I'm remembering this from an article I read that I can't find at the moment, but, a trainer at an aquarium with a dolphin exhibit had taught the dolphins to retrieve pieces of trash that fell into their pool. When the trainer arrived the dolphins would bring garbage, and be rewarded with fish. One dolphin in particular seemed to always have trash to exchange for fish. They watched her, and discovered that she would find a large piece of garbage, like a piece of paper, hide it somewhere in the pool exhibit, then tear off small pieces of it to exchange for fish. They also observed her eating most of her fish, but saving pieces to float on the surface to attract sea gulls, which she would then snatch under water and eat.
How the hell do you prove a dolphins is thinking about the future?
Lots of ways. Off the top of my head, let it watch a room where one parcel of food is placed in it every week. Put the dolphin in the room. If it saves food to make it through the week rather than eating it all instantly, then it planned for the future. Or teach it puzzles that involve saving objects from previous stages that are needed for later ones, etc
I'm remembering this from an article I read that I can't find at the moment, but, a trainer at an aquarium with a dolphin exhibit had taught the dolphins to retrieve pieces of trash that fell into their pool. When the trainer arrived the dolphins would bring garbage, and be rewarded with fish. One dolphin in particular seemed to always have trash to exchange for fish. They watched her, and discovered that she would find a large piece of garbage, like a piece of paper, hide it somewhere in the pool exhibit, then tear off small pieces of it to exchange for fish. They also observed her eating most of her fish, but saving pieces to float on the surface to attract sea gulls, which she would then snatch under water and eat.
This dolphin is smarter than many people I know.
[Tycho?] on
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DeadfallI don't think you realize just how rich he is.In fact, I should put on a monocle.Registered Userregular
If dolphins are so near human how come they havent started any wars, staged murders,executions and pogroms, imagined a god that wants them to kill and enslave other dolphins, amassed fabluous wealth while watching other dolphins starve or wasted the planet, which are the unmistakable signs of humanity?
I don't understand how you can read that article and not go, "Dolphins exhibit abnormally high intelligence? That's fucking awesome!" But instead go, "Yeah? Well fuck those dolphins, thinking they're so smart. If they're so smart how come they don't enslave other dolphins? Huh, answer me that asshole!"
I think/hope that the commenter is making a comment about humans rather than dolphins: "We do these things, and we think we're smarter than dolphins?"
Yeah, I may have jumped the gun in my assumption, but still, I thought it was funny.
If dolphins are so near human how come they havent started any wars, staged murders,executions and pogroms, imagined a god that wants them to kill and enslave other dolphins, amassed fabluous wealth while watching other dolphins starve or wasted the planet, which are the unmistakable signs of humanity?
I don't understand how you can read that article and not go, "Dolphins exhibit abnormally high intelligence? That's fucking awesome!" But instead go, "Yeah? Well fuck those dolphins, thinking they're so smart. If they're so smart how come they don't enslave other dolphins? Huh, answer me that asshole!"
What's funny/sad, is that dolphins do engage in murder and rape.
i still don't understand why intelligence = greater moral value
that seems like a really bogus and biased means of establishing an ethical system
How do you assign moral worth to animals then? This isn't meant to be a question to catch you out, it's something I'm legitimately interested in as I've had real trouble coming up with a satisfactory answer.
Starcross on
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ElJeffeRoaming the streets, waving his mod gun around.Moderator, ClubPAMod Emeritus
edited January 2010
I think that, for starters, it's completely rational to discriminate between humans and dolphins, whatever moral worth we assign them, simply because we are human and they are not. It's the same sort of discrimination that occurs between, say, your family members and some random dude on the street. People are going to tend to favor their own kin over random people because they are closer to them.
If a man has a choice between rescuing his child from a burning building or rescuing a roomful of strangers, he's almost certainly going to choose his child. What's more, few people are going to fault him. Similarly, I would expect a person to opt to save another human at the expense of a dozen "non-human persons."
