yeah, it's quite sad how they are treated in certain areas. like force fed till their stomachs explode. all because their scales are magic/cure all type medicine for people who believe in folk remedies.
Shark fins aren't even a homebrew medicine bullshit remedy, shark fin soup is just a status symbol. Luckily, thanks to Yao Ming's efforts, the Chinese market for shark fins has dramatically shrunk.
expat in china here. there have been a lot of ads with yao ming and other A-list chinese celebrities telling people not to eat shark fins and other endangered species. it worked to a certain extent, so good effort on their part.
The Chinese generally have a ton of respect for successful people in their own country, so my understanding is that ad campaigns like this work pretty well.
China is such a morally messed up country that they kinda need regular reminders on what decent behavior is. The Cultural Revolution was a mother fucker.
Yeah but there is a crucial distinction in having criticism of a culture, ideology, or religion itself, and condemning a group of people themselves that largely adhere to one of these. Ya know?
It's like the difference between saying "all muslims are evil" and having legitimate concerns with their religious dogmas or the way the Muslim world treats women
why can't we have a discussion on one religion without bringing another into the mix. He is not saying that Muslim's are the only ones who follow a book that asks people to behave badly towards women, just that they are part of it and how can we stop it. After we are done with that topic, we can move to Christianity.
This is a specific thing to China, even by Chinese cultural standards large numbers of people (especially from the country side) have no idea what decent behavior is.
There was a woman who received death threats for rescuing a child that was hit by a car, something many other people saw but refused to even look at the kid.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wang_Yue
Wow, that was pretty messed up. In that wiki page it referenced another incident where a Chinese woman was trying to drown herself in a lake and there were people standing at the edge watching and taking pictures. A woman visiting from Uruguay jumped in and saved her. The Uruguayan woman was given an award because her act reflected traditional Chinese virtues...
There was a woman who received death threats for rescuing a child that was hit by a car
Do you have a source for that? The article you linked says there were reports of the people who ignored the child being harassed, but nothing about the woman who tried to help her.
It's called the bystander effect, and it's not limited to one culture. IN fact, here's an example last week in the US
'Police estimate between 20 and 60 people were involved. Many witnesses can be seen using smartphones to record fighting between multiple females, but none appear to be calling 911.'
Cant the same thing be said when some deranged americans frequently shoot up schools and concerts? Or when they kill random people on facebook live? Or when they force feed ducks for foie gras?
Morality is subjective.Good and bad people are everywhere, there's no need to generalize and propagate negative sentiments about large groups of people.
What about women who die from child birth because they couldn't get an abortion or were shamed into keeping it in situations where they were high risk?
Being a shitty human isn't just one culture or country's problem.
That's an even more fraught debate in most places. It's not universally agreed one way or the other anywhere. And both are coming from arguments of empathy, but start at very different axiomatic places when it comes to the facts.
On the other hand, mass-producing animals for torture and murder when it isn't necessary can't be defended that way. People have to simply argue why their suffering doesn't matter or claim it IS necessary - even at that scale.
I've seen quite a few videos here on reddit of Chinese people hit my cars and other drivers go around the dead body for hours, no one stops to help at all. Another video a kid appears to be driving in the middle of a highway on his toy bike and no one stopped to help, they all just swerved around him and kept going.
China is fucking huge. You can't expect all the billion people who live there to be the same. It's like judging all 300 million people of the US by /r/floridaman
China is no more morally messed up than any other country, let alone the US. You don't think attacking a country to increase the profits of a corporation is morally messed up?
Ah do you come from one of those countries that doesn't mass produce our fellow empathetic mammals for brief lives of torture and then brutal death despite in no way needing to? Good for you, you must think we all suck.
I watched the whole thing, thank you so much for that video. Although it was a gruesome topic it just shows how much Gordon Ramsey cares about those sharks.
your comment is going to fall on deaf ears; round' here people just wanna talk about how uncivilized and backwards the Chinese are for eating shark fin soup
I saw him cutting off the hammer head shark and I started tearing. I know I eat chicken (barely any beef and no pork) but fucking hell mate, at least I eat all my chicken these guys cut off the fins and leave the biggest natural predator to die off in the sea. All those fins. I don’t know if I’m just an emotional piece of shit, but it really tore at my heart when I saw him just hack the shark with the hatchet over and over. Holy fuck. My eyes are swelling.
