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> I find myself shocked by how little regard people have for the intelligence of other animals. If people readily accepted the intelligence of many mammals, mu

by cpsns 4y ago

> I find myself shocked by how little regard people have for the intelligence of other animals. If people readily accepted the intelligence of many mammals, much less other animals, they would have to confront some very serious cognitive dissonance and moral dilemmas. That said, I've found many dog folks are super dismissive of the idea of cats being smart and I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps part of the problem is the sheer stubbornness of cats, you can't force them to do anything if they decide they don't want to do it.

dhzhzjsbevs 4y ago
I always thought that was a sign of their intelligence over dogs.
mromanuk 4y ago
> If people readily accepted the intelligence of many mammals, much less other animals, they would have to confront some very serious cognitive dissonance and moral dilemmas. Not sure about that, lot of people are completely fine with human being killed for several reasons (punishment for robbery just to give you an example).
- sweetheart 4y ago
  Sure, but people generally have a problem watching extreme senseless violence perpetrated against innocent people, which is more analogous to what happens to the animals that carnists eat.
  - prometheus76 4y ago
    I grew up on a farm. We were always grateful and a little sad when we slaughtered an animal, and we said a prayer for it when we slaughtered it. We always did our best to make our animals comfortable while alive, and made their death as quick as possible with as little suffering as possible. Life survives on life. Something died so that you could live today. I think about that often, and I think that growing up confronting the reality of surviving as a person by eating food that was once alive in a very immediate way helps me not take food for granted and to always be grateful for the daily sacrifices that are made so that I can live. In my will, I have outlined that I want my body to be put into a burlap sack with no embalming fluid and be returned to earth as soon as possible after my death so that I can be part of the same chain of life for other living things. Life lives by the death of other living things. We cannot change that, but we can at least be grateful and present with that reality.
    - sweetheart 4y ago
      Rituals around slaughter don’t make the slaughter humane. You know that and I know that. If an animal is being killed for you when you don’t need to kill it to survive, it’s unnecessary suffering and animal abuse. Plain and simple. Genuine survival situations are different, but that is so rare in the developed world. Saying a prayer doesn’t change anything. You didn’t give the animal the best life you could. You gave it the best life until you decide you wanted to consume it for your pleasure. Not survival, pleasure. And vegans are well aware that life consumes life. Vegans consume living things. They just don’t consume living things which are capable of terror or depression and suffering. Say a prayer all you want, but harming an animal when you don’t need to is the act of abusing an animal for pleasure. I can say a prayer and be remorseful and thank a dog for its sacrifice after I put it in a dog fight and it got ripped apart, but that’s still animal abuse. It’s still wrong. And like eating animals in the developed world, it’s for pleasure.
      - prometheus76 4y ago
        We didn't kill our animals to consume it for our pleasure. We grew up very poor and did not have enough land to grow enough food to survive through the winter. We had a large garden and most of my summers were spent working in the garden, and much of the autumn was filled with days of standing in front of a huge pot filled with vegetables, canning them for winter. We were not wealthy and did not have a store close enough to run to every day for fresh produce. We took care of our animals because we relied on them for our survival. We did not take that for granted, and we did not do it for pleasure. I understand that in an urban environment, surrounded by bountiful food (most of which is raised in other countries and is only available, out of local season, because of a complex web of global trade) the idea of killing and eating an animal can seem cruel or unnecessary. But your lack of experience of true poverty and lack of access to that sort of bounteous and constant source of non-animal products does not make all meat eaters inhumane and uncaring. I find your broad, general statements of moral superiority because of your vegan lifestyle to be ignorant and a result of having grown up in opulence and wealth, surrounded by bounty and options, with little reflection or concern for those who did not grow up in those circumstances, or consideration as to whether they could still be moral and respectful in their desperation and struggles to survive.
boplicity 4y ago
