auctions
Right, because drug companies selling legal drugs are so good about keeping the prices down.
Seriously, there's more at issue than just the cost of the drugs.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
There are legitimate sales of ivory. Antiques dealers come to mind as the most obvious of them.
Unfortunately, eBay will probably cave on this as they do with so many other things.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Also, legalization would make it possible to not self-incriminate when going to get help for the drug issues, and would actually make it easier to get out of such a life.
I'll note, however, on the child porn thing... higher demand would equal higher production. So, an artificial demand constraint (illegalizing viewing of it) is necessary, even with artificial supply constraints.
outlawing guns will do NOTHING to ensure that the police will be better armed than whoever they're about to encounter. You know, the whole "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" thing.
Shit, just look at Mexico (disc. IAAMex), where guns are outlawed, and yet you have all these narcs with granades, AK-47 and whatnot
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
and one huge reason for that is in the event that they DO need to rebel against their government.
I'd love to see that happen. Mr. Bhtooefr bearing his shotgun goes all angry shooting againstan Bush's M1 Abrams.
Keep the faith amigo!
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Same for drugs, kiddie-porn and nuke warhead sales?
Yes, no, no
Slashdot is predominantly libertarian (or following the ideology while using a different term for it, e.g. "non-neocon conservative"), usually more are agaisnt restrictions than for. Nonetheless, there's always plenty who present libertarianism as if it were a fringe viewpoint here.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
At least until you wind up addicted and so far out of your mind you'll mug little old ladies to get your next fix.
Then I go to jail for mugging little old ladies. Problem solved. This solves the problem of you mugging little old ladies, but not the fundamental problem of what made you mug little old ladies in the first place.
The little old ladies don't like being mugged, and they tend to vote.
Isn't a "used nuclear weapon" a euphemism for "massive fireball hotter than the surface of the sun?" If so, one wonders how the shipping is handled...
I'm disabling ads until because I choose not to reward redesigns that are less usable than "view source".
Several decades back, one of the major animal control agencies in Africa investigated the issue of ivory poaching -- and to their own astonishment, discovered it was entirely a myth. Poaching simply wasn't happening.
And they discovered that those huge "elephant graveyards" had another cause entirely.
Elephants are grazers, NOT browsers. This means they eat, and are designed to eat, GRASSES. They are NOT designed to eat shoots and twigs, nor can they digest that much cellulose.
The elephants found dead in those mass graveyards all had one thing in common: a large ball of half-digested tree branches lying inside each carcass. NONE of them had the large-calibre bullet hole in their skull or ribcage that would be left by an elephant gun (you don't hunt elephants with a deer rifle; you hunt them with armor-piercing shells the size of a Polish sausage. And you get ONE shot -- and if it's not a clean kill, the elephant kills YOU.)
And their tusks had not been CUT off, as would be the case with a fresh corpse -- they'd been removed from the tooth socket entirely, as can only be done if the flesh has already rotted away.
Suddenly, all was explained. These elephants died not from being poached, but of impacted bowels (which if untreated is 100% fatal).
And why was that happening? It's a direct result of Africa's exploding population, and its need to feed that population:
Over the past 100 years, African agriculture has radically expanded. Huge tracts of grassland that were formerly open range are now fenced off, and have been variously cultivated for human crops, or overgrazed down to dirt. Along with several major droughts, this has pretty well destroyed the grasslands that were the African elephants' original habitat AND their major food source.
Starving elephants took to eating whatever they could find that looked halfway like food -- and that too-often meant brushy shoots and small tree branches, which they could not digest. And they died of it. Being social herd animals, they tended to die in groups.
When one of these graveyards was found by humans, they rejoiced to see all the free ivory laying around (already conveniently rotted loose from the skull), carried it off, and sold it. No harm was done to any living elephant.
But international opinion and law had already decided that all ivory must come from poaching, so these facts were, and still are, entirely ignored. Especially since this mythical "poaching" makes great press for animal rights extremists.
