Seems like they are mostly treated like an honored working animal to me. Working for approval and affection, happy and excited to go on truck rides. Monkeys can tear your face off if they don’t like you, these seem happy to be there.
I am sure there are bad people that abuse animals in every culture, and that should be discouraged and policed. And its problematic using Endangered animals if there isn’t also a breeding program. But humans use dogs , horses, oxen … as working animals, adding monkeys to the list is not alarming.
And how do you know that the animals feel honored by taking them out of their habitat, putting them in a leash and making them do work?
That’s not evidence of good treatment and a great quality of life for monkeys. Tigers in captivity don’t always rip people’s faces off, doesn’t mean it’s good for them to be put into a cage.
All long since domesticated. Like for literally 10,000 years. We generally don’t go into the wild and put wolves to work.
These are all just excuses to justify what’s happening here, including our continued exploitation in the west of resources/labor of the global south to maintain our lifestyles. If we don’t start taking a good hard look at this stuff, and making tough decisions to change our economy to be more in line with the values we purport to hold, then we’re looking at some horrible times ahead for the entire planet…
It’s telling that so many people don’t really grok the difference between the two… The imperialist mindset is strongly embedding in so much of our thinking about the world and our relationship to it… On this of ALL days (at least for us Americans), we should be thinking a little bit more deeply about that.
Imagine a world with no forced or coerced labor… how wonderful that would be! But some people can’t even make that leap.
Yes, but we did during the Neolithic, so that means it should be ok in our modern capitalist economy. Now if you’ll excuse me I am going on an expedition to slaughter some right whales. PETA is against it so you know it’s a good wholesome business! Besides, as soon as we switch to using Soylent Green instead, you just know some activists are going to complain.
There are problems; But people tame wild horses too, this is morally similar. The alternative is heavy machinery that is not affordable to these people, or sending humans up to do it, which would have safety issues. Monkeys are built to climb, humans can climb but are not as built for it as we once were, our muscles have evolved for endurance and away from easily having the strength to hang from one hand with our full body weight.
Regulations to make sure they are humanely treated, and to start using captive breed monkeys would be a welcome idea. But civilization must keep going, we need the calories and oils from coconuts to live, and we have a responsibility to do so with the least harm. But monkeys seem like the most safest/practical/ethical way when you don’t have the money to buy/rent a bucket truck. Otherwise you are sending up impoverished and underpaid humans to risk their safety, when a monkey can do it faster and safer (because they can hang from one hand like its nothing).
Now if you require a bucket truck you are eliminating small business and instituting mandated big business agriculture, sending these small businesses into poverty as their job is lost to mechanization.
There is no perfect solution until we are in a post scarcity society, and these people can 3d print a solar powered monkey robot, that is biodegradable and made from recycled trash. Until then we do the best we can.
Also, isn’t there some debate about the domestication of dogs? That it was sort of a mutual thing? Dogs got a benefit out of coming around our camp fires?
Many wild horses are from formerly domesticates horses…
I hear children are small, and able to get into cramped quarters easier, so lets put them to work in mines and factories rather than adults… /s
How about don’t make wild animals work when humans can do it, to save some business owner a few bucks? Not difficult.
Please. Don’t use that old excuse. People used it to justify all sorts of nasty shit and we should not be doing so today. Living in an economy based on scarcity doesn’t justify shit.
And this ain’t it. We can and should do better. But for some people, their comfort matters far more than the welfare of others.
Propose a solution that is better, and has less harm. I like new ideas and would love to consider something better.
Even if you are fully organic vegan there is still causing harm in order to live. Fields are cleared of wild plants and animals, so you can eat. Until you can genetically alter yourself so you are green and photosynthesize you will cause some small bit harm just by living. Hell even then your excreta is altering the biome and causing algae blooms … there is harm just by existing. You are taking up the space that something else could be in. Hurt the grass when you walk on it.
Already did. I’m not here for this gaslighting bullshit either. I know that people can do better, because we do it all the time. Criticism of harmful practices is part of how things get changed. I’m not going to let you shut me up because you’re okay with this, and believe yourself to hold some superior moral ground. None of us do when it comes to this system - we’re all complicit to some degree, so it’s on all of us to push for change. Just because YOU don’t want to doesn’t give you the right to shut down others pushing for it.
None of which is the topic, and none of which means that monkeys should be used to harvest coconuts. This has always been a bullshit argument to shut down criticism of various corporate practices. NONE of us are living in the most sustainable way that we can, and so none of us get a pass, but then none of us should be sneering at others for pushing for change either.
I do not own HelloFresh or any company that provides food to people, so that shit is NOT on me. It’s on the companies to develop less harmful business practices, and on governments to push them to do so. It’s on ME to vote for people who represent my interests in these matters, and that’s what I do. So, you’re attempt to shut me up by proclaiming that the fact that I need to eat to live so I’m complicit (when, yes, I fucking know that shit), isn’t going to fly here.
Set up a trading system with the monkeys…they bring you coconuts and you give them rewards. They’ve done that with crows to collect trash. I don’t know that it would work, but if it did, then you could say for sure the monkeys actually want to do it.
If that isn’t practical? Then pay more to make it safe for humans to do the work, or if that’s too expensive, eat something else. Sure, everything has harm, but not everything has comparable harm. That’s the perfectionist fallacy at work.
No idea why that is not a workable solution, but apparently it is. It also ignores the fact that monkeys are not getting paid, and hence this is nothing but a “cost-saving” measure by a corporation that has no interest in contributing in any meaningful way to the local economy.
Not against it, does offload the moral quandary of humans imposing their will.
possible downsides are the reasons “don’t feed the wildlife” signs exist. but might be worth it. I mean they already are feeding the monkeys they have.
For the record, when a moral quandary is phrased not in terms of “what is right” but “how many dollars is this worth”, the real answer is always to fix our predatory economic system. Something something ethical consumption under capitalism.
In short it causes the gentrification of food security.
I am however not against US paying more, just not the elimination of lower cost methods that enable the locals to live. Foreigners paying more however means there is more money doing that then doing it cheap enough for the locals. And Hence the perverse motivation to to sell monkey picked as if it was machine picked for prices not affordable to the locals.
To eliminate monkey picked we would have to not buy from those counties, but that would mean we would impoverish those countries.
I mean, if it’s easy for a monkey to climb a coconut tree but dangerous for a human the above scenario wouldn’t work. I suspect that’s the case here. Though that doesn’t mean there isn’t any abuse. Just that the task itself not necessarily is.