All that said, I think we can work to protect dolphins without ascribing them personhood. Because really, that's just a giant, legal clusterfuck, and I really don't see it providing any benefits at this point in time versus just saying, "Hey, maybe we should not indiscriminately kill these things." Giving them legal rights sounds like a terrible idea, given that they are not a meaningful part of our society.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
i still don't understand why intelligence = greater moral value
that seems like a really bogus and biased means of establishing an ethical system
How do you assign moral worth to animals then? This isn't meant to be a question to catch you out, it's something I'm legitimately interested in as I've had real trouble coming up with a satisfactory answer.
my personal conclusion is that there are two alternatives
1) if suffering is the basis of an ethical system, then animals are exactly equivalent to humans in moral worth; the only exception may be really low-scale entities like bacteria and possibly insects, although i'd give bugs the benefit of the doubt since they act like they can suffer
2) if we don't want to give personhood to animals, then we'll have to accept that morality is pretty much entirely glandular and non-rational
The problem with any sort of test for sentience or self-awareness or whatever it is we're saying makes an animal a 'non-human person' vs. an animal is: what about humans who fail? There are humans with cognitive disorders who don't pass the mirror test. Human infants will fail damn near every test for cognition that you would apply to an animal. Are babies not persons? Are mentally handicapped people not persons? Do we need to treat dolphins better than kids with Down's?
(Note that I'm not actually arguing either way; I'm genuinely curious as to what kind of answer could be found for this sort of question)
I think the answer is that we look at a species as a group and determine their status as sentient/non-sentient in totality, rather than on a case-by-case basis.
All human beings, regardless of their individual intelligence, have the same inherent rights. Similarly, if we decide that there is enough evidence that dolphins, on the whole, are a sentient species, then all dolphins should be given the same level of rights and/or protections.
Actually dolphins are quite evil. They kill for sport, rape other pods (and plan it mercilessly), and start wars with other pods. None the less, they are one of the few animals that can metacognate and that is incredibly important for self-hood, meaning we cannot ethically harm dolphins.
If dolphins are so near human how come they havent started any wars, staged murders,executions and pogroms, imagined a god that wants them to kill and enslave other dolphins, amassed fabluous wealth while watching other dolphins starve or wasted the planet, which are the unmistakable signs of humanity?
I don't understand how you can read that article and not go, "Dolphins exhibit abnormally high intelligence? That's fucking awesome!" But instead go, "Yeah? Well fuck those dolphins, thinking they're so smart. If they're so smart how come they don't enslave other dolphins? Huh, answer me that asshole!"
The fact that they do not enslave each other is proof positive that they are more intelligent than we are.
If we're going to redefine personhood, we have to be very careful if our new definition might result in the dehumanization (that's a biased word; perhaps depersonization) of creatures we currently consider to be persons.
We already treat humans of lower intelligence as non-persons.
The mentally disabled are not given the same rights and responsibilities as other humans. Children are not given the same rights and responsibilities as other human. Vegetative state humans are given nowhere near the same rights and responsibilities as other humans.
As far as children receiving more outrage for being harmed, this is based more on the fact that they are young. This isn't an exception; it's separate overlapping rule. We universally treat all young animals better than their adult counterparts. Puppies are given more protection than dogs, kittens are treated better than cats, and babies are cared for more than adults.
I look forward to our burgeoning human-dolphin linguistic research mobile soon being able to understand our aquatic kin when they thank us for all the fish.
Though really, this raises some interesting ethical and evolutionary issues.
We should probably treat all animals with a certain amount of respect (i.e. more than we do) instead of categorizing them by intelligence.
I don't know. I want to be able to guiltlessly swat flies, while still feeling bad for mistreating dolphins.
Or, hell, eat meat.
Unless we're going to cease all carnivorous activities as a species, we're going to need some way to draw a line on which animals get respect and which are fair game for cold cuts. Intelligence seems like a completely reasonable means of drawing that line.
We should probably treat all animals with a certain amount of respect (i.e. more than we do) instead of categorizing them by intelligence.
