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Humans have become a kind of homo supremacist. Exploiting and disregarding other species. I think a big part of the cultural and historical justification of be

Humans have become a kind of homo supremacist. Exploiting and disregarding other species. I think a big part of the cultural and historical justification of being able to slaughter and exploit animals comes from Noah's covenant in Genesis. Prior to industrialisation and mass production people ate far less meat in their diets. Being able to see ourselves, our humanity, in animals seems like a rare and precious quality. "60% of all mammals on Earth are livestock, mostly cattle and pigs, 36% are human and just 4% are wild animals." https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-ra...

dehrmann 3y ago
> "60% of all mammals on Earth are livestock, mostly cattle and pigs, 36% are human and just 4% are wild animals." Yeah, but chickens outnumber them.
hankman86 3y ago
This is not about excessive meat consumption. Neither is it about animal abuse in the meat industry. It is not even about animal testing for pharmaceutical products. These issues are completely unrelated to harvesting donor kidneys from pigs. I fail to see any more obstacles in sacrificing a pig’s life to give a person in end stage kidney disease a chance to live. Oh and besides: the numbers would not justify moral outrage either: it is true that there are many people waiting for an organ transplant. However, that number still pales when compared to how many pigs are slaughtered for meat production. It is all but guaranteed that genetically modified pigs bred for organ harvesting would be treated well - unlike their meat producing cousins. Not to mention that there are perfectly viable alternatives to consuming meat. By contrast, people suffering from end-stage kidney failure have little choice, other than dialysis and waiting for their turn to receive a donor organ (i.e. many years in declining health on the waiting list). So can we stop the blubber about meat consumption and animal abuse in this context please? We should rather celebrate the apparent progress in addressing a major challenge in caring for people whose organs fail.
Turskarama 3y ago
Please, the only reason ancient people didn't eat more meat (apart from the inuit of course, who ate almost exclusively meat!) is because it was a lot more work to get it before industrialization. There's no philosophy about it, humans exploit more than other animals simply because we have the power to.

dehrmann 3y ago

> "60% of all mammals on Earth are livestock, mostly cattle and pigs, 36% are human and just 4% are wild animals." Yeah, but chickens outnumber them.

hankman86 3y ago

This is not about excessive meat consumption. Neither is it about animal abuse in the meat industry. It is not even about animal testing for pharmaceutical products. These issues are completely unrelated to harvesting donor kidneys from pigs. I fail to see any more obstacles in sacrificing a pig’s life to give a person in end stage kidney disease a chance to live. Oh and besides: the numbers would not justify moral outrage either: it is true that there are many people waiting for an organ transplant. However, that number still pales when compared to how many pigs are slaughtered for meat production. It is all but guaranteed that genetically modified pigs bred for organ harvesting would be treated well - unlike their meat producing cousins. Not to mention that there are perfectly viable alternatives to consuming meat. By contrast, people suffering from end-stage kidney failure have little choice, other than dialysis and waiting for their turn to receive a donor organ (i.e. many years in declining health on the waiting list). So can we stop the blubber about meat consumption and animal abuse in this context please? We should rather celebrate the apparent progress in addressing a major challenge in caring for people whose organs fail.

Turskarama 3y ago

Please, the only reason ancient people didn't eat more meat (apart from the inuit of course, who ate almost exclusively meat!) is because it was a lot more work to get it before industrialization. There's no philosophy about it, humans exploit more than other animals simply because we have the power to.