People who enjoy hunting intelligent mammals...

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online poker player ,
Obviously you are a young man, with a potential to be a very good shot by your own testimony. Plus you are a thinker. But you like to sit for hours twidling your thumbs on video games. Writing long winded drivel on a forum you just joined being critical of others, and you choose that way to introduce yourself. I was going to suggest you join the military in hopes of using your shooting skills to help our men over there. Charachter and productivity counts.
 
A couple of things for the OP to ponder regarding hunting:

Bears are smart. They have emotions. They get happy. They get sad. They have fun in life. They have family bonds with their offspring. They have a solid grasp of life, and emotions, and have just as much ability to enjoy life as your pet dog or cat.
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How many bears have you talked to to confirm this? How exactly does one determine animal emotions?

As for hunting, here's a good example: It's November, and it looks like the winter is going to be pretty dang hard for muley's (herd is too big, and under 4 feet of snow food is hard to find). I can hunt, kill, and eat the muley... or I can let it starve itself to death.

Do muley's have emotions? Would you prefer the muley to be depressed, angry, fatigued and eventually die from lack of food? Or would you prefer for the Muley to live a good life, then be humanely killed before it has to go through pain and suffering?

I'll admit, I'm not about to kill my dog for food. However, ducks, geese, deer, elk, sheep, etc are all fair game.

One other thing to consider:
ENJOY THE ACT OF KILLING THE ANIMAL
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Have you ever hunted? If not, how can you make this statement? I've hunted several trips without killing anything. I enjoyed my time in the outdoors, living naturally for a week, spending time with family and hearing tales of times past.

When I kill an animal, I do not jump up and down waving my arms with a smile of glee. Instead, I immediately check to make sure the animal is dead (no suffering), then I commense to clean, dress, and pack it to ensure preservation of as much meat as possible. I do enjoy eating the animal, but the actuall "KILL" as you put it, is not necessarily the highlight of my trip.
 
I think of it this way: if you aren't going to make a thorough use of the animal, or it will prevent harm to you, you shouldn't kill it.
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I used to live in Virginia, near PETA headquarters. They published a letter in the paper, claiming that "70% of deer killed by hunters are wasted!" And went on to show the hide, bones, intestines and so on weren't eaten by hunters.

Well, gee. Under those criteria, 100% of deer that die naturally are "wasted."
 
They published a letter in the paper, claiming that "70% of deer killed by hunters are wasted!" And went on to show the hide, bones, intestines and so on weren't eaten by hunters.
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Same could be said for cattle and pigs and any other animal food source. True, much of the non meat carcass gets processed into other items like leather and animal feedstock. But neither the farmer or the butcher actually EAT it.
 
I don't eat hides, but I do have one thrown over a couch. It's not wasted, not at all.
 
Ah, but the truth is nothing to be respected by PETA. If it were, they'd be hunters, themselves.

After all, when the dogs and cats they pick up get bothersome, they give 'em a shot and throw the carcasses in the dumpster.
 
Ok, here is my response to your replies.

I will start off first with this one, as it deals with the thing I think I was the most "wrong" about doing/saying:

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it would be quite tough to argue that I am not correct in my analyses here.

Not really, but it would seem to be fruitless as anyone who wasted that much time with such a rant is likely to be dissuaded by a different opinion.


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I think I just won this argument. No?

Nope. Your argument is poorly constructed and based on assumptions that simply aren't true in every case.
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I definitely agree that I should NOT have written these specific lines in my original post. It was about 4 am, and I had a bit of a lapse in judgement when I wrote the "I'm soooo right about this" type lines. I agree that they were out of line, and do not belong in the post. I appologize (really).



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Photography.

Nope. I do that too. It's not the same. Photography is taking pictures. It has a lot of the same elements of the hunt, but it's not a "hunt." To "hunt" one must have the opportunity to make a kill.

Killing something is not hunting. I could shoot squirrels and even deer off my front deck. That is not hunting. That is killing.

