Edit: I just remembered I already had a reason to dislike this show because they blatantly used the name “Gen V” for their show despite obviously knowing (they do research for this thing) about the existing vegan/animal rights charity organization called Gen V, formerly known as Million Dollar Vegan, which has since been forced to largely rebrand as “Generation Vegan” and doesnt use the Gen V name as much anymore since the TV show is the most well known result for that name, while previously it was the vegan org. And Gen V is a good vegan-themed name too; maybe we’ll still use it.

If anyone watches the show Gen V, which is the spin off of politically satirical superhero show The Boys, you probably were cringing with frustration at the inability to respond (almost like another Kevin Costner/Taylor Sheridan/Ted Nugent/Joe Rogan “Yellowstone” moment) to Hamish Linklater’s character (no hate on the actor) when he made the argument that Australians love their national icon of the kangaroos because they kill them to strengthen their population. It left a bad taste and I had to say something about it. As someone who has come across this argument a lot, though usually in the American context of killing deers, it always pains me when people make misinformed claims that killing wild animals is somehow benevolent.

Here’s the quote:

You ever been to Australia? Used to go with my dad when I was a boy. The Aussies love their kangaroos. So, every year, they let hunters kill them. They cull the population in order to protect it. For the strength of the herd.

Firstly I want to focus on the “positive” silver lining, which is that his character is a villainous utilitarian and he is using this logic as an argument to defend doing the same or similar to humans. And that’s where many vegans would go immediately, is “Would you find this acceptable to do to humans under equivalent hypothetical conditions?” and then run Name The Trait/NTT ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZughsYK_qE ) or something if he says no, in order to resolve the inconsistency. But he already came out biting the bullet on doing it to humans unprompted, since that was his initial goal. So he kind of outed/unmasked himself as sociopathic before he even mentioned animals, and also demonstrated how his specific antivegan argument aligned with principles that most humans already find abhorrent. This is definitely an effective way to establish vegans/animal rights supporters (or at least people who are against hunting) as firmly on the camp of “good” and people who defend hunting and animal exploitation as on the side of “bad”. Additionally and somewhat related, the character, who is probably a human supremacist (like most humans in the real world), is also a “Supe supremacist” and believes in the inferiority of humans who don’t have powers because they haven’t been dosed with a serum called compound V by the nefarious corporation Vought (where the show derives its “V” name from), which is a pretty stupid concept if you ask me. But it’s an interesting parallel that he calls non-Supe humans simply “humans”, which implicitly denies that “Supes” are humans too and raises them to a different category/level/status of superiority or value, which is exactly the same thing that most humans do when they refer to non-human animals/other animals as simply “animals” (I know even we vegans often do it too due to speciesist/carnist conditioning) and even overtly say that humans aren’t animals and “can’t be compared to animals”, which actually stems from Biblical denial in evolution and the animal nature of humans and the belief that humans alone are basically gods/made in the image of god (which is why I tell hardcore atheists that they’re paying service to Christianity and other religions when they pretend that humans aren’t animals and spout all these Biblically-derived anti-vegan arguments). Relevant and based Carl Sagan quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/296126-humans-who-enslave-castrate-experiment-on-and-fillet-other

Now I want to try to debunk the argument, though I can’t do any research for it right now so it’s just going to be based on my existing knowledge, and mainly from a moral lens rather than fact-based/empirical. I’d love if any vegans would share their own thoughts on it, even if you haven’t watched the show (you really don’t need to).

1. It’s a deontologically compromised utilitarian argument. It wouldn’t matter if its claims were true, because it would still be fundamentally devaluing the life of the individual and prioritizing the “greater good” of the many. It violates core moral principles about the sanctity of sentient life. And of course, someone can hold this view and even apply it to humans consistently (which they would have to if they held it for non-human animals without contradicting themselves, as the argument from marginal cases/NTT establishes), but then they would be in disagreement with the majority of humans already, and probably themself on some level, who think their view is morally despicable and horrendous. And at that point it’s just a joke to take them seriously.

2. The empirics of the claim don’t seem to check out.

• Cipher (Linklater’s character who made the pro-“culling” of kangaroos argument) claims that you’re “strengthening the herd” by picking off the weaklings. In theory, this makes sense, though it’s despicable. But that isn’t what people are actually doing. In almost all cases, adult, mature, male, and strong/well built animals are killed, because those are the ones that are most valuable for humans to use, and because ironically even hunters usually have a hang up about killing animal children (but not orphaning them by killing their parents) if you can believe it. Very rarely are child animals or disabled/injured/deformed/small/weak animals killed, who would be the ones to kill off if you really wanted to “strengthen” the population, though even then it could do the opposite in some cases and disrupt the natural balance of the ecosystem (which is almost never actually natural due to significant human interference).

