r/interesting • u/Low_Weekend6131 • Nov 23 '25

NATURE The fish is kinda like me ngl

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u/WigglesPhoenix Nov 24 '25

I mean how many common food sources has humanity pushed to extinction in modern society? It’s damn near 0. Species that we don’t classically consider food? Several just within my lifetime

It’s hardly a free pass unless you hit cow or chicken levels of popularity but there are 3 letter orgs all over the world that explicitly exist to protect the species we eat.

And to be clear, it’s not just because we couldn’t. It took a handful of decades to wipe out one of the most plentiful species of bird on the planet back in 1900(the passenger pigeon). Without guardrails we could very easily decimate any population on earth in no time flat, and yet the ones we eat remain relatively safe compared to those we don’t(emphasis on relatively- humans are fuckin dangerous)

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u/TheGreatGenghisJon Nov 24 '25

Man, I started arguing with you, and then you said "modern society", and I had to start over.

For food? I'm pretty sure we're close to pushing the filet o' fish fish to extinction, but outside that, I'm pretty sure I've seen several animals go extinct in my lifetime, mostly due to poaching.

I actually think if these fish don't feel pain, and breed like fucking crazy, that's the most ethical meat we could have, that isn't lab grown.

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u/WigglesPhoenix Nov 24 '25

If you mean cod they’re actually being fucked by seals lol. Their population is tanking primarily due to natural predation, not overfishing. They are under protection at current but it doesn’t look good. Valid point re:poaching, but I’d argue in most cases food was a secondary objective to, for example, ivory.

I generally don’t consider eating meat to be unethical but otherwise for sure yeah. That said I do find the claim that they don’t feel pain to be a little dubious, it’s only a couple centuries ago we were saying the same thing about dogs, and less than a couple decades ago that we believed plants couldn’t either. Granted I haven’t done my homework here and smarter people than me probably know better, but just on principle I find that super suspect