Gulf Oil Spill Disaster — Spawn of the Living Dead

grrlscientist writes "A recently published study, intended to provide data to commercial fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico so they maximize their catch of Yellowfin Tuna, Thunnus albacares, whilst avoiding bycatch of critically endangered Atlantic (Northern) Bluefin Tuna, Thunnus thynnus, suggests that the Deepwater Horizon oil leak may devastate the endangered Atlantic bluefin population, causing it to completely collapse or possibly go extinct."

Comments

Rectifying interference with more interference?

[elrous0]

Not trolling here, but since when is its mankind's responsibility to save every variety of every species of animal on the planet? I know that we have been responsible for the extinction of many species, but does that now make us responsible for stopping extinction altogether? Huge swaths of species went extinct long before man even came along, and so it seems pretty clear that it's part of the natural order. So are we now supposed to completely stop that natural process out of some sense of guilt (because we have arrogantly decided that we're not part of the natural order)?

I'm not saying we should just go out an hunt every species we feel like to extinction, or poison the water whenever we feel like it. That would be neither responsible nor wise. But I am saying that it's not our responsibility to save every species in the world that happens to exist now, not our place to end "extinction" itself as a process.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[decipher_saint]

It's pretty simple actually, biological diversity is important.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ecosystems are notoriously hard to fix once they get out of whack.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[spun]

Straw man much? No one is claiming we should save every species. You yourself say we shouldn't poison or hunt species into extinction. That is all anyone is talking about here, so you could have just said that and left out the straw man completely. It's not as if these tuna were about to go extinct on their own, and now there is a huge campaign to save them. We are responsible, and not to the tuna but to the people whose livelihood depends on them, and to the people like me who find them delicious.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Well, in this case, it is in humanity's self-interest, if nothing else, because bluefin tuna are legendarily tasty.

The ethical duties, if any, of environmental preservation are debatable. The fact that crashing the population of a species you like to eat is stupid and self-defeating isn't.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[Pojut]

I don't think it is our responsability to save "every" species...but I think it's our responsability to save species that we have directly endangered through our own actions, whether those actions are on purpose or a mistake.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[Dasher42]

Like the other poster said, biodiversity is key. It makes natural systems resilient; it means every ecological niche has a backup plan. Everything's in a web of relationships.

When a species goes extinct, the species in some relationship with it are put under stress or imbalance; it ripples through the system. Eventually the system gets overwhelmed and collapses.

Just to be clear, our petroleum and pesticide-based agriculture can go so far, and you do not want to live on a planet with collapsed ecosystems after you've destroyed it for a quick buck. It'll be like Easter Island - miserable survivors with no wood to repair their boats, fighting and cannibalizing each other.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[dkleinsc]

Not trolling here, but since when is its mankind's responsibility to save every variety of every species of animal on the planet? I know that we have been responsible for the extinction of many species, but does that now make us responsible for stopping extinction altogether?

Some good reasons:
  - They may prove to be resistant to some new disease, providing vital insight to medical researchers trying to keep humans from falling prey to a similar disease.
  - Losing some species can produce an ecological domino effect, where other species who were dependent on the first one now become endangered or extinct. For instance, if honeybees were to become extinct, that would cause massive problems for corn and grain, which would cause massive problems for humans.
  - Last and certainly least, it would allow us to answer certain kinds of space probes.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[Demonantis]

We don't know what is acceptable diversity though. There have been periods of mass extinction that occur randomly and the ecosystem survives.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[elrous0]

The problem is that, in their guilt trip, biologists have blamed man for the state of pretty much every endangered species on the planet. Can you name a single endangered species (or even variety of species) that man is *not* blamed for right now? I doubt there is even one. So that means that we are supposed to preserve every single species that happens to exist at this particular moment in our planet's history, like some weird zoo where we've effectively stopped natural selection?

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[wizardforce]

but since when is its mankind's responsibility to save every variety of every species of animal on the planet?

Since when does humanity have the inherent right to wipe these species out in the first place? That aside, why is it that a corporation like bp can wipe out an entire ecosystem and destroy a species that so many depend on for making a living? Wiping out a species fails on two counts: 1) biodiversity and 2) property rights violation

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[linzeal]

The ecosystem survives but typically the top predators are all replaced.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[vm146j2]

Yes, there have: 5 major ones in 4 billion years. The difference this time is we get to participate, both as an agent, and a sufferer!