Just as hunting and killing are two different things, so too are hunting and taking pictures.

Just not the same. Sorry.
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I can't say I agree here. I do think that, as far as everything OTHER than the killing of the animal, at the end of a long, drawn out hunting session, loom-lense photography is essentially IDENTICAL. Here is why. You would be doing the same stuff. You put on your outdoor gear. You set up your spot to sit and wait, or if you aren't doing that type of hunting, but rather just quietly wanderind around and looking for stuff, and then lie or kneel down and take aim etc, or use the animal-call devices, or all the stuff you have to do when you hunt, you can and should do ALL of that same stuff for the zoom-lense photography. Then, you point the zoom-lense camera at the animal you are about to "hunt" (or in this case take a picture of), and hell, if it makes it more fun, you can even mount the camera on an unloaded hunting rifle, and rig the camera shutter-pull up with a cord to the trigger of your hunting rifle, so that when you pull the trigger of your gun, this action snaps the photo. And best of all, you can have crosshairs on your zoom-lense, with a small red dot in the middle of the crosshairs, and have it where, when you tok the photo, it will show a little red dot on the animal where you WOULD HAVE shot it, had you been using bullets instead of a camera. So it really does give you all the fun and enjoyment, and everything that goes with the "intangibles" of hunting, if you do it like this, without actually have to go through with the not-fun part of killing and animal that you probably should, as a normal human being, not find "fun" to end the life of.


I can't remember every point made by opp off the top of my head, and I don't really want to do a point/counterpoint type of thing anyway, so just to hit the highspots:

1) How do you know that a fish is less intelligent than a deer? The correct answer is "you don't", but you think it is so, thus it is oh-so-easy to justify yanking said fish from his natural habitat, chopping it into bloody pieces and munching away. Claiming any sort of moral highground based upon your perception of intellect and/or emotion is great when it comes to making you feel good about what you do, but that is no basis for condemning the actions of others.

2) A large portion of your argument seems to be based on the idea that it would be worse for me to kill an animal while enjoying the kill than if I did not enjoy it. Why? Isn't the result the same (i.e. animal dead, family fed) regardless of how I feel? Does a lion enjoy stalking, running down, tripping, killing, and eating a gazelle? How do you know? If she did enjoy it, would that make her eeeeevil?

3) Biology teaches me that the human animal should be an omnivore and a predator. As such, it's reasonable to expect that we've spent a long time killing and eating animals that may or may not have been intelligent, and we started doing so long before the firearm was invented. Could we live without munching the meats of various intelligent creatures? Probably. Does that mean that we should? Why? Because some people are queasy at the thought of killing animals who are capable of understanding that they are dying? The fact that you have a brain developed enough to exhibit a conscience doesn't make the food chain go away.

4) Did you know that plants talk to one another? Just how smart are they? Consider that the next time you order a salad instead of a steak.
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1. I don't "know" that a fish is less intelligent, and emotional, than say, a bear, or a dog, or a dolphin, or a human being. Just like I don't "know" that the earth is round, or that the earth orbits the sun, and not the other way around. However, scientifically speaking, much in the same way that, given what we can observe and deduce with our eyes and methods of scientific measurement to determine that the earth in our OPINION is round, and does orbit the sun (even though in reality this could be false. It is possible that every single human being on earth was born with a brain abnormality that causes us to hallucinate, and all the things any of us "see" in our lifetime is just a big hallucination, and in reality we are all just little plant-like things, stuck to the sea floor on some other planet, not even earth, hallucinating about life, meaning all this stuff about earth being round might not even be true, since heck, it might just be a hallucination for all we know. We can't be 100% sure of ANYTHING. We really COULD be inside "The Matrix" for all we know. However, just because we can't be 100.0% sure of anything, we can do the next best thing, and that, in my opinion, is to go with whatever SEEMS TO BE MOST LOGICAL given what we are observing. Sure, we might be in the matrix, and all this stuff is meaningless and moot, but maybe not. Maybe (and in my opinion MOST LIKELY) what we see is really the real deal, and not some hallucination, or matrix. And if this is the case, then I personally do believe, scientifically speaking, based on scientific experiments and observations, yes, mammals with larger more complex and intelligent brains are certainly capable of emotions, some moreso than others (dolphins, or border collies for example are non-human animals that, while not human, and not nearly as intelligent as us, still most definitely, given what we've seen, from a scientific standpoint, have emotions. Quite complex emotions too. They, from a scientific standpoint, really do enjoy aspects of their lives, and not enjoy other aspects of their lives. Their lives aren't just a big joke, and worthless, because they can't comprehend emotion, or any of the things in life that make it interesting at all or worth living. Unlike fish, or most birds, or insects, which are actually really too stupid, lacking too much brainpower, to actually have any real emotions, or enjoy life. Their brains simply aren't complex enough. Now, like I said, sure I "could" be wrong about this, but given what I've seen, from a scientific analysis, I am more than 99% sure I am correct about this specific issue, or at least VERY very near being completely correct about this specific issue.

