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Aswad -> RE: Blackbird with broken wing (8/8/2011 4:38:06 PM)
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ORIGINAL: domiguy
please stop confusing domesticated animals with wild ones it is beneath you.
Who is to say the bird wouldn't have survived or made a nice meal for something else?
You're missing the point completely. I'm not confusing domesticated animals with wild ones. I'm describing a human characteristic and its effects on human behavior as regards the perceived plight of beings we empathize with.
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Granted, it's a small piece in the puzzle, but nature does have a plan and it is best whenever possible to let it run it's course.
Nature, as far as science goes, has no plan. If you want to mix religion or pseudoreligion into it, which is the only place where a plan can exist, then jut say so and we can move the debate to the appropriate frame of reference. Else, it is absurd to posit a plan.
Humans are a piece of the puzzle, as much as any animal. Just as other animals behave in line with their nature, so too do humans act in line with human nature. There is nothing to seperate humans from nature in this regard. For better or worse, we are here, and our local actions in our immediate surroundings is our alotted piece of the puzzle. Large scale, coordinated efforts are our claimed pieces of the puzzle, an outgrowth of our natural ability to shape our surroundings to suit us. If you're going to posit a distinction wherein humans are not a part of nature, then it must be in this higher-order participation, although arguably a beaver building a dam is shaping its environment to suit it.
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The OP would have never ever considered picking up a pigeon or some less desirable bird, because it isn't worthy of saving. There is a hypocrisy that lies in her motives.
I've not asked the OP what she feels about a pigeon, but I suspect you're wrong in that regard.
Furthermore, it is also irrelevant, as the human sense of empathy is dependent on the ability to empathize with the specific being, which is a function of similarity and proximity. Insects rarely get much empathy. Mammals usually get some empathy. Apes are a bit too close to us, so they sometimes run into what is known as the "uncanny valley" phenomenon, reducing the instinctive empathy despite their close similarity. Starving kids in third world countries get less empathy than a starving kid next door. The tens to hundreds of thousands killed in Iraq get a lot less empathy than the few thousand that were killed in 9/11.
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How we treat those weaker than ourselves is definitely a measure of humanity. However, respecting nature is just as much of a noble cause. Maybe the bird was wounded by a predator and the OP cheated it out of well a deserved meal. There could be consequences to that, as well.
That is second-guessing nature by remaining apart from it, which does not necessarily constitute respect for nature. Respecting nature mandates respecting human nature. The human nature that prompted the OP to pick up the bird is as valid, natural and important as the nature of the predator that might have eaten the bird. And as far as that predator is concerned, it's likely that might makes right, if you're going to bring up the subject of respecting nature (i.e. operating in a frame of reference constructed from what we believe about nature; which can only fly when we also treat the predator in its own frame of reference).
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we meddle into nature that have vast and dire consequences, we routinely remove natural flora and habitat that affects wildlife around the globe.
This is a function of the human ability to influence our environment on a large scale, in turn a function of the scale of our civilization and the multiplication of power afforded by social structures being greater than the multiplication of insight afforded by democracy (which is essentially taking away insight, not coordinating it and putting it to good use).
If you want to blame humans for the Halocene Extinction, I'm not going to pretend to disagree; humans are to blame. But the blame is not with our response to our immediate surroundings, but rather with extending our reach further than we extend our wisdom and our consideration. Unfortunately, we have painted ourselves into a corner, as our long term interests- one with those of nature itself- are at odds with our immediate interests. We have a higher standard of living and higher population density than nature can safely support at this time. Efforts are being made to remedy that, but our social structures indoctrinate us with values and ideas that are antithetical to human nature, and as a consequence of that and the lack of harnessable wisdom in those structures, these efforts are taking a back seat to concerns that should be marginal.
To remedy this, let Africa starve as they always have, and bomb their huge coal power plants. Then abolish fossil fuels in the west without a ramping down period, and allow the population in the west to die down to a sustainable level. Design a sustainable doctrine of life for the remaining population and enact it. Of course, I've no idea how you would go about democratically electing this course of action, but that's a political concern. Bypassing the need for democratic support for self-decimation or reductions in standard of living is considered terrorism, and vigorously beaten back through the state monopoly on violence. Feel free to offer a solution.
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It's just one fucking bird, I understand that. People pick wildflowers, after all, it's just one fucking flower, right?
You don't seem to understand that. The sense of empathy is immediate. Suppressing it cuts it back, numbs it down. Exerting the discipline to override it involves suffering that must be justified by a reason, and there is no clear reason not to intervene in the case which the OP mentioned. Making more meaningful (in an intellectual sense) contributions is obviously valuable and laudable, but it is also only an outgrowth of the instinct and emotion that manifests on the immediate level.
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I have long been enthralled by the outdoors and I respect nature. One of the the hardest thing to learn is to respect it enough to not interfere and let it run it's course.
Interfering is shooting a tiger running its prey to the ground, i.e. taking sides.
And the tiger wouldn't think twice about interfering to the extent of its capabilities, incidentally.
Humans have a greater capacity for interfering, but not insofar as we use our own frail bodies to do so. Some kids from the UK learned that the hard way when they got mauled by a polar bear just a few days ago. One of them died. Ask them if they could conceivably be interfering with that using only their own bodies, and they'll tell you even a rifle didn't do the trick. It is our socially and technologically amplified abilities that allow us to interfere beyond what many other animals can do (and actually do on occasion; elephants have been known to run off predators that attack humans, for instance).
In the polar bear example, interference is the people who shot the polar bear afterwards.
If they'd gone after it with sharp sticks, it would be vengeance instead (or, rather, it would be suicide, which is part of the point: our ability to interfere using only what we can accomplish individually is self-limiting, as we're slow, weak, unprotected and with virtually no body parts that can be used for anything other than making and wielding tools).
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song birds are on the decline in the Uk as well as most populated areas. Our focus should be on efforts that have a lasting result and leaving alone that which might make us "feel" better but in the long run provides little benefit. The serenity prayer is not just for recovering addicts.
In my experience, it is precisely these larger efforts that are undertaken to make us feel better, as a function of social concerns, whereas a person with unimpeded empathy can act on both scales at the same time, and from a motive that is directly related to the issue, rather than going through the proxy of social concerns (don't tell me the money drives pick times like Christmas and other spending holidays to pad out the TV programme, rather than playing on guilt, shame and a sense of responsibility tied to society as a whole).
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I hope this makes people understand my position a little better.
It seems to clarify that I interpreted it correctly the first time around, although I may have just misunderstood you twice (I'm only human, after all). Assuming I did get your meaning, I hope my objections to your position are clearer, and perhaps presented with more backing, although substantiating the arguments has not been the focus of my post, since it seems more useful to agree on the points of contention first.
Health,
al-Aswad.
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