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If I had to wager money on what future societies would condemn us for, I'd bet a lot on our treatment of animals. Even if other highly-encephalized animals are

• Swizec 13y ago
  There's another part to this story. We have brought animals back from the brink of extinction purely because someone realised they were really tasty. A lot of our domestic animals, in particular, wouldn't even be able to survive without us ... but they're tasty, so we make them live, breed them in large numbers, feed them, etc. Isn't that what biologists call symbiosis?
  • Carwajalca 13y ago
    Wolves do fairly well without humans, bees as well. Which animals did we bring back from the brink of extinction? I'll admit that new subspecies have emerged thanks to humans, but we hardly need to keep e.g. 1.3 billion cows (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle#Population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle#Population) just to save the species from extinction.
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    • Swizec 13y ago
      Buffalos are a good example. Red Panda as well if I'm not mistaken. The sad part is, we've also made species extinct just because they weren't tasty. Dodos for instance. Taste bad, so we just killed them for fun. Then they went extinct.
  • macca321 13y ago
    I think I'd rather be extinct than be a battery hen.
    • scotty79 13y ago
      Your genes don't care.
• tehwalrus 13y ago
  Plenty of us commit hideous crimes on humans, too (North Korea, I'm looking at you,) so it may not be their only criticism of us. I do agree though, and this is why I've been a vegetarian for 10 years now.
  • loceng 13y ago
    What about the U.S.? Just because people are disconnected from the actions of their military doesn't mean they're not responsible
    • zxcdw 13y ago
      They are not responsible for the actions of the military. Just because they are born in US doesn't make them responsible for the actions of the US military any more than someoe born in Canada, Brazil or Japan. People who have power over the actions taken are responsible, pretty much the person itself and also the higher chain of command for the said person who commits whatever act to be held responsible for.
      • lifty 13y ago
        I think they do take responsibility, just not as much as those people higher up the power ladder.
      • Carwajalca 13y ago
        The military gets orders from politicians who get elected by US citizens.
        • cloverich 13y ago
          Not to delve too deeply into a political debate, but I think a counter-point is fair: 1. Those elected officials are not elected by everyone - in the case of GWB's first term (which many probably think of in this military context) it wasn't even a majority that elected him. 2. Those that do elect officials have a very small choice (lets say 2-3 people who could practically be elected). Further, I'd argue that most only vote on a few key issues, while the elected official has dominion over a vast number of issues. I don't hold citizens as not at all responsible, but I think its at least fair to argue (in the above context) that the elected officials bear more responsibility - and blame - than the everyday citizen.
• sethbannon 13y ago
  Couldn't agree with you more. Upwards of 60 billion animals are slaughtered for human consumption each year[1]. The scale of it is mind-boggling. We just recently agreed on vegetarian team lunches at my startup to do our small part. [1] according to http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Rights-Current-Debates-Directions/dp/0195305108/ http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Rights-Current-Debates-Directio...
  • diminoten 13y ago
    There is almost nothing that could happen which would make me feel poorly for eating cows, chickens, pigs, and fish. The assumption here is that simply because a being is conscious, it is therefore special. Let's take away that assumption, and then work forwards. Of what significance is consciousness?
    • bornhuetter 13y ago
      I think that there is a difference between entities with consciousness and those without, in that you can't cause pain and suffering to an entity without consciousness. In that sense, they are "special". But that doesn't mean we shouldn't eat them, just that we shouldn't be cruel to them.
  • bornhuetter 13y ago
    I'm not sure that we necessarily need to become vegetarians in order to condemn the poor treatment of animals. It's perfectly possible (albeit more expensive) to raise and kill animals in a humane manner. Personally I have no problem with humans eating meat, in my view it's part of our nature, but I do have a problem with raising them in battery farms and people kicking their pets etc.
