Pretentiousness

[MM WI]

There seems to be a little too much pretentiousness in this particular board. We should be careful to avoid flawed logic that radicals use to suggest that we should not keep our marine aquariums, own pets or eat a tasty steak. The logic in all of these cases of course is fatally flawed as I am sure there will be people more than willing to demonstrate for us in response.

Example, the hands down endorsement of captive over wild. Don’t misunderstand I grow coral for sale and obviously have no problem with the practice. The difference is I don't pretend that it is some selfless act of environmental responsibility. A captive grown fish or coral does not by default have less impact on conservation. Marine fish harvests for use in aquariums are well below the sustainable maximum. The relevant equation would be to calculate the resources expended in capture vs tank rearing. The capture of marine fish using legal methods would likely have far less negative impact on conservation than all of the inputs required to raise them in captivity. Not sure which way the balance would tip for hard coral this would be a more complex equation. It is the complexity of these calculations that is missed as some of us jump on the pretentiousness bandwagon.

Example 2, I don't doubt that many of the criticisms of the LFSs are valid but suspect that many of the people making the criticisms have killed their share corals and fish themselves. How pretentious and rude would it be if I were to criticize everyone with less success with their reefs than myself as irresponsible or uncaring. Let he without sin cast the first stone.

Lastly my tanks are a selfish endeavor and there is nothing wrong with this. My 500 gallons of marine water require almost as much electricity to run as one of Al Gore homes. The difference is that i recognize the fact and know the difference between conservation and self serving posturing.

I wanted to do something special for my one hundredth post. I hope I accomplished the goal here.

- Mark

 

[Wolverine]

Re: Pretentiousness

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14046632#post14046632 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MM WI
Example, the hands down endorsement of captive over wild. Don’t misunderstand I grow coral for sale and obviously have no problem with the practice. The difference is I don't pretend that it is some selfless act of environmental responsibility. A captive grown fish or coral does not by default have less impact on conservation. Marine fish harvests for use in aquariums are well below the sustainable maximum. The relevant equation would be to calculate the resources expended in capture vs tank rearing. The capture of marine fish using legal methods would likely have far less negative impact on conservation than all of the inputs required to raise them in captivity. Not sure which way the balance would tip for hard coral this would be a more complex equation. It is the complexity of these calculations that is missed as some of us jump on the pretentiousness bandwagon.

I'm not sure you're taking everything into consideration here. Look at the political side, for example. There are people, a lot of them, who think that this hobby shouldn't exist at all, and are constantly working to get the import of all marine animals shut down. If we don't push more captive breeding programs, it gives them an easy target in the eye of public opinion. "Look, they have the ability to raise banggai cardinals, but, instead, they continue to get them from the wild because it's cheaper. They have a $5000 system, but they'll ignore locally raised fish to save $10." From outside the hobby, that looks absolutely terrible.
A couple of other things to keep in mind. There's a tremendous amount of die-off between collection sites and the distributors, and then more die-off from the distributors to the LFS. So a lot of fish end up dying on the way to you, which can hardly be considered good conservation.
Lastly, if we're looking at overall conservation, I have an LFS about a mile from me that sells locally raised fish (many raised by some of the guys who work in the store). It takes a lot less energy for me to go over there and pick them up that it does to deliver a WC one from the other side of the world.

Example 2, I don't doubt that many of the criticisms of the LFSs are valid but suspect that many of the people making the criticisms have killed their share corals and fish themselves. How pretentious and rude would it be if I were to criticize everyone with less success with their reefs than myself as irresponsible or uncaring. Let he without sin cast the first stone.

There's a huge difference here. Yes, I've made mistakes, and I've had fish and corals die. The difference is that I then try to learn from that mistake, correct what can be corrected, and not let the same thing happen again. Many of the LFS that are blasted on here have terrible practices, and continue to do them despite the number of animals that needlessly die, and never make any effort to correct things. That's irresponsible and uncaring. If your response is going to be that a store wouldn't do that, because it would be stupid to keep losing money that way, I'll agree, but point out that a lot of stores do stupid things, and a lot of LFS fail.

 

[Wolverine]

Re: Pretentiousness

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14046632#post14046632 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MM WI
I wanted to do something special for my one hundredth post. I hope I accomplished the goal here.

