Hey, hostile visitors! Do you have an opinion about, for example, Mary Koss’ rape research? Do you want to discuss it even though the topic has not actually come up by itself in any of the threads and none of my recent posts really have much to do with the specifics of anyone’s rape research? Well, from now on you can discuss it here with anyone who wishes to follow you to this thread.
Added bonus: If you continue to try to discuss it in other threads you’ll be banned!
This also applies to future derailers riding hobbyhorses of their own having nothing to do with Koss.
Happy discussing!
Note: If you wish to discuss the topics at hand, you know, topics directly related to my posts and/or to what other people are discussing and that aren’t, you know, personal hobbyhorses of yours that involve long screeds and various things that you’ve probably already cut and pasted into the comments sections of various other websites until you were banned from them for endless derailing and general asswipery, feel free to remain in the original threads.
@archeaholmes
“The image is eating a child. Eat veal, you’re eating a child, and a child brought up in a pretty nasty way. That’s offensive if you think people care about their kids more than cows do.”
While I am for better standards of living for animals: fuck you. Kids are way fucking more valuable than cows. Though I’m sure this can be proved wrong cuz I eat baby lambs about once a year and that is just like eating children…the fuck?
“No, I mean sending up the idea of the boob as a commodity. Breats are made a commodity every day in advertising and porn”
Let’s try not to make it more so that way. Also, if you don’t have breasts: shut the fuck up about them.
@cassandrasays
“Did I ever tell you I once petted a shark? It was a small shark, and its skin felt cool. My parents were not amused.”
::envy:: I pn theory, idk about practice.
@archeaholmes
“The thing about comparing animals’ experienes to racism, genocide, transphobia etc is that the animals whose lives we eat are worse than any human – and I mean *any* human – can imagine”
…wow… Yeah, you seem extremely lacking in empathy here. I’m at a loss for words over this what the fuck… Ok, trying now. I DO NOT WANT ANIMALS TO BE POINLESSLY SUFFERING. HOWEVER. WHAT YOU ARE SAYING IS SERIOUSLY DISRESPECTFUL AND TRIVIALIZING TO HUMANS WHO HAD TO GO THROUGH ALL THAT SHIT AND YOU JUST SAID THE FUCKING ANIMALS. WHO DON’T DESERVE TO SUUFER EITHER BUT ARE NOT FUCKING SETIENT. OU JUST SAID FUCKING ANIMALS HAD IT WORSE.
I think it’s rather clear at this point what the real difference is. You all think that men are the one and only category that it’s impossible to ever disadvantage in any way. That the label “male” is always a good thing. A man can be disadvantaged as a black or gay or disabled. It is functionally impossible to ever do anything bad to someone because they are male. It’s got to be some other reason. It is not even possible for anything bad to happen to someone based on gender, if that gender is male. Note, this isn’t a strawman. This really is what the lot of you sound like to me.
With the traditionalism and male disposablity cranked up to 11, I really do wonder if you would still be talking about “The Patriarchy” and “Male privilege” if every man was chained naked in a cage.
Yeah, I was too focused on the sexism earlier to even go down this path, but if you’re a straight white cic person then saying that x is worse than racism, genocide, and so on? Really not cool. And verging on Godwin territory.
BTW I think that some animals other than us are fully sentient. Whales, dolphins, possibly ravens, maybe parrots…we’re definitely not the only sentient creatures on the planet. That in no way justifies anything PETA does, nor does it justify comparing, say, dairy farming to genocide.
How did you get that out of this?
Marie, one point: animals (especially if we’re talking about the mammals we eat) are sentient. They feel pain, they have consciousness, and animal intelligence is way higher than is usually acknowledged. There are animals whose consciousness and sense of self is probably not that different from our own. I think “sapient” would describe what you’re saying better than “sentient”.
MAINE COONS!!
Cassandra – I lost my Maine Coon cat on christmas day at age 20. He was the runt of the litter and was never over 10 lbs. Well, maybe about 12 at his biggest, but he was tall and big, scrawny and strong (so many silly adjectives). But then he had an accident (hit by a car and dragged himself home over days, crushed pelvis) and was just smaller afterwards. He made those sounds and other weird ones. They also like water and sunbathing and come when called. So I vote yours is half or all! I am jealous.