> many dog folks are super dismissive of the idea of cats being smart and I'm not sure why that is. assessment of intelligence is often based on comparing animal intelligence to human intelligence. Dogs are adept at communicating in ways that humans understand. Cats, on the other hand, have an unhuman mind, and don't seek empathy the way dogs do. They do it in a cat way. To understand the intelligence of animals, truly, we should let go of our notions of human intelligence, and seek to enter animal perception as it is; not to correlate our perceptions with theirs, which would limit our understanding.
- mcswell 4y ago
  From a sermon I heard years ago: A dog looks at how its master cares for it, feeds it, takes it on walks, gives it treats, and generally loves it, and says "How my master loves me! My master must be God." A cat sees its master do the same things, and says "How my master loves me! I must be God."
staticman2 4y ago
I think dogs have better social skills since they (well, wolves) evolved to form packs and help each other out. This can make them seem more intelligent. Cats are worse at communication as they evolved to be more solitary.
- bitwize 4y ago
  Cats are solitary hunters but they form colonies, and these colonies have social dominance hierarchies. They have sophisticated vocalization and body language that's perfectly comprehensible -- if you're a cat. They are not as well domesticated as dogs, so humans cannot read them as well as they can dogs without training themselves in cat communication. Domestication has altered the dog on the physiological level to communicate with humans. Among other things, dogs have extra eye muscles that allow them to emote in ways humans instinctually understand.
  - prometheus76 4y ago
    Dogs will also follow the gaze of a person, which is unique to them, as far as I remember. Cats will shit on your pillow if they are unhappy with the environment for some reason. That's particularly disturbing. I have a cat and three dogs as pets and it's interesting to see how they all interact with us and with the world differently. Even the three dogs are unique. They are all different breeds and very different in size, so it's interesting to see what they have in common and what is unique to the individual dog.
    - bitwize 4y ago
      I have two dogs. They have "Sophia Grace and Rosie" energy. I don't know if you remember these two precocious British girls who were frequent guests on Ellen DeGeneres's program on the USA, and they would talk and rap Nicki Minaj songs. But one of them, Sophia Grace, was super energetic and outgoing and the other one, Rosie, would just hang back and act cute. And that's how my dogs are. They are as close as any sisters despite being unrelated and of different breeds, but one takes the lead and the other is content to follow (or just have a nap in her safe, easily defensible corner).
kinghtown 4y ago
I feel like most people are like one or two a-ha insights away from veganism. Intelligence and awareness definitely has a spectrum across the animal kingdom but I’m not so sure about sentience itself. Do fish feel pain? Do insects experience fear? It is very difficult to to empathize with a spider or imagine that a scorpion could feel contentment, but as we we climb up the kingdom to vertebrates and especially mammals and birds, it’s clear to me that we share more in common than otherwise. Most people love to share outrage over abuse of conventional pets or bizarre and seemingly psychotic behaviour of eating dogs yet feel nothing to the slaughter of a pig. It is my opinion that most people ignore and switch “off” at these discussions as a way to maintain plausible deniability. Like people get mad at PETA showing videos on the street of slaughterhouses in a “how dare you” sort of way but really I’m of the attitude of how dare they. Cows are very intelligent, have long term memories, and feel desolation when their calves are taken away from them. Cats as well. The whole cats vs dogs argument is just mega weird to me and like you say really emphasizes the cognitive dissonance at play in most people who consider themselves kind to animals yet eat meat.
- formerkrogemp 4y ago
  Your line of thinking follows that of Peter Singer. I'd imagine that his brand of philosophy would appeal to you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ianai 4y ago
  Vegan here, too. It’s totally duh-level obvious that nonhumans are plenty smart to feel emotions that we shouldn’t inflict. I don’t have such optimism towards people. Look at how poorly we treat each other. If we actually had some strong empathetic tendencies as a species we wouldn’t kill each other. There are many species which don’t. Instead I’ve got a coworker who’s gladly told me about killing his cows calves in front of their mothers and all manner of other things. “Because I’m a vegan.” And he revels in those mother cows suffering. Something like around 1/100 of humans (or males?-googled) are psychopaths. I don’t worry about a super intelligence spawning from AI and wiping out humanity. At best that’s just projection. I figure a super intellect is equally or more likely to be benevolent since nonzero sum games require cooperation (or something like this). If that’s wrong then at least I suspect a super intelligence would see cooperation as greater than decimation.
zzo38computer 4y ago