2. Okay. I am a psychology student. I personally think it does matter (QUITE A BIT) as to whether or not you ENJOY the act of killing an intelligent animal, that was enjoying it's life prior to you ending it's life. The reason is that, if you actually enjoy the SPECIFIC action of ending it's life (not talking about all the other stuff and intangibles and whatnot that go along with it. but the KILL specifically), if that actually envokes a feeling of "fun" or genuine "enjoyment" then yes, psychologically speaking, this is not so good. It does share, psychologically speaking, a minor relation to those who ENJOY beating a PERSON (human being) up randomly, or even murdering someone, just for fun. Now, obviously it is not anywhere near that level, sort of like how saying to your sister "Oh come onnn, you lost my Asimov book? What the heck Steph? Ughhh!! You idiot!!!!!" is NOT anywhere near being on the same level as saying "Steph... you lost my Asimov book. You are dead to me now. I will no longer ever speak to you again. You are a cu**" Both might have been "bad" to say to your sister, but one is clearly FAR worse than the other. Similarily, enjoying murdering a human, or beating the living crap out of someone randomly for no reason whatsoever is FAR worse than enjoying the kill part of a hunt, but they are both, from a psychological aspect "bad" to some extent (one to a much more severe extent than the other), in that neither of these things should be ENJOYABLE for a psychologically normal person.

3. This is a very tricky subject that would simply take too long for me to fully discuss (it would take more than 10 pages for me to fully voice my thoughts on this specific topic).

4. I am of the opinion that this is, to put it simply bull sh**. I think the word "talk" was VERY very very horribly missused. Personally I find this to be hogwash. Plants do not have brains or emotions. They do not enjoy their life. They are incapable of it, much like insects, or many other animals, such as many types of fish and birds, and reptiles, etc (which do have brains, but not brains that are developed enough to be able to enjoy life to any extent, due to not having the capacity of emotion, or ability to have fun, or lack thereof).



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And if you still just HAAAVE to have that meat, obviously they sell it at the market.

I'm not a hunter, but this argument doesn't pass muster. You say you don't like killing animals that "are as smart as your pet cat or dog." If that's the case then buying the meat at the market is just as bad.
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I am of the opinion that different animals are more intelligent than others, and more capable of enjoying life than others. I have stated previously my stance on how many insects, reptiles, birds, and fish do not have the mental capacity to get any fun or enjoyment out of being alive. They quite simply aren't smart enough.

Thus, when I eat meat, I weigh the ethics out on my personal ethics-scale. I look at what I gain from the animal's death versus what the animal loses when it dies.