• The dynamics with kangaroos and dingoes (the missing piece of the puzzle no one wants to talk about), or other of their natural predators like crocodiles, wedge-tailes eagles and pythons, is very similar to the dynamics with deers and their natural predators such as wolves, mountain lions, coyotes and bears in the US. Like deers, kangaroos are herbivorous. Both species of animals are hunted by humans (who are their primary threat) and one reason often given is because their populations are large or they’re considered “pests” (imagine using that kind of language for a different race of humans you believed was intrusive), but even know that’s often true with regard to population sizes, not only is it arguably incredibly morally unsound and insufficient reasoning/justification for taking their lives, but is also unnecessary for achieving the goal of lowering the population (and in reality doesn’t lower it as I explained, and actually can increase and “weaken” it by allowing more “weaklings” to “dilute” the population strength and eliminating the biggest competitors for resources), and even counter-productive and self defeating. The population of those herbivorous wild animals is “overpopulated” (in humans’ determination, despite being by far the most invasive, destructive and overpopulated species on Earth ourselves) because humans kill their natural predators, not to protect them or even to protect themselves (humans), but to protect animal farming operations, since otherwise predators will kill the farmed animals before the farmer/slaughterhouse worker can and they won’t be able to use/sell them. In actuality, ironically and quite poetically in an almost intersectional or karmic reading, it all leads back to animal farming. Humans’ desire to exploit and kill animals ultimately results in even more bloodshed done to facilitate, protect and ensure those habits - violence begets violence, both to humans and to non-human animals, but here being violent and oppressive to some animals leads to being violent and oppressive to more animals. Basically “we kill deers so that we can kill wolves so that we can kill cows”. Or in this case “we kill kangaroos so that we can kill dingoes so that we can kill cows”. It’s as ridiculous and evil as that. We kill herbivorous wild animals to supposedly keep their population down (except it doesn’t), which we simultaneously increase and undo our “work” of, not only by those actions themselves ironically but by killing the other animals who are keeping their populations down, which we do in order to be able to keep “farming”, exploiting and killing animals to sell products made from them. It’s insanity. We cause problems with violence and then try to fix them with more violence and just make them worse and continue the horrific cycle.

3. “Strengthening the population” is clearly not the real reason or motivation that most humans have for hunting non-human animals, including kangaroos in Australia. So this is a front/cover story/smokescreen/pretext. It’s disguising the true intentions with post hoc rationalizions. It’s the same kind of “logic” (or actually I would say propaganda) as when animal farming defenders and the industries themselves spin practices like cow-calf separation in the dairy industry or farrowing crates in the pig flesh industry as somehow benevolent or in the interests of the animals. Or that CO2 gas chambers for pigs are peaceful and don’t cause suffering. It’s complete profit-driven lies, 100% false. In reality, people hunt animals, including kangaroos, mostly so that they can eat their flesh, or use or sell their body for something else (such as this https://www.rooballs.com/australian-kangaroo-scrotum-gift-pack - yes it’s real and they’re disgustingly sold over the country as tourist souvenirs) or for sport/some kind of absurd bloodlust or sense of power/domination over others. This is always not only a factor/component but the ultimate reason why any of this is done, not to help animals or protect the environment. In the cases where people are hired by the government or authorized to kill wild animals to carry out “population control”, they still do it for other reasons too, they still use the animals’ bodies, or they do it to protect vegetation or their farming operations. It’s never done purely to help animals (in some misguided way), and usually not done for them at all - it’s done in the interests of humans, not our victims, obviously. And it’s convenient that only the humans are here to share their side of the story because the other animals can’t speak and defend themselves (which neither can some humans but we wouldnt exploit or discriminate against them just because they’re differently abled in some way). I’m sure that deer or that kangaroo that you killed wouldn’t be given any solace by the notion that their “sacrifice” was supposedly going to help other members of their species that they don’t even know. It’s just as bad for them no matter what reason you come up with to justify unnecessarily causing their suffering & premature death.

I may have more thoughts but that’s about it for now. Hope this wasn’t too off-topic or rambling. Would love to know what you all think about this.