I don't know. I want to be able to guiltlessly swat flies, while still feeling bad for mistreating dolphins.
Or, hell, eat meat.
Unless we're going to cease all carnivorous activities as a species, we're going to need some way to draw a line on which animals get respect and which are fair game for cold cuts. Intelligence seems like a completely reasonable means of drawing that line.
Do you think we should stop eating pork/ham/bacon? Pigs are pretty smart.
We should probably treat all animals with a certain amount of respect (i.e. more than we do) instead of categorizing them by intelligence.
I don't know. I want to be able to guiltlessly swat flies, while still feeling bad for mistreating dolphins.
Or, hell, eat meat.
Unless we're going to cease all carnivorous activities as a species, we're going to need some way to draw a line on which animals get respect and which are fair game for cold cuts. Intelligence seems like a completely reasonable means of drawing that line.
Do you think we should stop eating pork/ham/bacon? Pigs are pretty smart.
I think that if a solid case could be made that the quality of life of the average pig has gone down since they became a farmed food source, enough so that the pigs would have noticed, we should probably consider it.
I'm not really sure what the parameters for such a determination would be, though.
We should probably treat all animals with a certain amount of respect (i.e. more than we do) instead of categorizing them by intelligence.
I don't know. I want to be able to guiltlessly swat flies, while still feeling bad for mistreating dolphins.
Or, hell, eat meat.
Unless we're going to cease all carnivorous activities as a species, we're going to need some way to draw a line on which animals get respect and which are fair game for cold cuts. Intelligence seems like a completely reasonable means of drawing that line.
Do you think we should stop eating pork/ham/bacon? Pigs are pretty smart.
I think that if a solid case could be made that the quality of life of the average pig has gone down since they became a farmed food source, enough so that the pigs would have noticed, we should probably consider it.
I'm not really sure what the parameters for such a determination would be, though.
It's thoughts like these (the entire quote tree) that make me seriously consider going totally vegan. I know I wouldn't want to be eaten, or born on a farm and thrown in a meat grinder as soon as I was fat enough, or hunted down by a vast, powerful, almost omnipotent superintelligent life form. Why is it okay for me to eat animals who went through that?
I mean, I'm a pretty big proponent of the law of reciprocity (a.k.a., The Golden Rule). I do my best to not lie, or steal, or cheat, or hurt people - I wouldn't want to be treated that way. I also don't want to be killed and eaten and treated in a way that causes me suffering - so why do I continue to eat meat?
We should probably treat all animals with a certain amount of respect (i.e. more than we do) instead of categorizing them by intelligence.
I don't know. I want to be able to guiltlessly swat flies, while still feeling bad for mistreating dolphins.
Or, hell, eat meat.
Unless we're going to cease all carnivorous activities as a species, we're going to need some way to draw a line on which animals get respect and which are fair game for cold cuts. Intelligence seems like a completely reasonable means of drawing that line.
Do you think we should stop eating pork/ham/bacon? Pigs are pretty smart.
I think that if a solid case could be made that the quality of life of the average pig has gone down since they became a farmed food source, enough so that the pigs would have noticed, we should probably consider it.
I'm not really sure what the parameters for such a determination would be, though.
It's thoughts like these (the entire quote tree) that make me seriously consider going totally vegan. I know I wouldn't want to be eaten, or born on a farm and thrown in a meat grinder as soon as I was fat enough, or hunted down by a vast, powerful, almost omnipotent superintelligent life form. Why is it okay for me to eat animals who went through that?
I mean, I'm a pretty big proponent of the law of reciprocity (a.k.a., The Golden Rule). I do my best to not lie, or steal, or cheat, or hurt people - I wouldn't want to be treated that way. I also don't want to be killed and eaten and treated in a way that causes me suffering - so why do I continue to eat meat?
It's thoughts like these (the entire quote tree) that make me seriously consider going totally vegan. I know I wouldn't want to be eaten, or born on a farm and thrown in a meat grinder as soon as I was fat enough, or hunted down by a vast, powerful, almost omnipotent superintelligent life form. Why is it okay for me to eat animals who went through that?
