#unpopular ecology opinion

[unpopularvetopinions]

The most important thing to remember about "ethical vegetarians" and "ecological vegans" is that you don't have to pay attention to anything they say about ecology or ethics.

A frustrating part of the mainstream vegan “love all animals and protect the environment” mindset is the fact that things need to die in real-life ecology all the time but deer hunting season makes icky feelings and carp culls aren’t cottagecore

[troythecatfish]

What would happen if we just killed off the entire human populations of the British isles, Taiwan, and Japan and transform all that land into giant nature reserves?

[resespauffs]

unpopular opinion demetrius is lowkey one of my comfort characters i like hearing him yap about surface level biology/ecology knowledge i learned about in my first year BC YES TOMATOES ARE FRUITS IM SORRY ROBIN

[slurpem]

maybe unpopular opinion but I saw some posts on this recently and I don't get the ppl acting like outdoor cats are an ecological disaster. not to be callous but just building one house or laying down a block of road prolly harms more than a few critters but only like hardcore primitivists would be super opposed to those things. idk why I'm supposed to feel sad or guilty abt a cat catching a mouse or bird every once in a while. also like i honestly think u can only be mad abt that if ur a diehard vegan cuz almost every single human has probably been responsible for the deaths of many more innocent animals than any cat has.

as for the argument abt outside being dangerous for cats, tragic shit can happen to cats outdoors but I also think it's tragic to keep a living creature as complex as a cat inside it's whole life. it just seems similar to parents who like keep their kids sheltered and end up controlling them bc they're terrified of them ever getting hurt in any way. like it just doesn't seem like a good way to live. might sound crazy but outdoor cats almost always seem more "self actualized" to me than indoor ones. like there's always more personality there

only situation I can see outdoor cats not making sense is like if u live downtown in the heart of a city. which I guess a lot of ppl do but like I still don't get the zealous blanket statements against outdoor cats I keep seeing

[unpopularvetopinions]

if you won't keep your cat indoors for their own sake, do it because it's not ok to let your kids be the neighborhood murderers.

I came for the bird content and I'm leaving because of the cat posting. Thank you for all the birds over the time I've been following you.

Sure, you’re welcome!

As a general statement addressing WHY I’ve posted so much about outdoor cats - for newer followers, I always have. If I want to have any claim to being an educational blog about birds, completely disregarding the #1 cause of death in birds while bird populations worldwide are plummeting in order to maintain arbitrary tumblr follower numbers would just be disingenuous and against what I stand for. If you have a platform, you should use it. I’m limiting the posting for now since most people prefer directly bird content and I understand that, but at the same time, please know that these conversations (like other conversations of ecological harm) will resurface.

People take the outdoor cat comments very seriously. If I posted information about proper habitats for birds, I would hope that anyone with an improper habitat for a bird would try to learn rather than going “This blog on the internet personally hates me and wishes harm on my bird”. That’s absolutely not the point.

[lupinus-bicolor]

i think ppl pathologize parasitism in nature to an unhealthy degree. Parasitism as a lifestyle in nature isn't some unnatural disruption of the host or the community's functioning; if anything, parasites facilitate energy transfer between several trophic levels and even ensure populations don't grow to an unsustainable degree. Their methods of reproduction and travel are fascinating! By numbers alone their living style is more common than traditional predation! Maybe their relative obscurity to us makes us fear them in ways that eerily reflect past attitudes about keystone predators like wolves. Mainstream opinion on the living style of parasitism tends to place human feelings of violation and disgust onto species that it doesn't apply to; frankly, applying these attitudes to host species and their parasites obfuscates their actual relationships and makes it very very difficult to overcome these biases to learn more about their actual effect on their communities. It's honestly a little disheartening to see folks start to embrace "unpopular" animals like spiders and continue to thoughtlessly hate every parasite they hear about. Cordyceps fungus and Leucochloridium flatworms, i am so sorry for what the internet says abt u <3

(for further reading/a good jumping off point: Ecological Consequences of Parasitism)

[self-indulgent-paw-patrol]

Ask Game.

Rocky

Oh my sweet summer child too pure for this world

My first impression - "Is that gray one a mutt? Why did they have to make the pup who works with recycling to be a "no-breed" one, that's racist, also bullying" (/j)

My impression now - He's me, I am him. My house is full of random stuff and recyclables just like his truck. He cares about the nature just like me. I found my pup doppelganger. I found my people (this included Zuma and Marshall just around 30 minutes later too).

Favorite thing about that character - His sense of humor. Idk how to explain this one. He's kinda sarcastic but in a way it doesn't sound mean, I love it.

