m***@.
2018-11-27 03:35:26 UTC
I'm sad to admit that since the hope for world-wide recognition of animal
rights first came to me in my early twenties as a way to change the way we
look at non-human animals as mere utilities and thereby eliminating our
ill-treatment toward them, that hope will never become a reality in my
lifetime. The obstacle, I've come to realise and accept, is that we all have
prejudices against others different from ourselves to varying degrees of
closeness; even to those just outside our family, our sex and even our social
classes. And while I don't believe these prejudices give us cause to treat
those others wrongly, a great majority of us do, and this is why basic rights
will never be realized by society in my lifetime in non-human animals.
It seems to me that, the closer we are in relation or kind to a being the more
empathy we feel toward it and the more respect demanded for its welfare. This,
of course, reinforces the view that only those resembling us hold the same
rights against us. It challenges the view that those not of a similar kind can
ever hold basic rights against us. Testing this claim, there can be no doubt
that we would rather save a starving child in Africa than a primate from the
same region. Our stronger empathy with the child, being of the same kind as
ourselves, gives it a higher moral status than that of the primate and
therefore deserving a moral duty of care. The primate, meanwhile, only
resembling ourselves and not being of the same kind, merely has our sympathies
and can never hold a right over that starving child. From there primates
become less than us, so much so that they can be owned by us, and further and
further down they go in their moral status to that of a mere utility. Blinded
by the benefits from their utility, their rights against us are violated by
the vivisectionist who uses them as tools and models in the hope of perfecting
our drugs.
Animals farmed for food are given even less consideration than primates
because they're further from our kind; they look nothing like us, and it seems
our empathy diminishes proportionally with this difference in kind. While we
refuse to eat the great apes who resemble us, billions of livestock animals
are raised and slaughtered for their products every year without pity. While
our greed for their products continue, billions of animals suffer horribly and
are slaughtered, often barbarically, for their products without an end in
sight.
So, what's to save us from debasing ourselves in this way? How do we free
ourselves from this addiction to the use of non-human animals as products and
raise ourselves up from such a low position where our gluttony of them trumps
their right to be free of it? What possible deus ex machina can be brought
into this terrible state of affairs to bring about an independent state of
non-dependence upon animals? Ever tighter regulations and reforms to animal
welfare only seems to prolong it, and while more and more evidence of bad
practices in farming practices and pharmaceutical labs become available,
people are becoming hardened to it, not more sympathetic to the animals
involved, and they endorse more of it rather than less. No, trying to make
people more aware of the horrors in these establishment to hopefully make them
more sympathetic isn't working to bring about an end.
So, is global warming our deus ex machina?
"Huge reductions in meat-eating are essential to avoid dangerous climate
change, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of the food system's
impact on the environment. In western countries, beef consumption needs to
fall by 90% and be replaced by five times more beans and pulses."
http://bit.ly/2EvWlYc
Weed?
"How many cannabis consumers are vegetarians, or vegans? How many have
transitioned to a meat-free lifestyle as a result of being cannabis consumers?
We have no official statistics or scientific studies to offer. However, we
have observed the community around us, and there seems to be some correlation
between cannabis and vegetarianism. In this article, we attempt to explain the
nature of this correlation."
http://bit.ly/2EvIMYZ
Whatever it is, I hope it arrives soon. One more stroke or seizure and I've
had it, and I dearly want to see it while I'm competent enough to still
understand it and appreciate it, and can celebrate it as hard as I would right
now while I'm still in some possession of most of my marbles.
· "ARAs" contribute to the deaths of animals by their use ofrights first came to me in my early twenties as a way to change the way we
look at non-human animals as mere utilities and thereby eliminating our
ill-treatment toward them, that hope will never become a reality in my
lifetime. The obstacle, I've come to realise and accept, is that we all have
prejudices against others different from ourselves to varying degrees of
closeness; even to those just outside our family, our sex and even our social
classes. And while I don't believe these prejudices give us cause to treat
those others wrongly, a great majority of us do, and this is why basic rights
will never be realized by society in my lifetime in non-human animals.
It seems to me that, the closer we are in relation or kind to a being the more
empathy we feel toward it and the more respect demanded for its welfare. This,
of course, reinforces the view that only those resembling us hold the same
rights against us. It challenges the view that those not of a similar kind can
ever hold basic rights against us. Testing this claim, there can be no doubt
that we would rather save a starving child in Africa than a primate from the
same region. Our stronger empathy with the child, being of the same kind as
ourselves, gives it a higher moral status than that of the primate and
therefore deserving a moral duty of care. The primate, meanwhile, only
resembling ourselves and not being of the same kind, merely has our sympathies
and can never hold a right over that starving child. From there primates
become less than us, so much so that they can be owned by us, and further and
further down they go in their moral status to that of a mere utility. Blinded
by the benefits from their utility, their rights against us are violated by
the vivisectionist who uses them as tools and models in the hope of perfecting
our drugs.
Animals farmed for food are given even less consideration than primates
because they're further from our kind; they look nothing like us, and it seems
our empathy diminishes proportionally with this difference in kind. While we
refuse to eat the great apes who resemble us, billions of livestock animals
are raised and slaughtered for their products every year without pity. While
our greed for their products continue, billions of animals suffer horribly and
are slaughtered, often barbarically, for their products without an end in
sight.
So, what's to save us from debasing ourselves in this way? How do we free
ourselves from this addiction to the use of non-human animals as products and
raise ourselves up from such a low position where our gluttony of them trumps
their right to be free of it? What possible deus ex machina can be brought
into this terrible state of affairs to bring about an independent state of
non-dependence upon animals? Ever tighter regulations and reforms to animal
welfare only seems to prolong it, and while more and more evidence of bad
practices in farming practices and pharmaceutical labs become available,
people are becoming hardened to it, not more sympathetic to the animals
involved, and they endorse more of it rather than less. No, trying to make
people more aware of the horrors in these establishment to hopefully make them
more sympathetic isn't working to bring about an end.
So, is global warming our deus ex machina?
"Huge reductions in meat-eating are essential to avoid dangerous climate
change, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of the food system's
impact on the environment. In western countries, beef consumption needs to
fall by 90% and be replaced by five times more beans and pulses."
http://bit.ly/2EvWlYc
Weed?
"How many cannabis consumers are vegetarians, or vegans? How many have
transitioned to a meat-free lifestyle as a result of being cannabis consumers?
We have no official statistics or scientific studies to offer. However, we
have observed the community around us, and there seems to be some correlation
between cannabis and vegetarianism. In this article, we attempt to explain the
nature of this correlation."
http://bit.ly/2EvIMYZ
Whatever it is, I hope it arrives soon. One more stroke or seizure and I've
had it, and I dearly want to see it while I'm competent enough to still
understand it and appreciate it, and can celebrate it as hard as I would right
now while I'm still in some possession of most of my marbles.
wood and paper products, electricity, roads and all types of
buildings, their own diet, etc... just as everyone else does.
What they try to avoid are products which provide life
(and death) for farm animals. All that "AR" really has to
"offer" is the elimination of domestic animals, and the elimination
of human wildlife population management. ·