I mean, I'm a pretty big proponent of the law of reciprocity (a.k.a., The Golden Rule). I do my best to not lie, or steal, or cheat, or hurt people - I wouldn't want to be treated that way. I also don't want to be killed and eaten and treated in a way that causes me suffering - so why do I continue to eat meat?
It is pretty brutal, morally, when you look at it like that.
At the same time, are farmed livestock like cows or chickens really worse off now than they would be surviving on their own in the wild? Sure, at the end of the day the majority of them will be eaten (though for those two species specifically there will be a sizable cross-section that aren't), but odds are they would have been anyway. In captivity they've got a pretty hard upper cap on survival, but they also don't have to worry about starvation or (generally) predators or disease on the level they did before. Much higher percentages of farm animals likely live to adulthood than would in the wild, and the species as a whole now have populations that would be unsustainable outside of captivity.
If dolphins are so near human how come they havent started any wars, staged murders,executions and pogroms, imagined a god that wants them to kill and enslave other dolphins, amassed fabluous wealth while watching other dolphins starve or wasted the planet, which are the unmistakable signs of humanity?
I don't understand how you can read that article and not go, "Dolphins exhibit abnormally high intelligence? That's fucking awesome!" But instead go, "Yeah? Well fuck those dolphins, thinking they're so smart. If they're so smart how come they don't enslave other dolphins? Huh, answer me that asshole!"
The fact that they do not enslave each other is proof positive that they are more intelligent than we are.
I'm fully confident they would enslave each other if they could find a way to benefit from it. Unless we want to take a broader view of slavery than labor, because they already turn each other into sex slaves.
It's thoughts like these (the entire quote tree) that make me seriously consider going totally vegan. I know I wouldn't want to be eaten, or born on a farm and thrown in a meat grinder as soon as I was fat enough, or hunted down by a vast, powerful, almost omnipotent superintelligent life form. Why is it okay for me to eat animals who went through that?
I mean, I'm a pretty big proponent of the law of reciprocity (a.k.a., The Golden Rule). I do my best to not lie, or steal, or cheat, or hurt people - I wouldn't want to be treated that way. I also don't want to be killed and eaten and treated in a way that causes me suffering - so why do I continue to eat meat?
It is pretty brutal, morally, when you look at it like that.
At the same time, are farmed livestock like cows or chickens really worse off now than they would be surviving on their own in the wild? Sure, at the end of the day the majority of them will be eaten (though for those two species specifically there will be a sizable cross-section that aren't), but odds are they would have been anyway. In captivity they've got a pretty hard upper cap on survival, but they also don't have to worry about starvation or (generally) predators or disease on the level they did before. Much higher percentages of farm animals likely live to adulthood than would in the wild, and the species as a whole now have populations that would be unsustainable outside of captivity.
It's a thorny issue, to be sure.
In a more humane situation like free-range I think it's an interesting argument to say that food animals are in a better situation, but it's hard to agree with it when looking at mass production farming practices.
But if we don't classify based on intelligence, wouldn't plants count, too?
Well I have to eat something. And as far as I know, plants can't actually experience things. They don't have nervous systems or brains, right? They don't exhibit any behavior at all, besides like growing into things? No suffering as far as we know?
Right?
I mean I do have to eat something for Christ's sake. Evolution made me that way! Gah! I hate my nature!
It's thoughts like these (the entire quote tree) that make me seriously consider going totally vegan. I know I wouldn't want to be eaten, or born on a farm and thrown in a meat grinder as soon as I was fat enough, or hunted down by a vast, powerful, almost omnipotent superintelligent life form. Why is it okay for me to eat animals who went through that?
I mean, I'm a pretty big proponent of the law of reciprocity (a.k.a., The Golden Rule). I do my best to not lie, or steal, or cheat, or hurt people - I wouldn't want to be treated that way. I also don't want to be killed and eaten and treated in a way that causes me suffering - so why do I continue to eat meat?
