animal experimentation

[Faust]

This issue is as split as abortion or gay marriage. Some people such as Spinoza may think, well animals and humans are part of nature, there's no 'god' that will punish for what we do after we die, therefore we should experiment and benefit ourselves since they're only 'animals.' if human lives can be saved by sacrificing a few hundred monkeys, why not?

I also was stuck in the middle, and then I came up with an analogy. If there's an alien race that's infinitely more complex than us, like humans and animals, then surely by this argument they have the right to sacrifice us to better them. Which of course now we say 'no' because it's speciesism, we favour our own race. aliens are part of 'nature' so why not?

As a result I've come to greatly dislike animal experimentation, especially if they inevitably cause death. thoughts.

[Nordicvs]

if human lives can be saved by sacrificing a few hundred monkeys, why not?

If a few monkeys' lives can be saved by sacrificing a few million human beings, why not? Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Here's another context:

if white lives can be saved by sacrificing a few hundred blacks, why not?

It's essentially the same supremacist, narrowminded mentality; complacently species-jingoist.

I also was stuck in the middle, and then I came up with an analogy. If there's an alien race that's infinitely more complex than us, like humans and animals, then surely by this argument they have the right to sacrifice us to better them. Which of course now we say 'no' because it's speciesism, we favour our own race. aliens are part of 'nature' so why not?

We wouldn't define them as part of our Nature, though---they're by defintion, just as "God" would be, an exospecies. But if humans are such a "might makes right"---or "our arrogant belief that we're smarter, or more conscious, makes right"---type of animal, then, sure, aliens should have the "right" to do whatever they want to us. That's the game we play.

As a result I've come to greatly dislike animal experimentation, especially if they inevitably cause death. thoughts.

There's enough people around to experiment on: in fact, 6.5 billion---a neverending supply. I can ascertain no sane reason why so many arrive at a "right" any being has to enslave and torture and murder another for no good reason. It's intellectualized barbarism.

In Nature, a creature has the "right" to eat or be eaten. Nothing more. Ants "enslave" aphids and other insects, but they care for them as well as they do their own eggs; they form a symbiotic partnership---the aphids aren't caged or taken out of their environment, instead being free to come and go and are ruthlessly defended, and in return they allow the ants to feed off their "nectar." Ants also "enslave" other ants after conquering a rival colony; although the survivors, the "enslaved," simply switch sides and serve a new queen, doing exactly the same thing they did before. They're free to leave anytime they want, but they don't.

What human animals do to other animals is just slightly worse than what we do to one another.

[Faust]

if human lives can be saved by sacrificing a few hundred monkeys, why not?

If a few monkeys' lives can be saved by sacrificing a few million human beings, why not? Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Here's another context:

if white lives can be saved by sacrificing a few hundred blacks, why not?

It's essentially the same supremacist, narrowminded mentality; complacently species-jingoist.

I also was stuck in the middle, and then I came up with an analogy. If there's an alien race that's infinitely more complex than us, like humans and animals, then surely by this argument they have the right to sacrifice us to better them. Which of course now we say 'no' because it's speciesism, we favour our own race. aliens are part of 'nature' so why not?

We wouldn't define them as part of our Nature, though---they're by defintion, just as "God" would be, an exospecies. But if humans are such a "might makes right"---or "our arrogant belief that we're smarter, or more conscious, makes right"---type of animal, then, sure, aliens should have the "right" to do whatever they want to us. That's the game we play.

As a result I've come to greatly dislike animal experimentation, especially if they inevitably cause death. thoughts.

There's enough people around to experiment on: in fact, 6.5 billion---a neverending supply. I can ascertain no sane reason why so many arrive at a "right" any being has to enslave and torture and murder another for no good reason. It's intellectualized barbarism.

In Nature, a creature has the "right" to eat or be eaten. Nothing more. Ants "enslave" aphids and other insects, but they care for them as well as they do their own eggs; they form a symbiotic partnership---the aphids aren't caged or taken out of their environment, instead being free to come and go and are ruthlessly defended, and in return they allow the ants to feed off their "nectar." Ants also "enslave" other ants after conquering a rival colony; although the survivors, the "enslaved," simply switch sides and serve a new queen, doing exactly the same thing they did before. They're free to leave anytime they want, but they don't.