Some might consider it pretentious for someone to label their own thread as "something special", and make that thread geared towards blastign a big group of other members on the board.

 

[MM WI]

Hey Woverine,

some of your first response was good. All factors should be considered. These issues are complex. I must disagree though on considering purely political factors based on peoples selfish interest. This is not something i am willing to do. It is my responsibility as a scientist to point out the complexity of the issue and hold people accountable for the actual outcome of the policies they support not the self defined motivation. What some of the arguments you put forward miss is the very point the people who demagogue environmental issues want you to miss. The sustainable use of a renewable resource benefits both conservation and the economy. These two things are rarely in contradiction when long term goals are considered. You lose the “hey look how I am suffering” because I care thing. I would much rather have you reap the rewards of taking proper care of the world than suffer pretentiously while damaging it.

My main point on the LFS thing is to suggest that people do a bit more self reflection. The LFS pays a lot of money for animals. If anyone thinks their motive to keep fish healthy and alive is not there this is incorrect. Dead animals cut into the bottom line as you acknoledge, - their very reason for existing. They do care and should be willing to discuss care issues if appoached as a conversation rather than a lecture.

I hope your second post was not you taking the bait :rollface: It is there to give people with a better developed sense a humor a bit of a laugh. For everyones benefit the next time around this is another baited hook. People who have a need for the pretentiousness I rally against here rarely pass on an opportunity to be pretentous. I normally just miss spell a word or two. They eventually take bait as it is a least something they can discuss with some certainty.

- mark

 

[greenbean36191]

Example, the hands down endorsement of captive over wild. Don’t misunderstand I grow coral for sale and obviously have no problem with the practice. The difference is I don't pretend that it is some selfless act of environmental responsibility. A captive grown fish or coral does not by default have less impact on conservation.

Agreed 100%. A certain, sustainable degree of wild collection is fine and can be an important part of a conservation plan. However that desirable level of harvest takes a lot of work to determine.

Marine fish harvests for use in aquariums are well below the sustainable maximum.

I really don't think that claim can be supported empirically. Reliable collection data for most aquarium species is non-existent as is the population and life history data you need to determine the maximum sustainable yield. Your fish could count on their fingers the number of ornamental species for which a sustainable aquarium harvest has been determined.

At least at the local level there is data suggesting that some reef fisheries are not sustainable, including Banggai cardinals and some clowns and anemones.

 

[Wolverine]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14049406#post14049406 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MM WI
some of your first response was good. All factors should be considered. These issues are complex. I must disagree though on considering purely political factors based on peoples selfish interest. This is not something i am willing to do.

While it would be wonderful to be able to only consider the scientific side of things, it ignores the reality of the situation. As a scientist, I'm sure you've seen how well politics and science mix, and what is scientifically correct doesn't necessarily have any relation to what it decided in the court of public opinion or the political court (or even the judicial courts). Generally, when this topic comes up, I try to look at the benefits to the hobby as a whole, and not necessarily from a purely environmental or even scientific aspect, since those social concerns, while more nebulous, have the opportunity to have a much greater impact on us.
I believe (and I'm far from alone in this belief) that within our lifetime, we will see an all-out ban on importation of marine animals. I don't think it will be in the next few years, but I wouldn't be shocked if it were. Similar bans have been pushed in the past, and have succeeded in other realms. For that reason, I think it's important to have a strong captive-breeding infrastructure in place. IMO, the best way to do that is to support the fledgling system we have, to give in the opportunity to grow to where it can support the hobby when we're no longer able to get those WC animals.

From this standpoint, I think it's important that we at least make the effort to minimize our impacts, while recognizing that simply being involved in the hobby necessitates having some impact.
I enjoy this hobby, and I want to be able to continue to enjoy it. That's purely self-interest, and I think that captive-rearing animals is one of the most important things in supporting that self-interest. On top of that, on the balance, I'm convinced that it is the better option from an environmental/conservation standpoint.

It is my responsibility as a scientist to point out the complexity of the issue and hold people accountable for the actual outcome of the policies they support not the self defined motivation. What some of the arguments you put forward miss is the very point the people who demagogue environmental issues want you to miss.