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[MozeeToby]

No, something survives and a new ecosystem eventually evolves. In the meantime (read: several million years) the survivors are in complete disarray as population numbers fluctuate wildly without the normal predator/prey relationships in effect, something which would not bode well for human civilization. Diversity is good, it is the damping that makes an otherwise unstable system become stable.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[h4rr4r]

So statements of fact are a guilt trip?
STOP MAKING EMOTIONAL VALUE JUDGMENTS ABOUT FACTS. That sort of shit is what makes people ignore oil spills, global whatever and pretty much every big problem.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[ColdWetDog]

The problem is that, in their guilt trip, biologists have blamed man for the state of pretty much every endangered species on the planet. Can you name a single endangered species (or even variety of species) that man is *not* blamed for right now? I doubt there is even one. So that means that we are supposed to preserve every single species that happens to exist at this particular moment in our planet's history, like some weird zoo where we've effectively stopped natural selection?

Wow, slow down! Try the decaf. Some of us are biologists and not every card carrying biologist is a member of PETA. You do have a point as the environmentalist movement tends to hammer hard on every potential species or ecosystem lost and it's usually, as you mention, the result of evil, nasty, smell 'mankind' (as opposed to 'humankind'). Unfortunately, we really don't know why a lot of extinctions take place. Some of the best studied ones do seem to be human caused. Even early humans may have been responsible for numerous large animal extinctions (go look it up). So we have a long track record in this regard. We also seem to be in the midst of another mass extinction and one that is at least partially human caused.

Will 'nature' deal with this 'problem'. Sure will. Come back in a couple of million years and you may find very little sign of homo industrialis. Many people aren't comfortable with that sort of time frame and so they complain, come up with hyperbolic arguments, get elected to Congress and all manner of silly things.

Truth is, it's hard to separate us from them. We are part of natural selection.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[NeutronCowboy]

Ask me if I care that the ecosystem rebounds in a few million years. Really, do ask me. Or ask the people whose livelihood depends on a healthy ecosystem.

Can we stop with this idiotic argument that the universe will survive just fine without humans? No shit, Sherlock. Way to state the obvious, Capt'n Obvious. In the meantime, I'd like to make sure that my life is nice and cushy, and that of my kids as well. Unfortunately, that requires a stable ecosystem. And a hallmark of a stable ecosystem is a diverse ecosystem.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[h4rr4r]

Do you have evidence for this?

I see lots of statements of fact people take as blame. For a quick example, humans wiped out the wisent. We then restored them to some degree. This is a statement of fact, as we have records of them being killed and they finally ceased to exist in the wild at the end of WW2. The retreating Wehrmacht wiped out the last of them in the wild, no one disputes these facts. It is not blame to say we did this, only a statement of fact.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[h4rr4r]

I made not such claim, but that is a nice strawman you have there. It is not in fact the only hypothesis people are working under, you probably know that too.

I merely stated you made emotional value judgments about facts.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[Swanktastic]

Do you care that the ecosystem rebounds in a few million years?

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[mrjb]

If you fallow Darwinian logic won't there eventually only be one species? Survival of the fittest and all.

I'm afraid you're mixing up "the origin of species" with Highlander. "Survival of the fittest" implies that within a species, only the ones that are most fit to deal with their environment will survive. Darwin never claimed that "in the end, there can be only one". In fact many species live in mutual beneficial relationships with each other.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[h4rr4r]

A risk I am more than willing to take. I even smoked for years! I also drink. Life is short, have fun.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[NeutronCowboy]

For us to think that we have some right to alter the environment to suit ourselves at the cost of other potential species is hubris.

We're already doing it. It's not a question of right, but merely of fact.

The idea that we have the capability to do so is laughable.

What do you think a city is?

You're not for the environment, you're for your current cushy lifestyle.

Correct. I'm also well aware that my current cushy lifestyle depends on a nice, stable environment. It seems that you merely don't understand what constitutes a nice, stable environment.

An unknown, big change is just as likely to be good for humans as it is to be bad.

Argument from ignorance - specifically, argument from ignorance about the state of knowledge about biology, climatology, physics and game theory.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[NeutronCowboy]

And to be very specific, I don't think you, or anybody else, is going to die because one species of tuna collapsed in the North Atlantic.

Very true. But at some point, the accumulation of species extinction is going to hit us, and especially if that species happens to be a keystone species. God help us all if krill happens to become extinct. It'll be Soylent Green for all of us.