Cow meat is the "grayest" meat for me. It is very borderline. Cows are surprisingly dumb mammals, considering their size, and are only just barely able to comprehend the most vague and slight emotions, and get only the most vague and minor "fun" or enjoyment out of their life. Due to the fact that theey only very slightly have any emotions or fun at all in life, or capacity to grasp life and have it be of any value to them, (they do have SOME very minor ability to do this, but like I said VERY minor, they are extraordinarily stupid animals, deceptively so, considering their size, and that they are mammals (many varmint for example are considerably more intelligent, and have more fun and enjoy life more than cows for example, much to many people's surprise, (this being an opinion based on scientific phsychological studies on this matter (I'm a psychology major and I've studied this specific topic before, and many similar ones)), so given how much meat and leather a single cow gives off, and how little ability it has for emotions and fun, it just BARELY tips the scales in favor of me being willing to feel that, morally speaking, I can eat it, guilt free.

Chicken, and fish, those are a joke. I'll eat that all day without even a flinch or second thought. They do not enjoy life AT ALL to any capacity whatsoever. They are COMPLETELY emotionless, and their lives are totally worthless. They are good for eating. You aren't really taking anything from them when you end their lives, from a scientific, psychological standpoint.

Pigs however, are an example of a type of meat I REFUSE to buy from the market, or eat. And I do not like the fact that people eat pork. This is because pigs are DEFINITELY smart enough, and emotional enough that killing them for their meat is NOT okay, as far as I'm concerned, when I take out the moral/ethical balancing scale. They lose far too much when you take their life, in comparison to what you gain by taking their life in food and whatnot.

So yes, I ALWAYS weigh it out in my head, as far as whether or not the meat I am eating is morally okay to be eating or not. Just like I won't eat dog meat, or bear meat, or cat meat, or horse meat, I won't eat pig meat. There are quite a large number of mammals that I am not okay with eating the meat of, because they are simply too smart, and enjoy their lives too much, and I don't feel it is okay for me to be eating their meat, morally speaking, due to the fact that chicken, fish, beef, etc are fine meat alternatives that ARE morally okay, when I weigh it out, particularly fish and chicken (cows, as I discussed before are the furthest into the "gray area" morally speaking as far as meat I'm willing to eat.
 
oh and to clarify about my life:

I think that what you are lacking in this argument is the component of life that comes with experience. Doing the quick math, I figure you're about 21 or 22 now.
By 22 years of age, there are men who have fought in wars, done prison time, gotten a PhD, traversed the world, and accomplished various other great things. Experience out there gives you a well rounded perspective and makes the difference between thinking you've got it all figured out and realizing you don't know jack.
If you want to understand life, go play some poker in person and get to know yourself through the people you meet.
You are a sharp young guy and you have too much potential to spend it behind a monitor making fake wins and posting poor arguments.
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To clarify:

1. Yes, I am 22 years old as of two months ago. I am a senior in college, and I am majoring in psychology, and getting a minor in creative writing. I agree that, given that we only live once, we should, if we are physically able to do so, go out and experience life. Sitting around the house for your whole life, if you are able to do something else, is quite an awful way to waste the 60-80 years we get to live on this planet. I most definitely agree.

2. Unfortunately I am slowly (been about 9 and a half months now) recovering from some medical problems that have kept me pretty much completely immbile, and unable to leave my house for the past 9.5 months (an entrapped nerve in my pelvis, it's a long story, but basically it keeps me from going ou and about until they manage to fix me up, due to what I can only describe as a pain akin to being stabbed in the crotch by a white-hot kitchen knife repeatedly if I try to do anything other than lie down, or stand up (I cannot sit upright, only lie or stand, and I cannot walk for more than a bief distance, otherwise I am crippled to the ground in pain) Fortunately I have been getting a bit better over the past few months, and I am now able to at least get a bit of exercise in my swimming pool, by exercising my arms in the pool to get some cardio going etc, and the pain is at about half the level it was in December (which is still terrible, but an improvement) and the doctors are going to try a new treatment on me that they think has about a 70-75% chance of curing me of my pain, the procedure of which I will have done on July 28th (they will stick an electrode into my back and try to manipulate the nerve that is causing my problems electrically).