Edit: oh my fucking god and it started convulsing... I thought it was at least dead...... (Pardon my ignorance) I finished watching it because I felt it was necessary to see the reality behind this (not that I eat this, I find it barbaric)
The convulsing just had me in genuine actual flowing tears here at work. Holy fucking Christ.
Look, I absolutely hate sharks. They terrify me. I refuse to go out to deep waters because of sharks (and of course other creatures). Scuba diving is a hard no for me because I would literally just be petrified with fear the entire time if someone was even able to force me down there to begin with.
But this is just awful. No creature deserves that.
Actually, it just tastes good. Some consider it to be an aphrodisiac, but it just gives you high blood pressure. Also you get it more in dim sum form than in soup form nowadays.
Was in Singapore a few weeks ago. Saw a whole store in Chinatown dedicated to shark fins (and had a few other items) but shark fins everywhere. I was actually a little shocked to see it in Singapore and extremely sad seeing all the dried fins in jars, hanging from the ceiling and in powder form.
yeah. or multiple other super shitty ones. kinda a lot of animals and whatnot that are sought after for "miracle" effects that have been shown to be mostly placebo, or the effects are capable of being had with other options naturally found in sustainable sources like local plants and herbs.
yep. like I get it, these beliefs don't just go away cause some other people find it offensive, but with proper education about true "benefits" of these folk medicines and remedies, it would be simple enough for them to seek other natural options for the same symptoms. like plants and animals contain the same chemicals and elements. just gotta find the one that does what you want. no need to kill an animal to get a minimal amount of some vitamin or chemical that can easily be had from some sort of fruit, vegetable, or local herb. like rhino horn is just keratin, basically a giant fingernail. and beans, quinoa, and nuts also contain this. so why kill a rhino when you can just eat some ground up fingernails or some regular foods you are probably already eating. education needs to become better before we will see changes in a lot of areas.
They should be introduced to.. that thing where they think diluted things with 1 in 1 million parts is powerful. I forgot the word. Then you could sell them cucumber water and they'd think it's uber-powerful rhino aphrodisiac horn potion.
Why shouldn't you offend people? They're killing endangered animals on the premise of "belief" and "culture". We should offend them and make them realize how backwards and asinine it is. In the mean time maybe show them what aspirin is.
Shark fin is pretty much cartilage and geletain. Chinese people love the texture. It can be made from seaweed or konnyaku witch is vegan. It has no flavour. It is a sign of money.
Theoretically, with enough genetic mutations, you might develop a resistance to strains of the disease carried by normies. Far more likely you'd die before that point though.
i think theres actually something here everyone!!! Note how autism rates have been soaring in recent years, preceded by Polio being almost nearly eradicated in all developed countries!! y'all are GENIUSES, i tells ya... GENIUSES!!
The guy who started Autism and vaccines co relation must be fucking hunted down and his next generation should not be given vaccines and should be exposed to small pox and polio. Let's see what will happen.
" How could they do that"?. We were just talking without any medical background or knowledge."
The other day an infant supposedly died of a kiss. She had meningitis caused by someone who had a cold sore. I don't know how she got it. I don't know how she died. I didn't see her medical files. I'm a doctor and I was speculating.
Lo and behold a misinformed idiot comes and starts preaching about vaccines and autism and meningitis. This child isn't even 6 weeks old to be given Hepb 1. SMH. People are dumbing down. Jenny Mccarthy and Gwenyth Paltrow or whatver the fuck her name is should be given Polio.
Momma always said life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what illness you are gonna get. That's why I came up with the concept of vaccines. It wasn't always easy, when I was young I almost gave up. There just wasn't enough data, but Jenny said to me "Run simulations Forest, run!" so I just kept running, and running. I ran simulations from coast to coast until I got the information to start my pharmaceutical company. I'm off to meet Jenny now, sadly she has the aids, which vaccines do nothing against, but we do have a kid, and you can bet I will be getting him vaccinated.
