I value life. I certainly didn’t say he should get 450 years. But we (society) have decided that we’ve lost too many species due to humans wiping them out, and we don’t want to lose any more species.
We also have only two forms of punishment: time and money. If he’s forced to only pay a fine, people learn that wiping out species simply has a high cost of doing business, but it’s still profitable (look at rhinoceros horn, tiger parts, ivory, etc.) If we give a man 5 years in prison, though, the cost is worth serious consideration to the next guy who thinks he can further decimate a threatened species unlikely to recover without our help.
Since you disagree, what would you suggest we do to prevent further deliberate loss of species? Or do you not think threatened species are worth preserving?
Which sounds reasonable to every person who has never tried supervising criminals doing community service. Unless you want to incarcerate him and put him on an environmental chain gang. For many, just 20 or 30 hours of sorting clothes at a thrift store is an insurmountable task.
Nurseries & amazon both sell Venus flytraps . If they’re that rare, just plant more. Also, scarcity is the basis of capitalism, so where’s wall street when you need it?
Not every person on work release needs 24/7 monitoring by armed guards. He’s not a killer or a serial rapist. The US justice system is an outlier in terms of how much emphasis is placed on punishment/incarceration vs. rehabilitation/restitution.
Another point, next to the conservation issue, is that if these 200 plants are sold, the seller could make a few hundred to a couple of thousand dollars from them. So arguably, he’s stealing and profiting from the sale of taxpayer property. Which the taxpayers weren’t thinking of selling, of course…
i kept one alive for 3 years or so, in Southern California. i even got it to flower, one year. the trick seemed to be putting the plant & its pot into a larger, water tight container lined with about 1-2" of rocks on the bottom, then keeping water filled to 3/4" above those rocks, so the plant could pull water up from the holes in its smaller pot. i watered it with a brita, kept it out of direct sunlight. something eventually got it, but it was happy for a while.
But either someone needs to check they are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing when they’re supposed to be doing it or you accept that we don’t care whether they actually do the community service or not - in which case, why bother?.
Punishment or rehabilitation - it all needs people, time and money.
Rehabilitation is definitely better than incarceration without rehabilitation efforts but ildrk is right that the more non-incarceration options you have, the more burden you place on people outside the penal system to supervise and monitor criminals.
I’d say that’s a price worth paying but it can only work if the people being asked to do the monitoring and the rehab work get the funding and support they need.
Quite often the non-prison rehab efforts don’t get properly funded because they are seen as a way of reducing costs of incarceration rather than shifting them to better use.
Just very shortly, because no time: never ever trigger the traps to close (they can only do do 1-3 times, then they die), never ever feed them (carnivory is an adaption to nutrient-poor environment, you kill them with too many nutrients, also see point 1), only use distilled water or slowly sphagnum-moss-column filtered to water them (see point 2), keep them in Sphagnum moss or peatbog soil (please don’t do the latter, b/c only veeeeeery slowly renewable resource and massively endangered habitat) (see point 2 and 3), keep them in a bright spot, don’t place them near a radiator, put them in a cool spot during the winter (max 12°C) and you might keep them alive for a long time.
True, but generally speaking in most jobs you can rely on a certain minimum level of ‘people wanting to be there’.
Once you start deliberately corralling those who don’t want to be there and have a proven track record of not following the rules together and asking people who are used to dealing with volunteers to manage them (see the thrift store example ildrk mentioned), that’s a different thing altogether.
There’s also a huge difference between rehabilitation work and slave labour. If all you want is people doing tedious, menial tasks until their time is up, that’s relatively easy and the ways of ensuring that are all adequately solved problems.
Having people do work and become ‘better’ (as in more socially adjusted, less likely to commit crimes) people is a completely different thing and a lot harder.
The people who are good at doing the one tend to be less well suited to doing the other.
I think you mistook the context. This was a quibble about whether people on work release require armed guards 24/7 and contrasting:
So, punishment in my post was meant to include incarceration. Yes, it costs. So does not locking people up. It all costs is my point.
As you’ll see from the rest of my post I agree with you.
I’m just trying to point out that ildrk is right in that non-incarcerative options have their own costs which need to be acknowledged and their own challenges which need to be addressed.
Otherwise they will fail and everything goes back to “lock 'em up and throw away the key”.
@Sludge, I forgot about watering only from below. Don’t drown them, but keep them slightly m-o-i-s-t. Never let them dry out. The roots must also be kept aerated, so no compaction of the substrate allowed.
I hoped I’d learn something by asking about that way but this is beyond what I expected @kiki@n8_zilla@LutherBlisset. This has me looking up why my family have also murdered so many orchids. Those were never my personal priority as I the outdoor plants take up most of my time. I thought it was just overwatering/lack of drainage, but just learned that those clear plastic cups need light so they shouldn’t be dropped into pots.
I have a Berkey filter. Not sure (given this story) that I’d get another venus fly trap, but may try an orchid yet again.
It’s easier than most carnivorous plants. Don’t even think about Cephalotus or Darlingtonia. However, Sarracenia purpura is pretty easy. Still doesn’t like hard water, but as long as you vernalise it a bit, it will flower basically every year.
Don’t think those de-ionize (i.e., soften) water. If you live in a environment w/o strong pollution (including diffuse nitrogen immisions) , go for rain water. Maybe, if you can, get some nylons, fill them with Sphagnum moss and use as a column filter, inside a pipe. Should be easy in a garden.
