6 ms·
but was the monkey alright?
by Acrobatic_Road 2y ago
but was the monkey alright?
- xyst 2y agoVery unlikely > The animal had come into contact with the transformer at the station, disrupting supply to the entire country Bro was cooked
- ridiculous_leke 2y agoAnother example how human civilization, in its present form, is generally incompatible with Earth's flora and fauna. Obviously, going back to stone-age is not a solution for us. But we certainly need to update/devise methods that do not harm anyone living creatures (or at least the sentient ones). Poor monkey had no idea what he got into and suffered a brutal death.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> we certainly need to update/devise methods that do not harm anyone living creatures (or at least the sentient ones) Nature is brutal. I distinctly remember a hike where I stumbled on a mother bear (RIP) tearing apart a still-alive baby elk for her cubs. Human civilisation has done a lot of damage. But we might also be able to spare a lot of sentient suffering, bringing care to the biosphere and taking station as nature’s ethical guardians. Food for thought if you find yourself going full misanthrope.
- rectang 2y agoHumans are far and away the most cruel species that has ever walked the face of the earth. No other species has the capacity to invent torture, using our analytical abilities to keep the victim alive indefinitely while inflicting the most vicious agonies possible (e.g. torturing the child in front of the parent).
- justinclift 2y agoYou've not seen cats toying with their prey?
- rectang 2y agoBears with baby elks, cats with their prey, orcas playing catch with baby seals... none of them come close to what humans are capable of when they put their reasoning to work in service of inflicting agony. Have you ever visited a museum exhibit on torture? The engineering creativity that has gone into exploiting physiology and psychology to cause unendurable, unimaginable pain is astonishing. You'll want to look away. You'll want to forget, to believe once again that cats are worse... but cats are to a first order approximation indifferent to suffering, in contrast to humans hellbent on maximizing it. JumpCrisscross is taking a techno-optimist's perspective, but while I personally believe that humans should voluntarily seek to serve as "ethical guardians" and to minimize "sentient suffering", I don't trust them to do it. Not as individuals, since empathy is a weak force compared with first-person pain. Not as cogs within societies where inflicting pain is often a means to gaining and maintaining power.
- labster 2y agoI guess you are not a cat owner
- danparsonson 2y agoI would also like to Orcas with baby seals to your list. Sorry.
- rectang 2y agoI already brought up orcas and baby seals in a sibling comment[1], forty minutes before your response appeared. Have you grappled with my reasoning there? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43035760#43064754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43035760#43064754
- danparsonson 2y ago
- beardedwizard 2y agoHave you seen what animals do to each other on a daily basis?
- ForOldHack 2y agoI watch Congress on CNN. Yes.
- greenavocado 2y agoThats what C-SPAN is for
- nkrisc 2y agoHave you seen what other animals do to each other? The monkey was probably dead before it felt anything.