Least favorite thing - He also doesn't like baths and I feel unnecessarily called out.

Favorite line/scene - THE BRAZILIAN DUB FOR THIS SCENE HERE, "Um Martelinho de Ouro resolve!" Long live localized dub jokes and puns, I loved it so much-

Favorite interaction that character has with another - I just realized I never considered about it so I'll go on and skip this one. There's nothing coming up to my mind about this.

A character that I wish that character would interact with more - Zuma. Also Ryder. I need Rocky and Ryder working together on stuff again.

Another character from another fandom that reminds me of that character - Would you believe me if I said... Jesse, from Free Willy? Specifically the animated cartoon, instead of the movies. Idk how to explain but Rocky reminds me of Jesse for some reason. Maybe because both are very ecologically-oriented characters. They would get along VERY WELL, except for the part where Jesse doesn't mind getting wet (his best friend is an ORCA, let's be honest here) and Rocky would completely avoid standing any closer than 15ft around Willy. And even then he's still at risk of getting splashed by that sarcasm-n-spite-driven orca.

A headcanon about that character - I've shared so many already? Let me see... One of my headcanons about Rocky is that even nowadays sometimes he still questions himself what is he doing here. Like, why is he with the Paw Patrol? With a bunch of other pups with pedigree and "actual jobs"? It happens mostly when he's feeling down, y'know those sad days you'd rather not leave the bed for no reason other than just not feeling like it? He gets out of that sad funk quickly though, it never lasts too long. The other pups always end up reminding him he's family just as much as them, even if they don't know they're helping with something more than they know XD

A song that reminds of that character - "To The Sky"

An unpopular opinion about that character - WHAT ARE UNPOPULAR OPINIONS, EVERYTHING I THINK OF ARE COMMON OPINIONS IN THE FANDOM, HELP, I DON'T HAVE ANY UNPOPULAR OPINION ABOUT HIM

Favorite picture - "Sexy without being vulgar" lol

[ladyimaginarium]

Indigenous History Month ask game !

What is your Indigenous identity/identities?

Are you connected, semiconnected reconnecting or disconnected to your culture?

What is your favorite indigenous character? (Canon, headcanon and OC's are okay!)

What does your indigeneity mean to you?

Where are your traditional lands?

What's something that you'd like to see for indigenous representation in media and why?

Can you speak your traditional indigenous language(s)? If so, can you say something in it?

Can you share some traditional knowledge if possible?

If you're connected, semiconnected or reconnecting, can you share a favorite traditional story of your people?

What's an unpopular opinion you have?

What's an intracommunity discussion you'd want to see be talked about more?

Do you have any pet peeves surrounding your community?

How does your indigeneity effect your queerness?

How does your indigeneity affect your plurality, if you are plural and if applicable?

What are your peoples' architecture like?

If you could share one thing with your ancestors, what would it be?

Indigenous vampires or Indigenous werewolves?

What's something you'd want nonindigenous peoples to understand?

What is your faith, if applicable?

Do you practice your traditional indigenous religion?

If you don't practice your indigenous religion, what do you practice, if applicable?

What's something that you feel the loss of with colonization?

Do you own traditional attire?

What is your favorite cultural clothing?

Do you have plant & ecological knowledge?

What's something that makes you proud of your indigeneity?

How has decolonization impacted you?

How do you show up for your community?

Who's your favorite indigenous celebrity, if applicable?

What's something you'd want to say to your future descendants, biological or otherwise?

Note: this is by Indigenous people for Indigenous peoples ONLY! While this was mostly made for Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, it's by no means exclusive to these groups, it's not specific to one culture, but nor is it open for all POC to use. This inherently includes First Nations, Métis, Inuit, Indigenous Americans, Alaska Natives, Greenlandic Inuit / Kalaalit Nunaat, Indigenous Mexicans, Indigenous Central Americans, Indigenous peoples of Abya Ayala (South America), Afroindigenous people in the diaspora (ie Black ndns, Black Americans, Black Canadians, Black South Americans, Black Carribeans, Black Mexicans, etc), Indigenous Africans (Maasai, Somalis, Tigrayans, Xhosa, Zulu, etc), African Diasporic Asians (ie the Siddi in India), Pasifika (Native Hawaiians / Kanaka Maoli, Polynesians, Melanesians, Micronesians, etc.), Aboriginal Australians & Torres Straits Islanders, Māori, Papuans, Black Austronesian peoples, colonized people in China (ie Tibetans, Uighurs, etc), the Ainu of Ainumoshir & Ryūkyūans/Okinawans of Ryūkyū in Japan, colonized people in India, Central Asia & Southeast Asia, Indigenous Taiwanese, peoples of West Asia (Indigenous Palestinians, Jewish people predominantly in the diasporas, Armenians, Kurds, etc.), Indigenous Europeans (Sámi, Karelians, Basque, Crimean Tatars, Irish Travellers, etc.), Indigenous Siberians, Romani & mixed race indigenous peoples! Do not use these for yourselves if you're not Indigenous in any way and especially not if you're white. Zionists, Kahanists, blood quantum purists & enrollment enforcers & assimilated Indigenous peoples who have no intention of connecting to their cultures whatsoever & do not fight for indigenous sovereignty DNI with this post. Please no discourse in the notes or with each other, I want us all to be kind to each other and to have fun with each other, ty!! 💕