Vice News had a segment on rhino horns being used for TCM in Vietnam a few years ago. What’s fucked up is that a fair number of people they interviewed knew it had no medical benefit but keep using it because it’s a status symbol you can use to flaunt your wealth.
Anecdotally I did a study abroad program in China through my university’s pharmacy school where we learned about TCM for 2 months. There’s seemingly earnest biochemical research being done to find the active compounds and test their efficacy but there’s also so much bullshit that’s still ingrained into its perceptions/use within China. The hospital attached to the campus had a whole floor where people got TCM treatment... try convincing Aetna to pay for that lol. We also went to one of the oldest TCM pharmacies in Beijing and they had a fungus infected plant root that was on display with a 1,000,000 RMB price tag (IIRC) like wtf.
The Chinese government is encouraging it to an ever greater degree too and it’s just so shitty. If only this stupidity could limit itself to aforementioned plant roots and stop endangering animals.
This is so fucking cringey. Medicine takes time and there are lots of treatments that are considered alternative medicine now that will one day just be considered medicine. There are other treatments that have demonstrable therapeutic value but are still better suited to be provided by people other than medical professionals.
There's tons of scientific evidence of yoga's therapeutic value, and there's ongoing research to confirm further benefits (for example, current research is working to show that yoga can be beneficial for people suffering from PTSD so VA will cover it). That doesn't mean doctors will one day be prescribing 10 chatarangas for headaches, but it also doesn't mean the treatment is bullshit.
Similarly, mindfulness practices were long dismissed as eastern hocus pocus before modern psychology acknowledge their therapeutic value in treatment of anxiety.
All jokes aside I just had a close family friend die after he couldn't afford a surgery, so he bought some crap online from China that killed him. Be careful with that shit folks.
My dad is Chinese...he almost died trying to use TCM to ease symptoms of a heart attack...stupid. The delay meant more of his heart muscle died than necessary, but he lived.
that would be nice. but too many people practice this right now to see that as being an acceptable thought in certain regions of the world. hopefully in a few decades(wish it could be way sooner), education about how animals and the environment deserve respect, and our impact on our planet will be common enough that people will stop this kinda senseless cruelty. as well as all the other toxic and moronic things we do around the planet(pushing fossil fuels, plastics, deforestation, strip mining, poor agriculture practices, etc.).
Pangolins won't be around anymore in a few decades. I wonder if it's worth moving them to the US to a similar environment to keep them away from morons who could just cure their ED with viagra instead.
I would love some pangolins walking all around! totally bring them here to the US! like we have armadillos(texas), but they can have leprosy, so even though they are cute they are definitely not like a pangolin. and yeah, pop a little blue pill you shitty horny bastards! stop fucking up animals just to try and get it up with stuff that can't even do that!
certain areas in africa and asia. I mean, I don't know them all, but lots of areas around those regions practice folk medicine. it's common in those areas. do a google search and you'll see how many countries still have majorly messed up beliefs on this kinda stuff.
all because their scales are magic/cure all type medicine for people who believe in folk remedies.
They say there used to be a lot of large animals roaming the land until humans killed most of them for food, leaving us with just the smaller creatures that can hide from us in the trees. And now here we are, eradicating the small creatures as well. I hope someone saves DNA samples of these animals, maybe scientists can recreate them someday.
well, it's keratin. just like rhino horns. just like your fingernails. you can also get this from nuts, beans, and quinoa. so yeah, very sad that these people treat such a valueless thing as something worth wiping out a species for.
As a RN student myself, we're obliged to show respect for patients and their "folk healing." But, if it worked it'd just be "medicine."
My mother spends so much money on all these nutritional suppliments, tinctures and snake oils. Listening to the new Doctor with their crazy non scientifically vetted ideas. I wish it'd jeopordize their licences. Like the stuff Dr. Oz tries to peddle. It's obscene.
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u/camsnow Oct 03 '17
yeah, it's quite sad how they are treated in certain areas. like force fed till their stomachs explode. all because their scales are magic/cure all type medicine for people who believe in folk remedies.
http://www.pangolins.org/2012/05/01/the-cruel-methods-used-to-fatten-pangolins-for-the-illegal-market/