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Specism is based on several flawed assumptions. We decide humans are superior to other animals because we are humans, and us>them. We also decide that because

by bambax 5y ago

Specism is based on several flawed assumptions. We decide humans are superior to other animals because we are humans, and us>them. We also decide that because we are superior, we have all rights to do anything to members of "inferior" groups. But: - Superiority is at least debatable and strongly depends on the criteria used fot comparison; - There is absolutely no discernable logical link between being "superior" and having a right to do anything to the "inferior" beings. (For example, a human adult is "superior" to a human infant; but it doesn't give them the right to torture it.) We torture animals because we can, and because we don't think about it. But it won't last, because the more we think about it, the less acceptable it becomes.

LeifCarrotson 5y ago
> We decide humans are superior to other animals because we are humans, and us>them. That's painting things with a pretty broad brush, not everyone thinks this way. From conversing with people about the issue, those that do, do so mostly because they haven't actually put any conscious thought into it, even a few minutes is enough to knock down that straw man. Personally, I think humans are superior to other animals because we are more capable of feeling and thinking than they are. A bacterium or plant cannot feel joy, it cannot communicate pride in it's accomplishments to other members of its species, it cannot feel pain, it cannot suffer, it cannot develop into an adult which can do those things, it just is. A pig, dog, or dolphin can do many of those things, a chicken or fish can a little but much less so. Empirically, to me, this capability criteria sets a 'value' roughly proportional to their number of cortical neurons on a logarithmic scale.
- sweetheart 5y ago
  So, a thought experiment: If an alien species came to Earth, and they were FAR more emotionally sensitive than we were, and could suffer MUCH more as a result, would that make your suffering when they start to enslave you any less meaningful? Would you understand, and allow yourself to be enslaved, or would you believe that it was still wrong for them to do that to you, even if they had the capacity to suffer more? I personally don’t think so. Can I feel a wider range of emotions than a chicken? Probably. Can I be upset or elated by more things than a chicken? Probably. Can the chicken still suffer? Yes. Can it be anxious? Can it be terrified? Can it be in pain? Can it be lonely? All yes. Whether or not it feels any if those things more or less than anything else is irrelevant when it doesn’t need to happen at all.
  - amelius 5y ago
    > If an alien species came to Earth, and they were FAR more emotionally sensitive than we were, and could suffer MUCH more as a result, would that make your suffering when they start to enslave you any less meaningful? But perhaps they would do so in a way that is appropriate for our level of consciousness. Perhaps we'd not even be aware that someone was experimenting on us, just like animals have no idea that this is what is happening to them. Etc.
    - sweetheart 5y ago
      Oh boy, let me tell you, animals absolutely know what we are doing to them. They suffer immensely. Check this out, it offers just a glimpse into what that suffering includes: https://youtu.be/LQRAfJyEsko https://youtu.be/LQRAfJyEsko
      - amelius 5y ago
        The video seems blocked. Is this about monkeys? I was talking about mice (since it is the animal which is used by far the most in experiments).
        sweetheart 5y ago
        No it’s about factory farming. If you were specifically talking about animal testing, the video I linked is irrelevant. I was talking about what we do to animals in general, not just testing. But to that point, the first chapter of Peter Singer’s “Animal Liberation” covers what animal testing is, and how horrific it can be, if you’d like to learn more about just how aware these animals are about what we are doing to them.
cheese_goddess 5y ago
Interestingly, in another thread a user of HN who is, I presume, vegan, is arguing that because humans are morally superior, we should not eat meat. I have this sneaking suspicion that human superiority has been used historically by both sides of the debate: one side claims that humans are superior to other animals and so we should treat those other animals in ways that other animals would never treat each other, by refusing to eat them; and the other claims that humans are superior to other animals and so we can treat those other animals in the same way that other animals treat each other, by eating them. I think both sides are missing the point: we are not superior to other animals. We are better equipped to eat them. As a species, but not as individuals. Other animals are genearlly better equipped to eat us and so, for example, lions, sharks, etc carnivores kill a few individual humans mostly for food (but not always) every year. And then there's the fact that cows kill a few humans every year (intentionally, after attacking them deliberately, not by accident), as do hippos and elephants: obligate plant-eaters that don't want to eat us, just kill us. So to me it's clear that we're animals that treat other animals like other animals treat other animals and there isn't a hint of moral or other superiority anywhere to be found.
- bambax 5y ago
  > So to me it's clear that we're animals that treat other animals like other animals treat other animals I don't think there are many examples of animals farming humans and torturing them for "testing" purposes (the topic of the article), is there?
  - cheese_goddess 5y ago
    I don't think so either, but in my comment I'm talking about animals eating other animals, not animals farming humans. I have many examples of animals torturing other animals, for nothing else but pleasrue. Where I live, there is a small clan of seven cats. I see them playing with their food often. I don't know if you have cats and if you've seen them hunting and seen what they do when they catch their prey, but it's revolting. At least we don't do that to the animals we eat. I also have examples of animals killing other animals just to kill them, not even to eat them. Ten years ago two dogs sneaked in the chicken coop and killed 40 chickens, piled their corpses high, and didn't eat a single one of them. Four or five years ago, some stray dogs got into the goat enclosure and killed five goats and a few chickens. They left the goats half-dead with their guts streaming out of their bellies, and again didn't eat them. This year, stray dogs snuck in another goat pen and killed three goats, including a young kid. Humans also kill senselessly, if left to their own devices. But, in modern societies, they are not left to their own devices and there's strict laws against such behaviour. And this behavior is absolutely not the behaviour of farmers. The humans who own the goats and the chickens in my examples slaughter maybe one or two goats and a dozen chickens a year. Slaughter and eat them. Nobody who raises animals kills them for fun, first because killing an animal is not funny at all, second because animals are valuable and humans who raise animals respect at the very least that value, and many also hold those animals very dear, care for them better than they care for their own children, and respect the fact that those animals die so we can eat their meat. You will not learn all this from anti-meat eating propaganda. You will also never see any vegans or animal rights activists going to farms and helping the farmers care for the animals. All the vegans and the animal rights folks care about, is that other humans stop eating meat. What happens to the animals we raise for meat, that never seems to be part of the conversation, unless it is to show images of animals in industrial farms to shock other humans into quitting meat. In vegan and animal rights propaganda, you hear about the atrocities, about the horrors of the slaughterhouses, about fluffy baby bunnies having toxic substances dripped in their eyes- but you never hear about the farmers who stay up all night helping their cows to give birth, or keeping vigil over a sick ewe. Because that is very tricky to portray as torture, and the propaganda is that humans torture animals, always, no matter what. This is a lie, a disgusting lie and it is only serving to put small farmers out of business and leave their land and their animals to the hands of the industry.

