Our camera operator could easily help, but they won’t.
Helping the crab would eliminate the purpose of the camera altogether. As humans, we feel empathy for the individual. But in a natural state, there are predators and scavengers who survive if the crab dies, just as the crab preys on its food. The cycle of life will progress undisturbed whether we observe it or not, and learning what we can from the life and death of the crab is more valuable than the sum total of the individual crab’s experiences or suffering. Interference will only shift suffering from one individual to the next.
But what do we learn? There’s no scientific rigor in dramatizing a creature’s survival. The purpose of a nature documentary is to capture on film the essence of the natural world, to share it, but also to sell it for profit. The crab’s struggles become the ad dollars that fund the camera crew and studio and the scientific research into crab migration patterns. Of course, the revenue from nature documentaries rarely generates profit to justify the investment. So that can’t be the only motivation.
Could it be that anthropomorphizing the crab desensitizes the viewer to accept the suffering of the individual if it benefits the greater good? In this framework, suffering of the individual is expected, even welcome, as long as the system remains strong. Predators eat, prey are eaten, and interference is a fool’s errand.
This program is brought to you by Bank of America.
In one of the BBC ones they had this kind of moment with a whole flock of penguins trapped in a gully but then in the post show ‘How we filmed all this’ part they revealed that after the cameras stopped rolling they just didn’t have the heart to let them all die so they cut a set of stairs into the side of the gully so they could get out.
BASED
Well that was a wild ride of a comment.
Your account is overdrawn
there’s much more purpose to nature documentaries.
no one would care about any of these animals or there plights without them. zoos and nature documentaries are the biggest drivers or interest and donations in the protecting the natural world.
not interfering with what is happening is more than just a nature documentary thing, it’s a journalism thing in general. the only reason journalists get access to the places and things they do is because they don’t interfere. interfering with the natural world is a hard thing to do right. usually the obvious answer is the wrong one when it comes to preservation and restoration. and i mean sure, there’s times when it’s obvious that your interference wouldn’t be a bad thing, but part of the point of following a code of ethics is to remove the human element. follow the code strictly and you will never cause harm.
imagine if a bbc earth filmmaker accidentally got an endangered animal in a remote area sick because he decided to remove a fish hook. that remote area would never allow anyone to film there again.
but generally, the goal of journalists is to show things as they are. to educate the world on the problem. to do that you must show the problem playing out without intervention. and if there is no problem, if it’s just an animal being hunted then you’d likely be causing harm to something else by preventing it.
a journalist believes they can do more good by showing one child dying to the entire world than by using their talents with words and cameras to somehow save a single starving child. they went there in person to do what they think will be effective in the long term. you could also go there in person to get hands on and save the animals if you want. they are no more guilty of not saving these things than you are.
You could video the dying child and still bring a doctor with you. You can save the individual animals you come across while still filming them first. It’s not XOR.
if you save the child people will discredit your story. it’s not a story of a child dying if the child doesn’t die. you can’t capture what is happening if you stop it from happening.
‘This child would have died if I didn’t stop it, and there are many other children I was unable to save’ seems like a perfectly good story to me.
and you are more reasonable than many. many others would deny that people are dying if you can’t show them people that have died.
Telling my wife she has to watch Planet Earth…Baby elephant goes left and that was the end of Planet Earth
No it was just the end of the elephant, the series goes on for a few more episodes
</darkjoke>
this is an old seinfeld bit, you cheer whichever animal is the protagonist du jour and then next week, you want the current protagonist to fuck over the animal that the very last week you were cheering for.
its like sports but yelling “RIP HIS HEAD OFF!!” is only slightly less frowned upon
Let’s follow this adorable family of, I dunno, weasels or something. We’ll name every one of the dozen kits and give them each individual narratives, which will make it even more traumatizing when all but one of them are horribly killed and eaten on camera.
- Nature documentaries
**Morphs into sea food sponsor ad
‘Sir, this is a Wendys’
‘Yes, I know, would you like to try the limited time offer special Krabby Patty™?’
Seriously, what’s up with that? I went there the other day w/ the kids, and the Krabby Patty meal seemed intended for adults? We ended up just getting kids meals and some ala carte sandwiches for my SO and I, but I seriously wonder who the target audience is there…
SpongeBob is more popular with Millennials and older GenZ.
Basically 25 to 40 age range.
Also GenZ and Millennials basically have not materially, economically improved since when they were kids, so they’re still eating fastfood.
Also also, we don’t know how to cook, as our GenX or Boomer parents never bothered to teach us, tons of GenZ and Millennials pay for meal kit delivery services, furthering the notion that we’re likely to buy fast food.
But why the “Krabby Patty meal”? It’s like an adult kids meal, that feels really degrading IMO.
I would get it if I went to a Spongebob-themed shop or something and ordered Krabby patties, but it’s a Wendy’s gimmick.
GenZ and Millennials basically have not materially, economically improved since when they were kids
That’s just not true. Look at any economic statistics and you’ll find that both generations are basically in line with previous generations, except that home ownership is more delayed (but retirement savings seems to be better for GenZ). In fact, GenZ may be ahead of the curve for home ownership, despite higher home prices.
Maybe it’s true that many GenZ and Millennials haven’t learned to cook, but that seems more like a choice than some kind of societal fail. Getting food delivered is just a lot easier today, and people tend to do the easier thing.
It’s like an adult kids meal, that feels really degrading IMO.
That is exactly what it is.
Look at any economic statistics and you’ll find that both generations are basically in line with previous generations, except that home ownership is more delayed
Basically, I completely disagree, but as I am currently a millennial on SSDI who can’t find anywhere to live that does not cost half my monthly income, I’m not really as interested in arguing the details as I am finding a decent living situation.
But I can't help myself, so here's something
Notice how Millennials are the first generation for every level of education to earn less than the previous generation, and the least educated are doing about as bad as the Silent generation.
Colleges costs have exploded, as have housing costs, as have personal debt levels.
I’m a Millennial too, so I get it. My point was that if you only look at the people around you, you’ll miss the forest for the trees. Millenials are doing worse in some metrics, but those same metrics seem to be reversing a bit for GenZ. The net impact seems to be that Millennials have a bit of late start. I blame a number of things:
- 2008 happened right when older Millennials entered the workforce
- pretty dramatic shift in types of jobs available after 2008, with tech jobs booming and manufacturing jobs essentially disappearing
- huge emphasis on higher education, but not a lot of direction at what degrees to get (so lots of people got worthless degrees)
The problem seems to be resolving itself, but GenZ is still young so I guess we’ll see where they end up in a few years. But it’s hardly as bad as a lot of people here on Lemmy make it out to be (though obviously specific circumstances will vary).
Just wait till you see the end of the dinosaur documentary. ☄️
I hear it’s a blast.
You might say it blew up the box office
As shown here by Snoop:
