4 ms·

> Regardless, in my view, anyone concerned enough to protest the treatment of animals in circuses and/or zoos is being hypocritical if they're not working just

by bb611 10y ago

> Regardless, in my view, anyone concerned enough to protest the treatment of animals in circuses and/or zoos is being hypocritical if they're not working just as hard (or harder) to end the suffering of all the other sentient creatures we subject to 'unnatural' conditions on a vastly larger scale. It's unreasonable to expect someone to solve all problems at once. If you went to work and your boss complained you weren't working on enough problems, you'd likely tell them that you need to focus on the most pressing or solvable issue first, and yet you're saying the opposite about this group of people. Making a decision to focus on one element of the problem in order to move towards a solution is what practical people who solve problems do. Calling them hypocritical for not solving the (massive) related problem of animals as a human food source isn't reasonable.

slfnflctd 10y ago
From an engineering perspective, the 'best' long term approaches are those which produce either the largest number or largest percentage of desired outcomes. Also, getting people to change their historical mindset is a big part of effecting progress. To me, if you get people treating their pets and food animals better, 'performing' or 'display' animals would follow course. Singling out one species with a tiny number of members in a very unusual and rare use case may be great for splashy awareness campaigns, but unless whoever you're making more aware is also likely to carry that over into their treatment of other animals, I feel like you've fundamentally failed to begin to address the biggest part of the root problem.
- bb611 10y ago
  > From an engineering perspective, the 'best' long term approaches are those which produce either the largest number or largest percentage of desired outcomes. Given that activists have been working on this for several decades, what would you have done differently, and how would it have been more successful given the same resources? > Also, getting people to change their historical mindset is a big part of effecting progress. Would you say that getting people to change their historical mindset such that they no longer countenance animals being used for circus entertainment progress?

by bb611 10y ago

slfnflctd 10y ago

From an engineering perspective, the 'best' long term approaches are those which produce either the largest number or largest percentage of desired outcomes. Also, getting people to change their historical mindset is a big part of effecting progress. To me, if you get people treating their pets and food animals better, 'performing' or 'display' animals would follow course. Singling out one species with a tiny number of members in a very unusual and rare use case may be great for splashy awareness campaigns, but unless whoever you're making more aware is also likely to carry that over into their treatment of other animals, I feel like you've fundamentally failed to begin to address the biggest part of the root problem.

bb611 10y ago
> From an engineering perspective, the 'best' long term approaches are those which produce either the largest number or largest percentage of desired outcomes. Given that activists have been working on this for several decades, what would you have done differently, and how would it have been more successful given the same resources? > Also, getting people to change their historical mindset is a big part of effecting progress. Would you say that getting people to change their historical mindset such that they no longer countenance animals being used for circus entertainment progress?