Sinergy
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Tristan
quote:
What is a "right" and where does it come from?
FirmKY
The suffering we create because of the factory farm system is probably worse than anything we as humans have done before throughout history, but it's ok because we can distance ourselves from that action because we can say animals are different from us. Those same words have been used throughout history to justify everything from slavery to the ethnic cleansing of people around the world.
What difference does it make if another can suffer? Why do we chose whose suffering is more important? Yet, we do. It was easy for people to justify the suffering of slaves because of their skin color or the suffering of jews because of their religion. Now, we justify suffering based on genetic code. Do a quick search for factory farms and you will see what I mean by suffering.
As for rights, I don't think there is any such thing. My best guess is that human morality is centered around the formation of powerful groups of which you desire to be a member, and the subjugation of others. We can also be very kind and compassionate, but only when we identify with another. The other might be human, it might be a cat or dog, or it might be farm animal. We can also be cruel beyond words. Rights seem to be completely arbitrary.
Tristan
I agree with most of what you wrote, Tristan, but the logical conclusion I came to years ago is something most people dislike hearing.
I used to own a fish tank when I was a kid. I loved putting live breeding Mollies in it. They would swim around, all 2 of them, and eventually have 22 babies. They would swim around and all 24 of them would have 200 babies. They would swim around and all 224 of them would have 2200 babies, the water quality in the tank would plummet and they would all die except for 3 or 4.
I would go through massive trauma fixing the water quality in the tank.
The 3 or 4 would have 30 babies. Then the 34 would have 300 babies, then...
And the cycle would go on and on.
From one standpoint, I suppose it was cruel of a 11 year old who did not know better to keep male and female Mollies in a tank.
From another standpoint, humans do the same thing. We factory farm food. We send food to feed to starving Nigerians. The humans breed in their system space. Eventually overload the system space. Almost all of them die. They get food. They start breeding. Eventually overload the system space. Almost all of them die.
At the age of 11, I figured out that population pressures running rampant results in wars, killing, disease, the election of Monkeyboy, whatever. Most people dont seem to understand this. It may sound depressingly Malthusian, but Malthus had a point.
Human morality is centered around personal survival. A person who believes that they survive in and of their own particular group even if their singularity dies is still centering their morality around their personal survival. If a person has hooked their wagon to the survival of the group, and Monkeyboy insists we subjegate Iraqis, then the person's personal survival is now linked to killing Iraqis.
We all survive here, or we all die here. Things like the polar bears and the Dodo bird and Spotted Owls simply die before we do, but we are all riding the same ride. If they go, so do we.
Sinergy
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"There is a fine line between clever and stupid"
David St. Hubbins "This Is Spinal Tap"
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RE: Animal Rights - 
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