So pretty much I am forced to be around the house all day, as I can't go out and about (though I desperately wish I could, as I used to go out all the time with my friends, to the beach, or the movies, or parties, etc, and now I currently cannot until I'm fixed up). Because of this I mainly spend my time:

1. Writing my book (I am working on my second book. I find it very eenjoyable, and hope to make a career out of it. (Don't worry, I write fiction novels, such as sci-fi/mystery/thrillers etc, not anti-hunting books or anything, lol).

2. Reading books. I like to read, as, when forced to remain in my house, it is one of the more fun activities for me, and additionally, I find that it helps me write better, because it introduces me to many of the various different styles of writing, as well as opens up my vocabulary a bit.

3. Watching movies. I like movies, particularly if they are good (and I am a VERY harsh critic when it comes to this), so I watch movies that I order through netflix sometimes.

This is pretty much what I do, given my circumstances. That and eat, sleep, and exercise my upper body in my swimming pool.

Except of course for the one last thing that I also do... (online poker)

Maybe to your surprise, I have in fact played poker in person (in "real life") QUITE A BIT. I used to play at least once a week with my college friends in a home game, and I also, back in freshman and a bit of sophomore year played poker in casinos as well. However, I quit playing poker in person, in "real life" once it was no longer fun for me. I still partied with my friends, and went to movies with them, or to the beach, or hung out, and so forth, but I completely quit playing live poker by about 1/3rd of the way through sophomore year of college (2005) due to the fact that I no longer enjoyed poker at all. I simply had played far too much of it at that point (online) in terms of how many hands I had played, and because of this, the thrill of it was pretty much entirely gone. When I played poker, I would only strictly focus on playing optimally, and mathematically speaking, exploit my opponents as optimally as possible to squeeze out as much longterm profit as possible. The simple relaxed joy of just sitting around, and tossing in a few chips to see if I hit a royal flush or whatever was gone. I no longer thought of it as fun. It had become "strictly business" as one might put it, and so I didn't play live poker any more, since at only 30-35 hands per hour, I simply could make a LOT more money playing online, and since I no longer enjoyed poker at all, I didn't bother playing it live, because, I figured, if I was going to do something I didn't enjoy, simply because it earned me an absurd amount of money (for a teenage college kid) then I might as well do it where I could maximize the earnings (online).

Online I typically play a minimum of 12 tables simultaneously, but I often play 20 or more tables simultaneously (depending on what I am playing, and what mood I am in). I am very good at it, and have played more than 2 million (getting closer to 3 million hands) online in the past few years. It makes me a LOT of money, even when I only play it for a few hours a day, a few days a week. And it earns me more and more money as time passes, because, the more I make, the larger my playing-bankroll gets (even taking into consideration the money withdrawal I make from the poker sites) and thus the higher the stakes I can play safely with less than a 0.00001% risk-of-ruin from a statistics and probability standpoint, given my longterm winrate, and the variance of poker, in terms of standard deviation. And the higher the stakes, the higher my longterm winrate gets, because it gets amplified (since for example, when I maintain a longterm winrate of averaging 12 big blinds per 100 hands at $50 max-buyin no limit hold'em, I make a lot less money 16-tabling that than I do just 12-tabling $600 max-buyin no limit hold'em with a longterm winrate of averaging 7.5 big blinds per 100 hands, since in the $50 tables, playing 16 tables simultaneously, my longterm winrate works out to about $80 per hour (it is around 80-90 hands per hour per table times 16 tables) versus at the $600 tables, playing 12 tables simultaneously is earning me about $450 an hour ( in the LONG RUN (over a short span of just a few tens of thousands of hands, like, just a week or two or even a month of play, even with a strong longterm winning winrate that I have, variance can be signficant enough that you have a losing week or month on rare occasions, however over the course of 500,000 hands, or a million hands, or in my case around 3 million hands, you longterm winrate converges to pretty much what it "should be" given how well you are playing (in my case about 7.5 big blind per 100 hands would be my winrate at $3/$6 no limit with $600 max-buyin) so in the longrun this is your real winrate (You don't just sit down for 5 minutes, lose $200 an say "so I guess I have a winrate of negative $200 an hour", no it takes hundreds of thousands of hands of poker before your sample size statistically means anything, due to how strong a factor variance is in poker over smaller sample sizes, since as you know, there are elements of luck involved in each and every hand, in addition to the element of skill (which shows itself in the longrun in that if you play badly in the long run you lose, and if you play very well, in the long run you win).

