"Look, you play ball with us and give us the testimony we need against your old boss, and this can all go away."

Don't jump to normalcy bias without even bothering to look at the details of and circumstances surrounding this case.

Strat

Are we certain that what was described in TFS actually happened? Are we all certain that the fishermen actually tampered with evidence? Has that been determined to be fact in a court of law?

Could this be a case of low-level government agent acting with incompetence or personal malice, and unwittingly starting a cascade of CYA up the chain resulting in this case? Seems to be a lot of that going around in government circles these days, so it's not an unreasonable question

I mean, did some Fish & Game (or whatever department/agency/bureau was involved) officer miscount either accidentally or intentionally, and this prosecution is simply a CYA for incompetence and/or malice on behalf, at first, of just the field agents/officers, then after it snowballed, also in defense of the prosecutor/AG's office in a double-down on government thuggishness to cover *their* incompetence/malice in pursuing this initially?

That might be a motive for throwing SARBOX at a fisherman like using a nuke to get rid of cockroaches.

There is far too little information here to make any kind of reliable determinations.

Strat

Make renewable energy sources as economical, efficient, energy-dense, and as storable/portable as current sources and laws/regulations won't be needed. People will switch to the better/cheaper alternative.

Force a switch to renewable energy sources when they haven't met those goals, and national economies and particularly poor people will suffer from huge energy cost increases.

But hey, screw the poor, as long as the IPCC can advance it's political agenda and jet-setting AlGore gets to cash in on carbon credit Ponzi schemes.

Strat

...It's authoritarians all the way down.

Strat

And in addition, if they've paid any attention, they will also tell him that the rates have increased both before and after the passage of the ACA because of government.

I dunno about *your* parents, but mine saw the same doctor for decades, until he retired. Because government made it more attractive for him to retire rather than to keep his practice open.

But hey, let's give government even more of people's hard-earned money and even more control over everything!

"Thank you Sir, may I have another?"

"Idiocracy" was a documentary. Slashdot posters prove it every day.

Strat

"...because we would like to participate in a meaningful way with the universe"

The universe does not care and is not capable of judging our intentions or how "meaningful" (what's the measurement criteria? who decides what's meaningful?) our actions are

Stop anthropomorphizing.

You are correct that many conflicts result from competition for resources. The universe has almost infinite resources, so having cheap & plentiful resources available would tend to greatly mitigate resource-driven human conflicts.

At the very least, it will drive the conflicts away from the planet.

Strat

Hard to tell what point(s) you're attempting to make here.

So, is killing efficiency your yardstick?

I don't see how efficiency relates. Heck, there are species of marine life who eat the egg-clusters and hatchlings of their competitors, and that's upwards of tens of thousands or more.

Or is it the use of tools to kill?

Chimps and other apes will often pick up a branch to swing at another when they are angry/aggressive. Other examples of tool-use by apes is abundant. Google will supply you with examples.

Seems in that regard the only difference is the level of sophistication of the tools/weapons related to the differing complex intellectual levels of the two species.

No doubt if apes had a similar size brain and intellectual capability as humans, the technical level of their weapons would rise as well.

Many people like to attribute some sort of "perfect moral innocence" to animals while humans are somehow forever separate from animals and that all human effects upon animals are "unnatural" and inherently bad and wrong. They also tend to decry human behaviors that have roots in our animal nature as somehow evil and unnatural.

It's an emotional response motivated by compassion and I appreciate that. However, humans are just as natural on Earth as deer or whales. Everything will always effect everything else, and species will go extinct and new species arise as long as life exists.

Since our self-awareness and intelligence and ability to control our environment allows us to avoid natural systems of regulation, we must consciously choose to find a balance between not causing undue harm to animals and nature while not placing undue limitations on the advancement of humanity towards moving outwards into space.

Earth is not a perpetual-motion machine, and we need to leave the cradle. Humanity cannot afford to hunker down, slow progress, and ration out ever-dwindling resources. That's a recipe for extinction.

Balance is the key.

Balance will not be found at the extremes.

Strat