I'm not even completely sure what you're trying to say here, so I'm not sure if it's even something I disagree with.

The sustainable use of a renewable resource benefits both conservation and the economy. These two things are rarely in contradiction when long term goals are considered. You lose the “hey look how I am suffering” because I care thing. I would much rather have you reap the rewards of taking proper care of the world than suffer pretentiously while damaging it.

Let's look at the banggai cardinals I used to have. I sold the offspring to local reefers, and occasionally would trade them in to LFS in the area. You talk about how much more energy it takes, but the only increase for me was catching the fish from the tank. I had no extra effort, no extra resources. It seems to me I was reaping the rewards, but I hardly see how I was damaging things. The BC I started with were also TR. I paid a few $ more for them, but I hardly considered that as suffering, but something that was worth it for a variety of reasons; among them being the better survival rate that was discussed in one of the other threads, and, on average, is likely to be cheaper for me than buying the less hardy WC fish. Once again, good for my wallet and the environment.

A friend of mine has two tanks set up for raising clownfish. He sells them through one of the stores in the area. Sure, it's a little more work for him, but the amount of energy it takes to run those tanks and raise those fish, from a conservation point of view, is far, far less than what it takes to transport their WC cousins from around the world to the coasts, and then from the coasts to here. Ultimately, I guess I disagree with your statement in your first post about resources in WC vs TR animals.

My main point on the LFS thing is to suggest that people do a bit more self reflection. The LFS pays a lot of money for animals. If anyone thinks their motive to keep fish healthy and alive is not there this is incorrect. Dead animals cut into the bottom line as you acknoledge, - their very reason for existing. They do care and should be willing to discuss care issues if appoached as a conversation rather than a lecture.

That's actually not true. I've found that LFS (including the one I used to look for), are not very interested in changing how they do things, no matter how it's approached. Yes, they should be, but they don't tend to be, IME. Also, their interest in keeping the animals is not the same as mine. If I get an animal, my goal is to keep it alive and healthy until it dies of old age. A store wants to keep an animal looking healthy until they can unload it on a customer; this is especially true of the large chains. As two examples, cyanide caught fish often have bright, vibrant colors as they are dying; they look fantastic until near the end. So many stores don't go out of their way to avoid cyanide caught fish. This has been slowly shifting as there's been more pushback against cyanide fishing, but I still see a fair number that I would bet have been caught that way.
The second is krill. If you feed your fish exclusively krill, their colors get fantastic. Of course, it's nowhere near the varied diet they need to be optimal, but if I had a store, I'd feed just krill (and I've known a few stores where they do this). Depending on where they are and how good their accountant is, there's also not as much damage from dead animals as you would expect for an LFS.

 

[MM WI]

Thanks for the thoughtfull responses,

Greenbean,

I know that the commercial fishery for the food industry has a terrible record of over fishing but I really have trouble seeing the demand for ornamental fish cutting into sustainability. Hard coral and rock I can see causing damaging more quickly. No I have no data it would just defy logic given the size of the resource.

Woverine,

Your argument in favor of our hobby generating animals to share and trade is unquestionably valid. Unfortunately the position falls down when you try to support the entire hobby. It is no longer a few corals and fish reproducing in someone’s already existing tank but several aquaculture facilities that would be necessary to keep us all supplied. For that to ever become more efficient than a sustainable collection of wild animals a really cheap and clean source of power would be necessary, a good thing, or the destruction of the sustainable resource would be necessary, obviously a bad thing. It is the later that I am trying to oppose.

OK, so you accept people’s political positions as a constant that must be dealt with. OK, I can't argue with that it is certainly true to some extent, but I do feel the need to try as its existence is certainly a constant but its prevalence certainly is not.

Character flaws like pretentiousness make people susceptible to the demagogues that use environmental issues as a route to personal gain and a route to socialism through poverty. I fight these small battles to try to bring people closer to seeing the bigger picture. If they really do care more about actual conservation than the appearance of conservation when surrounded by like minded people, my efforts are not wasted. The route through which poverty drives most of our pollution and deforestation is a complex subject, similar to the fact that these are our biggest threats. I would not try to offer a comprehensive explanation the relationship between us, the economy, and the environment all at once so I try to chip away at the edges.

