5 ms·

> Only very slightly. Just to be clear, are you saying that it is only very slightly better for a sheep, rather than a human child, to be maimed by a land mine

> Only very slightly. Just to be clear, are you saying that it is only very slightly better for a sheep, rather than a human child, to be maimed by a land mine? That seems to be what you wrote, but I'm having a very difficult time reconciling your world view with my own, so I'm hoping that I am somehow misunderstanding.

jrabone 14y ago
Thinking as a farming peasant, perhaps your child is probably worth less to me than my sheep? Only one is going to feed my family and keep me warm.
- natrius 14y ago
  You're intending to be counter-intuitively insightful, but there are few scenarios in which a sheep is more valuable than a child. You could sell a child for more than you could sell a sheep. The children who are in the most danger from mines are past infancy, and that is when children begin to be worth more than they cost to maintain if you aren't sending them to school.
anthonyb 14y ago
Wilfully inflicting a land mine injury on another creature? Sheep might not be as smart as people, but I bet they feel pain every bit as much as you do or a child does. And given that, what does it say about you as a person that you'd think that it was a good idea?
- popopje 14y ago
  that he likes shish kebab.
LaGrange 14y ago
Both involve sentient beings. This is not about valuing children less. This is about valuing sheep more. This might be an uncomfortable world view, taking how much we depend on non-human abuse in our civilization, but it's not the only case where we built it on abuse of others, human or not.
- mamoswined 14y ago
  You do realize these sheep are not pets and are not treated as such in Afghanistan, right? They will be used for milk, wool, and some will be slaughtered for meat. This makes sense for the people who live there- the dessert is not an easy place to grow crops and a multi-purpose animal is very valuable for survival purposes. Animal rights is a tough sell in a place like this. It seems like an ineffective non-systematic way to de-mine that damages animals that the Afghans value though.
  - LaGrange 14y ago
    Of course — I said dependance. Just as we depend on abuse of countless people, and we can't stop either overnight. It doesn't change the fact that it's horrible one bit.
- PeterisP 14y ago
  If it was neccessary to save my child, I'd eagerly murder every sheep in the world in the most painful way possible with my hands. Animal lives and welfare do matter, but when it comes to weighing human lives against animal lives, only a ratio of something like a million-to-one may be ethically justified. Definitely not one-to-one sheep to a kid. Definitely not even hundred-to-one. It could be reasonable to sacrifice a few humans to spare a species from extinction, but not to save some individual animals, however sentient they may be. My fellow humans are important. Leaving a kid to die to spare a hundred sheep is disgraceful.
  - LaGrange 14y ago
    Wow, it must be really scary to be a kid of someone with that kind of violent fantasies. Now, as a mental exercise, I suggest you replace "animal" with a racial slur of choice. Because, seriously, 100 years ago people said that about all kinds of other people. They actually still do. Having a slightly higher amount of common DNA is not a justification of whatever-the-hell. And at the point where you say "however sentient they may be", you just go into downright I-don't-want-to-meet-that-person-in-a-dark-alley territory.

jrabone 14y ago

Thinking as a farming peasant, perhaps your child is probably worth less to me than my sheep? Only one is going to feed my family and keep me warm.

natrius 14y ago
You're intending to be counter-intuitively insightful, but there are few scenarios in which a sheep is more valuable than a child. You could sell a child for more than you could sell a sheep. The children who are in the most danger from mines are past infancy, and that is when children begin to be worth more than they cost to maintain if you aren't sending them to school.

anthonyb 14y ago

Wilfully inflicting a land mine injury on another creature? Sheep might not be as smart as people, but I bet they feel pain every bit as much as you do or a child does. And given that, what does it say about you as a person that you'd think that it was a good idea?

popopje 14y ago
that he likes shish kebab.

LaGrange 14y ago

Both involve sentient beings. This is not about valuing children less. This is about valuing sheep more. This might be an uncomfortable world view, taking how much we depend on non-human abuse in our civilization, but it's not the only case where we built it on abuse of others, human or not.

mamoswined 14y ago
You do realize these sheep are not pets and are not treated as such in Afghanistan, right? They will be used for milk, wool, and some will be slaughtered for meat. This makes sense for the people who live there- the dessert is not an easy place to grow crops and a multi-purpose animal is very valuable for survival purposes. Animal rights is a tough sell in a place like this. It seems like an ineffective non-systematic way to de-mine that damages animals that the Afghans value though.
- LaGrange 14y ago
  Of course — I said dependance. Just as we depend on abuse of countless people, and we can't stop either overnight. It doesn't change the fact that it's horrible one bit.
PeterisP 14y ago
If it was neccessary to save my child, I'd eagerly murder every sheep in the world in the most painful way possible with my hands. Animal lives and welfare do matter, but when it comes to weighing human lives against animal lives, only a ratio of something like a million-to-one may be ethically justified. Definitely not one-to-one sheep to a kid. Definitely not even hundred-to-one. It could be reasonable to sacrifice a few humans to spare a species from extinction, but not to save some individual animals, however sentient they may be. My fellow humans are important. Leaving a kid to die to spare a hundred sheep is disgraceful.
- LaGrange 14y ago
  Wow, it must be really scary to be a kid of someone with that kind of violent fantasies. Now, as a mental exercise, I suggest you replace "animal" with a racial slur of choice. Because, seriously, 100 years ago people said that about all kinds of other people. They actually still do. Having a slightly higher amount of common DNA is not a justification of whatever-the-hell. And at the point where you say "however sentient they may be", you just go into downright I-don't-want-to-meet-that-person-in-a-dark-alley territory.