Like Lumifer, I think the NRA is doing the right thing here—even strictly from a conservationist perspective. If we all stopped eating eggs, would there be more chickens? Of course not. When I mentioned similar logic here at least the vegetarians were honest that they wanted to drastically reduce the chicken population. But if using fewer chicken products leads to fewer chickens, how will using fewer elephant products lead to more elephants? And note that these two contradictory answers are frequently pushed by the very same people.
If you really wanted to preserve elephant populations, you’d make it easier for people to farm them for their ivory, which would go, in part, into making gun handles. But because the NRA are culturally alien to you, you’d like to throw their cause under the bus “for the greater good,” for the very slightest reason.
So yeah, we all want causes we don’t care about to shut up and get out of our way. It’s a good thing that we can’t make them. After all, NRA members aren’t just gun enthusiasts, they are also citizens in every other way. If NRA policy interferes too much with (say) economic wellbeing in the eyes of its members, then the NRA will lose force as an interest group.
I think the NRA is doing the right thing here—even strictly from a conservationist perspective
I think maybe you do not realize how poor the institutions are here. There isn’t some actor with long term overview maximizing ivory profits (and incidentally ensuring elephants continue as a species). Commercial overexploitation of resources in the biosphere is extremely common, and requires coordination to solve properly (see for example cod stocks collapse in the Atlantic for one example historically important for Europe). Collapse (the book) gave some examples where coordinating a long term exploitation of the environment was solved properly and examples where it wasn’t.
But my point isn’t about the NRA, or environmentalists specifically, I just used them as an example. My point is about a general problem with interest group ecosystems. If an interest group advocates a bridge to nowhere it is not going to lose force, it is doing precisely what it is meant to do.
But because the NRA are culturally alien to you
I would like to add here that I have been very very careful not to discuss my actual politics. Most of your assumptions about my culture or my politics are false. (So I guess I passed the ideological Turing test?)
Back when I had long hair, I was once accosted by a dude trolling for Obama votes who said: “you have long hair, you must be an Obama supporter!” What you are doing is basically this. Filling a hole with a pigeon is going to be very frustrating for you in this case.
Not necessarily. An effective solution to the tragedy of the commons is property rights. While at the moment there may not be an actor with a long-term commercial interest in elephants, this kind of legislation is making sure that there never will be one.
Property rights do not magically enforce themselves, you need a government to enforce it for you. Everyone agreeing to a government’s monopoly on force is yet another coordination problem. This is not so easy in places where elephant poaching happens. That aside, Collapse had examples where property rights were not sufficient in themselves. You should read it, I enjoyed it a lot!
Property rights do not magically enforce themselves, you need a government to enforce it for you.
Again, not necessarily. A private security force works fine—especially in places where the government isn’t… particularly effective. Such governments aren’t all that good at coordination, either, by the way.
But the argument boiled down to its core is just incentives. It’s much better to have incentives for private people to have herds of elephants roam on their ranches than depend on government bureaucrats who, frankly, don’t care that much.
An international ban on ivory trading by itself wont’ save the elephants—the locals will just hunt them down for meat and because they destroy crops.
I think you just chose a bad example. Your underlying point that special-interest groups have tunnel vision and are constitutionally incapable of deviating from their charter is certainly valid.
I don’t understand what this is about anymore (I think you just like to argue?)
(a) There aren’t “private security forces” replacing governments making Africa a kind of modern day Snowcrash universe. Governments are mostly weak and corrupt, and there are warlords running around killing folks and each other, and taking their loot.
(b) The way the NRA makes its decisions has nothing to do with the political situation in Africa, the state of elephant herds in Africa, the long term fate of the African elephant species, or anything like that. They consult relevant gun makers, and decide based on that. This is contrary to the original claim that the NRA was making the correct decision even from a conservational point of view. They aren’t in this case, but if we did the math and found out they did, it would certainly be by accident, because they surely didn’t do the math.
(c) Do you actually know how many elephants are killed in Africa for non-ivory reasons?
The way the NRA makes its decisions has nothing to do with the political situation in Africa, the state of elephant herds in Africa, the long term fate of the African elephant species, or anything like that… This is contrary to the original claim the NRA was making the correct decision even from a conservational point of view. They aren’t in this case, but if we did the math and found out they did, it would certainly be by accident, because they surely didn’t do the math.
I didn’t claim that they made the correct decision for the right reasons. Of course it’s (in a sense) a felicitous coincidence that the NRA is in the right here from a conservationist point of view. But if environmental groups are helping the environment, I’d view that as even more of a felicitous coincidence, given their methods of making decisions.
It’s remarkable, but not hugely so, that the policies of a group who care about the property rights of American gun owners should align with strong property rights worldwide, and hence a flourishing environment. It would be far more remarkable if the policies of a group who care about purity rituals should lead to a flourishing environment.
Only as long as interesting things are being said :-)
There aren’t “private security forces” replacing governments
And nobody said that. But hiring guards for your farm/ranch/pasture is quite common and does happen to be private enforcement of property rights.
They consult relevant gun makers
I can’t imagine why contemporary gun makers would care about decades-old ivory. If anything, they’d prefer more constraints on sales of old guns as that enlarges the market for new guns.
And I don’t think anyone made a claim that NRA’s decision was correct from a conservationist point of view. The claim is that the law fails the cost-benefit analysis for certain (implied widespread) sets of values. I am sure ardent environmentalists are happy with it, but not everyone is an ardent environmentalist.
Do you actually know how many elephants are killed in Africa for non-ivory reasons?
Ah, good question. My pre-Google answer would be “some” and if pressed for numbers I’d say 10-20% at the moment, but with not much conviction. Accio Google!