And impoverished Africans either lose the money they gain from selling the ivory left behind by long-dead elephants, or they sell it on the black market.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
A while back I tried to auction off a vicuna fur coat on eBay (from an estate sale), not realizing that vicuna is considered an endangered species. eBay curtly informed me of this fact and summarily deleted the auction. So why do ivory auctions only get a warning?
First, the ivory ban is not a 100% ban. There is some legal trade in ivory. The legality of an ivory sale depends on the provenance of the ivory. I usually sympathize with environmentalists but it's just ridiculous to try to stop all ivory sales in order to prevent illegal sales.
Second, there is serious question whether the ivory ban is a good policy. Legal, managed hunting is a promising alternative. It would be arrogant and stupid to try to tell African or South Asian governments they can't manage the elephant population in whatever way works best for them.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
It's people like you who are turning this country into a welfare state where big brother looks over everybody's shoulder and babysits in the name of "protecting" us from ourselves.
Yes, I've heard that people on methadone treatment (who get their drugs cheaply or free) tend to go out and mug little old ladies.
Oh wait! They don't! It's only when drugs are expensive and scarce that drug addicts tend turn to criminal activities to support their habit. That's because even to an addict it's much safer not to engage in risky behaviours when there's a choice.
Cheap, legal drugs such as nicotine (which is, mg for mg more addictive than heroine) don't seem to have this issue. What makes you think that other drugs would?
In addition, there are two sets of people who commit criminal behaviour as addicts - those who would do so anyway (even without being addicted) and those who would not. Since the statistics lump these two together it's pretty hard to correlate drug use with criminal activity and much harder to say that it's just the drugs given the circumstances under which they have to be obtained (expensive, criminal contact just to obtain substances, etc.)
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
YEAH! I mean, look at how fast the US military conquered Iraq, confiscated all the guns, and left it in peace and harmo...
Oh, yeah...
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Drugs, yes. Kiddie porn, no. Regular porn, yes. Nukes, no. Guns, yes.
Ivory... mmmm -- I'll go with no, not usually, but sometimes it's okay.
I can protect my household or feed my family with a firearm. What are these legitimate uses for ivory?
...just 'cause they can do it, it doesn't necessarily mean that
Does Ebay sell guns?
Do they sell pharmaceutical narcotics?
it's worth the beaurocratic overhead and the possible negative
press that would come from not correctly vetting all vendors.
Libertarianism is a "fringe" viewpoint. The fact that we're a little weird doesn't alter that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Yeah, you're so funny you civilian rube.
You know those guys walking around those tanks with the rifles?
They're taught how to take out tanks with not much
more than rifles and gumption. Just because some
clueless amateur such as yourself thinks that something
"can't be done", it doesn't necessarily make it so.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Six offtopic posts in a row and you stopped the chain. Can you say C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER?
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
You make it sound like the "black market" is a dark hostile entity that requires one cut off their left pinky-toe and murder a man.
The black market is everywhere. You probably know someone, who knows someone, who knows where to get Ivory. Or heroin. Or modchips. Or unlocked phones. Or dishnet cards. Maybe you know a mechanic who does work on the side, in cash. That's black market too!
The black market is anything and everything that either sidesteps legal control, or evades taxes. It is a term created by government (and the ethically fragile) to create an "Us vs Them" perspective against things that are beyond their control. If Bush were to outlaw the Qur'an, any sales of the book would be considered black market transactions. That's all it means.
For most people, honest or otherwise, it isn't much of a leap to acquire "black market" goods. It's not something that keeps people up at night in cold sweat. It's just some guy who doesn't give you a receipt with your purchase.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
If ivory goes out of style, where will I get my elephant jerky?
No, it means that you should carefully consider what kinds of items and things you're going to ban and focus the maximal amount of attention on that. The best rule I can come up with is: is this product going to directly hurt other people?
In the case of many drugs, like pot, the answer seems to be "no," and I'd argue the same for prostitution. The ivory issue is essentially this: will allowing the sale of ivory on eBay lead to more elephants killed for it, or will people who have "grandfathered" ivory simply be able to trade.