I do accept the intelligence of other kind of animals too but that does not necessarily mean that I know what it is. What I know is that sometimes I do see them, but not very commonly (although other people may know better than I do). I do not think that it is really a serious cognitive dissonance. It is not my intention to harm the bees, ants, etc outside (nor is it my intention to harm the trees). If they get inside then sometimes I might need to get them outside if they would be harmful inside here (to me, them, or both), and sometimes you can step on something and will accidentally kill them if it is small, without being intentional. And we should all need the right of self defense, including both human and non-human animal must self defense from each other and anyone else (whether it is humans vs humans or not); however, not go near them is also a possible way to avoid being harmed, so that is what I do, too, outside. (Unfortunately sometimes the path is narrow.) Even if there are spiders in my house, it is not usually my intention to harm them (although I will want them to not get in my way of a book, etc; unfortunately sometimes it does). What I read somewhere is that some kind of spider they are supposed to be in this house; at first I did not know that but they mention that it make sense so now I can know, it is good to know. I am not going to eat all of the animals and plants outside, so, I do not need to harm them probably. But, other than that, everyone will eat everyone because that is how you will live, but nevertheless is it not a excuse to be treated badly (unfortunately they do treat some animal badly too much; well, humans are treated badly too, and also other stuff too). Some kind of animals is herbivores and some is carnivores, and humans is omnivores. And anyways, humans is also a kind of animals, too. At school, in a science class, it was a discussion of testing drugs and other things by mice and other animals. While many students argued against such thing, I also argued against animal testing but my argument was different from the others. Most people (including the teacher) did not agree with my argument, but much more recently, I had heard on the CBC radio the similar argument than mine (made by actual scientists, unlike myself), so I know that I am not alone on this argument. > That said, I've found many dog folks are super dismissive of the idea of cats being smart and I'm not sure why that is. Possibly because that is their experience; they do not experience everything, so you will only know the things that you do have the experience of. However, that isn't the only thing that it is. Another comment (31748192) mentions the other reasons why some people understand dogs better, so it isn't really as simple as I mentioned above. > Most people love to share outrage over abuse of conventional pets or bizarre and seemingly psychotic behaviour of eating dogs yet feel nothing to the slaughter of a pig. Dog and pig can be eaten, so at least to me that is not my outrage but I do think that they should not be treated badly. > Do fish feel pain? Do insects experience fear? It is very difficult to to empathize with a spider or imagine that a scorpion could feel contentment I do not know if fish feel pain or if insects experience fear, but it is possible to be harmed even if you cannot feel it at the time. However, such questions of if a fish can feel pain may be figured out in future by some scientists, possibly. I do not believe it is difficult to empathize with a spider or imagine that a scorpion could feel contentment, although perhaps it is difficult to know the details. > I hear how it is 'dangerous' to anthropomorphize animals by people like Joe Rogan constantly. Can you explain what is 'dangerous' about it? Or why we have to be 'careful' doing so? Well, what I think is that not everything is same; there are differences. You must be aware of the differences as well as the similarities, if you are to do it properly. Yet, some things will be unknown (so you must compensate for that, too).
LocalH 4y ago
I see no moral dilemma in eating meat, even if one considers animals to be sentient and intelligent. I see plenty of moral dilemmas in the infrastructure we have developed to provide meat to the masses. I (like everyone else) am not a 100% morally good being, and I still eat meat even knowing the horrors that happen in meat processing facilities. We are part of nature, no matter how much we try to elevate ourselves above it. I don't feel sad when a powerful predator consumes a small prey, as it is the way of nature. Also, consider the possibility that plant life also has sensation and subjective experience, that is wildly different from anything we could actually understand as such. Wouldn't it be equally as immoral to take that life, if we presume that it is morally repugnant to merely eat meat in and of itself, due to taking the life of a conscious, potentially sentient being? Life is life, right? Also, consider that not everyone can actually eat vegetables. I find the majority of vegetables to be instantly and extremely repugnant. As in, the only time that elapses is the time for the signals to make their way from my tongue and nose to my brain. This is not by choice, as when I was smaller I would happily eat most vegetables. This was something that changed in me at some point for which I have no explanation as to why. Perhaps the Ritalin I took for a few years affected me in an unexpected way? I have no idea.