Hmm… Lots of data but all of it is on “illegally killed” elephants which isn’t particularly useful in this context, as killing elephants is mostly illegal everywhere and so the meaning is just “human-killed”. My impression is that in areas with LOTS of poaching the great majority of elephants are killed for the ivory, but in areas with few “illegal kills” situation may differ. No data to support this impression, though. It also seems that there is a lot variability in the numbers killed year-to-year.
Like Lumifer, I think the NRA is doing the right thing here—even strictly from a conservationist perspective. If we all stopped eating eggs, would there be more chickens? Of course not. When I mentioned similar logic here at least the vegetarians were honest that they wanted to drastically reduce the chicken population. But if using fewer chicken products leads to fewer chickens, how will using fewer elephant products lead to more elephants? And note that these two contradictory answers are frequently pushed by the very same people.
If you really wanted to preserve elephant populations, you’d make it easier for people to farm them for their ivory, which would go, in part, into making gun handles. But because the NRA are culturally alien to you, you’d like to throw their cause under the bus “for the greater good,” for the very slightest reason.
So yeah, we all want causes we don’t care about to shut up and get out of our way. It’s a good thing that we can’t make them. After all, NRA members aren’t just gun enthusiasts, they are also citizens in every other way. If NRA policy interferes too much with (say) economic wellbeing in the eyes of its members, then the NRA will lose force as an interest group.
I think maybe you do not realize how poor the institutions are here. There isn’t some actor with long term overview maximizing ivory profits (and incidentally ensuring elephants continue as a species). Commercial overexploitation of resources in the biosphere is extremely common, and requires coordination to solve properly (see for example cod stocks collapse in the Atlantic for one example historically important for Europe). Collapse (the book) gave some examples where coordinating a long term exploitation of the environment was solved properly and examples where it wasn’t.
But my point isn’t about the NRA, or environmentalists specifically, I just used them as an example. My point is about a general problem with interest group ecosystems. If an interest group advocates a bridge to nowhere it is not going to lose force, it is doing precisely what it is meant to do.
I would like to add here that I have been very very careful not to discuss my actual politics. Most of your assumptions about my culture or my politics are false. (So I guess I passed the ideological Turing test?)
Back when I had long hair, I was once accosted by a dude trolling for Obama votes who said: “you have long hair, you must be an Obama supporter!” What you are doing is basically this. Filling a hole with a pigeon is going to be very frustrating for you in this case.
Not necessarily. An effective solution to the tragedy of the commons is property rights. While at the moment there may not be an actor with a long-term commercial interest in elephants, this kind of legislation is making sure that there never will be one.
Property rights do not magically enforce themselves, you need a government to enforce it for you. Everyone agreeing to a government’s monopoly on force is yet another coordination problem. This is not so easy in places where elephant poaching happens. That aside, Collapse had examples where property rights were not sufficient in themselves. You should read it, I enjoyed it a lot!
Again, not necessarily. A private security force works fine—especially in places where the government isn’t… particularly effective. Such governments aren’t all that good at coordination, either, by the way.
But the argument boiled down to its core is just incentives. It’s much better to have incentives for private people to have herds of elephants roam on their ranches than depend on government bureaucrats who, frankly, don’t care that much.
An international ban on ivory trading by itself wont’ save the elephants—the locals will just hunt them down for meat and because they destroy crops.
I think you just chose a bad example. Your underlying point that special-interest groups have tunnel vision and are constitutionally incapable of deviating from their charter is certainly valid.
I don’t understand what this is about anymore (I think you just like to argue?)
(a) There aren’t “private security forces” replacing governments making Africa a kind of modern day Snowcrash universe. Governments are mostly weak and corrupt, and there are warlords running around killing folks and each other, and taking their loot.
(b) The way the NRA makes its decisions has nothing to do with the political situation in Africa, the state of elephant herds in Africa, the long term fate of the African elephant species, or anything like that. They consult relevant gun makers, and decide based on that. This is contrary to the original claim that the NRA was making the correct decision even from a conservational point of view. They aren’t in this case, but if we did the math and found out they did, it would certainly be by accident, because they surely didn’t do the math.
(c) Do you actually know how many elephants are killed in Africa for non-ivory reasons?
I didn’t claim that they made the correct decision for the right reasons. Of course it’s (in a sense) a felicitous coincidence that the NRA is in the right here from a conservationist point of view. But if environmental groups are helping the environment, I’d view that as even more of a felicitous coincidence, given their methods of making decisions.
It’s remarkable, but not hugely so, that the policies of a group who care about the property rights of American gun owners should align with strong property rights worldwide, and hence a flourishing environment. It would be far more remarkable if the policies of a group who care about purity rituals should lead to a flourishing environment.
Only as long as interesting things are being said :-)
And nobody said that. But hiring guards for your farm/ranch/pasture is quite common and does happen to be private enforcement of property rights.
I can’t imagine why contemporary gun makers would care about decades-old ivory. If anything, they’d prefer more constraints on sales of old guns as that enlarges the market for new guns.
And I don’t think anyone made a claim that NRA’s decision was correct from a conservationist point of view. The claim is that the law fails the cost-benefit analysis for certain (implied widespread) sets of values. I am sure ardent environmentalists are happy with it, but not everyone is an ardent environmentalist.
Ah, good question. My pre-Google answer would be “some” and if pressed for numbers I’d say 10-20% at the moment, but with not much conviction. Accio Google!
Hmm… Lots of data but all of it is on “illegally killed” elephants which isn’t particularly useful in this context, as killing elephants is mostly illegal everywhere and so the meaning is just “human-killed”. My impression is that in areas with LOTS of poaching the great majority of elephants are killed for the ivory, but in areas with few “illegal kills” situation may differ. No data to support this impression, though. It also seems that there is a lot variability in the numbers killed year-to-year.