I think that's what the GP was implying, and that's what you parody.
one wonders how the shipping is handled...
Via ICMB. It'll be "used" by the time it arrives, trust me. Plus, you're guaranteed DOA!
Animals and plants are going extinct everywhere. 20 years ago, Musk Deer were running in millions in Mongolia. No more, poaching destroyed their population.
Elephants used to occupy most of Africa, now their habitat is fractured,
http://www.elephantcountryweb.com/africanellies/africanelerange.jpg
Parts of Africa that lost their elephants, are unlikely to get them back (elephants will walk back to their own, known areas). And now, South Africa is considering killing off part of its population and *selling* the ivory...
All animal species and birds and plants are under increasing pressure from man. Heck, people look at previous large extinctions and don't even realize we are the cause of another. We are even at a brink of causing shark population to disappear. Shark species for Great White have decreased 50%. Hammerheads 90%+. These are species that did not disappear during the previous extinction events. 300+ million years. And now? Rhinos? Buffalo? Grizzly Bear? Orangutans? Native species of cattle? Gorillas? Cheetah? Bengal Tiger? Siberian Tiger? And thousands of another species: all endangered. Total population not in thousands, but sometimes in hundreds or even dozen...
Passenger Pigeon: now only stuffed. Used to number over a billion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ectopistes
Want to see the rest of any size animals like that? Stuffed only versions? Continue with trade of animal parts for wild species. We managed to drive all those species to extinction with a fraction of people on the planet.
Ebay should not allow ANY trade in animal parts or even imitation of such parts.
If 1 in 100,000 people buys an elephant tusk, the elephant population may as well be extinct[1]. 1 in 1,000 people wants anything made out of ivory, population of all the species that people kill for ivory will be either extinct or very near to extinction.
[1] - As a side note, there is a genetic condition that resulted in tuskless elephants or elephants with very small tusks. It was very rare. Now, "thanks" to poaching and slaughter, that condition is very visible. Some populations of elephants have 30% rate of that genetic abnormality.
And why are drug addicts mugging little old ladies to get their fix? Because drugs are expensive, because they're illegal.
Drug addiction is a public health issue, not a criminal issue. People commit crimes on drugs to get money to buy more drugs to feed their dependency, not because they like to rob people. Break that cycle. Legalize, tax, regulate and use all that money to fund public-health style responses to the problem. Prison doesn't cure addicts, treatment does.
Take the massive profit out of the 'illegal drugs' business, and a lot problems associated with it go away - dime-bag dealers disappear, large amounts of gang revenue vanishes, petty crime committed by addicts drops significantly.
Some currently-illegal, dependency-causing drugs have little long-term physical harm. Heroin addicts, for instance, have been known to maintain heavy long-term use and a semi-productive life if money isn't an issue. Cannabis, same thing. Most psychotropics aren't physically addictive. Crack cocaine - different story - prohibition and treatment might be the best bet there.
Point being, people need to separate the intrinsic harm of an addiction, from the secondary harm that comes about from the prohibition of the activity. Make alcohol illegal again, and see how quickly Capone-style problems return.
There's a pretty good demand for M-16s in my neighborhood and the gangsters have money to pay for one but theyre still hard to get. Funny how prohibiting sales actually can make a dent in something you want to control.
I know its cool to be all defeatist about such things and play up the free market as a moral system (hello ron paul supporters!) but in reality the ivory trade consists of a lot of poachers.
Even if drugs were legal, mugging old ladies would not be. Therefore, someone who committed a crime due to drug addiction would still go to jail.
The amount of crime that happens due to the underground drug sales industry is overwhelming (and much more violent) compared to the crime committed by people to feed drug habits. Even if it did cause an uptick in addict crime, it would have to be a massive one to compensate for the drop in drug dealing-related crime.
Well? Don't leave us hanging, what is this "agenda that certain Greens push"?
Why don't some of the countries in the area just breed elephants on farms as a livestock animal? You get the ivory as a valuable export. You get the meat to feed your people. You pull elephants way back from the brink of extinction. And so on.