Also this blind cat book looks amazing. Thank you.
Has anyone seen this TED talk about gender violence? I can’t watch it but I’m curious – Jackson Katz?
Yeah, I mean sapient. And I’d add most primates to the list. You can teach a gorilla sign language. The only reason anyone is able to maintain the illusion that, say, a gorilla isn’t sapient is that they can’t talk.
Notice that this view does not inevitably lead the the stuff I was arguing against earlier.
Wait, what state do you live in? Because I’ve never hear dof a deal that good, and I’d liek to send my kids there.
But I’d like to see you provide some evidence that scholarships will fix the real cause of the lack of men in nursing, please. I’m a scientist. I like evidence. So show it.
@ bahumbugi
I’m so sorry about your cat. I lost mine at nearly 20 too, to cancer. That was nearly 2 years ago – still hurts.
The book about Homer is awesome. Written to be readable by young people too, so the language is fairly simple, but it’s still a great book. Was a Christmas present from Mr C.
Where I live 15K a year would barely cover rent.
bahumbugi, so sorry your kitty has gone! 🙁
LOL. STAHP, you are killing me with your made up shit.
What about troll disposability? That’d be useful if it were a thing.
@archeaholmes
“@Fade I can’t make a single argument why people should come first, except, “But, we’re human!””
Yeah, see, I tend to prioritize people who hav thoughts and are clearly sentient way over my dog, even though I love her.
“I dig how everyone thinks I’m a “he’.”
…then what are your preferred gender pronouns? (Nvm saw you answered) I mean, I certainly assumed you were a cis man the way you were talking about how boobs are totally commodities, you
could just beapparently are being a jerk about it regardless of gender.“I’m unapologetic for thinking the suffering of animals is not insignificant”
Ffs, it’s not saying their suffering is bad, it’s acting like we should care about animals as much as people.
“I don’t think people come first. There are millions of species, and they all want to live happily too.”
Fucking bugs, as valuable as people?
“On the other hand, buying meat is the single most cruel decision you can make, regarding animals, in your everyday life. It just is. That isn’t a helpful suggestion, as you say, But the way meat is produced is unspeakably cruel. I can start trailing links behind my posts, but you guys know this”
Fucking fuck? Buying meat is the most cruel thing you can do to animals? Fucking fuck? Ignoring that even if everybody wanted to stop buying animal products most people don’t have the fucking time or money… This is so full of shit. Buying meat: worst thing to do to animals. PETA killing a bunch of thm: bringing awareness to animal rights?
“Fade, it’s privilege. There isn’t a single good reason why people should come first except species privilege. We’re one species among millions. Read Peter Singer.”
This is the single dumbest thing here I have read that was not written by a troll…
“I have to say I feel like I’m challenging privilige here by sticking up other species.”
Fuck off. Tired of this and I wasn’t even here for it…
Oof. Thanks for the condolences, all. I didn’t mean to make it about his dying — more like celebrating how awesome those kitties are. google image search for maine coon kittens….the very best of google searches
@kittehs
“Marie, one point: animals (especially if we’re talking about the mammals we eat) are sentient. They feel pain, they have consciousness, and animal intelligence is way higher than is usually acknowledged. There are animals whose consciousness and sense of self is probably not that different from our own. I think “sapient” would describe what you’re saying better than “sentient”.”
I know animals have some intelligence, just didn’t think most were like people. Not like intelligence is a reason to be treating someon like shit, but gah. Just got sick of the people are no better than animals show… Also, ::blushes:: I have no idea what the difference between sapient and sentient is…
Marie: Yeah, it’s infuriating. Especially since someone doesn’t seem to grasp their own privilege in being able to be a vegetarian. There’s places in cities where a.) you can’t get good produce or veg options, and b.) if you can in those areas, they’re really fucking expensive.
You know part of what was frustrating me about the conversation? There are ways to make meat production less cruel. That is a thing that we can potentially make happen. And I don’t think that statements like the ones archeoholmes was making help with that goal, because if you present the situation as if all methods of raising and killing animals for food are the same in terms of the suffering they create, then why would people bother trying to push for the more humane ones?