So I think this might suffice to give my answer to a few of the questions or rebuttals that some of you have put up for me hopefully.

-opp
 
OP said:
ME said:
Do you really expect folks to read all that?
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I expect that about 90-95% of the people who enter this thread will NOT in fact "read all that" to be honest.

However, ironically, the 5-10% of the people who DO read all that are probably the only ones who would genuinely take into consideration some of the more noteable points I made (particularly the last thing I mentioned in the "edit" section at the bottom of my post)(regardless of whether it actually changed their minds or not, it would at least give them something potentially fairly thought provoking to ponder about). The 90+% that wouldn't ever consider doing something as obscene as reading a whole 2 pages worth of text probably wouldn't care much to ponder or enjoy any of the things I bring up, or analyze in the posts anyway, so it all works out I guess.
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Actually, no. I am perfectly willing to ponder weighty matters. But if you want to compete for anyone's time, you should state your thoughts more succinctly.

Secondly, I do not read long passages online, although I am happy to do so in print. So there you go.
 
" It is possible that every single human being on earth was born with a brain abnormality that causes us to hallucinate, and all the things any of us "see" in our lifetime is just a big hallucination, and in reality we are all just little plant-like things, stuck to the sea floor on some other planet, not even earth, hallucinating about life, meaning all this stuff about earth being round might not even be true, since heck, it might just be a hallucination for all we know."

I think you need to try and get a grip on reality. Just some friendly advice. You know, even if what you say is true, we still have to live here in this great big hallucination. You can sit and continue to stare at your navel or you can accept life for what it is and enjoy it.

John
 
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Originally Posted by OP
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Originally Posted by ME
Do you really expect folks to read all that?

I expect that about 90-95% of the people who enter this thread will NOT in fact "read all that" to be honest.

However, ironically, the 5-10% of the people who DO read all that are probably the only ones who would genuinely take into consideration some of the more noteable points I made (particularly the last thing I mentioned in the "edit" section at the bottom of my post)(regardless of whether it actually changed their minds or not, it would at least give them something potentially fairly thought provoking to ponder about). The 90+% that wouldn't ever consider doing something as obscene as reading a whole 2 pages worth of text probably wouldn't care much to ponder or enjoy any of the things I bring up, or analyze in the posts anyway, so it all works out I guess.

Actually, no. I am perfectly willing to ponder weighty matters. But if you want to compete for anyone's time, you should state your thoughts more succinctly.

Secondly, I do not read long passages online, although I am happy to do so in print. So there you go.
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That's fine.

Whatever floats your boat.
 
" It is possible that every single human being on earth was born with a brain abnormality that causes us to hallucinate, and all the things any of us "see" in our lifetime is just a big hallucination, and in reality we are all just little plant-like things, stuck to the sea floor on some other planet, not even earth, hallucinating about life, meaning all this stuff about earth being round might not even be true, since heck, it might just be a hallucination for all we know."

I think you need to try and get a grip on reality. Just some friendly advice. You know, even if what you say is true, we still have to live here in this great big hallucination. You can sit and continue to stare at your navel or you can accept life for what it is and enjoy it.

John
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I am pretty sure you didn't read the part that I will now put in BOLD for you...

