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In your definition of speciesism, you are doing exactly what you accuse your-defined "speciesists" of. You are manufacturing ("try to find some") a definition o

In your definition of speciesism, you are doing exactly what you accuse your-defined "speciesists" of. You are manufacturing ("try to find some") a definition of speciesism to paint other-people as the bad guy. Your comparison of their actions with slavery is just to demotivate any response. In animal kingdom, animals kill each other ruthlessly. African dogs and other animals eat their prey from back-to-front while they are alive. Are all animals speciesists? Are all animals committing an act equivalent to slavery? Humanity survived on hunting for tens of thousands of years. So the only reason we survived is because we were "speciesists"? If that's the case, then I am okay with being a speciesist. We have to value our species over other species - if it ever came to choosing 1 human being or a million <insert animal>, we would always choose a human being (given that killing those animals won't destroy the ecosystem, thus harming human beings).

ornornor 5y ago
> In animal kingdom, animals kill each other ruthlessly Not that long ago, humans routinely tortured, killed, raped other humans sometimes even just for fun (and in some places of the world very much still do). Humans (as a species) are destroying their ecosystem past the point of no return, putting their very existence in question. These two things can also be interpreted as lack of self awareness or any other property you deem worthy in a living being, thus making them inferior to another species.
- AlexanderTheGr8 5y ago
  > Humans (as a species) are destroying their ecosystem past the point of no return, putting their very existence in question. I strongly disagree. We have more food than ever before. More clean water than ever before. More safety and prosperity than ever before. More innovation than ever before. As for our ecosystem, humanity has solved any and every calamity ever before. And we will solve this one as well. Don't get me wrong - we should not take climate change lightly just because of the belief that we will solve it. We should take it seriously and tackle it head-on, but with the belief in our ability in problem solving and innovation. We cannot solve a problem if we believe that humanity is going to destroy itself. >These two things can also be interpreted as lack of self awareness or any other property you deem worthy in a living being, thus making them inferior to another species. I don't understand this sentence. Can you clarify?
  - ornornor 5y ago
    > I don't understand this sentence. Can you clarify? You’d be pretty dumb to saw off the branch you’re sitting on. Yet that’s what we’re doing. On the surface, we seem to be lacking any kind of self preservation instincts or « hive mind » to preserve our species. If, say, a bee was looking at humans trying to determine if we’re intelligent or not and they applied bee intelligence metrics, we’d miserably fail because every bee knows that the survival of the hive is what dictates their action and behavior, duh. And yet we consider bees to be bug “automatons” but consider ourselves the most advanced life form around. But seen from a distance, without using human values as a framework for evaluating intelligence, we might be some of the dumbest species around.
    - AlexanderTheGr8 5y ago
      according to animal metrics for intelligence, sure we are stupid. But we have strong evidence why our metrics are more effective than animal metrics : 1) human death rate is lowest among almost all species 2) human comfort + happiness rate is highest among all species 3) our accomplishments and understanding of the world is a million times that of any other species 4) all other species survive because we allow them to. We can (and have) eradicated entire species. etc. etc. We don't need a hive mind, we have intelligence. Bees act the way they do because they are genetically programmed to act that way, and they don't have the ability to think or reason for themselves. We do. We protect our species when we need to. Not out of genetics (maybe a little bec of evolution), but out of intelligence.
wander_homer 5y ago
>Humanity survived on hunting for tens of thousands of years. So the only reason we survived is because we were "speciesists"? If that's the case, then I am okay with being a speciesist. Humanity also probably only survived difficult conditions because many of our ancestors raped and killed each other over rare resources and lack of willing sexual partners. Hence by your logic we also should be okay with being killers and rapists, because they're the only reasons we're alive. Or you know, we could use our brains and recognize that our ancestors lived in completely different environments than we do and we also have a much better understanding of the world than they did. Hence it would be incredibly stupid to use their actions, world view and ethics as a foundation for our belief system.
- AlexanderTheGr8 5y ago
  Good point. But I would argue that we refrain from killing each others because it's no longer in our best interest to do so. We can afford to feed everyone and give everyone a decent life without killing each other. Also saving people gives us a bigger pool of talented people and diverse genetics. When we cannot give each other a decent life, we resort to mass killing (even today) - think of all the wars started due to hunger or ethnic reasons. My point was that we are responsible for the safety and prosperity of each other, not any animal. We have no obligation towards the safety of some animal. Evolution tells us that we have to care about the survival of our species. And in certain cases, we will help animals but primarily where helping them helps us (for example, to maintain stable ecosystem). As for dogs and cats, we use them for our benefit - we feed them, protect them, give them a good life for our own benefit - because they have evolved to make them seem cute and domesticating them makes us happy and gives us mental comfort. This makes them happy at the same time (but that's a side-effect, not the intended effect in most cases)
  - wander_homer 5y ago
    > We can afford to feed everyone and give everyone a decent life without killing each other. Also saving people gives us a bigger pool of talented people and diverse genetics. We can also afford to feed everyone without harming so many animals. In fact, reducing our reliance on animal products is likely the only and much more efficient way to feed everyone. And not only that, we're also destroying whole ecosystems because of our unnecessarily large demand on animal products, which in consequence causes huge problems for future generations. So harming animals less is definitely in our interest. > When we cannot give each other a decent life, we resort to mass killing (even today) - think of all the wars started due to hunger or ethnic reasons. I'm also thinking of all the wars yet to come, because of the consequences of climate change or uninhabitable areas, which both were (among other things) caused by our ridiculously high meat consumption in a few wealthy countries. > My point was that we are responsible for the safety and prosperity of each other, not any animal. The fact that people even have to fight for children to not get abused for us having some luxuries (rare minerals for the latest smartwatch or phone, coffee beans, chocolate,...), should make it clear that we don't feel responsible for each other on a grand scale. There's a varying degree of responsibility and it quickly vanishes with greater physical distance to each other and the less we feel connected in one way or another. And it's not uncommon to feel more responsible for animals than for humans. Like my neighbor's cat is treated better than those children working in some mines or farms, also because it's more beneficial to some of us to treat those children badly. Or to put it differently, responsibility for other human beings which are outside of our closer groups is nothing that comes naturally or just is or is even necessary for our survival. It's something we had to come up with on our own with our ethics. So we have to fight for it and constantly remind ourselves about it or otherwise we keep doing all the horrors we still do to each other (e.g. slavery). It's no different than our ethical beliefs in other regards, e.g. animal suffering.