by cpsns 4y ago

dhzhzjsbevs 4y ago

I always thought that was a sign of their intelligence over dogs.

mromanuk 4y ago

> If people readily accepted the intelligence of many mammals, much less other animals, they would have to confront some very serious cognitive dissonance and moral dilemmas. Not sure about that, lot of people are completely fine with human being killed for several reasons (punishment for robbery just to give you an example).

sweetheart 4y ago
Sure, but people generally have a problem watching extreme senseless violence perpetrated against innocent people, which is more analogous to what happens to the animals that carnists eat.
- prometheus76 4y ago
  I grew up on a farm. We were always grateful and a little sad when we slaughtered an animal, and we said a prayer for it when we slaughtered it. We always did our best to make our animals comfortable while alive, and made their death as quick as possible with as little suffering as possible. Life survives on life. Something died so that you could live today. I think about that often, and I think that growing up confronting the reality of surviving as a person by eating food that was once alive in a very immediate way helps me not take food for granted and to always be grateful for the daily sacrifices that are made so that I can live. In my will, I have outlined that I want my body to be put into a burlap sack with no embalming fluid and be returned to earth as soon as possible after my death so that I can be part of the same chain of life for other living things. Life lives by the death of other living things. We cannot change that, but we can at least be grateful and present with that reality.
  - sweetheart 4y ago
    Rituals around slaughter don’t make the slaughter humane. You know that and I know that. If an animal is being killed for you when you don’t need to kill it to survive, it’s unnecessary suffering and animal abuse. Plain and simple. Genuine survival situations are different, but that is so rare in the developed world. Saying a prayer doesn’t change anything. You didn’t give the animal the best life you could. You gave it the best life until you decide you wanted to consume it for your pleasure. Not survival, pleasure. And vegans are well aware that life consumes life. Vegans consume living things. They just don’t consume living things which are capable of terror or depression and suffering. Say a prayer all you want, but harming an animal when you don’t need to is the act of abusing an animal for pleasure. I can say a prayer and be remorseful and thank a dog for its sacrifice after I put it in a dog fight and it got ripped apart, but that’s still animal abuse. It’s still wrong. And like eating animals in the developed world, it’s for pleasure.
    - prometheus76 4y ago
      We didn't kill our animals to consume it for our pleasure. We grew up very poor and did not have enough land to grow enough food to survive through the winter. We had a large garden and most of my summers were spent working in the garden, and much of the autumn was filled with days of standing in front of a huge pot filled with vegetables, canning them for winter. We were not wealthy and did not have a store close enough to run to every day for fresh produce. We took care of our animals because we relied on them for our survival. We did not take that for granted, and we did not do it for pleasure. I understand that in an urban environment, surrounded by bountiful food (most of which is raised in other countries and is only available, out of local season, because of a complex web of global trade) the idea of killing and eating an animal can seem cruel or unnecessary. But your lack of experience of true poverty and lack of access to that sort of bounteous and constant source of non-animal products does not make all meat eaters inhumane and uncaring. I find your broad, general statements of moral superiority because of your vegan lifestyle to be ignorant and a result of having grown up in opulence and wealth, surrounded by bounty and options, with little reflection or concern for those who did not grow up in those circumstances, or consideration as to whether they could still be moral and respectful in their desperation and struggles to survive.

boplicity 4y ago

> many dog folks are super dismissive of the idea of cats being smart and I'm not sure why that is. assessment of intelligence is often based on comparing animal intelligence to human intelligence. Dogs are adept at communicating in ways that humans understand. Cats, on the other hand, have an unhuman mind, and don't seek empathy the way dogs do. They do it in a cat way. To understand the intelligence of animals, truly, we should let go of our notions of human intelligence, and seek to enter animal perception as it is; not to correlate our perceptions with theirs, which would limit our understanding.

