I live in Japan. There are a couple of explanations for the huge price.

First, this happened close to New Year's, which like Christmas in the U.S., gets a little extravagant. In particular the first market of the New Year in Tsukiji people tend to overbid--it's kind of a tradition.

Second, with sushi eaten around the world and blue fin tuna supplies dwindling, they are getting harder to catch. Furthermore, there are restrictions in place about the size and number of fish that can be caught to prevent overfishing. But demand is higher than ever, so basic economics is also in effect and pushing the prices up.

Third, the size of this tuna is extreme--the businesses who bought it (it was a combined bid by a Hong Kong and a Japanese sushi restaurant business) are going to be able to turn it into a ton of sushi and probably make a decent profit off of it.

I will mention that quality sushi here is amazing and well worth the price. I've eaten at some of the restaurants in Tsukiji--the sushi you get was brought in that very morning and is usually the quality cuts. When prepared by an experienced chef, it's absolutely a completely different experience and taste from anything you can get anywhere else in the world. Well worth the coin you will drop, but it may (as it did for me) make sushi anywhere else taste like crap.

Overfishing in Europe video:
http://videosift.com/video/Transforming-European-Fisheries

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I don't think you can make the assumption that nurturing parents are a prereq for civilization. You're being mammalist. >> ^direpickle:

>> ^dag:
It's because we're mammals. All the love and affection we feel is a product of our need to pair-up, spawn and nurture our offspring. When we do meet ET - we may find that they laugh at our idea of love - if we haven't by then figured out its true nature.
For aliens, I can imagine love would be getting close to mathematical perfection - a near perfect sphere, a beautifully balanced equation, a well-thought-out proof.

>> ^quantumushroom:
All true. Humans are irrational. If aliens could invade disguised as baby seals, kittens and teddy bears they'd take over in a week without firing a single death ray.


>> ^Drachen_Jager:
This thread just shows how terrible most people's thought processes are.
Seals are abundant, in absolutely no danger from a species point of view. The hunting of seals is not having a significant impact on the environment. They are cute. People defend them to the death.
Many types of sharks are endangered, play a vital role in the ecosystem. Many marine biologists feel that the overfishing of sharks is a large part of the reason why coral reefs are dying out. Nobody cares that they're being destroyed at a prodigious rate.



Civilization and what we think of as intelligence themselves are products of the ability and need to care for our tribe/family/offspring/whatever. Any ET will have gone through that stage in their own evolution, even if they've outgrown it by the time we run into them. You're not going to develop language, much less interstellar travel, with an animal that abandons its young and lives solitarily.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

This thread just shows how terrible most people's thought processes are.
Seals are abundant, in absolutely no danger from a species point of view. The hunting of seals is not having a significant impact on the environment. They are cute. People defend them to the death.
Many types of sharks are endangered, play a vital role in the ecosystem. Many marine biologists feel that the overfishing of sharks is a large part of the reason why coral reefs are dying out. Nobody cares that they're being destroyed at a prodigious rate.


Well some animals are just better at the interview than other. I mean really I see it like this.

Interviewer, "What are you?"
Interviewee, "I'm an Otter."
Interviewer, "And what do you do?"
Interviewee, "I swim around all day and do cute little human things with my hands."
Interviewer, "Your free to go. Next!"

Interviewer, "And you are?"
Interviewee, "I'm a cow."
Interviewer, "Get on the bus."
Interviewee, "But I'm brown and have big eyes and"
Interviewer, "Your a baseball glove with a side of Tbone steak! Get on the bus!"



Yes I'm bored....

>> ^dag:

It's because we're mammals. All the love and affection we feel is a product of our need to pair-up, spawn and nurture our offspring. When we do meet ET - we may find that they laugh at our idea of love - if we haven't by then figured out its true nature.
For aliens, I can imagine love would be getting close to mathematical perfection - a near perfect sphere, a beautifully balanced equation, a well-thought-out proof.

>> ^quantumushroom:
All true. Humans are irrational. If aliens could invade disguised as baby seals, kittens and teddy bears they'd take over in a week without firing a single death ray.


>> ^Drachen_Jager:
This thread just shows how terrible most people's thought processes are.
Seals are abundant, in absolutely no danger from a species point of view. The hunting of seals is not having a significant impact on the environment. They are cute. People defend them to the death.
Many types of sharks are endangered, play a vital role in the ecosystem. Many marine biologists feel that the overfishing of sharks is a large part of the reason why coral reefs are dying out. Nobody cares that they're being destroyed at a prodigious rate.




Civilization and what we think of as intelligence themselves are products of the ability and need to care for our tribe/family/offspring/whatever. Any ET will have gone through that stage in their own evolution, even if they've outgrown it by the time we run into them. You're not going to develop language, much less interstellar travel, with an animal that abandons its young and lives solitarily.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

It's because we're mammals. All the love and affection we feel is a product of our need to pair-up, spawn and nurture our offspring. When we do meet ET - we may find that they laugh at our idea of love - if we haven't by then figured out its true nature.

For aliens, I can imagine love would be getting close to mathematical perfection - a near perfect sphere, a beautifully balanced equation, a well-thought-out proof.