What human animals do to other animals is just slightly worse than what we do to one another.

i'm not advocating experimentation, but you don't agree that humans are more intelligent and conscious than animals?

So if the ants allow them to go whenever they want, why would they 'conquer' them in the first place? And are they 'enslaved' or are they not?

[Nordicvs]

i'm not advocating experimentation, but you don't agree that humans are more intelligent and conscious than animals?

1. Perhaps. It does seem that way. We have a narrow view of intelligence and an even narrower one regarding consciousness.

2. We are animals, too.

3. If we are more intelligent and conscious, why does that make us "better?" Aside from these these two things, we're absurdly inferior.

So if the ants allow them to go whenever they want, why would they 'conquer' them in the first place? And are they 'enslaved' or are they not?

That's the point of view from entomology---those are the words experts use to describe their behaviour. (If you mean the aphids...) If a human female attracts a human male and 'captures' him, and he is willing, is he really 'captured?'

So---And are they 'enslaved' or are they not?---yes. The ants surviving an invasion are basically switching their slavery to a new queen; they were already automatons. Like a nation being conquered by another---the population simply serves a new master, and after a few generations, all is normal again. The ants simply speed this 'acceptance' up a lot.

So, if this small example is so fluid, harmonious, and balanced, working well for over 400 million years, why do we consider these beings inferior if they do nearly everything better than we do---all without intelligence and consciousness?

[HUNTEDvsINVIS]

I once saw scientists give cocaine to monkeys. The little things were fried in their brains. it's sick. I believe one should only kill or torture in the name of self-defence or justice. I don't eat meat anymore. Nature is cruel, yes, so we shouldn't be. We have enough brains to register what we are doing to one another and to say "Oh, well, nature allows cruelty" is like saying, "Oh well, a million innocent people were killed so let's kill another million".

[Nordicvs]

I once saw scientists give cocaine to monkeys. The little things were fried in their brains. it's sick.

And yet monkeys don't give cocaine to other monkeys, and Nature is the cruel one...

Hey, technology must go forward, pal. If a few critters suffer for the glory of humanity, so be it---we're worth it. Progress, by all means necessary, because it is necessary, isn't it?

I believe one should only kill or torture in the name of self-defence or justice.

What about to eat?

I don't eat meat anymore.

That's because you're a spoiled, pampered citizen---toss your pasty ass out onto the Arctic for a year, and guess what? You'll eat meat---or starve.

Anyway, what do you think happens to a plant when you violently take it, by force, rip it to shreds, stuff it into your face, by force, and gulp it down to be slowly eradicated---still alive---and dissolved by your stomach acid? What is it that you're doing when you eat a salad?

You're killing life to stay alive--so, don't pretend you're 'above' meat eaters, that just makes you look like a hypocritical twat.

Nature is cruel, yes, so we shouldn't be.

Nature is wise. If Nature kills off the weak and sick and the excess of any species to keep to strong, healthy, extant, that's kindness---not cruelty.

We have enough brains to register what we are doing to one another and to say "Oh, well, nature allows cruelty" is like saying, "Oh well, a million innocent people were killed so let's kill another million".

We don't have enough brains to express or courage to admit we're inferior to Nature.

[HUNTEDvsINVIS]

hey, Nordicvs! You seem to be "rattled" by my opinions! Sorry about that, I didn't mean to degrade meat eaters or scientists, but I do not personally agree with what they are doing. It is an extremely difficult topic, and the science part is the most difficult to consider. Eating meat is, according to me, just unnecessary in societies that have a wide variety of resources at their disposal.

And, personally, I've never heard my sweetcorn or my coffee screeching in agonising pain to get away from me.

And, personally, the "glory of humanity" is a highly debatable issue...We're just a species like any other which underwent a fast process of natural selection for increased brain size, and we trash the earth. We're a virus and we know it.

Now, I see you have an immense respect for nature, which is understandable at times, but if nature has such "mercy" she should never have allowed suffering in the first place. And you can respect nature till the day it kills you off slowly without giving a damn about you. I'm sure nature has a plan of her own, but I'm part of nature so whatever I do reflects that my own ideas are also natural/respectable. If you're satisfied with being nature's puppet, good for you. I refuse to be the puppet of some infinite, cosmic, illogical grand scheme that uses me like some tool and then chucks me. I'd rather scorch in the flames of hell for all eternity than sit here like some fucking twit and tell you I'm satisfied with being a robot for an unknown cause. I refuse to kill and torture other life forms that are, like me, the victim of this infinite mess. And when I get a chance to "toss my pasty ass out onto the Arctic for a year" I will starve to death with a smile on my face. Who the F goes to the Arctic anyway? And, if you must know, I'd prefer my "ass" to be refered to as "milky", "shapely" or "firm".