- mark

 

[jenglish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14052410#post14052410 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MM WI
Thanks for the thoughtfull responses,

Greenbean,

I know that the commercial fishery for the food industry has a terrible record of over fishing but I really have trouble seeing the demand for ornamental fish cutting into sustainability. Hard coral and rock I can see causing damaging more quickly. No I have no data it would just defy logic given the size of the resource.

Woverine,

Your argument in favor of our hobby generating animals to share and trade is unquestionably valid. Unfortunately the position falls down when you try to support the entire hobby. It is no longer a few corals and fish reproducing in someone’s already existing tank but several aquaculture facilities that would be necessary to keep us all supplied. For that to ever become more efficient than a sustainable collection of wild animals a really cheap and clean source of power would be necessary, a good thing, or the destruction of the sustainable resource would be necessary, obviously a bad thing. It is the later that I am trying to oppose.

OK, so you accept people’s political positions as a constant that must be dealt with. OK, I can't argue with that it is certainly true to some extent, but I do feel the need to try as its existence is certainly a constant but its prevalence certainly is not.

Character flaws like pretentiousness make people susceptible to the demagogues that use environmental issues as a route to personal gain and a route to socialism through poverty. I fight these small battles to try to bring people closer to seeing the bigger picture. If they really do care more about actual conservation than the appearance of conservation when surrounded by like minded people, my efforts are not wasted. The route through which poverty drives most of our pollution and deforestation is a complex subject, similar to the fact that these are our biggest threats. I would not try to offer a comprehensive explanation the relationship between us, the economy, and the environment all at once so I try to chip away at the edges.

- mark

I'm going to try not to flame or turn this into a political debate as I want to keep that on political forums.

I am unsure of what you are referring to as enviromental issues as routes to socialism or a route to socialism through poverty. I certianly concur that poverty drives pollution and and deforestation. I don't know that I would say "most" pollution.

As far as wild collection of fish being a unsustainable drain on the population, I'm not sure that this point even needs to be made. Whethor the collection is causing pressure is deabateable but the fact that reef biotopes are declining is pretty hard to deny. What is causing this may be some combination of temp change, acidification, sand encroachment toxins etc or whatever. But its pretty well accepted they are declining. Even if collection rates leveled out if we are pulling from a smaller and smaller population that is heading for a point collection is not sustainable.

I think the thing that sort of rubs me the wrong way is the assumption that those who have differing views on politics and enviromentalism are either demagogues or posses character flaws to be influenced by demagogues. That to me seems to be nearly the definition of pretentiousness.

 

[MM WI]

Happy New Year Jeng,

So Jeng, Did it occur to you that my post was designed to rub you the wrong way? Do you really think that reading a few magazine articles or watching the idiots on CNN, fox news, or MSNBC qualifies you to speak with authority on conservation? I hear more humility in conversations with leading scientists on these subjects than I get from your post here and elsewhere. I am not saying you should not discuss the subjects just that you should do so with a bit more humility.

It is very rare for someone who has made public statements to ever change a belief regardless of the evidence against. I am guessing you have made several public statements on this subject.

Flame me…good luck with that Let us all know how that works out for you.

If you really have a question on my statements I would be glad to answer it or any follow-ups but don’t expect me to treat your comments as a debate. Don’t kid yourself. Lastly, repeating a few populists quips about how the world is going to end is not a question. You will need to be bit more specific.

- Mark

 

[MM WI]

Hey Wolverine,

Giving the captive grown thing a bit more though, I just have a few tanks and I would be embarrassed to tell you how much coral I sell in a given year. Perhaps if we did get a lot better at this and develop techniques where even a beginner with a plug and play tank will have as much success as the more experienced aquarists do today who knows where it would lead us. We are certainly no where near this today. Fish reproduction in captivity is so complex that my little play on what if will likely never happen. The inevitable selectivity breading for freaky fish would bother me also. The carp being selectively bread into all of its varieties. I sure hope that our marine tanks will not be full of fish that don't resemble what is found in nature. All the more reason to make our goal protection of ecosystems everywhere rather than captive grown animals as a necessity.