Aren't several nations in southern Africa stockpiling ivory from elephants harvested in regulated legal hunts? IIRC, elephant populations are growing in those countries compared to those where hunting is banned and they are trying to get the ivory ban overturned. The simple reason is that the local population has a reason to protect the animals from poachers since they receive money and meat as a result of these hunts, but in other areas, they are considered government protected pests that tear up their fields and the locals really don't care if Joe poacher shoots them all.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
By that logic, perhaps Ebay should allow listing having to do with selling kidneys? F-18's? Sexual favors? Offing spouses?
There is a demand for all these things.
emt 377 emt 4
"The little old ladies don't like being mugged, "
Then they should get a gun...whoops, wrong sub-thread.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
--A Failed quitter
I take it they've also never seen the movie Red Dawn . Go Wolverines!!!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Not if the primary explosion for the atom bomb failed [as I think they use a compression explosion to set off a small atomic bomb, which then causes the 'nuclear' part of the bomb to explode. But everything I know about nuclear weapons is from the movies as I'm not allowed to keep one around the house...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Ebay should not allow ANY trade in animal parts or even imitation of such parts.
How about leather? I don't think you need to worry about food by-products becoming extinct.
What about things assembled with hide glue, like musical instruments?
Violins? (cat gut strings, horse hair bows)? How about CD's with violin music?
Shellaced furniture?
--endless list snipped--
Does this apply to eBay Motors as well?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Why is this flamebait ?? :( That's so mean. All I did was say stuff that already has ivory should be able to be sold on eBay and don't kill more elephants to get more ivory. That's not fair! :(
Carrie -The Christmas Angel
Like all the ivory products made *before* they were illegal?
antipaucity
A black market for a white item? Oh, the ivory. :p
Carbon based humanoid in training.
http://www.ehow.com/how_2156113_import-ivory-legally.html
Long story short, importation is possible in many cases, and it DOES matter when it was (over 100 yrs is ok) and when it was legally purchased.
The statement "They strip it out of pianos that are imported into the US. It doesn't matter when it was made, they'll still destroy it." is just factually incorrect.
Or you could get a job like my friend Ji had, working in fiddles. He says it was the bomb.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
Then store owners can stop collecting sales tax, that is clearly an issue for the state.
emt 377 emt 4
Does this include elk teeth? Because they have two teeth that are made of ivory.
Why is it when discussions like this occur people like yourself resort to emotional arguments?
Oh right, because it's the only one you have that isn't absurd. A word of advice, there is a portion of the population that see through crap like that and will roundly reject your position as a direct result of your hamhanded attempts at emotional manipulation.
"THINK OF THE _______"
Most of the time we deride people because that blank is filled with "children". You filled it with "elephants" and seem to think that makes the position less absurd somehow.
People people, eBay is in more than one country, but only items that are illegal in every country it operates in (aka prohibited or banned) are given priority. So that means mostly absurd forms of mature content (aka fetish porn), health and safety bans (perfume shipping, breast pumps, fetal dopplers, anything perceived to be a drug), and guns.
The countries that allow the sale of ivory in any form would have to switch to the ban of ivory in any form.
And anyway, once you ban it off ebay, 100 knockoff sites show up anyway.
Seriously, this is hogwash. I defy you to prove otherwise, perhaps with a citation that is conspicuously absent from your post.
Wait, so you just dismissed the higher demand equals higher production argument for drugs, but you are willing to embrace it for child porn? Backdoor to the constitution indeed...
I slam no fiddle makers. Peace be upon him.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
You can stockpile, but trade in ivory is illegal. A lot of countries are trying to destroy the market for ivory. Of course everyone would benefit if the ban on trade in ivory was lifted. Right now the Kruger National Park has too much elephants. The moratorium on culling has finally been lifted (only after extreme damage to the environment was done). If there was a way in which elephants could be moneterized the culling may not be necessary â" commercial farmers would invest a lot more in elephants (setting up a game farm for elephants are fairly expensive. You also need a fairly large space.)