[unpopularvetopinions]

The things I get to know because of this website are why I take drugs.

So here's the deal. Everybody knows about the bad wolf study, and they knew it was bad when I was in school, but they hadn't yet done the work to remove material based on the flawed theory. Dominance based behavior theory was in new editions of textbooks. Some of the older professors just taught it straight. Others addressed the flaws and led us to newer research with better methodology. It was very much an issue that was presented as having "schools of thought," which is kind of fucked when you think about it, because we knew that the only study all this alpha beta nonsense was based on was garbage already.

caste systems are a human thing. y'all can get your jollies however you like, i guess, but miss me with this one.

[gossipgirloff1]

Ok so Charles praised Elon Musk on this new podcast episode he did, which like terrible decision in my opinion considering how unpopular Musk is amongst a huge chunk of the population (maybe not f1 fans tho lmao some of them can be a bit special to say the least) for his hateful, uneducated and frankly stupid at times rhetoric on just about any topic, and a lot of people are understandably upset, but it got me thinking: obviously we should never put the drivers (just like any other celebrity mind you) on a pedestal or look up to them as role models because they’re athletes and it simply isn’t their job but even more than that I think that fans tend to forget how ignorant these men are for the most part. Like I’m sorry but most of them haven’t fully completed their education, either grew up in a very privileged sphere and/or were almost exclusively raised in a racing focused bubble and they are nowadays so immensely rich and privileged that they are completely disconnected from the rest of the world (these things might differ a bit from driver to driver but it is the overall picture of the sport). This is not to say that any of them are inherently bad people, we don’t know them well enough to be able to make judge of that, nor are they necessarily stupid, but they aren’t the brightest people either simply because of their life circumstances and they are also most likely have very little knowledge about just about anything that does not concern racing and its lifestyle (I am aware that I am oversimplifying things a lot here but I don’t really know how to express this differently). It is thus obvious that we shouldn’t expect anything from these people and in fact, we shouldn’t be looking up to them at all: they are just the key faces of a very toxic, sexist, homophobic, conservative and ecologically speaking atrocious sport that just so happens to be insanely entertaining and exciting to watch for some. But that is all f1 should remain, entertainment of which the drivers are part of, none of them should be seen as activists or role models or anything of the sort because frankly speaking, what have any of these men done to do warrant such admiration besides driving around the world very fast lol (I am aware that some like Hamilton might be key players in the sport that have also helped it progress but my opinion refers to the general world outside of f1). The only acceptable case where any of them should be a role model for someone is if that person wants to be a racing driver themselves. This criticism applies to any famous athlete/singer/actor btw, who doesn’t do anything like activism or representing and helping out and standing up for certain values/morals/causes, not that they have any obligation to do so. I think that when it comes to idolisation (which to be honest is bad in any case pretty much because it veers off towards excess) and role models and praise we should focus much more on people from our local communities, on activists, on scholars and on our friends and family who shapes us into the people we are, instead of giving celebrities this much attention and free advertisement.

.

[n4stasia]

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

So I do have a bit of a disadvantage here. If there is anything more boring than playing an RPG video game, it is certainly watching somebody else play it. To each their own, but RPG is one of the few genres I absolutely dislike, although I know it may be an unpopular opinion considering the worldwide popularity. I just wanted to share my difficulty following the plot having zero previous knowledge about it. I also had to spend some time watching youtube video reviews to get a better understanding. But enough of a slight side tangent! I absolutely loved some of the aspects of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and the connection to our theme of pop ecocriticism, so let me share that with you.

xeno-eco-criticism

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 involves in ecocriticism through some majestic cutscenes and story itself. The game's world is a living entity where titans serve as both homes and gods, emphasizing the deep bond between life and nature. Characters like Rex and Pyra explore themes of resource exploitation and ecological harmony. The damage caused by greed contrasts with the protagonists' quest for balance, mirroring real-world environmental issues on our planet Earth. The breathtaking landscapes and ecosystems in the cutscenes highlight the urgent need for sustainable living and respecting our planet.

humans + nature = ♡︎

Connecting this to the quite controversial text we were assigned , "The Drama of the Anthropocene," the anime game really nails the idea that humans and nature are intertwined and our future depends on this relationship. The Anthropocene era, where human actions shape the Earth, forces us to reconsider how we interact with the environment, just like the characters in the game work to bring back balance to their world. It really resembles the idea of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, both push for a big shift in how we see and treat nature, the need for deep ecology and sustainable living to avoid environmental disasters. The game goes a step further by showing how every choice impacts the ecosystem where even small actions can lead to big changes.

