There's a whole quantitative science of this in fishery management. It's called "maximum sustainable yield." I wish I could find the quote, but someone very accurately summarized the whole philosophy as "preserving the wreckage."
this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
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What are those magestic white jellyfish? They seem to be thriving.
Are they really plastic trash bags? 😭
Aren't We all plastic trash bags in a way.
As one of the great poets of our time put it, «Do you ever feel like a plastic bag drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?»
How are you quantifying the amount of each species in the past? Or is this just wish-fulfillment hogwash?
E: Ah yes, the hive-mind defense, downvoting something you have no answer for.
Assuming you're not just trolling peopke who care about the environment, I have an actual evidence based answer here, current levels of biomass in the ocean aren't really known, and are difficult to estimate[0]. They're very widely regarded as dropping heavily as a result of human interference and climate change.
I think you might be misreading the comic though, which I think is more an explanation a shifting baseline, where the first panel is compared to the second, rather than the first which would be the correct reference point for a natural population[1].
It's almost certainly not meant to be representative of the actual species, aside from anything else the size ratio between say, pufferfish, turtles and whales are obviously wrong, but again, I don't think the comic is trying to pretend it's accurate in that respect.
[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867419312747#bib8
Do you have evidence that oceans were less plentiful in the past? Or are you just taking a contrarian position because it's easy?
Again, I'm NOT the one that needs to provide evidence, because I have made no claims.
The ORIGINAL POSTER needs to provide proof because their "meme" is an infograph with a claim.
You're twisting the burden of proof, so go f yourself for your bad faith.
if you can dismiss the proofless infograph without proof, I can dismiss your dismissal without proof. We can go on recursively all day.
Not now that works. They made a claim without backing. They now need to prove it.
I don't need to prove my claim because I have no claim. My only request was a demand for proof for the original comic.
Your whole attitude has been bad faith from the beginning. I think your curiosity would have gone over a lot better had you stopped before saying "Or is this just wish-fulfillment hogwash?"
I don't see why you had to start off so combative.
Calling it "wish-fulfilment" doesn't help and makes it sound like you're not actually asking for an answer.
Who exactly was wishing for such a sad scenario to be true?
The image is, if you read left to right and top to bottom, moving backwards in time.
I'm not asking why things got to the point they are at today. I'm asking how someone can just populate an image about the ocean hundreds of years ago off of pure vibes.
There is no science behind just adding more animals to increase the fauna/flora density by entirely subjective amounts here. And I can say that it isn't just meant to show an increase because specific years are used, as well as 3 data ponts, so the density of animals in question is the point.
The wish-fulfillment, because we're moving back in time, is that the ocean was that full of life all those years ago. Unless backed by evidence. Which no one has presented so far.
pure vibes
So you feel good about downvoting someone for rightfully pointing out a lack of evidence, then sending a link to an entire book review which might or might not even show evidence of the thing I was asking for?
LMFAO.
Dude, you said show "proof" and he showed proof. Dunno what you are complaining about. How was he supposed to prove anything without linking to an external source?
I didnt downvote you. I'm not going to do research for you. Linking a book review should be enough to prove it wasn't pulled out of this air.
Burden of proof is on the person who posted, so certainly not you. But they're quiet and you're out here telling me to research why the meme is correct.
That amounts to saying you don't know how to prove it, and believe it on pure subjective opinion. Which makes whatever you link idiotic since it might not even prove what you're trying to say.
The review goes over some of the methodology.
and believe it on pure subjective opinion.
I'm not saying that.
Edit: if you're saying it's based on nothing then I expect you to have looked into it, yes
Why should I, as the person receiving a meme, research why it is based on fact and not fiction?
That's not how the burden of proof works.
Because you asked for it? Someone posted a dumb meme and didn't cite it with studies and now you are mad. You do have some burden since you are the one who started the discussion on proof in the first place. If you can't even be bothered to look at the proof they bring, its not their problem.
Do memes need burden of proof?
Any media with years, density, "shifting baseline syndrome" is not a meme, it's an infograph disguised as a meme.
So yes, your "meme" requires proof. And you're a propagandist idiot if you think otherwise.
There is no secret agenda here. Its just a dumb meme. You can a meme with the words "shifting baseline syndrome" if you want. In fact you can put whatever you want in a meme.