The point is that arguing that a) in the long run, it's all a wash and b) it's just one species manages to both be way to far-sighted and way to short-sighted. The collapse of the blue-fin Tuna has to be seen in the context of the collapse of a lot of other fish species. It's not that it is just one species that might disappear, it's that it is another one in a long line of species.

Finally, the big problem is that disappearance of one species indicates that more issues might be afoot in the environment, which could cause more species to disappear.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[NeutronCowboy]

I can't help to ask what makes you think we humans are so much more special than dinosaurs that we deserve to survive as a species

Absolutely nothing. This is merely self-preservation talking, just like for every other species. I'm pretty sure if dinosaurs could write, we would have found loads of discussions around the theme of what to do with the dying, the cloud ash, and how to survive the dark and burning skies.

Reality is simple: Nature is tough, and we have but two choices: deal with it, or check out.

Spot on. I'd prefer not to check out. Which requires dealing with nature, which in turn requires making sure that nature has a place for us in it. Unfortunately, we haven't figured out how to survive without nature (see the failed Biodome experiments), so we're stuck with making sure that we don't need a biodome.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[ultranova]

Not trolling here, but since when is its mankind's responsibility to save every variety of every species of animal on the planet?

Since when we realized that every snapped link in the food web makes it weaker and more likely to collapse completely, which would be rather unpleasant for us.

I know that we have been responsible for the extinction of many species, but does that now make us responsible for stopping extinction altogether?

Yes. Every extinction weakened the balance of the ecosystem, making it more prone to chaotic changes. Since we don't know when we reach the critical point - when the cycle of extinction starts feeding on itself, with each change killing more species, which causes more change, which kills more species and so forth - it would be a really good idea to do something while we still can.

Huge swaths of species went extinct long before man even came along, and so it seems pretty clear that it's part of the natural order.

Yes, mass extinctions occur every now and then and typically end up wiping out the dominant megafauna. That means us.

But I am saying that it's not our responsibility to save every species in the world that happens to exist now, not our place to end "extinction" itself as a process.

It's our place to do whatever we damn well please with this world, or can you give a single reason why it wouldn't be? And it would be best for us to keep it as close to as it is, ecosystem-wise, since that's what we're evolved for and can likely deal with best.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[Chowderbags]

We're blamed because, quite frankly, we've been the single biggest coherent force on this planet for the last 12000 years (give or take a few thousand depending on how remote a location is). Yes, you'll see a few volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, and asteroids, but they're either not particularly harmful, not widespread, or not continuous over a long period. Individually we're not powerful, but we've been diverting large rivers, clearing jungles and leaving deserts, introducing new species that overwhelm the local food web (Kudzu, Argentine Ants, the various domesticated animals that killed the Dodo) or even just changing wilderness into plowed fields and suburbs. The areas we don't inhabit long term, we toss our junk into without a second thought (see the garbage patches in the ocean).

Yes, if we disappeared tomorrow, the planet would be back to it's old self in a million years. But we won't disappear tomorrow. We'll still be here. And the day after that. And the day after that. And short of a disaster that wipes out every other vertebrate, we'll probably keep on going somehow. But we have to ask ourselves if we really can't do any better (and no, I'm not a neoluddite here, I just hope to live awhile). Should we prefer slightly cheaper gas or beaches that aren't contaminated with oil?

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[IndustrialComplex]

Now, granted, we humans are much more intelligent than most species on this planet

Let's cut the self hate. We ARE the most intelligent species on the planet. With that intelligence comes an understanding of certain activities.

1.
We like to eat bluefin tuna. Making adjustments to keep them from dying allows us to eat them in the future.

2. Killing off the Bluefin Tuna could have drawbacks. It makes sense to understand these drawbacks before we continue on our course of exterminating them. Maybe the drawbacks aren't so bad. Maybe they will result in us all dying of cholera.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[ultranova]

However, it is not the only fish to fill it's particular role in said food chain. In fact, the article and even the summary comments on one of the Bluefin's natural competitor's the Yellowfin Tuna. This is just one example of many other competitors that occupy the same, or very similar ecological roles as the Bluefin. Thus, what I think the parent was trying to get at was that even if the Bluefin population collapses (which, of course, would suck to some extent or another), it would not be some great ecological crisis.

Having two fish species compete in the same ecological niche means that you can lose one of them without catastrophic consequences. However, it also means that if you do lose Bluefin, and then something happens to Yellowfin - a plague, for example - there are no more Bluefins to take over.