It’s counterproductive, is what I was trying to say.
@cassandrasays
That makes sense. Im all for having animals raised in humane conditions, just lots of the other stuff was weir ding me out. :/ idk… I’m all rambly today. You guys feel free to tell me if you want me to drop the topic.
It’s OK, Marie. I about blew a lobe when I read some of that stuff.
GNL: You are a fool.
So you admit to having points about which you believe you cannot possibly be wrong.
What are the one’s about which you think you might (just possibly) be wrong?
Well because teacher are less underpaid that fry cooks or lawn mowers. It is a much safer and more fun environment as well.
What? Fry cook is less safe than nurse? Have you ever worked in an ER?
And you don’t want to give out very many of those scholarships (about 1,000 ought to be enough, right?), so you aren’t really trying to fix male poverty either.
Whites with the mental ability and will to attend college mostly do.
Citation sorely fucking needed.
But “The Patriarchy” hurts men to, an oppressive system is an oppressive system
Nope. That the side effect of Patriarchy hurts men doesn’t mean it is a system meant to oppress them.
And, while not all men can be at the top, men as a whole can be better off than women (say things like unequal pay for equal work, or fields which pay well and women are prevented from entering; or scholarship programs meant to perpetuate the idea that women deserve to be in low-paying fields like nursing: by making it easier for minority men to get lower paid/lower class jobs than the white dudes you think deserve the STEM/Finance/Political jobs).
You are a bigot. You are anti-equality. You want to oppress women.
Maleness means a life that is nothing but puppy dogs rainbows and unicorns.
Who said that? Ah right, you did. And you know it’s wrong, and you know we don’t believe it.
So you are a lying sack of fermenting weasel puke.
That’s the distinction that I kept trying to make, that it’s possible to care about animal welfare without accepting…all that other stuff. Kind of felt like Sisyphus for a while there.
Sentient: able to feel or perceive things.
Sapient: wise, or attempting to appear wise. (I didn’t make that wording up!)
Our species is homo sapiens, “wise man” (har har har, sez I).
I’d query the “no better” comment. That’s pretty much the sort of species-centric thing I think ArchaeoHolmes was getting at. If you said “no more important” then it’d be different: not many people are going to argue with that. But arguably humans as a species are a helluva lot worse than the other inhabitants of the planet. We’re the ones given to genocide among our own kind, causing extinctions deliberately or through carelessness, environmental devasation … yeah, I wouldn’t call us better, given our overall record in the last few thousand years.
The comment that comes to my mind re: cruelty is “The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” which was said by Jeremy Bentham, who wasone of the first (early 19th century) to look seriously at animal rights. He made the point that the capacity to suffer is the thing, not whether a being is rational (and even if it were, how is rationality defined? By the way humans think? What if other intelligent animals, dolphins for instance, happen to think very differently from us? Different is not lesser).
@radical parrot
“I’m bored and tired, so I’m going to exercise my Troll-English translation skills. Let’s see how well I do.”
Accurate translations.
SOME animals are sentient. SOME animals feel pain. SOME animals experience anxiety. This issue isn’t black and white. There’s no reason to treat it as though it is. Animalia is a HUGE kingdom and many of the organisms in it can be bred and slaughtered without experiencing any of it, much less suffering. Others suffer horrible emotional trauma from upsets in their social groups.
Just from the things I’ve read in this thread, PETA sound like they’re not actually an animal rights organisation at all. Killing animals because they don’t agree with the idea of pets? Um, what, so do they want domestic cats and dogs and cattle and sheep and horses and goats and whatever other animals humans interact with to become extinct?
(That sounds beyond extreme but now I begin to wonder …)
I learned a new word today. (earlier, I too thought that sapient was basically a funny spelling of sentient, and that they both meant human like intelligence as in being able to speak/communicate whatever
…
I realize it is probably not a good idea to get most of my vocabulary from young adult science fiction
@kittehs
“Sentient: able to feel or perceive things.
Sapient: wise, or attempting to appear wise. (I didn’t make that wording up!)”
