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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   30620 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 14, 2025

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You realize that black people didn't hop on their ships, cross the Atlantic and invade America, right? Forcibly enslaving people, displacing them from their homes and bringing them to America is vastly different from an invasive species...invading and ruining an ecosystem?

That's literally how invasive species work. If rabbits had been able to swim to Australia unaided, they wouldn't be invasive, they would be part of the natural ecosystem. Like the French and Spanish in the Americas. Do people even bother calling rats invasive? I suppose the British are the rats in this analogy.

Do people even bother calling rats invasive?

Yes. But they usually don't call such things as armadillos(who expand their native range all on their lonesome- despite their association with Texas they didn't get here until circa 1900) invasive.

Do people even bother calling rats invasive?

They do on islands where they are an invasive species destroying the local ecosystem, such as in New Zealand.

When I visited NZ, I was pretty surprised by the fact that they just aerially drop broad-spectrum mammal poison in large areas of the country. With (almost) no native mammals (a few bats), I guess it makes sense ecologically, but from my continental (from-a-continent-not-an-island) perspective it's a choice.

EDIT: This is intended as an interesting tangential anecdote, not an allegory.

That's literally how invasive species work.

Ah, you're right, I forgot about that time the British slapped a bunch of African rabbits in chains and forced them to pick cotton for a century or two in the hot Australian sun.

  • -11

Aren't feral horses, water buffalo, and camels all categorized as 'invasive' in Australia? I personally oppose the designation- I prefer a more southwestern-US view that increasing megafaunal variety is good even if some native species suffer, but Australians have the right to their own opinions on the relative value of kangaroos vs horses even if I would have a Texas-style pro-exotics policy where only animals causing damage to the things people want out of the ecosystem are considered invasive if I were Australian emperor- but that is what Australians call them.

They brought rabbits over so they could chase and shoot them. They did bring over invasive work animals as well, however.

All the Australians who adopted rabbits and had their livelihoods destroyed must be livid.

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