5 ms·

I was very confused reading the article and then looking for "Jerry Whittaker" and finding no information online. Then I saw the date at the beginning: "Februar

by Zababa 5y ago

I was very confused reading the article and then looking for "Jerry Whittaker" and finding no information online. Then I saw the date at the beginning: "February 21st, 2167, The New York Daily". To me, worrying about what people will think in ~135 years seems a bit silly. 2167 is about as distant to today as was 1885. Nobody from that time is alive, we had since two world wars, flight, space exploration, computers, the internet, smartphones. While some historical figures are "cancelled" for their opinions, I'm not aware of people stopping to use what they developped because of that. If I contribute in any way to humanity, and in 135 years people want to cancel me but keep using what I've done because it's valuable, that would be fine with me. In a way, this feels like a derivative of Roko's Basilisk: https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/rokos-basilisk https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/rokos-basilisk, Pascal's wager or (my favorite) Pascal's mugging: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_mugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_mugging. My view on that is that I'm always impressed by how smart people manage to trap themselves by thinking too much about the future.

sweetheart 5y ago
The point isn’t to be thinking about the future, but instead using it as a thought experiment to deeply examine the present. It’s a useful tool as it allows us to understand that as clearly as we feel something may not be wrong, we could be waaaaay of the mark. In this case they are saying that of how we treat animals today, which I agree with: how we treat animals today is indeed nothing short of an agonizing genocide with no end in sight, not to mention how it ruins the planet for us and the millions of other species we are neighbors with. The problem isn’t in the future. The problem is here with us today. You just need to see that.
- Zababa 5y ago
  I mean, you could easily make the opposing argument and say that in 2167, people would remove statues of <prominent animal rights fighters> because while they were fighting for animal rights, humans were still suffering. And you could even do the same with people in 2167 removing the statue of <people too busy arguing about the best course of action instead of actually taking action, anything>.
  - adriand 5y ago
    It seems you’re firmly putting yourself in the second category. I’ll take the risk of landing in the first one.
    - Zababa 5y ago
      I am, yes. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear about that before, but in no way I think that what I'm doing is better than what other people are doing. When I question the priority of human and animal welfare, I do it from a position of curiosity, not of superiority. My point is that if you want to convince me that animal welfare should be the thing to focus on right now, articles like that aren't helping, since they can easily be replicated to defend other positions.
      - sweetheart 5y ago
        Why do you think we only need to focus on one issue at a time? You’re setting yourself up for failure, as you’re saying you need to be convinced that this moral issue is the “most important” (by whatever metric that requires). Instead, we can accept that there are many issues worth addressing, and we can make a dent in any number of them. If you want to stop supporting unfathomable violence against innocent sentient being, just stop paying people to kill them. That doesn’t mean you can’t also advocate for issues like clean water for all, or ending malaria, or donating to a homeless shelter in your town. We rarely actually need to make compromises on the amount of good we can contribute to the world.
      - adriand 5y ago
        > My point is that if you want to convince me that animal welfare should be the thing to focus on right now, articles like that aren't helping It’s not that it’s “the” thing but rather “a” thing worth focusing on. We can improve in more than one area at a time. > since they can easily be replicated to defend other positions That’s the point of the article: it replicated a current argument (against honouring slaveholders) to highlight a different but morally similar situation. The logic is simply to extend compassion and consideration to groups of beings that the majority does not currently believe warrant that. So yes, you could easily replicate this article’s argument to advocate defense of other vulnerable creatures, whether human or not. But that’s not a critique, that’s the intention.
- giantg2 5y ago
  There are probably better ways to do that. Using a fictitious example based on the disdain of the future population does not make for a good argument. Sure, the people who already see it will like this piece. But will do nothing for the people who don't already see it, as to them it is solely a fiction without that necessary preexisting background.
  - sweetheart 5y ago
    Sure, for some people this won’t resonate. For some it likely will. Remember, almost everybody who decided to stop supporting industrialized animal abuse was at some point not vegan, and something in their life changed their mind. There is no one right way to advocate. This article is merely one piece of the puzzle.

by Zababa 5y ago

sweetheart 5y ago

The point isn’t to be thinking about the future, but instead using it as a thought experiment to deeply examine the present. It’s a useful tool as it allows us to understand that as clearly as we feel something may not be wrong, we could be waaaaay of the mark. In this case they are saying that of how we treat animals today, which I agree with: how we treat animals today is indeed nothing short of an agonizing genocide with no end in sight, not to mention how it ruins the planet for us and the millions of other species we are neighbors with. The problem isn’t in the future. The problem is here with us today. You just need to see that.

Zababa 5y ago
I mean, you could easily make the opposing argument and say that in 2167, people would remove statues of <prominent animal rights fighters> because while they were fighting for animal rights, humans were still suffering. And you could even do the same with people in 2167 removing the statue of <people too busy arguing about the best course of action instead of actually taking action, anything>.
- adriand 5y ago
  It seems you’re firmly putting yourself in the second category. I’ll take the risk of landing in the first one.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    I am, yes. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear about that before, but in no way I think that what I'm doing is better than what other people are doing. When I question the priority of human and animal welfare, I do it from a position of curiosity, not of superiority. My point is that if you want to convince me that animal welfare should be the thing to focus on right now, articles like that aren't helping, since they can easily be replicated to defend other positions.
    - sweetheart 5y ago
      Why do you think we only need to focus on one issue at a time? You’re setting yourself up for failure, as you’re saying you need to be convinced that this moral issue is the “most important” (by whatever metric that requires). Instead, we can accept that there are many issues worth addressing, and we can make a dent in any number of them. If you want to stop supporting unfathomable violence against innocent sentient being, just stop paying people to kill them. That doesn’t mean you can’t also advocate for issues like clean water for all, or ending malaria, or donating to a homeless shelter in your town. We rarely actually need to make compromises on the amount of good we can contribute to the world.
    - adriand 5y ago
      > My point is that if you want to convince me that animal welfare should be the thing to focus on right now, articles like that aren't helping It’s not that it’s “the” thing but rather “a” thing worth focusing on. We can improve in more than one area at a time. > since they can easily be replicated to defend other positions That’s the point of the article: it replicated a current argument (against honouring slaveholders) to highlight a different but morally similar situation. The logic is simply to extend compassion and consideration to groups of beings that the majority does not currently believe warrant that. So yes, you could easily replicate this article’s argument to advocate defense of other vulnerable creatures, whether human or not. But that’s not a critique, that’s the intention.
giantg2 5y ago
There are probably better ways to do that. Using a fictitious example based on the disdain of the future population does not make for a good argument. Sure, the people who already see it will like this piece. But will do nothing for the people who don't already see it, as to them it is solely a fiction without that necessary preexisting background.
- sweetheart 5y ago
  Sure, for some people this won’t resonate. For some it likely will. Remember, almost everybody who decided to stop supporting industrialized animal abuse was at some point not vegan, and something in their life changed their mind. There is no one right way to advocate. This article is merely one piece of the puzzle.