mcswell 4y ago
From a sermon I heard years ago: A dog looks at how its master cares for it, feeds it, takes it on walks, gives it treats, and generally loves it, and says "How my master loves me! My master must be God." A cat sees its master do the same things, and says "How my master loves me! I must be God."

staticman2 4y ago

I think dogs have better social skills since they (well, wolves) evolved to form packs and help each other out. This can make them seem more intelligent. Cats are worse at communication as they evolved to be more solitary.

bitwize 4y ago
Cats are solitary hunters but they form colonies, and these colonies have social dominance hierarchies. They have sophisticated vocalization and body language that's perfectly comprehensible -- if you're a cat. They are not as well domesticated as dogs, so humans cannot read them as well as they can dogs without training themselves in cat communication. Domestication has altered the dog on the physiological level to communicate with humans. Among other things, dogs have extra eye muscles that allow them to emote in ways humans instinctually understand.
- prometheus76 4y ago
  Dogs will also follow the gaze of a person, which is unique to them, as far as I remember. Cats will shit on your pillow if they are unhappy with the environment for some reason. That's particularly disturbing. I have a cat and three dogs as pets and it's interesting to see how they all interact with us and with the world differently. Even the three dogs are unique. They are all different breeds and very different in size, so it's interesting to see what they have in common and what is unique to the individual dog.
  - bitwize 4y ago
    I have two dogs. They have "Sophia Grace and Rosie" energy. I don't know if you remember these two precocious British girls who were frequent guests on Ellen DeGeneres's program on the USA, and they would talk and rap Nicki Minaj songs. But one of them, Sophia Grace, was super energetic and outgoing and the other one, Rosie, would just hang back and act cute. And that's how my dogs are. They are as close as any sisters despite being unrelated and of different breeds, but one takes the lead and the other is content to follow (or just have a nap in her safe, easily defensible corner).

kinghtown 4y ago

I feel like most people are like one or two a-ha insights away from veganism. Intelligence and awareness definitely has a spectrum across the animal kingdom but I’m not so sure about sentience itself. Do fish feel pain? Do insects experience fear? It is very difficult to to empathize with a spider or imagine that a scorpion could feel contentment, but as we we climb up the kingdom to vertebrates and especially mammals and birds, it’s clear to me that we share more in common than otherwise. Most people love to share outrage over abuse of conventional pets or bizarre and seemingly psychotic behaviour of eating dogs yet feel nothing to the slaughter of a pig. It is my opinion that most people ignore and switch “off” at these discussions as a way to maintain plausible deniability. Like people get mad at PETA showing videos on the street of slaughterhouses in a “how dare you” sort of way but really I’m of the attitude of how dare they. Cows are very intelligent, have long term memories, and feel desolation when their calves are taken away from them. Cats as well. The whole cats vs dogs argument is just mega weird to me and like you say really emphasizes the cognitive dissonance at play in most people who consider themselves kind to animals yet eat meat.

formerkrogemp 4y ago
Your line of thinking follows that of Peter Singer. I'd imagine that his brand of philosophy would appeal to you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ianai 4y ago
Vegan here, too. It’s totally duh-level obvious that nonhumans are plenty smart to feel emotions that we shouldn’t inflict. I don’t have such optimism towards people. Look at how poorly we treat each other. If we actually had some strong empathetic tendencies as a species we wouldn’t kill each other. There are many species which don’t. Instead I’ve got a coworker who’s gladly told me about killing his cows calves in front of their mothers and all manner of other things. “Because I’m a vegan.” And he revels in those mother cows suffering. Something like around 1/100 of humans (or males?-googled) are psychopaths. I don’t worry about a super intelligence spawning from AI and wiping out humanity. At best that’s just projection. I figure a super intellect is equally or more likely to be benevolent since nonzero sum games require cooperation (or something like this). If that’s wrong then at least I suspect a super intelligence would see cooperation as greater than decimation.