- Mark

 

[Thales]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14052410#post14052410 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MM WI

I know that the commercial fishery for the food industry has a terrible record of over fishing but I really have trouble seeing the demand for ornamental fish cutting into sustainability. Hard coral and rock I can see causing damaging more quickly. No I have no data it would just defy logic given the size of the resource.

It really depends on the collecting practices. Cyanide fishing, which still happens a lot, can kill entire reefs, as can 'coral breaking' fish collecting, which also still happens a lot. These practices seem to have had a much more detrimental effect on reefs than live rock and hard coral collecting. It would be nice if these practices went away, but after 30 years of knowing about them being bad, they are still being used.

There are also at least several cases of animals being over collected for the hobby...banggai cardinals, hog island boas, the 'former' galaxy rasbora. These animals were decimated in their original habitats so people could buy them cheaply for their living rooms.

Your argument in favor of our hobby generating animals to share and trade is unquestionably valid. Unfortunately the position falls down when you try to support the entire hobby. It is no longer a few corals and fish reproducing in someone’s already existing tank but several aquaculture facilities that would be necessary to keep us all supplied. For that to ever become more efficient than a sustainable collection of wild animals a really cheap and clean source of power would be necessary, a good thing, or the destruction of the sustainable resource would be necessary, obviously a bad thing. It is the later that I am trying to oppose.

I am not sure that aquaculture facilities for the hobby could come anywhere near to causing the environmental impact that the jet fuel used to fly wild caught animals around the world causes (sometimes with incredibly high DOA rates which makes the jet fuel used a complete waste). Especially given that aquaculture can be done in greenhouses using a lot of natural light and low wattage pumps/surge systems.

That all said, I agree that pretentiousness is not a great thing and I think your post to Jeng may be all that you are arguing against.

 

[billsreef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14052410#post14052410 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MM WI
I know that the commercial fishery for the food industry has a terrible record of over fishing but I really have trouble seeing the demand for ornamental fish cutting into sustainability. Hard coral and rock I can see causing damaging more quickly. No I have no data it would just defy logic given the size of the resource.

Isn't it pretty silly (or even pretentious) to base a position on no data? Do a little searching, in particular in regards to Hawaii, there have been some scientific studies done in some heavily collected areas to show that collecting for the ornamental trade had indeed had a negative impact on some fish populations. Despite that it defies your logic.

 

[jenglish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14054886#post14054886 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MM WI
Happy New Year Jeng,

So Jeng, Did it occur to you that my post was designed to rub you the wrong way? Do you really think that reading a few magazine articles or watching the idiots on CNN, fox news, or MSNBC qualifies you to speak with authority on conservation? I hear more humility in conversations with leading scientists on these subjects than I get from your post here and elsewhere. I am not saying you should not discuss the subjects just that you should do so with a bit more humility.
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I think that designing your statements to rub people the wrong way is a sure way to end any actual coversation and incite a mentality of group polarization in which both sides dig in to their positions and stop listening. I find your calls for humility to be a bit hypocritical. I am not sure why I am to assume you to be more qualified to debate an issue than I and approach disagreeing with you with humility.
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It is very rare for someone who has made public statements to ever change a belief regardless of the evidence against. I am guessing you have made several public statements on this subject.
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And have you not done the same? In actuality I have both made public statements on a variety of beliefs and later changed them. Everything is changable from my POV and I will believe nearly anything that enough randomized control trials supports in peer reviewd literature (not saying the peer review system is w/o flaw or groupthink)
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Flame me…good luck with that Let us all know how that works out for you.
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My preface of trying not to make it flamey was in the interest of keeping the conversation civil. In the absence of vocal intonations and facial expression words can be read very differently.
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If you really have a question on my statements I would be glad to answer it or any follow-ups but don’t expect me to treat your comments as a debate. Don’t kid yourself. Lastly, repeating a few populists quips about how the world is going to end is not a question. You will need to be bit more specific.
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Specific questions:
1. What are you referring to as populist quips?
2. back to the post I first replied to, can you in any way, either with data or even a line of logic defend, "Character flaws like pretentiousness make people susceptible to the demagogues that use environmental issues as a route to personal gain and a route to socialism through poverty."
3. Are you advocating the position that there is a net decline or at the very least a viable threat to coral reef health worldwide? I realize that given time they recover and some have shown great recovery after degradation.
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to address a comment from outside what I have directly quoted I agree with you artificial selection in aquaculture can be a slippery slope.

