Originally published at: Rare Hitler Beetle is being driven to extinction by neo-Nazi collectors | Boing Boing
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6 Likes
Let’s keep the beetle and make the Neo-Nazis extinct instead.
30 Likes
Maybe convince the Hitlerstains to collect each other?
6 Likes
It would be a shame if somebody sold bed bug eggs to them, under the name of Hitler Beetles.
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After reading the heaadline, I was expecting people driving some “Hitler model” of VW Beetle.
But instead it’s nazi entymologists. This is much worse.
15 Likes
Who would the entomologist version of Indiana Jones be, because that person has some work ahead of them it seems.
9 Likes
“It belongs … right back where you took it from.”
7 Likes
Seconded!
In terms of my regard for their well being, Nazi are of “Least Concern.” But the only acceptable conservation status for them is “Extinct”.
2 Likes
That argument seems like BS in general, but in this specific case the name itself is leading to a “disruption in biodiversity.”
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“It has been said, to quote the physicist Max Planck, that science advances one funeral at a time.”
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This bug is literally named after a man whose whole schtick was disrupting biodiversity.
Yeah, that’s a bullshit call.
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“We must secure the existence of our beetle and a future for their blind, cave dwelling, white children.”
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Yep. That should be the only reason necessary.
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Can we get Elon Musk to comment on whether it’s acceptable to change the name of the beetle and the use whatever nonsense he spouts as an excuse to keep calling his failing cesspool of a website “Twitter”?
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Nah, fuck 'em, send in the spiders.
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making retroactive changes based on personal sentiment would upset the stability of science communication.
Yeah - but it’s not based on personal sentiment, it’s based on the fact of imminent extinction as a result of a name (as @anon58741709 noted)
They already seem to do that and social media has been a great help!
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EO “Wildman” Wilson
Let’s rename the Cockroach to Hitler Beetle and see what happens.
3 Likes
As an student of taxonomy (which covers not just the naming of things, but also classifying & indexing those names) I don’t see a big problem going forward. Index them under the new name with the old name in parentheses. Cross-index under the old name pointing to the new name.
This might have been a problem in the days when everyone relied on print journals, which couldn’t be updated. But nowadays I believe it can be solved with OCR & disambiguation links.
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