It is pretty brutal, morally, when you look at it like that.
At the same time, are farmed livestock like cows or chickens really worse off now than they would be surviving on their own in the wild? Sure, at the end of the day the majority of them will be eaten (though for those two species specifically there will be a sizable cross-section that aren't), but odds are they would have been anyway. In captivity they've got a pretty hard upper cap on survival, but they also don't have to worry about starvation or (generally) predators or disease on the level they did before. Much higher percentages of farm animals likely live to adulthood than would in the wild, and the species as a whole now have populations that would be unsustainable outside of captivity.
It's a thorny issue, to be sure.
It depends upon the kind of farming as well. I mean, it's hard to argue that battery farmed chickens have a better life than wild ones.
But if we don't classify based on intelligence, wouldn't plants count, too?
Well I have to eat something. And as far as I know, plants can't actually experience things. They don't have nervous systems or brains, right? They don't exhibit any behavior at all, besides like growing into things? No suffering as far as we know?
Right?
I mean I do have to eat something for Christ's sake. Evolution made me that way! Gah! I hate my nature!
It's thoughts like these (the entire quote tree) that make me seriously consider going totally vegan. I know I wouldn't want to be eaten, or born on a farm and thrown in a meat grinder as soon as I was fat enough, or hunted down by a vast, powerful, almost omnipotent superintelligent life form. Why is it okay for me to eat animals who went through that?
I mean, I'm a pretty big proponent of the law of reciprocity (a.k.a., The Golden Rule). I do my best to not lie, or steal, or cheat, or hurt people - I wouldn't want to be treated that way. I also don't want to be killed and eaten and treated in a way that causes me suffering - so why do I continue to eat meat?
It is pretty brutal, morally, when you look at it like that.
At the same time, are farmed livestock like cows or chickens really worse off now than they would be surviving on their own in the wild? Sure, at the end of the day the majority of them will be eaten (though for those two species specifically there will be a sizable cross-section that aren't), but odds are they would have been anyway. In captivity they've got a pretty hard upper cap on survival, but they also don't have to worry about starvation or (generally) predators or disease on the level they did before. Much higher percentages of farm animals likely live to adulthood than would in the wild, and the species as a whole now have populations that would be unsustainable outside of captivity.
It's thoughts like these (the entire quote tree) that make me seriously consider going totally vegan. I know I wouldn't want to be eaten, or born on a farm and thrown in a meat grinder as soon as I was fat enough, or hunted down by a vast, powerful, almost omnipotent superintelligent life form. Why is it okay for me to eat animals who went through that?
I mean, I'm a pretty big proponent of the law of reciprocity (a.k.a., The Golden Rule). I do my best to not lie, or steal, or cheat, or hurt people - I wouldn't want to be treated that way. I also don't want to be killed and eaten and treated in a way that causes me suffering - so why do I continue to eat meat?
It is pretty brutal, morally, when you look at it like that.
At the same time, are farmed livestock like cows or chickens really worse off now than they would be surviving on their own in the wild? Sure, at the end of the day the majority of them will be eaten (though for those two species specifically there will be a sizable cross-section that aren't), but odds are they would have been anyway. In captivity they've got a pretty hard upper cap on survival, but they also don't have to worry about starvation or (generally) predators or disease on the level they did before. Much higher percentages of farm animals likely live to adulthood than would in the wild, and the species as a whole now have populations that would be unsustainable outside of captivity.
It's a thorny issue, to be sure.
It depends upon the kind of farming as well. I mean, it's hard to argue that battery farmed chickens have a better life than wild ones.
Oh, definitely.
But the half-dozen we kept in the chicken coop out back in the winter and let run around the yard in the summer probably had it better than any of their pre-domestication ancestors. Especially given that we never ate any of them, only the occasional egg.
But if we don't classify based on intelligence, wouldn't plants count, too?