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Lastly I do not believe there is anything wrong with questioning presuppositions about what is most harmful or is more sustainable. I think in general people do want simple answers like "recycling=good, landfill =bad" to very complex questions. In fact from the information side of this I think very good points have been made. At least the way I am reading it you are coming off just as pretentious as you accuse others of being just from a different side. You sort of seem to have this attitude that you understnad this better than anyone else and if you can only educate a few more people they will see that your side of an argument is the answer.

- Mark

 

[MM WI]

Thales,

If you read the entire thread, you will see that the discussion started with the preface of legal collection. You then try to break the comparison of captive vs aquaculture into a couple of components as an oversimplification that ignores major inputs that by design simplify it into compliance with your position. Similarly using examples of unregulated or illegal practices is a tangent beyond the larger question of what will work in the long run. I am not going to focus on various examples of issues that that regulators have already addressed. Using the worst case example of now illegal practices as representative of where our animals are coming from is dishonest, likely not by intent but dishonest none the less. Your premise assumes that regulation and enforcement are a lost cause. If that is the case this becomes a circular argument and a waste of time.

Anyone can spin a thread of "logic" that supports a position. There is then no accountability to the most relevant question of the actual long term outcome and the realities of the situation. Do you think you could write better regulations than the people with advanced degrees in related subjects who write the recommendations that regulations are based on - after a couple of political filters of course

Obviously I don’t have time to address everyone who will get in line to repeat a couple of things they read somewhere and proclaim a conclusion or two. If someone asks a question that I see as relevant and in area that intersects my knowledge and background I will jump in. I do consider myself quite competent in discussing conservation issues and have a multidisciplinary education in the sciences to draw upon.

We should be posting links to current topics that impact the reef and discussing them. We should however do this with more humility and within our own limitations. I really like seeing the raw data; I get the most out of this. The scientists who perform the studies usually get the conclusions wrong as their follow up studies often show. If the scientist actually performing the study have trouble determining exactly what data is saying, certainly CNN and Newsweek are not going to get it right anymore than the a the average guy writing a post on RC. The biggest enemies we have in conservation are the false profits and demagogues and the people who follow them.

- Mark

 

[MM WI]

OK Jeng,

I like alot of what you say above,

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Specific questions:
1. What are you referring to as populist quips?
2. back to the post I first replied to, can you in any way, either with data or even a line of logic defend, "Character flaws like pretentiousness make people susceptible to the demagogues that use environmental issues as a route to personal gain and a route to socialism through poverty."
3. Are you advocating the position that there is a net decline or at the very least a viable threat to coral reef health worldwide? I realize that given time they recover and some have shown great recovery after degradation.
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1. Repeating the end of the world populism from the media.
2. I do think it is character flaws that are preyed upon by the false profits of conservation; to understand the false profits consider how Orwell's pigs always end up walking on two legs. Green peace for example started out as a conservation organization run by scientists, it is now a political organization that has little to do with actual conservation. Other than TNC most of the orgs you likely think are conservation orgs are anything but.
3. Declines in our reef would need to be talked about specific to the realities of the individual system. This can be quite interesting. The demagogues lump them together to fit their agenda.

I hope this helps.

- Mark

 

[Wolverine]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14054886#post14054886 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MM WI
Did it occur to you that my post was designed to rub you the wrong way?

Did it occur to you that this is commonly known as trolling, and is used on many BB as a reason to remove a user from the community? I was thinking that after you second post, but you sort of confirmed it here.

 

[Wolverine]

For that to ever become more efficient than a sustainable collection of wild animals a really cheap and clean source of power would be necessary, a good thing, or the destruction of the sustainable resource would be necessary, obviously a bad thing. It is the later that I am trying to oppose.