On a less enthusiastic note, "The Drama of the Anthropocene" dives into some questionable conclusions. Cobb rejects the idea that better technology alone can save us from environmental collapse, calling out the arrogance in believing that human ingenuity can always find a fix. Like ok go off I guess, but you can't you can't get into the brains of every one of 8 billion people and make them treat nature with care. I'm all up for the idea of interconnectedness of eco systems, but we need all the options, especially technology. I don't even want to repeat his ideas about religion and their alleged contribution to the environmental distress :\

[wildelydawn]

HI

(tumblr is actively breaking so if this already sent pls ignore this one!!)

tell me:

you favorite memory

and interesting fact about your self

an unpopular opinion

hello hi, I'm late!!! Apologies!!

My favorite memory: ah fuck. There are a few good ones but I'm going to cop out and default to one that I'm telling someone else right now, which is an argument I got into with The Scientist on whether or not chocolate is considered candy. It was such an intense argument whenever it came up. I think it was almost a sort of verbal foreplay, trying to wear each other down until someone conceded. Got the whole workplace involved. Got him drunk once and he still wouldn't fold. Last day together before I left, and he still insisted chocolate isn't candy. That was five years ago. I think about him a lot. I hope he's doing okay.

Hmm, an interesting fact: I'm published IRL! But not really creatively, just in "boring stuff" that I don't find boring. To keep things mysterious, I will never expand on that.

An unpopular opinion: All cats should be indoor cats. Not even in the sense of an ecological benefit. I just keep getting wind of stories of "oh my cat is usually indoor/outdoor and he left the other day and now I can't find him" and idk those stories make me feel so much panic. I don't think many pets should be kept outdoors unless it's necessary for their health. I don't know how it is with dogs, but seeing cartoons of dogs sitting outside at night really made me hurt as a kid and I dunno why, now I just think pets should be kept at home and leashed outside. I think getting a cat of my own has made this opinion on this stronger. I won't shame anyone who does this as not everyone lives the same life I do, but where I am, I just don't see why you would risk your car being outdoors. love u friend 🖤🖤🖤

Tumblr sleepover, send me weird things.

[unpopularvetopinions]

the natural limits of the feral domestic cat are few. bored, misguided people organize non-profits to remove the constraints of hunger, disease, thirst, and exposure from these introduced predators, and then take no responsibility for the consequences on the environment, the local community, or the individual cats in and around a colony. hoarding stories are so common as to be uninteresting. ok maybe it's a "barn cat" but is it fixed and vaccinated and fed in a controlled area and mainly earning its own keep?

it's easy to feel nice about doing something for an animal and forget to consider the consequences of our actions.

Housecats are just conceptually ridiculous creatures. Like, yeah, let's pair the threat reactivity of a small prey animal with hypercarnivore reflexes, see where that gets us.

[smokingpotatostuff]

My unpopular (for an ecologist) opinion is that statistics in general is kind of a bullshit field and ergo all of ecology is low key built on a bed of lies.

[hasufin]

So, apparently unpopular opinion, but I firmly believe that every GMO should have the Terminator gene or an equivalent. This should be mandatory.

If you’re not familiar, the Terminator gene is an engineered gene owned by Monsanto (it was developed by another company and bought up) which makes it possible for an engineered plant to produce fruit (e.g., grain) but not  viable seed. This is actually a very hard problem, but they did find a solution.

There’s a lot of misinformation about the Terminator gene. The worst one is that it causes sterility in people who eat GMOs. This is... well, completely false. It’s insane troll logic ridiculous, but a lot of folks fall for it.

Another one is the belief that the technology is actually in use anywhere! Remarkably, right now there are no commercial GMOs which have the gene, nor any equivalent. Every time they float the idea, people protest it. Which is funny because it would fix a large chunk of the problems which those same people are also protesting about. But for some folk the end goal isn’t “let’s make sure GMOs are safe and reasonably non-exploitative” but rather “No GMOs anywhere ever!”.