ornornor 5y ago

> In animal kingdom, animals kill each other ruthlessly Not that long ago, humans routinely tortured, killed, raped other humans sometimes even just for fun (and in some places of the world very much still do). Humans (as a species) are destroying their ecosystem past the point of no return, putting their very existence in question. These two things can also be interpreted as lack of self awareness or any other property you deem worthy in a living being, thus making them inferior to another species.

AlexanderTheGr8 5y ago
> Humans (as a species) are destroying their ecosystem past the point of no return, putting their very existence in question. I strongly disagree. We have more food than ever before. More clean water than ever before. More safety and prosperity than ever before. More innovation than ever before. As for our ecosystem, humanity has solved any and every calamity ever before. And we will solve this one as well. Don't get me wrong - we should not take climate change lightly just because of the belief that we will solve it. We should take it seriously and tackle it head-on, but with the belief in our ability in problem solving and innovation. We cannot solve a problem if we believe that humanity is going to destroy itself. >These two things can also be interpreted as lack of self awareness or any other property you deem worthy in a living being, thus making them inferior to another species. I don't understand this sentence. Can you clarify?
- ornornor 5y ago
  > I don't understand this sentence. Can you clarify? You’d be pretty dumb to saw off the branch you’re sitting on. Yet that’s what we’re doing. On the surface, we seem to be lacking any kind of self preservation instincts or « hive mind » to preserve our species. If, say, a bee was looking at humans trying to determine if we’re intelligent or not and they applied bee intelligence metrics, we’d miserably fail because every bee knows that the survival of the hive is what dictates their action and behavior, duh. And yet we consider bees to be bug “automatons” but consider ourselves the most advanced life form around. But seen from a distance, without using human values as a framework for evaluating intelligence, we might be some of the dumbest species around.
  - AlexanderTheGr8 5y ago
    according to animal metrics for intelligence, sure we are stupid. But we have strong evidence why our metrics are more effective than animal metrics : 1) human death rate is lowest among almost all species 2) human comfort + happiness rate is highest among all species 3) our accomplishments and understanding of the world is a million times that of any other species 4) all other species survive because we allow them to. We can (and have) eradicated entire species. etc. etc. We don't need a hive mind, we have intelligence. Bees act the way they do because they are genetically programmed to act that way, and they don't have the ability to think or reason for themselves. We do. We protect our species when we need to. Not out of genetics (maybe a little bec of evolution), but out of intelligence.