I don't "know" that a fish is less intelligent, and emotional, than say, a bear, or a dog, or a dolphin, or a human being. Just like I don't "know" that the earth is round, or that the earth orbits the sun, and not the other way around. However, scientifically speaking, much in the same way that, given what we can observe and deduce with our eyes and methods of scientific measurement to determine that the earth in our OPINION is round, and does orbit the sun (even though in reality this could be false. It is possible that every single human being on earth was born with a brain abnormality that causes us to hallucinate, and all the things any of us "see" in our lifetime is just a big hallucination, and in reality we are all just little plant-like things, stuck to the sea floor on some other planet, not even earth, hallucinating about life, meaning all this stuff about earth being round might not even be true, since heck, it might just be a hallucination for all we know. We can't be 100% sure of ANYTHING. We really COULD be inside "The Matrix" for all we know. However, just because we can't be 100.0% sure of anything, we can do the next best thing, and that, in my opinion, is to go with whatever SEEMS TO BE MOST LOGICAL given what we are observing.
 
You're funny! What I enjoy most is your attempt to sound as intelligent as the animals I hunt!:D
 
I'm trying to figure out why a guy that doesn't hunt and by his own admission doesn't shoot firearms would even join a gun forum other than to stir the pot and criticize folks and a subject he don't know anything about. Your original and subsequent posts in this thread kinda cements that thought. The assumption that you are correct about everything you say and the declaration of how great you are at everything shows just how naive and foolish you are. Using your attitude I can clearly say that I know for a fact that online poker is the biggest waste of time that has ever been created and only someone with no friends and no life would spend the time and effort it takes to play one hand on line....much less three million. Just like you, I know I am correct in my own mind and I have already won this debate.:D

Pokerboy.......I'm sorry that life has thrown you a curve and your health has been a issue of late....but don't try to make yourself feel better by demeaning others.

BTW.......with the advent of science, man doesn't need to have conventional sex to have children and continue the species anymore either.......maybe you should try and talk the world outta that too.
 
However, just because we can't be 100.0% sure of anything, we can do the next best thing, and that, in my opinion, is to go with whatever SEEMS TO BE MOST LOGICAL given what we are observing.
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What seems logical and what is logical are two different things.

A superficial assemblage of selected facts gathered to represent a pre-conceived point is hardly logic.
 
Most hunters I know, including myself, spend more time preserving wildlife than our actual Harvest of game.By that I mean , planting food plots, feeding deer and turkey in the winter, helping to stock fish, 30 years ago in Pa. you could not find a turkey to save your life. now there are many, All due to hunters efforts to preserve game. As to the one deer or turkey I kill each year, I have saved hundreds from starvation.
 
You want the honest truth? While humans are omnivores, I believe that we are also predators. The predatory instinct is what drives me to hunt.

Do I enjoy the killing? Yes, I do. This is not to say that I am some bloodthirsty dude that walks around snuffing the life out of everything I see while giggling like a schoolgirl. I guess what it boils down to is that after a kill, I feel a certain reverence for and connectedness with nature. I, the predator, have succeeded in killing the prey. I believe this touches on what is basically a primal instinct, more alive in some than others. If you are hungry enough, all humans will kill to eat. Society has progressed enough that most of us here in the US don't strictly have to hunt to eat, but there are still a good portion of us that feel driven to hunt and I believe that we all possess the ability to kill when we have to.

This isn't to say that I buy into that whole "spirit of the wild" malarkey. I love the outdoors, but I don't feel some spiritual connection with my dead Elk anymore than a bear would. I simply feel exultant that my place atop the food chain is clear, well-defined and fulfilled. That's what makes me feel connected to nature. My reverence comes from knowing that I have taken a life. Elk, bear, deer, rabbit, pheasant or whatever, it is dead at my hands and deserves at least my respect. I think it is that sense of respect that seperates randomly killing stuff and hunting, truth be told. I say that because I have had to kill the odd animal in self-defense or out of mercy, and I don't enjoy it at all. Having to shoot a vicious dog or an injured cow or whatever just makes me sad.