Thanks for info. Always assumed they were just different spellings of the same word
::blushes again::
“But arguably humans as a species are a helluva lot worse than the other inhabitants of the planet. We’re the ones given to genocide among our own kind, causing extinctions deliberately or through carelessness, environmental devasation”
Meh. Gonna argue with that. I guess in terms of scale of shit done, but I’m pretty sure some animals are dicks to each other too. Don’t know much about the subject though… Gah worn out today. Idk if I’m even making any sense.
marinerachel – yup, but I’m talking (was I specific enough?) about mammals, because they’re the ones most prominent as food animals, and the cruelty of farming methods applies most to them. (Australia has a totally noxious record on allowing live animal exports and the cruelty there is appalling – we really should ban it, the so-called regulations aren’t doing a thing.)
Oh dear god, a PETA member came out of the woodwork?
I’m a little agnostic about what animals can actually feel and perceive, but generally follow the guideline that they should be treated as though they can perceive what they appear to be perceiving. And obviously I’m a big fan of animal welfare; I mean, I frakkin’ care for homeless kittens.
But riddle me this: If animals deserve to be treated the same as humans and have the same rights, then it follows that animals a) should have the same responsibilities as humans (because human relationships are reciprocal) and b) should treat other animals the same way that people ought to treat other people, and animals that fail to do so are just as bad as people who mistreat animals. Thus, carnivores are all evil. You’re also well on your way to sheep-fucking territory.
If, on the other hand, you posit that animals have fundamentally different relationships with each other, including predatory ones, and that such relationships are not only not morally wrong but in fact necessary and obligatory for the health of the ecosystem, then it follows that humans may also have a different relationship with animals than with other humans, and said relationships might include predation.
Marie – I’m not talking about individuals being nasty to each other, any more than “male privilege” means individual men are guaranteed a cushy life. I’m talking about what our species has done to the environment, how many other species we have destroyed (think of how close the bison came to extinction, or how the passenger pigeon was wiped out, just for two examples from the US; or the thylacine, from Australia). Think of how many animals are in danger of extinction now because we are destroying their habitats. Think of the lovely things we do to kill each other off on a mass scale. There’s no other animal can compare with humans in the inventive and rampant ability to destroy.
I’m actually not sure what they propose should happen to cows, chickens, and so on. Goats for example could probably survive quite well in the wild, but cows? Probably not so much.
I mean the animals that exist now. I assume that part of the plan would be to stop breeding them? But again, if you follow the idea that humans and other animals are exactly the same and one has no right to have power over the other to its logical conclusion then we have no right to sterilize animals, since we have no way to tell whether or not they’re OK with that and we don’t consider it ethically acceptable to do that to people without their consent. And that would then apply to animals kept as pets too, like dogs and cats.
Part of the problem I have with the people who talk about other animals being just like people in terms of us having no right to exercise control over them is that their actions often don’t gel with what they claim to believe. The attitude towards sterilization is a good example. PETAs believing that they have the right to euthanize strays is another, much starker example of the same problem – if they believe what they claim to believe then what gives them the right to do that?
@hellkell
“Does he really think that nursing is a safer job than STEM? Because his ideas are so poorly thought out, this is what I’m thinking. Getting punched by a drunk in the ER is SO MUCH SAFER than STEM. So much.”
Yeah, missed that part. Its so icky, since the woman I know in nursing talks about people coming in the ER she works in with knives… Totally safe.
Marie: yeah, and depending where you are in the U.S., some schools aren’t all that safe. GNL is full of shit and fail.
@katz
“But riddle me this: If animals deserve to be treated the same as humans and have the same rights, then it follows that animals a) should have the same responsibilities as humans (because human relationships are reciprocal) and b) should treat other animals the same way that people ought to treat other people, and animals that fail to do so are just as bad as people who mistreat animals. Thus, carnivores are all evil.”
Yeah :/ and I’d really rather. People not decide carnivores shouldn’t exist.
@kittehs
“There’s no other animal can compare with humans in the inventive and rampant ability to destroy.”
O_o like…are we not counting invasive species at all? (Hope I remembered the word right). I guess I don’t really follow your point…
re the whole vegetarianism thing:
I don’t have a dog in the fight. I think archeoholmes stepped into a hole, and then didn’t know how to stop digging.