Having multiple species that fill the same role is good precisely because it makes the ecosystem more robust; ergo, losing those redundant species makes ecosystem more fragile, even if it doesn't collapse oturight.

In fact, since we don't know exactly what the optimal amount of diversity for a given ecosystem is, claiming, generally, that diversity is good and so extinction is bad is pretty disingenuous. For all we know, a given ecosystem may actually need a particular species to die out so that the rest of the ecosystem may maintain equilibrium.

No. All data we have points to more diverse ecosystems being more robust. The only exceptions are situations where a species has been introduced to outside its normal ecosystem and lacked any natural enemies to keep it in check in the new environment.

And even if your speculation was correct - and there's no reason to think it is - there would still be no reason to assume that it applies to Bluefin and to this situation.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[Planx_Constant]

An unknown, big change is just as likely to be good for humans as it is to be bad.

That is massively untrue. An unknown, big change is much more likely to be bad for humans. When you're dealing with a hugely interconnected web of an ecosystem, big unknown changes are likely to alter the system, such that it stabilizes in a different state. The current state of the world is very nice for humans. An end to many easily caught food species will not be so nice.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[Bing Tsher E]

That aside, why is it that a corporation like bp can wipe out an entire ecosystem and destroy a species that so many depend on for making a living?

It almost sounds to me like you're defending the people who've overfished the blue-fin to near the point of extinction. Poor, poor fishermen. They were only doing what comes natural to them, and it's horrible that BP may have given the final little nudge. Their way of live (driving the blue-fin to near extinction) is at risk.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[adolf]

Cool.

So it's really not about saving the Bluefin Tuna after all, but about preserving existing diversity so we humans can continue to thrive within it in ways that we're already familiar with.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[Yoozer]

There is zero logical reason for humans to actively "protect" the environment.

There is also zero logical reason for humans to shit where they eat. Yet that's exactly what we're doing here.

Building a city is not fundamentally altering the environment any more than a a bear taking a shit in the woods.

Correct. However, the people in the city need water and food - try cutting of NYC's water supply for a week and you'll need to be Snake Plissken if you want to go in there and return. You'll have to create farmland, and for water, you have to divert a river or pump an aquifer dry. So, that one city impacts a way bigger swath of land and resources than you propose. Of course, you knew this already and I'm not telling you anything new, but it'd have helped your argument if you included this.

Title?

[Ltap]

While it is a serious issue, I'll give Slashdot readers enough credit to actually read this story based on its importance, rather than an exaggerated, attention-grabbing title.

Ummm, no

[$RANDOMLUSER]

When a single bluefin tuna can bring $75,000 at market, it's not Deepwater Horizon, no matter how horrific, that's causing bluefin tuna to go extinct.

Re:Ummm, no

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The fact that Bluefin are valuable has been responsible for the 80%-90% reduction in numbers; but also for the fact that people get real touchy about anything that threatens the last 10% or so.

The trouble here is that Bluefin like to go to the Gulf to spawn. If the delightful mixture of hydrocarbons and toxicologically troublesome dispersants turns out to poison eggs, sperm, or tiny juvenile fish, you could easily get an ecological impact equivalent to massive harvesting of the adult population; but without even the compensatory sushi.

Re:Ummm, no

[spun]

How do you know that the dispersants don't taste like ponzu sauce? Because that would be awesome. Except for the cancer.

"Businesses can regulate themselves" my ass.

[unity100]

before any of you free market lunatics blurt out anything, BP vouched for the viability of the oil well operation by a PRIVATE report they prepared, and government has approved. perfectly 'private sector' style, 'free market'ish.

just like how PRIVATE companies which were doing business with wall street, vouched for and 'regulated' wall street.

this makes two, just in the span of 1.5 years. if there are still morons who can say 'free market regulates itself', it means they need to be 'regulated' with a thick stick.

Re:"Businesses can regulate themselves" my ass.

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I really have to agree with this sentiment. Both of these are Tragedy of the Commons events, where single individuals (corporations) are overexploiting all of us, consequences be damned. Unfortunately, we've built a system where corporations have no responsibilities to anything or anyone beyond their own profit motive.

Re:"Businesses can regulate themselves" my ass.

[roman_mir]

Right, your government overlords have done a great job there at MMS 'regulating' the underpants, gifts, money, hookers and crack off the toaster ovens.

I am a Free Market 'lunatic' by your definition, but my definition of the Free Market includes the government, which does the job of suing the shit out of violators, punishing for any criminal offenses, doing the work that it is supposed to do: punishing the guilty.