A third, insidious one is that the Terminator gene prevents farmers from rolling over their seed. Which is sort of true, and sounds like a Big Deal... if you don’t know anything about modern agriculture. But that’s complicated, and I’ll come back to it in a bit.

Okay. Let me explain why implementing the Terminator gene is a good idea. The two big issues are lawsuits and volunteer plants.

Now, some people complain because farmers get sued by Monsanto or whatever big company for having unlicensed GMOs. “Unlicensed”! Like you need to license a plant!

Yeah, you do. If you’ve been carefully breeding orchids for fifty years, and I break into your greenhouse and steal some of your pollen... that’s theft. Now, don’t get me wrong - USA IP law is a complete dumpster fire and needs improvement, but that’s beyond my ability to fix or even really make cogent recommendations. And if you think intellectual property is inherently bad, well, that’s a hill you can die on I guess. But yeah, an engineered gene, and the plant that has it, is in fact, a worthwhile piece of intellectual property (and one that undergoes a whoooole lot of development not to mention way more safety testing than other foods).

Problem is, plants grow outdoors. The pollen from GMOs gets carried in the wind, and you end up with someone else growing GMO plants. Which the people who spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing kind of don’t want. So they sue, because that’s the tool they have. (It’s also a lot more complicated and the Other Farmer isn’t a poor innocent in this, not really, because in modern agriculture you don’t end up with a field of GMO plants by accident.) Anyway, if the GMOs weren’t able to breed like that, there’d be at worst a lot less need to sue farmers.

The other issue is a safety one. You get what’s called “volunteer plants”. Plant genetics are, uh, special. They can pick up DNA from other species sometimes. Which means that non-crop plants can, and sometimes do, end up getting GMO traits. Which then, because these traits are generally desirable, proliferate through the ecosystem. Do I need to expound on why Roundup-Ready poison ivy is not the ecological disaster we need? Again, Terminator gene would drastically reduce this, and thus keep us from mucking up our environment in new and special ways.

But.

What about the poor farmers? The ones who roll over their seed every year?

This isn’t about them - and it never was.

GMO seed is firmly in the “premium seed” market. Expensive, optimized for specific conditions, resistant to pests, and with a very high yield. The alternative to GMO seed is what’s called hybridized seed. Hybridized seed is created specifically each year to address predicted issues in a given region and maximize yield for those conditions. No one rolls over hybridized seed because you can’t. The way it’s created means the traits will not breed true - flood-tolerant seed from one year will not reliably offer flood tolerance the next year. Most large scale farmers in the USA buy new seed every year anyway. The difference with GMOs is that theoretically you can roll over your seed. Since that’s not a sustainable model, the seed producers require an agreement to not do that, as a condition of selling the seed. Which farmers don’t have an issue with, because the alternative is not rolling over hybridized seed.

But what about other countries?

Oooh. That’s complicated.

History lesson: back in the 60s and 70s, we quietly had one of the biggest changes in our civilization ever. It was called the Green Revolution. A combination of advanced meteorology, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, mechanization of agriculture, and improved crop breeding methods resulted in enormous increases in crop yields. This is why today only 1 in 40 people are farmers while historically 1 out of every 2 people were employed in the same capacity.

Who’s we, though? Green Revolution tech was created by “first world” countries and works best there, where we also have the infrastructure to support it. Attempts to export it to other countries have been... mixed. The ideas work, but they have to be customized. And you need to have the ancillary industries to support it, or you’re beholden to another country for your needs. Which is... not awesome. Read Confessions of an Economic Hitman to get some concept -it’s rather overdramatic, but you’ll get the gist.

In that context, GMOs are just another tool in a particularly nasty toolbox. Simply put, they’re the wrong wrench to be pounding screws into concrete. GMO crops aren’t supposed to replace seed for farmers who roll over seed, and trying to do so is a symptom of excruciatingly bad policy all around.

What I’m trying to get at here is, we really should be taking measures to prevent the proliferation of modified genes. Doing so is much safer in general, and reduces the need for messy legal battles. And the use cases in which you’d want viable GMO seed are not realistic anyway.

[slayedpoet]

heyooo gimme some unpopular opinions :^)

it took me a bit to gather some but here we go (they are randommm)

-i dislike joost's esc overly styled mullet for the main reason of it being...too styled too polished lmao

-musicians that don't sing in English but in their mother tongue should stick to that cause otherwise it turns out meh (specially if they do it to please a growing international fanbase)

-there is no superior season, they all have good sides and bad sides

-living in the middle of nowhere is all fun and games until you gotta do literally anything cause then you'll always need a car and that's not sustainable (ecologically)