There is really cheap power available. It comes in the form of sunlight. A good friend of mine is growing corals like crazy in a greenhouse in Ohio and he uses amazingly little energy to do so. Tropicorium grows a lot of corals here in MI. I believe Steve Pro is building one in PA. You get even more of that energy if you go down to Fla, etc. ORA has been around for a long time raising fishes. Inland Aquatics is still around raising fishes. I think it's important to continue to support these efforts, as I mentioned above. As they've grown, they've increased in efficiency, increased the species they're able to raise, etc.
This gets to one of the points above, about the lack of data. Collection has not been sustainable through most of the world's reefs.

Character flaws like pretentiousness make people susceptible to the demagogues that use environmental issues as a route to personal gain and a route to socialism through poverty. I fight these small battles to try to bring people closer to seeing the bigger picture.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14052410#post14052410 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MM WI
I know that the commercial fishery for the food industry has a terrible record of over fishing but I really have trouble seeing the demand for ornamental fish cutting into sustainability. Hard coral and rock I can see causing damaging more quickly. No I have no data it would just defy logic given the size of the resource.

These get back to the central flaw in your argument. You want people to see the big picture, but you don't seem to be seeing it yourself. I agree with your basic premise that people shouldn't just take whatever they've heard on face value, and should look deeper into things, but you've made a mistake in choosing this topic on which to base your argument. You've committed the exact sin you're accusing others of committing, because you haven't taken all the information into account, by your own admission. I would expect more from someone who, as a scientist, feels it's his "responsibility to point out the complexity of the issue" to the rest of us schmoes.
You seem to have a chip on your shoulder about this topic, and you're skirting awfully close to this nose-diving into a political discussion, and we really don't need another of those in here.

 

[Thales]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14056571#post14056571 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MM WI
Thales,

If you read the entire thread, you will see that the discussion started with the preface of legal collection.

Cool. Now if you can just make that the reality of the trade we are in business. Sadly, after 30 years of trying, not much has happened, and 'wouldn't it be good if' discussions have gotten us nowhere.

You then try to break the comparison of captive vs aquaculture into a couple of components as an oversimplification that ignores major inputs that by design simplify it into compliance with your position.

That wasn't what I was doing, and it seems like the absence of humbleness to assume to know what I wasreally thinking.

Similarly using examples of unregulated or illegal practices is a tangent beyond the larger question of what will work in the long run.

But not taking them into account ignores the reality of the trade. If you want to do that, have a good time but its not going to get you anywhere but to keep the wheels spinning in the mud. There are many versions of what will work in the long run, however, getting everyone involved to be on the same page is the stumbling block. If you can come up with a plan that gets all the different nations and businesses involved to stay a particular course, then you would be cooking with gas.

I am not going to focus on various examples of issues that that regulators have already addressed.
Using the worst case example of now illegal practices as representative of where our animals are coming from is dishonest, likely not by intent but dishonest none the less.

I don't think you understand how the trade works.

Your premise assumes that regulation and enforcement are a lost cause. If that is the case this becomes a circular argument and a waste of time.

Yep. The same can be said for pie in the sky discussions that ignore or don't understand reality.

Anyone can spin a thread of "logic" that supports a position. There is then no accountability to the most relevant question of the actual long term outcome and the realities of the situation.

Accountability is a major part of the current problem.

Do you think you could write better regulations than the people with advanced degrees in related subjects who write the recommendations that regulations are based on - after a couple of political filters of course

What regulations are you talking about?

I am not sure if you have a handle on how the industry actually works, nor do I think you have a handle on how various regulations on the industry are put in place.

All the regulations in the world don't do any good if there is no, or poor, enforcement, which is a major part of the problem.

Obviously I don’t have time to address everyone who will get in line to repeat a couple of things they read somewhere and proclaim a conclusion or two.

Hmmm. You might want to take to heart some of the stuff you wrote about being humble and might want to take into account that some people who post on these forums have had long term real world experiences in the industry.

If someone asks a question that I see as relevant and in area that intersects my knowledge and background I will jump in. I do consider myself quite competent in discussing conservation issues and have a multidisciplinary education in the sciences to draw upon.

What was that about pretentiousness?

 

[GreshamH]

Now I see why the invite I got to this thread was in my spam folder...IBTL..... now where was that rock I was sleeping under

 

[billsreef]

Just think, Gresh, you would have missed all the fun of watching someone try and present arguments without use of any data, while expecting others to provide data :lol: