• rah@feddit.uk
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    5 months ago

    So you acknowledge that zoos are not necessary for conservation?

    • Liz@midwest.social
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      5 months ago

      Not in a binary sense, no. Such thinking isn’t useful, however. Zoos are a very strong net good fot animals, with minimal downsides (assuming the zoo keepers aren’t calloused assholes).

        • Liz@midwest.social
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          5 months ago

          Yes I’m well aware of the difficulties involved, but they can be mitigated, as your source explains. There’s more issues than just keeping them from going stir-crazy, but a proper zoo (the only kind I advocate for) will do their best to address all of them.

            • Liz@midwest.social
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              5 months ago

              You and I have different moral systems and you think that hammering a deal-breaker for you will cause me to change my mind, when I’m perfectly okay with causing a small harm in order to secure a much much greater good.

              • rah@feddit.uk
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                5 months ago

                hammering a deal-breaker for you will cause me to change my mind

                I don’t understand this part of your sentence.

                • Liz@midwest.social
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                  5 months ago

                  You keep bringing up that zoos cause harm. This seems to be a deal-breaker for you. It seems your view is that if it’s possible to achieve some amount of your goal without causing harm, you should do that, even if causing a small amount of harm would enable you much greater success in whatever it is you’re after. In my view, it’s acceptable to cause a small amount of harm, if you get significantly greater good from doing so. Of course the details matter, and I don’t believe either of us would argue our position in every scenario, but in this case I find the manageable harm caused by zoos to be worth the increased interest in wildlife conservation.

                  • rah@feddit.uk
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                    5 months ago

                    It seems your view is that if it’s possible to achieve some amount of your goal without causing harm, you should do that, even if causing a small amount of harm would enable you much greater success in whatever it is you’re after.

                    It seems to me that we have different goals.

                    manageable harm

                    Obdurate.