  • vacri 13y ago
    That actually sounds like a low figure to me - there are 7 billion people, so on average only 10 animals per person? Sure, cows are big, but fowl aren't. But 'slaughtering' misses the point. Nature is constant slaughter. Despite what we think of nature as being a cuddly, friendly thing, the animals in nature are locked in a literally deadly battle. The reasons why herbivores generally startle so easily is because if they don't, they die, and die horribly. We think it's cute, but it's literally there to keep them alive. The issue isn't 'slaughtering' as far as I can see - since that is an exceptionally natural state for an animal - it's how the animals are treated up until they're slaughtered. Not to mention that if we're talking about sheer numbers of organisms, the ones that are slaughtered for actual consumptions are a drop in the ocean compared to all the animals that are slaughtered in farming. Mice plague? Hell, just normal mice, no plague? You rarely hear the vegetarian protestors complaining about the huge numbers of rodents killed in farming. It increases in magnitude as you go down, too (snails etc, and increase again for insects). I think it's funny that above we have a complaint about 'not eating the cute rabbit', yet no-one champions the rights of vermin, despite them dying in far greater numbers. Generally no-one cares about them, because they die 'over there' and don't end up in line of sight. So yeah, treat meat animals humanely, that's a tenable goal, but 'stop the slaughter'? It requires wilfully turning a blind eye.
• kryten 13y ago
  Spot on. This is typical human hypocrisy at work. The worst thing I find is the "I'll eat a sausage but I couldn't possibly eat a cute bunny wabbit". The sausage in its natural form is capable of being a valuable and loyal human companion. I haven't eaten meat since I was at university in the distant past after I got addicted to a combination of ramen noodles, mushrooms and home made pepper sauce. The ethical dilemma made it hard to go back to eating meat so I didn't bother. Regarding tastiness, Indian vegetarian food (particular aloo, gobi is far tastier than anything with meat in and you can grow ALL the ingredients yourself if you want without having to shovel a single turd.
  • burntsushi 13y ago
    If your problem is with hypocrisy, then there are two solutions. One is the path you took, to be a vegetarian, and the other is to simply not have a problem with eating a cute bunny wabbit. > Regarding tastiness, Indian vegetarian food (particular aloo, gobi is far tastier than anything with meat in and you can grow ALL the ingredients yourself if you want without having to shovel a single turd. In your opinion.
    • kryten 13y ago
      There is a problem with your argument. Let me return the gift of pedantry: Firstly, the problem I have with the hypocrisy is independent to a diet choice so the statement about the path is invalid. Secondly, everything is subjective so your argument is moot (as is mine).
  • vacri 13y ago
    There is plenty of perfectly nutritious vegetable matter that humans won't eat - it's a false equivalence you're making.
    • kryten 13y ago
      Unless you suddenly find a conscious cabbage or an onion with an opinion.
• edanm 13y ago
  'If I had to wager money on what future societies would condemn us for, I'd bet a lot on our treatment of animals.' This. Times a thousand. Paul Graham's article "Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas" has this quote, which I love: "One of my tricks for generating startup ideas is to imagine the ways in which we'll seem backward to future generations. And I'm pretty sure that to people 50 or 100 years in the future, it will seem barbaric that people in our era waited till they had symptoms to be diagnosed with conditions like heart disease and cancer." When I look to the future and imagine what will seem backwards, two of the big things in my mind are what PG mentions and what you mention.
• hosh 13y ago
  If future societies are condemning our behavior now, then we would not have progressed that far. This isn't about kindness and cruelty, this is about awareness. As long as we perceive other living beings as The Other, we're not truly aware -- we can't empathize, we can't be compassionate, we can't be a complete human being. Condemning people for barbarism is a subtler form of separation, of saying "those people are not us." But they are, just as we're growing as a species and society to be aware of non-human awareness.
• vacri 13y ago
  To treat even 1% of humans the way we treat animals would be to perpetuate the greatest war crime in history. If you want to start treating animals with the same sanctity as humans, you need to watch out. Countries that use the death penalty should be executing all the carnivores for mass murder. And what does "the way we treat animals" mean anyway? Plenty of pets are doted on and loved to bits. Plenty of wild animals are left alone, ignored, or even unknown. Plenty of animals are treated inhumanely. Overgeneralisations are an enemy to progress.
• Blahah 13y ago
  I don't find this argument compelling. Why is 'consciousness', or the ability to suffer or feel pain in a way comparable to us, important? I don't eat or kill other humans, not just because I know they would dislike it, but because if we didn't all generally keep to that rule of not doing so, I run a higher risk of being eaten or killed myself. It's a behavioural contract, not some innate universal rule that suffering is bad. For me, the question of what to eat is solely one of sustainability. Under that line of reasoning, veganism is better than vegetarianism which is approximately equivalent to eating no red meat, which are both better than eating red meat. How sentient the animal is doesn't factor into the decision.
• scotty79 13y ago
  Come on! We just recently sort of came to agree that watching people getting tortured is not the best kind of fun. Give us few centuries to manufacture something tastier.