by bambax 5y ago

LeifCarrotson 5y ago

> We decide humans are superior to other animals because we are humans, and us>them. That's painting things with a pretty broad brush, not everyone thinks this way. From conversing with people about the issue, those that do, do so mostly because they haven't actually put any conscious thought into it, even a few minutes is enough to knock down that straw man. Personally, I think humans are superior to other animals because we are more capable of feeling and thinking than they are. A bacterium or plant cannot feel joy, it cannot communicate pride in it's accomplishments to other members of its species, it cannot feel pain, it cannot suffer, it cannot develop into an adult which can do those things, it just is. A pig, dog, or dolphin can do many of those things, a chicken or fish can a little but much less so. Empirically, to me, this capability criteria sets a 'value' roughly proportional to their number of cortical neurons on a logarithmic scale.

sweetheart 5y ago
So, a thought experiment: If an alien species came to Earth, and they were FAR more emotionally sensitive than we were, and could suffer MUCH more as a result, would that make your suffering when they start to enslave you any less meaningful? Would you understand, and allow yourself to be enslaved, or would you believe that it was still wrong for them to do that to you, even if they had the capacity to suffer more? I personally don’t think so. Can I feel a wider range of emotions than a chicken? Probably. Can I be upset or elated by more things than a chicken? Probably. Can the chicken still suffer? Yes. Can it be anxious? Can it be terrified? Can it be in pain? Can it be lonely? All yes. Whether or not it feels any if those things more or less than anything else is irrelevant when it doesn’t need to happen at all.
- amelius 5y ago
  > If an alien species came to Earth, and they were FAR more emotionally sensitive than we were, and could suffer MUCH more as a result, would that make your suffering when they start to enslave you any less meaningful? But perhaps they would do so in a way that is appropriate for our level of consciousness. Perhaps we'd not even be aware that someone was experimenting on us, just like animals have no idea that this is what is happening to them. Etc.
  - sweetheart 5y ago
    Oh boy, let me tell you, animals absolutely know what we are doing to them. They suffer immensely. Check this out, it offers just a glimpse into what that suffering includes: https://youtu.be/LQRAfJyEsko https://youtu.be/LQRAfJyEsko
    - amelius 5y ago
      The video seems blocked. Is this about monkeys? I was talking about mice (since it is the animal which is used by far the most in experiments).
      - sweetheart 5y ago
        No it’s about factory farming. If you were specifically talking about animal testing, the video I linked is irrelevant. I was talking about what we do to animals in general, not just testing. But to that point, the first chapter of Peter Singer’s “Animal Liberation” covers what animal testing is, and how horrific it can be, if you’d like to learn more about just how aware these animals are about what we are doing to them.