Even if a theoretical president Obama were to attempt to use executive powers to outlaw cheeseburgers, it just wouldn't float. A good example of that was the "homosexual union" efforts in the city of San Francisco. The State government said "nope" and invalidated the 1800 marriage certificates issued by that fair city on the left side of the Union. I recall that has since changed, by adoption through the State legislature, but the fact remained: checks and balances.
Incidentally, if you aren't in the United States, I do encourage you to learn the difference between our government and a plain Democracy, like in India. I think you will find it worth the study.
On topic, does this mean EBay won't allow us to sell pianos with ivory keys, or other antiques? This is the sort of short-sighted reactionist behavior associated with fear-mongering extremists, and I have difficulty giving that crowd anything more than the time of day.
The allied forces of 64 countries ousted a dictator responsible for the civilian deaths of almost 100,000 Kurds. This was the reason that the new self-established government of Iraq chose to execute that dictator. Gun control there didn't work so well, you made your point.
What if I only mug little old ladies when I'm happy? Do we then outlaw happiness?
That's a separate crime. People Rob so they can eat, should eating be outlawed?
Legalized drugs would be taxable, controlled dose, and remove the black market crap that currently goes along with it.
There was a time where a Heroine addict would take there fix and go about being a productive member of society, where someone who smoked a joint on their own time didn't ahve to worry about loosing a job that was in no way affected by it.
Now these people are cast out, doomed to forever being on the street and not being productive.
Not all addicts rob, cheat, or steal.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Actually, it's the volume and competition that drive drug prices down. Since many illegal drugs could not be controlled by one company, the price would be much cheaper then they are now. It would remove the 'risk overhead' from transport and making.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Can't someone think of the little old ladies argument. Sheesh.
News flash, most drug users don't rob ANYBODY.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
After all, that's where unrepentant murderers go when they die.
It's a shame that there aren't any non-lethal defense products. Yep.
Simple. Drug production doesn't hurt anyone (as long as it's in proper conditions for the workers.) Child porn production does.
Yeah, right. Like a little pepper spray is going to stop a determined rapist. It's likely only to piss him off and result in greater injury or death to the victim.
This is definitely one area where I say piss on the perpetrator. The dirtbag deserves whatever he gets, and if that's a bullet, then tough shit.
Yeah. After all, look at how little the ban on hit men has accomplished. They're all over the place, they're so easy to find some even have ads in the phone book! Why, this one time a hit man was in a cafeteria, and someone dropped a spoon ...
... they get caught, by any one of a dozen different techniques. *
Seriously, this argument comes up all the time, and it always amazes me because it's completely missing the point. Because it's impossible to stamp something out completely, we shouldn't crack down? That's like saying deadbolts won't stop a determined burglar, so they're worthless. Whenever you're dealing with en masse volumes, a barrier reduces the total amount of material getting past. All those nifty police investigatory powers Slashdotters like to dismiss by saying "circumventable, therefore useless"? They exist so that when a perp doesn't have perfect knowledge of police procedure, or makes a mistake, or even has bad luck
* (Not to imply I think it's always a good idea to give cops more powers. Clearly it's not. But these powers do have legitimate usages, that's why the police want them. Not all police are powermongering totalitarianist thugs.)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197
That all could understand;
ALL PERSONS CARRYING FIREARMS
FORBIDDEN ON THIS LAND.
And through his hundred-acre woods,
To stay through calm and breeze,
He nailed his minatory sign
Upon two hundred trees.
So all who wandered through those wilds
Could read and understand:
ALL PERSONS CARRYING FIREARMS
FORBIDDEN ON THIS LAND.
Ben Bean, the Nimrod of the town,
Went shooting through the land;
His vocal musket banged in tones
That all could understand.
And then the owner of the woods
Who placed the warnings signs,
Went after Ben and talked to him
Of penalties and fines.
"Do you now see these signs?" he said he,
"A child can understand,
"All persons carrying firearms
Forbidden on this land?"