[Nordicvs]

hey, Nordicvs! You seem to be "rattled" by my opinions! Sorry about that, I didn't mean to degrade meat eaters or scientists, but I do not personally agree with what they are doing. It is an extremely difficult topic, and the science part is the most difficult to consider. (*) Eating meat is, according to me, just unnecessary in societies that have a wide variety of resources at their disposal.

Nah, I seem 'rattled' by nearly everyone's opinion---it's just my style, I suppose.

(*) Funny. Those "wide variety of resources" are what's unnecessary: they developed because of overpopulation and mass extinction (of 'food sources') due to agricultural technology; humans were for hundreds of thousands of years fine and healthy, living simply hunting and gathering, an equal split (half our teeth are for cutting up meat, half for grains and fruits), naturally, as omnivores. Our species was once strong (mentally, physically, spiritually), made sense, was adaptable and wise, staying mobile and in small numbers, belonged to tribes and lived in harmony with our surroundings and other life, and we lived with a freedom and sense of meaning that we cannot even conceptualize any longer.

And, personally, I've never heard my sweetcorn or my coffee screeching in agonising pain to get away from me.

[Whenever I blindfold myself, then walk down the street swinging a baseball bat sporadically while blasting my headphones, I can't see or hear any damage I might be causing to others, so I must not be causing any, hey? I feel my bat strike semi-soft objects, occasionally, but those could be anything...]

So, it's the obvious bit you take exception to---the "pain?" Rather, your perception of pain and suffering? So, it's okay to kill, take life for your own selfish purposes, only if the life is killed painlessly and is not trying to flee? (In that case, you should have no problem with meat-eaters' meals prepared by those who kill life painlessly. You would certainly not object to someone eating an anaesthetized rabbit which's being treated for a depressive, self-destructive personality...)

Anyway, your coffee, unless it's fresh, isn't alive anymore (you tolerated others killing it for you), but your sweetcorn is very much alive, unless it's canned or frozen (again, you tolerated another killing it for you)...just because you don't hear it scream doesn't mean that (a) you took life---killed it to stay alive---and (b) caused another life form agony and pain.

What is pain? It's stress to the body, any body of any living being. That's all. Nothing more. Different organisms feel "pain" or physical stress differently. Trees bleed sap when you cut them, apples bruise when you drop them, well after being plucked from their tree---all plants sense and react to injury...that's "pain." You don't need a mammalian nervous system to feel injuries---so either you like feeling superior to carnivores and like to ignore facts like these, or you don't know them or don't care, or you do and rationalize your ending of life and brutality by saying, "Well, at least it doesn't seem to be screaming in agony..." Could be any of the above---I've never sufficiently dissected the delusional mind of a veggie hypocrite far enough to reach its "conscience," so whatever.

But plants "feel pain" too. It's scientifically testable and well-documented, so look it up if you like.

Think about that the next you force a carrot from the Earth and devour it alive (at least some carnivores, like lions, have the apparent compassion to kill their prey before eating it...). You kill life to stay alive---might as well admit it; you kill plants and cause them stress and their variety of suffering while you eat them alive---and you eat them alive to selfishly get, to take, what you need from them. No need to hide behind some haughty "meat-eaters are primitive" rationale; every living thing must destroy life to prolong its own so to create life of its own type.

Fundamentally, there is NO difference between herbivores and carnivores. You are a killer, too. We all are.

And, personally, the "glory of humanity" is a highly debatable issue...We're just a species like any other which underwent a fast process of natural selection for increased brain size, and we trash the earth. We're a virus and we know it.

I mentioned "glory of humanity" sardonically. I see nothing glorious about us.

It wasn't "natural selection" we've undergone---it was the unfathomably stupid notion of concentrating on agriculture back in roughly 9000 BC (the Kebarans, if I recall, were semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers, around the Levant, using simple crops during the summer and retreating to caves in the winter---but it was the group(s) that replaced them in the Fertile Cresent over the next two thousand years that turned not only the Middle-East, but large sections of North Africa and Asia as well, into uninhabitable deserts). It was unnatural selection. It was the feminine taking over the masculine---the dawn of civilization.