I think zie dug too far, too fast, and too wide.
Are animals important? Yes. Do they have feelings? Yes. Are they the same as “people”? Probably not. Even if they were, well we prioritise people.
Someone wants to be a vegetarian/vegan, fine. They want to work to change the view of the world on eating meat? Fine.
They want to be assholes about it, and attribute malice to others, not so fine. They want to get everyone to stop, all at once. Not gonna happen. Certainly not by shaming them. Best to take it in steps. Work on making meat less a central food item. Work on more humane raising/slaughter. Fine.
Telling me (as happened yesterday at work) that “I am offended that this exists. I’m a vegan” about a piece of cookware I was telling them how to use to make tofu… not conducive to making me more sympathetic, but I digress).
I was going to sit it out (this sort of thing almost never ends well), but archeoholmes; you implied that those who don’t agree with you don’t give two shits about animals. That’s not cool. I am willing to believe this was a moment of passion; in the heat of a difficult (and heated) exchange. I am sure you felt people were treating you harshly, even dimissively.
As to the PETA thing… they are evil. Full-stop. I don’t know what the directors think. If I had to guess they like power. They may (once) have had a deep desire to help animals, but they created a movement; and it was a radical movement, and it made them well-off, and powerful.
Power tends to corrupt. They decided they needed a rhetoric in which animals were more important than people (this is, when one looks at it, the core of their argument). In pursuit of “purity” they came up with some oddball ideas (that being a pet is worse than being dead; and that allowing people to adopt the animals they sheltered would “perpetuate the cycle of violence and slavery).
PETA is a cult. It’s a cult which trades on the fame of some of its members (like scientology). They don’t like women, because they don’t like people. Women are easier to exploit then men (And they get more hits; which adds to their fame; the controversy is a feature, not a bug; and actual change isn’t really the object; notoriety is).
I have a definitional quibble.
All animals are sentient. Not all are sapient. I think the list of sapient animals is well above 1 (i.e. H. sap), but I don’t know how many more than one it is. A number of cetacea, a number of primates, a number of birds (esp. corvids, and parrots).
After that it gets a lot harder to test.
But sentience is (almost) de rigeur for (multi-cellular) life. I think it was fibinachi who pointed out that there is strong evidence of some level of sentience for plants.
GNL: You all think that men are the one and only category that it’s impossible to ever disadvantage in any way.
Nope. Do you suffer from seasonal allergies? I think the straw is affecting your thinking.
Could men; as a class, be disadvantaged? Yes.
Are they? No. Have they been? No.
If you think they have been (or are, as a class; not individual men), prove us wrong. Cite some examples (studies with data would be good).
If not, then you are trying to blow smoke up our ass; and while YKmightBOK, it’s not our kink, so please stop; or I’ll fart in your specific direction (yes, I DO like to play word games; the audience can keep score).
katz – wouldn’t it be more like us having more responsibilities to animals precisely because we do have our particular form of thinking, power and so on? I’m thinking it’s sort of like children in that way; they don’t have the right or expectation to vote, drive and so on. But because a small child does something like hits its sibling, does that make it acceptable in adults?
I don’t by any means think we’re identical to mammals (I’ll limit it to them as being closest to us). There do seem to be more studies coming out that suggest we underrate animals a good deal, iirc.
I am wary of the “they’re just animals” line because of what it can lead to; I hate the dismissivenes that too often comes with it, or the ridiculous idea that you can’t care about animal rights AND human rights that some people seem to think is the case, or the notion that cruelty to animals is just a bit of fun. (No, I am not reading that into anything anyone here said!)
I’m not a vegetarian and never will be. I do think the meat industry needs to be turned on its collective head and fixed.
@pecunium
“Are animals important? Yes. Do they have feelings? Yes. Are they the same as “people”? Probably not. Even if they were, well we prioritise people.”
Yeah. :/ I actually do care what happens to animals, just feel like I’ve been way too…befuddled by this conversation. Hope I haven’t been being a jerk to you guys…
katz nails it: If, on the other hand, you posit that animals have fundamentally different relationships with each other, including predatory ones, and that such relationships are not only not morally wrong but in fact necessary and obligatory for the health of the ecosystem, then it follows that humans may also have a different relationship with animals than with other humans, and said relationships might include predation.