Take the BP's money, take the BP management's money, put BP management to prison, put MMS workers to prison.

Take all BP money and use it not to fix the problem and as reparations and as an incentive for other companies to behave.

Government knows jack shit about anything in any actual real business. Government does not understand economy or leaky pipes. Government should do one thing and excel at it: punish the guilty severely. Everything else government will butcher and put an impossible price tag on.

Re:"Businesses can regulate themselves" my ass.

[roman_mir]

the only single way to stop such incidents in the future from happening is to punish, punish, punish and punish more and punish severely for any transgressions.

without punishment that is severe swift and strong there are no incentives for anyone to do the job right, this includes the regulators who are also people and will also corrupt the process.

i am against any and all regulations at all, there is not a single regulation i am for. there is only one thing that governments need to do: punish.

There is no regulation that government can come up with to stop all players in all industries from doing some new form of butchery. government does not have man power, money and it does not want to regulate.

regulation = work. regulation = less money for the government.

regulation = corruption.

the only way to achieve balance between the public and the private corporate sector is through severe and swift consequences.

give me the permission and a gun and i will personally execute every single person responsible for this disaster, i promise not to stop for a lunch break either. i will shoot in the head twice always.

this would really put some fear into the rest of the bunch and make them actually do more work on preventing and fixing disasters that destroy public resources, such as the ocean (and eventually the food supplies and the air)

Re:"Businesses can regulate themselves" my ass.

[Trip6]

Mod parent up. I love how the right is blaming Obama for this, when years of cozy relationships between Bush, Cheney, Haliburton, the oil companies, and OPEC have served to dismantle any sense of control and regulation over these greedy fucks. Drill, baby, drill!

Re:"Businesses can regulate themselves" my ass.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason that punishment won't work as a deterrent is that corporations are fundamentally sociopathic and lack a sense of fear. As institutions they will take risks that individuals don't ... and in some cases the individuals will take risks too.

Let's put it this way. The penalty for playing Russian Roulette and getting unlucky is death. If I offer someone a million dollars to pull the trigger, though, plenty of people will do it. You think threatening to punish corporations which get unlucky when they take risks, AND unlucky enough to get caught, is going to stop the problem?

You could send every last director of BP to a concentration camp, and after the shock wore off, corporations would start to take increasing risks until someone rolled a 1. You don't even need to explicitly put risk-addicted sociopaths in control. It's enough that the upper layers reward people in the lower layers who get results by cutting corners.

This is why we must have oversight and regulations in addition to effective punishment. What we need is enough citizen participation in the governmental process to reverse and then guard against regulatory capture. When a bunch of angry citizens start hammering their congresscritters to fire the foxes from hen-house watch duty, things change for the better.

People keep pointing this problem out to you, and you keep continuing in your assumption that you can come up with some magic set of rules that will allow the system to function on its own, without people like you and me getting their hands dirty. It doesn't work like that, because people are smarter than systems of rules.

Re:"Businesses can regulate themselves" my ass.

[h4rr4r]

Educate yourself. BP management had transocean do things in non normal ways to cut corners and reduce the time to production.

Re:"Businesses can regulate themselves" my ass.

[unity100]

punishment doesnt work. punishment never worked. back in 1560, penalty for smuggling, trading with non royal companies in spanish main was death, yet, everyone smuggled.

the punishment for numerous corporate crimes is death in china, yet still many ceos are committing those crimes.

punishment doesnt work. its stupid to punish something, after a crime is committed.

Re:"Businesses can regulate themselves" my ass.

[roman_mir]

Punishment does not work if it is not done correctly. Punish the management and it will work.

More importantly than that, in life people may not necessarily pay attention to possibility of punishment because they may believe they will get away with murder or anything else.

But in a large company, with MANY people working there, if the blame for the problem can be assigned to more than one person and everybody is aware of the possible consequences punishment will work.

It will work because in case of a company it concerns not a single individual but many people.

Probably one of the most important steps in punishment though is confiscation of all money and property. This must be part of the punishment to severe forms of crime like the one BP, Transocean and Halliburton have committed here.

oh, and shooting in the head is not optional.

Re:"Businesses can regulate themselves" my ass.

[roman_mir]

You are wrong, in case of corporations punishment is a much better deterrent than in case of any single individual.

It is highly unlikely that all parties that can bear part of the blame in case things will go wrong will take very cavalier attitudes towards their responsibilities.

when it is one person committing a violent act, murder or burglary or whatever, then it is only one person that needs to step over the line.