Now, I see you have an immense respect for nature, which is understandable at times, but if nature has such "mercy" she should never have allowed suffering in the first place.

What's wrong with suffering? (By the way, you can't be a genius without it.)

Yeah, I respect it ("she?"---wtf?)...it's about the only thing I've grown to respect on this rock, the only thing sane, sound, consistent, and worthy of any real, deep respect from me---there's so many layers of wisdom to Nature, millions upon millions of years of silent "knowledge" accumulated in the collective (unconscious) mind of all its varied incarnations...humans are spastic infants (arm in the air, holding its daddy's raygun, chanting "i r so evolv'd!!1") by comparison. I guess I'm being very kind to humans here---strictly speaking, we really don't rate as high as infants. There's no shitty being on this planet to properly compare us to---pigs, dogs, sheep, even maggots make much more sense and have superior forms---it would be insulting to a worm to call humans 'worms;' every other natural animal serves a purpose, makes sense, and lives according to a law of necessity.

Yep, when you're the shittiest stain on the surface of the globe, there's nothing lesser to compare you to---we are the lowest, and getting lower.

And you can respect nature till the day it kills you off slowly without giving a damn about you.

Everything dies. Death is normal, natural, and imperative. It's the feminine that seeks permenance---and, I think, immortality. Real men understand that everything has it's time, and some are even aware that as death occurs, it makes room for new life. In Nature, death has a purpose---it's the flipside on the coin of life; it's absolutely necessary. How often we kids forget this wisdom.

I'm sure nature has a plan of her own, but I'm part of nature

I doubt it. You live in an artificial box, I expect. Civilized humans have not been a part of Nature for a good 10 thousand years.

so whatever I do reflects that my own ideas are also natural/respectable. If you're satisfied with being nature's puppet, good for you.

Following an intelligent, sane, working system, by choice, makes me a puppet? Nature has only one rule, one law. Far, far, far simplier, easier, freer, and less controlled, engineered, manipulated than human regulations and idiocy, "government," which can collectively suck a fart out of my ass.

You don't like being a "puppet of Nature" but would rather be one of societies, laws, "gods," ego-addictions and women? You wouldn't want to be part of a "system" that's worked very well for nearly 3 billion years...but you would want to part of one that's worked very fucking shittily for less than 10 thousand? Why, because it's "hot" and "new?" Are you sure you're not a slave to fashion and marketing trends?

Holy glue-sniffing Christ. Guess what? You're a slave---to many things...food, clothing, shelter, water---and to oxygen, too, you know? Better stop breathing---break off those air chains and live free, fellow human!

I refuse to be the puppet of some infinite, cosmic, (1) illogical grand scheme that uses me like some tool and then chucks me. I'd rather scorch in the flames of hell for all eternity than sit here like some fucking twit and tell you I'm satisfied with being a robot for an unknown cause. I refuse to kill and torture other life forms that are, like me, the victim of this infinite mess.

What mess? How can a puny being on only one puny planet in this vast sea of stars deem the whole thing a mess? How much of it have you seen? How many worlds, how many species, other plantary ecosystems and biospheres? How much experience do you have with this universe to have any perspective whatsoever to judge it?

(You come across like a teenie-bopper saying---without even reading about it, let alone going there---some other country sucks because a friend said so.)

(1) What's illogical about Nature?

And every single thing in the cosmos is at the random "whim" of chance, cause and effect. We're all muppets, just in varying degrees to various things. Even after you're dead, critters turn your flesh and bones into other things, different forms of matter (out of death comes new life, again). You're used if you live, and used after you're dead. Best get used to it.

And when I get a chance to "toss my pasty ass out onto the Arctic for a year" I will starve to death with a smile on my face. Who the F goes to the Arctic anyway?

The nomads in the Arctic thank you for your absence---as do I (I'm planning on heading up within a few years---to view how real people live).

(Heh. Starve with a smile on your face---how long have you ever been without food before?)

And, if you must know, I'd prefer my "ass" to be refered to as "milky", "shapely" or "firm".

Now, that's thinking like everyone else. Good on you.