Well I have to eat something. And as far as I know, plants can't actually experience things. They don't have nervous systems or brains, right? They don't exhibit any behavior at all, besides like growing into things? No suffering as far as we know?
Right?
I mean I do have to eat something for Christ's sake. Evolution made me that way! Gah! I hate my nature!
Not sentience, but plants do get fevers when they're sick.
It's thoughts like these (the entire quote tree) that make me seriously consider going totally vegan. I know I wouldn't want to be eaten, or born on a farm and thrown in a meat grinder as soon as I was fat enough, or hunted down by a vast, powerful, almost omnipotent superintelligent life form. Why is it okay for me to eat animals who went through that?
I mean, I'm a pretty big proponent of the law of reciprocity (a.k.a., The Golden Rule). I do my best to not lie, or steal, or cheat, or hurt people - I wouldn't want to be treated that way. I also don't want to be killed and eaten and treated in a way that causes me suffering - so why do I continue to eat meat?
It is pretty brutal, morally, when you look at it like that.
At the same time, are farmed livestock like cows or chickens really worse off now than they would be surviving on their own in the wild? Sure, at the end of the day the majority of them will be eaten (though for those two species specifically there will be a sizable cross-section that aren't), but odds are they would have been anyway. In captivity they've got a pretty hard upper cap on survival, but they also don't have to worry about starvation or (generally) predators or disease on the level they did before. Much higher percentages of farm animals likely live to adulthood than would in the wild, and the species as a whole now have populations that would be unsustainable outside of captivity.
But while that is a horrible thing for those chicks to go through, only a tiny fraction of them would even be alive if they weren't being farmed.
It seems like you're saying that something's counterfactual nonexistence is somehow worse than something's tortured existence.
I don't think this is what you want to say, but I don't see how else to read that. I don't have children, but if I had one and kept it in captivity and eventually murdered it, that does not strike me as a more moral alternative to not having children. You seem to be implying that the birds' very existence (as opposed to their nonexistence) mitigates whatever suffering they endure. Is that correct? If not, what are you talking about?
There are some categories of animals that we pretty much have to treat like shit in order to maintain anything resembling our lifestyles. Insects, for example.
Posts
I believe this calls for a "clever girl."
This dolphin is smarter than many people I know.
Yeah, I may have jumped the gun in my assumption, but still, I thought it was funny.
xbl - HowYouGetAnts
steam - WeAreAllGeth
What's funny/sad, is that dolphins do engage in murder and rape.
How do you assign moral worth to animals then? This isn't meant to be a question to catch you out, it's something I'm legitimately interested in as I've had real trouble coming up with a satisfactory answer.
If a man has a choice between rescuing his child from a burning building or rescuing a roomful of strangers, he's almost certainly going to choose his child. What's more, few people are going to fault him. Similarly, I would expect a person to opt to save another human at the expense of a dozen "non-human persons."
All that said, I think we can work to protect dolphins without ascribing them personhood. Because really, that's just a giant, legal clusterfuck, and I really don't see it providing any benefits at this point in time versus just saying, "Hey, maybe we should not indiscriminately kill these things." Giving them legal rights sounds like a terrible idea, given that they are not a meaningful part of our society.
my personal conclusion is that there are two alternatives
1) if suffering is the basis of an ethical system, then animals are exactly equivalent to humans in moral worth; the only exception may be really low-scale entities like bacteria and possibly insects, although i'd give bugs the benefit of the doubt since they act like they can suffer
2) if we don't want to give personhood to animals, then we'll have to accept that morality is pretty much entirely glandular and non-rational
):
The fact that they do not enslave each other is proof positive that they are more intelligent than we are.
We already treat humans of lower intelligence as non-persons.
The mentally disabled are not given the same rights and responsibilities as other humans. Children are not given the same rights and responsibilities as other human. Vegetative state humans are given nowhere near the same rights and responsibilities as other humans.
As far as children receiving more outrage for being harmed, this is based more on the fact that they are young. This isn't an exception; it's separate overlapping rule. We universally treat all young animals better than their adult counterparts. Puppies are given more protection than dogs, kittens are treated better than cats, and babies are cared for more than adults.