zzo38computer 4y ago

I do accept the intelligence of other kind of animals too but that does not necessarily mean that I know what it is. What I know is that sometimes I do see them, but not very commonly (although other people may know better than I do). I do not think that it is really a serious cognitive dissonance. It is not my intention to harm the bees, ants, etc outside (nor is it my intention to harm the trees). If they get inside then sometimes I might need to get them outside if they would be harmful inside here (to me, them, or both), and sometimes you can step on something and will accidentally kill them if it is small, without being intentional. And we should all need the right of self defense, including both human and non-human animal must self defense from each other and anyone else (whether it is humans vs humans or not); however, not go near them is also a possible way to avoid being harmed, so that is what I do, too, outside. (Unfortunately sometimes the path is narrow.) Even if there are spiders in my house, it is not usually my intention to harm them (although I will want them to not get in my way of a book, etc; unfortunately sometimes it does). What I read somewhere is that some kind of spider they are supposed to be in this house; at first I did not know that but they mention that it make sense so now I can know, it is good to know. I am not going to eat all of the animals and plants outside, so, I do not need to harm them probably. But, other than that, everyone will eat everyone because that is how you will live, but nevertheless is it not a excuse to be treated badly (unfortunately they do treat some animal badly too much; well, humans are treated badly too, and also other stuff too). Some kind of animals is herbivores and some is carnivores, and humans is omnivores. And anyways, humans is also a kind of animals, too. At school, in a science class, it was a discussion of testing drugs and other things by mice and other animals. While many students argued against such thing, I also argued against animal testing but my argument was different from the others. Most people (including the teacher) did not agree with my argument, but much more recently, I had heard on the CBC radio the similar argument than mine (made by actual scientists, unlike myself), so I know that I am not alone on this argument. > That said, I've found many dog folks are super dismissive of the idea of cats being smart and I'm not sure why that is. Possibly because that is their experience; they do not experience everything, so you will only know the things that you do have the experience of. However, that isn't the only thing that it is. Another comment (31748192) mentions the other reasons why some people understand dogs better, so it isn't really as simple as I mentioned above. > Most people love to share outrage over abuse of conventional pets or bizarre and seemingly psychotic behaviour of eating dogs yet feel nothing to the slaughter of a pig. Dog and pig can be eaten, so at least to me that is not my outrage but I do think that they should not be treated badly. > Do fish feel pain? Do insects experience fear? It is very difficult to to empathize with a spider or imagine that a scorpion could feel contentment I do not know if fish feel pain or if insects experience fear, but it is possible to be harmed even if you cannot feel it at the time. However, such questions of if a fish can feel pain may be figured out in future by some scientists, possibly. I do not believe it is difficult to empathize with a spider or imagine that a scorpion could feel contentment, although perhaps it is difficult to know the details. > I hear how it is 'dangerous' to anthropomorphize animals by people like Joe Rogan constantly. Can you explain what is 'dangerous' about it? Or why we have to be 'careful' doing so? Well, what I think is that not everything is same; there are differences. You must be aware of the differences as well as the similarities, if you are to do it properly. Yet, some things will be unknown (so you must compensate for that, too).

LocalH 4y ago

I see no moral dilemma in eating meat, even if one considers animals to be sentient and intelligent. I see plenty of moral dilemmas in the infrastructure we have developed to provide meat to the masses. I (like everyone else) am not a 100% morally good being, and I still eat meat even knowing the horrors that happen in meat processing facilities. We are part of nature, no matter how much we try to elevate ourselves above it. I don't feel sad when a powerful predator consumes a small prey, as it is the way of nature. Also, consider the possibility that plant life also has sensation and subjective experience, that is wildly different from anything we could actually understand as such. Wouldn't it be equally as immoral to take that life, if we presume that it is morally repugnant to merely eat meat in and of itself, due to taking the life of a conscious, potentially sentient being? Life is life, right? Also, consider that not everyone can actually eat vegetables. I find the majority of vegetables to be instantly and extremely repugnant. As in, the only time that elapses is the time for the signals to make their way from my tongue and nose to my brain. This is not by choice, as when I was smaller I would happily eat most vegetables. This was something that changed in me at some point for which I have no explanation as to why. Perhaps the Ritalin I took for a few years affected me in an unexpected way? I have no idea.