Have I had good times on hunts where nothing has been killed? Yes, I have. Hunting is more than just killing. It's about camraderie with my friends, it's about roughing it and going against the elements for a few days, it's about getting out of my urban environment to someplace quiet, it's about the fresh air. That being said, I would be lying if I said that good times or not, there is always an underlying sense of disappointment when the target game animal isn't killed.
 
In the '40s, there were virtually no deer in many states, no turkeys, no bears. Arkansas was an example -- our Black bear restoration plan is the most successful large carnivore recovery ever.

Our woods are full of deer, bear, turkeys -- and even mountain lions (although the Department of Fish and Game won't admit it.)
 
I'm trying to figure out why a guy that doesn't hunt and by his own admission doesn't shoot firearms would even join a gun forum other than to stir the pot and criticize folks and a subject he don't know anything about. Your original and subsequent posts in this thread kinda cements that thought. The assumption that you are correct about everything you say and the declaration of how great you are at everything shows just how naive and foolish you are. Using your attitude I can clearly say that I know for a fact that online poker is the biggest waste of time that has ever been created and only someone with no friends and no life would spend the time and effort it takes to play one hand on line....much less three million. Just like you, I know I am correct in my own mind and I have already won this debate.

Pokerboy.......I'm sorry that life has thrown you a curve and your health has been a issue of late....but don't try to make yourself feel better by demeaning others.

BTW.......with the advent of science, man doesn't need to have conventional sex to have children and continue the species anymore either.......maybe you should try and talk the world outta that too.
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Yikes, you definitely were not spot-on at all with this post. I have bolded FIVE different things you said that are all very illogical, or wrong, in my opinion:

1. Actually by my own admission, I clearly stated that I do own and shoot firearms, and I am actually a very good shot. I have shot more than 20,000 rounds of rifle ammo in my life, and used to shoot competitively at age 10-11.

2. Although I refuse to go hunting, this doesn't mean I know nothing about it. A LOT of my friends, and people I know, hunt, and they have on MANY occasions given me detailed accounts about their hunting trips. Sure, I would know a lot more about it if I did it myself, but I certainly don't just not know ANYTHING about it.

3. I DEFINITELY do not declare myself to be great at everything. In fact I am horrible at many things, and not very good at most things. There are a few things I am good at, a few things I am bad at, and a ton of things I am mediocre at. Just like most people. I'm not some super-human, and never claimed to be. I also did appologize for my "I think I'm right? Yes?" line that I put in my original post, which I admitted was both wrong, as well as foolish and silly.

4. Ok.

This is probably the worst thing you said.

Over the past few years online poker has been, quite literally my JOB. As in, something I made money at (a LOT of money at) every single year, and had to pay TAXES on, as in, actual income tax, to the U.S. government. I made more than $400,000 a year in both of the past two years, and have made more than $1,000,000 since I began playing online 4 years ago. I on average play about 1,000 hours, give or take a few hundred hours, per year. I typically play about 4 or 5 hours a day, on weekdays, and 0 hours a day on friday nights, saturdays, and sundays.

If you think making more than 1.2 million dollars in the past few years, playing 4-5 hours a day, on weekdays, is "the biggest waste of time that has ever been created" then, I'm sorry but, I simply cannot agree at all with this specific opinion of yours.

5. I am not making this stuff to "demean others." I clearly stated in the original post that I wasn't attacking anyone who is a hunter, nor trying to make them stop hunting. I was simply stating my personal view on the topic, because I think maybe some people might find it somewhat interesting (and others might not, and they can obviously choose to not read it if they don't) and so I wrote this just to give some people, who find my opinion on the topic to be somewaht interesting, something to have fun with. So now, I'm not being demeaning, I'm just trying to provoke a bit of fun thinking about an interesting subject that SOME people enjoy thinking/discussing. That's all.

Is this fair?
 
as a highly intelligent animal
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Ironic in a post full of logical flaws.

Guys, if there's a trolling post, don't call the poster a troll, just notify staff.

John
 
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