I also find it hilarious how closely this discussion echoes those had in the Mass Effect thread when it's not focused on krogan genitalia.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
ethical sure, but evolutionary?
This is interesting, but I feel bad for chimps. Poor Team Primate.
With a star player like us, team primate is still doing pretty well.
I don't know. I want to be able to guiltlessly swat flies, while still feeling bad for mistreating dolphins.
If they are intelligent enough to call them persons, they are intelligent enough to consent, right?
I still want to see them someplace. A friendly zoo sounds great. Why not get their consent?
Unless we're going to cease all carnivorous activities as a species, we're going to need some way to draw a line on which animals get respect and which are fair game for cold cuts. Intelligence seems like a completely reasonable means of drawing that line.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Do you think we should stop eating pork/ham/bacon? Pigs are pretty smart.
I'm not really sure what the parameters for such a determination would be, though.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
It's thoughts like these (the entire quote tree) that make me seriously consider going totally vegan. I know I wouldn't want to be eaten, or born on a farm and thrown in a meat grinder as soon as I was fat enough, or hunted down by a vast, powerful, almost omnipotent superintelligent life form. Why is it okay for me to eat animals who went through that?
I mean, I'm a pretty big proponent of the law of reciprocity (a.k.a., The Golden Rule). I do my best to not lie, or steal, or cheat, or hurt people - I wouldn't want to be treated that way. I also don't want to be killed and eaten and treated in a way that causes me suffering - so why do I continue to eat meat?
Cause tofu tastes like paste.
At the same time, are farmed livestock like cows or chickens really worse off now than they would be surviving on their own in the wild? Sure, at the end of the day the majority of them will be eaten (though for those two species specifically there will be a sizable cross-section that aren't), but odds are they would have been anyway. In captivity they've got a pretty hard upper cap on survival, but they also don't have to worry about starvation or (generally) predators or disease on the level they did before. Much higher percentages of farm animals likely live to adulthood than would in the wild, and the species as a whole now have populations that would be unsustainable outside of captivity.
It's a thorny issue, to be sure.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I'm fully confident they would enslave each other if they could find a way to benefit from it. Unless we want to take a broader view of slavery than labor, because they already turn each other into sex slaves.
In a more humane situation like free-range I think it's an interesting argument to say that food animals are in a better situation, but it's hard to agree with it when looking at mass production farming practices.
Well I have to eat something. And as far as I know, plants can't actually experience things. They don't have nervous systems or brains, right? They don't exhibit any behavior at all, besides like growing into things? No suffering as far as we know?
Right?
I mean I do have to eat something for Christ's sake. Evolution made me that way! Gah! I hate my nature!
It depends upon the kind of farming as well. I mean, it's hard to argue that battery farmed chickens have a better life than wild ones.
You could eat fruit. I mean that's what it's for
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ--faib7to
But the half-dozen we kept in the chicken coop out back in the winter and let run around the yard in the summer probably had it better than any of their pre-domestication ancestors. Especially given that we never ate any of them, only the occasional egg.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Not sentience, but plants do get fevers when they're sick.
But while that is a horrible thing for those chicks to go through, only a tiny fraction of them would even be alive if they weren't being farmed.
It's not a black and white issue, no matter what the PETA wannabe videos are telling you.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
We respect them only when they become a credible threat.
At which point we'll bomb the shit out of them and occupy their country.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
It seems like you're saying that something's counterfactual nonexistence is somehow worse than something's tortured existence.
I don't think this is what you want to say, but I don't see how else to read that. I don't have children, but if I had one and kept it in captivity and eventually murdered it, that does not strike me as a more moral alternative to not having children. You seem to be implying that the birds' very existence (as opposed to their nonexistence) mitigates whatever suffering they endure. Is that correct? If not, what are you talking about?
There are some categories of animals that we pretty much have to treat like shit in order to maintain anything resembling our lifestyles. Insects, for example.