"But howâ(TM)ll you get me off?" asked Ben,
And spoke without a wince,
"A person carrying firearms
Ainâ(TM)t easy to convince."
"Go off!" the farmer cried; "Begone!"
"Come drive me off," Ben said,
And raised his musket toward the man,
And aimed it at his head.
"Why, I have right upon my side,"
The farmer said, "Now run!"
"You may have right, I donâ(TM)t denyâ(TM)t,
But I have got the gun."
And there are empires, just like Ben,
Who hunt the world around,
Whose purpose âtis to use the world
For their own hunting ground.
And thereâ(TM)s no potentate or power,
No premier or prince,
Whoâ(TM)s well-equipped with firearms,
Thatâ(TM)s easy to convince.
And when their victims prate of rights
They say to every one,
"You may have right, I donâ(TM)t denyâ(TM)t,
But I have got the gun."
Part of running a good business is not just being aware of the legal aspects, but the ethical aspects as well (at the very least from a marketing/popular opinion perspective.) Slaughtering elephants, selling guns, and child porno is bad. Bootlegged stuff is not so bad.
Should a third party be required to provide proof that participants in a sex video were not 11 years old? If you did, you wouldn't be in business very long if you took that kind of attitude, legal or not.
Immoral things don't suddenly become moral because we wave a wand called the "market" over them. If the ivory trade moves to the black market pursue it vigorously there as well.
If people in a hypothetical country snorted ground American infant skulls as an aphrodisiac hopefully we wouldn't just throw up our hands and say "oh well the market wills it, if we try to stop it will just go black market."
Libertarians SUDDEN lack of concern over transactions solely because they occur in a market infuriates me to no end. A POX on your accountability free no ethics zone "markets."
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
b.s. The 2nd amendment is there as a basic human right to defend our freedoms against concentrated state and private power.
Wanting to have ivory OTH involves no such basic human right but instead pure greed to poses a scrimshaw or whatever that could just as easily be done on fossilized or fake plastic ivory.
Those who can't see the difference between basic fundamental rights and more transitory contingencies are primed to lose their rights because they don't even know how much more important aright is than a contingency.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
I hope you aren't in the U.S. then because what you are saying would turn over a Constitutionally guaranteed liberty. And guaranteed for a damn good reason to put fear into people planning BOTH Federal government police states, and private paramilitary dictatorships back up by Blackwater type goons. A-prori giving up your right to fight is only asking to be herded defenseless into a cattle car at some point...
OTH possessing ivory is guaranteed exactly no where.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
So because these animals are endangered TODAY means that even all sales of items obtained during the (for lack of a better term) "safari years," should be taken off of the market as well? Stick to throwing blood on women wearing fur please.
Something witty.
woah that woosh noise was so loud my ears are ringing. It was just a stupid example not an attack on the american governmental system. Anyways as for checks and balances war on iraq?... Atleast your last line was ontopic and made sense.
It always amazes me to see how people on /. believe that putting on an posture of radical "capitalism" is cool or deep. Don't they realize that economy is in many ways an artifact - a luxury built on top of our success as a species? Humans are flock animals; each individual is not strongly equipped for survival, it is our ability to work together in groups and pass on knowledge that more than anything made us successful as a species. But living in a society means that there are limits to our freedom, whatever the different constitutions have to say on the matter - hence we have laws that forbid us do certain things. The completely free market is a fiction, simply.
But more important than that is the fact that all resources are limited, and certain resources are very limited. Elephants are one such resource - there may seem to be an awful lot of them, but we can see them wiped out in an instant if we don't protect them. Perhaps you think that wouldn't matter - they are just animals; but research has shown that even elephants are a necessary part of the eco-system. In fact, the more we learn about nature, the more obvious it becomes that we can't remove any single part of nature without negatively impacting the whole system. Which is why it is so profoundly stupid to think that radical, unrestrained capitalism can ever be anything but fundamentally damaging and eventually catastrophic.