That predation (because we are sapient) ought to be humane, and we may choose to not do it either, but it’s not, ispo facto irremediably evil.
Thing is, there is an environmental component to this discussion. Cattle farming on a large scale is really bad for the environment. It would be better for the environment if people on the whole ate less meat, especially beef. However, the jump from “less meat” to “no meat” isn’t as obvious or necessary as some people think it is (people could instead eat smaller quantities of meat or eat meat less often, or shift consumption towards kinds of meat that are produced in less environmentally damaging ways).
But, again, that’s a complicated, nuanced conversation that’s really hard to have when people are insisting that all meat production happens in exactly the same way and has the same (terrible) environmental impact, and that people who eat meat do so because they’re callously indifferent to the suffering of others.
Marie – I was talking about when you said you were sick of the “humans are no better than animals” line, upthread. I said I don’t think many people would argue that humans are more important, but that “better” is a value judgment and not one I share.
Invasive species aren’t deliberately, knowledgably wiping out others: they are behaving in the way they’ve evolved to. A hell of a lot of invasive species are introduced by humans in the first place, so if there’s morality involved there it’s our fault anyway. No other species has the capacity to destroy life through nuclear war – not only the capacity, but the record of having done it. This is what I’m gettng at: “better” isn’t really much of a word for our history. We’re pretty crap tenants of the planet and I don’t think we’re gonna get our bond back when we move out!
Ah… someone else covered the sapient/sentient issue.
I blame SF for that. Someone in the 50s used it, and someone (I’d suspect John Campbell allowed it; maybe even promoted it as house style, and it took over).
“Hope I haven’t been being a jerk to you guys…”
Nah, you’re fine with me. And vice versa, I hope! 🙂
Goats would survive; and wipe out a lot of habitat in the process. They are too good at making deserts.
For better or worse we have made a world in which we (so long as we are here) must steward. I hate the, “we have to save the planet” meme.
The planet doesn’t care. When we die, there will be a huge rearrangement of things, as the imbalances we made adjust. We may not be able to maintain an equilibrium, in which case “nature” (to personify a non-motive force) will have failed in the experiment at a cultural, tool-using, animal.
I care about how we do things, not for the planets sake, but for humanity’s. I like people. They have amazing talents (and some of those talents are for bad things). I’d like us to have a long run.
FWIW, my gut feeling is that we have a moral responsibility to minimize suffering if and when we can. Which means that methods of raising and slaughtering animals that cause more pain or fear than is necessary should be avoided. Some of those methods are chosen because of cost/expedience, and those are the ones that are going to be hardest to persuade businesses to give up. Others happen because people just don’t stop to think about the idea that minimizing pain and fear is a thing that we should try to do, and those should, in theory, be relatively easy to get changed.
Part of what bothered me about the earlier part of the conversation was the implied assumption that efforts to take the above considerations into account while still maintaining the production of meat for human consumption were not already happening in many parts of the world. It’s not as widespread a trend as I’d like it to be, but it is happening in some places, and again, stigmatizing all people who eat meat as callous and uncaring about the suffering of animals really isn’t helping to support that trend.
@kittehs
“Marie – I was talking about when you said you were sick of the “humans are no better than animals” line, upthread. I said I don’t think many people would argue that humans are more important, but that “better” is a value judgment and not one I share”
Ah. That explains it. I guess I was thinking a ‘we shouldn’t be treating humans like animals’. Even though we do need to be treating animals better. Idk, i just phrased it poorly. I wasn’t thinking about morality or intended consequences.
Cassandra: Those videos are great! Never thought I’d see a tiger and a lion playing tag. And the pumpkins… all I could see was Cat wandering around Red Dwarf: “This one’s mine, that’s mine, that shiny thing is mine…”
And again I wonder how much of this is regional, or based on age. Where I live the idea that factory farming is cruel and more humane alternatives should be sought is pretty common, which is part of why the whole “but you’ve obviously never thought about how cruel factory farming is!” thing had me going “huh?”.