wander_homer 5y ago

>Humanity survived on hunting for tens of thousands of years. So the only reason we survived is because we were "speciesists"? If that's the case, then I am okay with being a speciesist. Humanity also probably only survived difficult conditions because many of our ancestors raped and killed each other over rare resources and lack of willing sexual partners. Hence by your logic we also should be okay with being killers and rapists, because they're the only reasons we're alive. Or you know, we could use our brains and recognize that our ancestors lived in completely different environments than we do and we also have a much better understanding of the world than they did. Hence it would be incredibly stupid to use their actions, world view and ethics as a foundation for our belief system.

AlexanderTheGr8 5y ago
Good point. But I would argue that we refrain from killing each others because it's no longer in our best interest to do so. We can afford to feed everyone and give everyone a decent life without killing each other. Also saving people gives us a bigger pool of talented people and diverse genetics. When we cannot give each other a decent life, we resort to mass killing (even today) - think of all the wars started due to hunger or ethnic reasons. My point was that we are responsible for the safety and prosperity of each other, not any animal. We have no obligation towards the safety of some animal. Evolution tells us that we have to care about the survival of our species. And in certain cases, we will help animals but primarily where helping them helps us (for example, to maintain stable ecosystem). As for dogs and cats, we use them for our benefit - we feed them, protect them, give them a good life for our own benefit - because they have evolved to make them seem cute and domesticating them makes us happy and gives us mental comfort. This makes them happy at the same time (but that's a side-effect, not the intended effect in most cases)
- wander_homer 5y ago
  > We can afford to feed everyone and give everyone a decent life without killing each other. Also saving people gives us a bigger pool of talented people and diverse genetics. We can also afford to feed everyone without harming so many animals. In fact, reducing our reliance on animal products is likely the only and much more efficient way to feed everyone. And not only that, we're also destroying whole ecosystems because of our unnecessarily large demand on animal products, which in consequence causes huge problems for future generations. So harming animals less is definitely in our interest. > When we cannot give each other a decent life, we resort to mass killing (even today) - think of all the wars started due to hunger or ethnic reasons. I'm also thinking of all the wars yet to come, because of the consequences of climate change or uninhabitable areas, which both were (among other things) caused by our ridiculously high meat consumption in a few wealthy countries. > My point was that we are responsible for the safety and prosperity of each other, not any animal. The fact that people even have to fight for children to not get abused for us having some luxuries (rare minerals for the latest smartwatch or phone, coffee beans, chocolate,...), should make it clear that we don't feel responsible for each other on a grand scale. There's a varying degree of responsibility and it quickly vanishes with greater physical distance to each other and the less we feel connected in one way or another. And it's not uncommon to feel more responsible for animals than for humans. Like my neighbor's cat is treated better than those children working in some mines or farms, also because it's more beneficial to some of us to treat those children badly. Or to put it differently, responsibility for other human beings which are outside of our closer groups is nothing that comes naturally or just is or is even necessary for our survival. It's something we had to come up with on our own with our ethics. So we have to fight for it and constantly remind ourselves about it or otherwise we keep doing all the horrors we still do to each other (e.g. slavery). It's no different than our ethical beliefs in other regards, e.g. animal suffering.