In case of a corporation many people need to step over that line.

If punishment involved actual confiscation of money and property as well as prison time and possibly dis-assembly of the corporation, then punishment on that scale would generate enough 'common sense' in a corporation. Many people don't want to lose everything, money and power and freedoms and lives.

People working in corporations are not actually that immoral, they just feel that they are part of the machine. If the rules changed, and the machine could not protect them and they did not feel that the machine would protect them, they would not be as cavalier about their responsibilities as they are now.

Re:"Businesses can regulate themselves" my ass.

[roman_mir]

The government does not understand business of oil drilling or business of food preparation or business of doing eye laser surgery or business of car manufacturing or business of ore extraction or business of pan making.

Government can understand damage to health of people, amage to environment on public property as related to barrels of oil spilled.

It is possible to say what kind of damage was done, in fact it is even possible to put a dollar amount on it.

Example: how much money does it take to grow as much fish doing it by human hand as will is dying in the Gulf right now? How much money would it cost to produce as much oxygen and put it into the air as was done by plankton in the Gulf?

Those are measurable, answerable questions.

When BP management insists on not doing proper tests, when BP and Transocean management decides not to repair the Blowout preventer, when BP and Transocean and Halliburton do not cement the drilling shaft correctly, those are measurable answerable accusations to bring forward against the management ladder and any individuals involved. It is even possible to accuse people of doing the wrong thing by association with the wrongdoers and by not preventing the wrong things from happening. Anybody on the director's board, in the management ladder associated with this particular project must be brought to justice. This has nothing to do with any separate BP gas station.

Re:karma is real

[h4rr4r]

Dude you're not a genius just a nutbag.

There is no Karma this is just greedy assholes being greedy assholes. No amount of you whining and playing hackysack is going to fix it. Only laws against this sort of shit and maybe hanging a few fat rich bankers.

Re:karma is real

[spun]

Perfect storm? It hasn't happened yet, but if Micheal Bay is to be believed, hurricanes will soon be kicking up a flammable mist of oil and igniting it with lightning. Be prepared to face a hurricane of flaming alligators soon.Hehe, xkcd is pretty funny. But you know what isn't funny? Fucking spiritualists on their high horse condescendingly preaching to the rest of us without bothering to find out what we think, making blanket generalizations, and acting generally holier than thou. Nine times out of ten, said fucking spiritualist has their head firmly up their own ass, but you might just be that one in ten who doesn't, so here's a tip on the off chance you aren't a complete fraud: your spiritual practice does not make you better than anyone else. Here's another tip: talking down to your audience alienates them, which causes them to reject what you said no matter how right, meaning you just wasted your time and theirs.

properly cooked tuna... ISN'T cooked

[alexander m]

Here in Tokyo the idea of cooking tuna (except maybe to sear it a bit, 'aburi' style) would be severely frowned upon... ;-)

Genetic archival?

[Mathinker]

Does anyone try, for example, to archive tissue samples (and/or genomic sequence info?) of interesting species like the bluefin so we might have a chance of "resurrecting" them (at least approximately) after we advance enough in our knowledge of biology?

For such an economically valuable species as the bluefin, I would be surprised if someone wasn't doing this. Anyone have any info?

Re:karma is real

[spun]

Dude you're not a genius just a nutbag.

It's fortunate for me that you believe this.

Only laws against this sort of shit and maybe hanging a few fat rich bankers.

Laws are not effective measures for preventing deeds. The wicked don't follow them and the virtuous don't need to.

What about the vast majority of people who are neither wicked nor particularly virtuous? Nearly every society since the ancient Babylonians have found laws useful. If you have a practical replacement for a system of laws, I'd love to hear it.

Re:karma is real

[ultranova]

Laser eye surgery can correct defects in the organ of the eye, but what technology will correct a defect in your awareness?

Direct high-bandwidth interface between my brains and computer chips, allowing the addition of extra lobes? Reaching first singularity should be a huge improvement. Me wanna...

Karma is real - it is the relationship of causes and effects that ensures that war brings war, death brings death, immorality brings immorality, and ignorance brings ignorance.

So why are the BP executives still living and unharmed, while people who had nothing to do with the whole mess suffer?

And "karma" refers to the Hindu concept where what you do affects you reincarnation (specifically, what you get reincarnated as). What you are talking about - consequences in this life - is called "justice", or would if it actually got inflicted on the guilty party rather than innocents...