cheese_goddess 5y ago

Interestingly, in another thread a user of HN who is, I presume, vegan, is arguing that because humans are morally superior, we should not eat meat. I have this sneaking suspicion that human superiority has been used historically by both sides of the debate: one side claims that humans are superior to other animals and so we should treat those other animals in ways that other animals would never treat each other, by refusing to eat them; and the other claims that humans are superior to other animals and so we can treat those other animals in the same way that other animals treat each other, by eating them. I think both sides are missing the point: we are not superior to other animals. We are better equipped to eat them. As a species, but not as individuals. Other animals are genearlly better equipped to eat us and so, for example, lions, sharks, etc carnivores kill a few individual humans mostly for food (but not always) every year. And then there's the fact that cows kill a few humans every year (intentionally, after attacking them deliberately, not by accident), as do hippos and elephants: obligate plant-eaters that don't want to eat us, just kill us. So to me it's clear that we're animals that treat other animals like other animals treat other animals and there isn't a hint of moral or other superiority anywhere to be found.

bambax 5y ago
> So to me it's clear that we're animals that treat other animals like other animals treat other animals I don't think there are many examples of animals farming humans and torturing them for "testing" purposes (the topic of the article), is there?
- cheese_goddess 5y ago
  I don't think so either, but in my comment I'm talking about animals eating other animals, not animals farming humans. I have many examples of animals torturing other animals, for nothing else but pleasrue. Where I live, there is a small clan of seven cats. I see them playing with their food often. I don't know if you have cats and if you've seen them hunting and seen what they do when they catch their prey, but it's revolting. At least we don't do that to the animals we eat. I also have examples of animals killing other animals just to kill them, not even to eat them. Ten years ago two dogs sneaked in the chicken coop and killed 40 chickens, piled their corpses high, and didn't eat a single one of them. Four or five years ago, some stray dogs got into the goat enclosure and killed five goats and a few chickens. They left the goats half-dead with their guts streaming out of their bellies, and again didn't eat them. This year, stray dogs snuck in another goat pen and killed three goats, including a young kid. Humans also kill senselessly, if left to their own devices. But, in modern societies, they are not left to their own devices and there's strict laws against such behaviour. And this behavior is absolutely not the behaviour of farmers. The humans who own the goats and the chickens in my examples slaughter maybe one or two goats and a dozen chickens a year. Slaughter and eat them. Nobody who raises animals kills them for fun, first because killing an animal is not funny at all, second because animals are valuable and humans who raise animals respect at the very least that value, and many also hold those animals very dear, care for them better than they care for their own children, and respect the fact that those animals die so we can eat their meat. You will not learn all this from anti-meat eating propaganda. You will also never see any vegans or animal rights activists going to farms and helping the farmers care for the animals. All the vegans and the animal rights folks care about, is that other humans stop eating meat. What happens to the animals we raise for meat, that never seems to be part of the conversation, unless it is to show images of animals in industrial farms to shock other humans into quitting meat. In vegan and animal rights propaganda, you hear about the atrocities, about the horrors of the slaughterhouses, about fluffy baby bunnies having toxic substances dripped in their eyes- but you never hear about the farmers who stay up all night helping their cows to give birth, or keeping vigil over a sick ewe. Because that is very tricky to portray as torture, and the propaganda is that humans torture animals, always, no matter what. This is a lie, a disgusting lie and it is only serving to put small farmers out of business and leave their land and their animals to the hands of the industry.