So, to get back to the subject at hand, it is right and good that eBay bans ivory trade; not just because of international or even national laws, not only because it would be sad to see elephants wiped out to satisfy the superficial whims of vain idiots, but because, fundamentally, capitalism must be restrained. Reciting brainless mantras about the freedom of the market is not going to help us through the crisis we're entering into; we are running out of the cheap resources that are the foundation for our opulent lifestyles, and sooner or later we will have to return to the one thing that made us successful: our ability to cooperate. The only question is: how bad will we allow it to become before we learn?
Yeah, I've got a passion for hardware, as well as custom knives.
Here's the thing- an extremely popular material for high-end handmade knives is fossilized mammoth ivory.
The stuff is obviously from animals LONG dead, tens of thousands of years dead, so no animals were harmed in getting it. People just dig it up. What the hell gives IFAW the right to end that? It's legal material EVERYWHERE in the world, harmless, and quite popular. Also valuable and quite beautiful.
Animal protection laws are a noble and often good thing, and provent poaching to a degree, but here I'd love to hear these group's rationale that animals 10,000 years ago are being somehow "abused" by modern day humans. Pure zealosness here.
And just why DON'T people farm elephants? That would solve a lot of problems. Perhaps food supply is the problem?
No, what's archaic and backwards is your thinking. Disarming a population is a terrible idea. "Criminals" - the bad guys you keep going on and on about, will still get their weapons illegally, whether there's laws for guns or not. Given that, police will still have to fear being shot, knowing full well it's not entirely hard to get guns illegally. Hell, drugs are outlawed and it's not hard to get those illegally either. But guess what? We still have to worry about and deal with people who sell and use.
In an age where basic human rights are subject to state legislation, government is anything but balanced.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Kindly indulge a divergence in my response to the subject of your first slur. I'd just like to point out that the term you used means, in Greek, "Fear of the same." It is a lousy term that never seems to apply the way in which it is meant. To say someone fears being sodomized is one thing. Would that make the person a "sodophobe?" But I don't think that's what people even mean. Realistically, that's rape, and if I'm not mistaken, that's a preference-unspecific, general fear. Of the intolerant people I have met, I can't safely say they are specifically afraid of homosexual men and women, either. It just isn't a fear. An abomination, abhorrence, disgust, distrust, disdain, or dislike, but never fear. This is why I'm careful not to use such a mean-spirited, poorly coined phrase. I hope this concludes your use of the term, and I sincerely hope you will do better next time.
Not the best effort, either. It is like you weren't even trying to insult me. When I was younger, flamebait was an art. Now, it is just a degenerate hodge-podge of a couple dozen hateful yet uninspired utterances, wedged in and around sloppy grammar, poor spelling, and an unimaginative thrust of ideas. If you can learn to curb that tendency of yours, or at least wait until it is mature, you might actually get good at it one day. Slashdot mods down for flamebait, primarily because almost no one is any good at it anymore.
Returning to the topic, in the state in which I live, our Governor decided he was going to go on a "trade partnership" visit to Cuba. He wanted to sell them our tractors, and wanted to buy their cigars. Guess what? The State Department gave him a what-for, President Bush said something to the effect of "Don't do this," and the voters said "you're a jerk, don't even think about re-election, and a few of us are seeking your impeachment." Checks and balances again, like our comment moderation system, control the power. You say you want a more libertarian government? Vote for it, and rally your cause. Do I think eBay should be told what to sell and not sell? No. Do I think eBay should have prerogative over what goes on with their systems? You betcha. Should eBay decide to allow slave trafficking on their website? No. But hey, that's just "black market," right? What I do think eBay should do is cooperate with international law enforcement so that the market for ivory from poached elephants is curtailed. I also think elephants should be farmed, like llamas and bison and ostrich. I just don't know how much of a comeback those goofy umbrella stands will make.
What a nimbly worded troll! With such twisty dodging of the actual topic, I'm guessing you work in some legal field!
Jack Thompson, is that you ?
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Widen your circles, I am not Mr. Thompson. I am, simply, Vexar.