>> ^quantumushroom:

All true. Humans are irrational. If aliens could invade disguised as baby seals, kittens and teddy bears they'd take over in a week without firing a single death ray.


>> ^Drachen_Jager:
This thread just shows how terrible most people's thought processes are.
Seals are abundant, in absolutely no danger from a species point of view. The hunting of seals is not having a significant impact on the environment. They are cute. People defend them to the death.
Many types of sharks are endangered, play a vital role in the ecosystem. Many marine biologists feel that the overfishing of sharks is a large part of the reason why coral reefs are dying out. Nobody cares that they're being destroyed at a prodigious rate.

All true. Humans are irrational. If aliens could invade disguised as baby seals, kittens and teddy bears they'd take over in a week without firing a single death ray.




>> ^Drachen_Jager:

This thread just shows how terrible most people's thought processes are.
Seals are abundant, in absolutely no danger from a species point of view. The hunting of seals is not having a significant impact on the environment. They are cute. People defend them to the death.
Many types of sharks are endangered, play a vital role in the ecosystem. Many marine biologists feel that the overfishing of sharks is a large part of the reason why coral reefs are dying out. Nobody cares that they're being destroyed at a prodigious rate.

This thread just shows how terrible most people's thought processes are.

Seals are abundant, in absolutely no danger from a species point of view. The hunting of seals is not having a significant impact on the environment. They are cute. People defend them to the death.

Many types of sharks are endangered, play a vital role in the ecosystem. Many marine biologists feel that the overfishing of sharks is a large part of the reason why coral reefs are dying out. Nobody cares that they're being destroyed at a prodigious rate.

From what I have read, the Atlantic Bluefin tuna is one of the most overfished and threatened species of fish on Earth.
"Thanks to 4 decades of overfishing, it has been driven to just 3% of its 1960 or pre-longlining abundance - a decline of 97%"

Traditions (however recent they may be...) are great, but we now have the knowledge to make informed decisions about these practices. To be honest, I am surprised that Nat Geo takes such a tabloid approach to mans'-struggle-against-uch-a-formidable-opponent...

Hey Net, I agree with you and am in pretty much the same area as you... I would like, however, to point out what runs your opponents' mindset. Fear. Now, remember, fear is natural and is even necessary to survival. We are running into the problem of a world with finate resources, and that world is getting ever smaller. America is losing its once mighty grip on the things we have had for so long we assumed we were entitled to the wealth.

Now, blame is thrown all around except back at those who hurried along the process to begin with (Voters and their demands for low taxes and high services... Humans and their undending need to consume, etcetera...) So, social security has been raided to pay, money borrowed, etcetera. The Oceans overfished. Dead zones. Farm land is being compacted... Our debt is soaring... And the piper has to be paid at some point.

We must realize all our blank checks were foolish. This cannot be blamed on the half-black president--though he is a reasonable target. This must be blamed on our grandparents and parents and so on and so forth. And of course--us! Most of our generation does not undersand why things happen the way they do and yet, they are all about fixes... Sad...

>> ^NetRunner:
@<A rel="nofollow" class=profilelink title="member since June 27th, 2008" href="http://videosift.com/member/Winstonfield_Pennypacker">Winstonfield_Pennypacker, @<A rel="nofollow" class=profilelink title="member since August 1st, 2008" href="http://videosift.com/member/GeeSussFreeK">GeeSussFreeK, if the President asks for something from someone, and they voluntarily agree to it, how is it some sort of breach of executive power? He didn't exert any legal authority at all.
For example, BP's own press release says they agreed to establish the fund.
Now, if you guys have some sort of actual evidence that BP was resistant until Obama threatened them, making this a coercive agreement, bring it forth.
Otherwise you're just making bullshit accusations based on your own misguided ideas of who Obama is, based on lies trumped up by the propaganda arms of the corporate overlords (i.e. conservative media) to make it seem like BP is some sort of victim in all this.

>> ^vaporlock:

Not like the pirates of old. No sandals and orange swim trunks on Blackbeard's crew.


Yeah they are mainly poor fishers who lost their job because of overfishing by western corporations.
Funnily, that overfishing is also the main cause of poaching of endangered species on the main land of africa.
To put it simple: Those guys simply get taken away their main food source (yes, thats fishing) and then people wonder why they try the criminal way.
This world is fucking nuts...

You know there is such a thing as aquaculture or fish farming.

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5883
"Nearly half of the seafood we eat today is farmed"

>> ^ryanbennitt:
Well, by 2050 we'll have 9 billion people, but by that time all our fish stocks worldwide will have collapsed completely from overfishing. We don't farm and cultivate the sea, we just hunt and poach the fish from it.

Well, by 2050 we'll have 9 billion people, but by that time all our fish stocks worldwide will have collapsed completely from overfishing. We don't farm and cultivate the sea, we just hunt and poach the fish from it. We're still getting better and better at fishing, using sonar, bigger nets, better ships, but just as the technology makes it easier to find fish, it is getting harder and harder to find them, fishermen are having to travel further and further to get their catches, ultimately this cycle is destined to total failure. So that's one source of food production that we will ultimately have to do without. Unless something changes...

hell man, overfishing effects me, fuck a baboon.....salmon spawning is at an all-time low, baby, and we needs us some roe!!