āWorldās biggest MEdia event”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=n4tgkyUBkbY
One way trip to Mars
No return
No provision for aging or medical problems
No test of sustainability (though I certainly donāt want them to try it first with animals!)
Huge cost
No point in doing it at all
And all those resources utterly wasted at a time when there are so many problems on earth that need them.
Companies making their charity contributions to create the āWorldās biggest media event everā rather than to remedy the worst humanitarian, environmental, social and geopolitical disasters ever…
It may be potentially āfunā the way joining ISIS is (and deciding to do it no doubt involves a similar depth of reflection, as the three people in the video sample with the Onuzu article illustrate):
Chibundu Onuzuis right on every point:
Itās Reality TV for the Me generation and the Lost.
Itās based on superficial, empty, pop hype stereotypes, kleped āscienceā or āprogress.ā
And for people who think they are seeking the āmeaning of lifeā: thatās really much simpler and closer than they think, but they are actually only thinking of themselves.
(Nobel Laureate Gerard t’Hooft seems to have gone senile, venal or loco…)
Attitudes to Research on Animals
A recent survey by the Pew Research Center shows the following results about attitudes toward animal research:
“The general public is closely divided when it comes to the use of animals in research. Some 47% favor and a nearly equal share (50%) oppose animal research. Support for the use of animals in research is down slightly from 52% in 2009. By contrast, there is strong consensus among AAAS scientists for the use of animals in research (89% to 9%). Among the general public, men and women differ strongly in their views about animal research. Six-in-ten men favor the use of animal research. By contrast, 35% of women favor animal research while 62% oppose it. College graduates, especially those who studied science in college, tend to express more support than do those with less education for using animals in scientific research.”
Of course opinion and attitude polls are useful, but they cannot be decisive for, say, public health questions.
Itās good to hear that peopleās attitudes on animal research are negative, but it would take so little to destroy completely the credibility of that opinion, by pointing out that of that 50% of people who say they oppose animal research, 99% of them do not oppose the far more widespread horrors of slaughterhouses, but rather sustain them, by eating meat.
And that they do that because they think (incorrectly) that meat is necessary for their health.
And that they think (also incorrectly) that the breeding and slaughter of animals for food is done more humanely than what is done in research laboratories.
And they havenāt even asked themselves whether, while not ready to give up meat, at no cost to their own health, to protect animals from needless hurt, have they really asked themselves whether they are ready to give up any health benefits that come from animal research?
Pragmatic Abolitionism
Iām an abolitionist, but most people are still fur-wearing meat-eaters. So the reason fur is a good one for activists to concentrate on first is that ā unlike meat-eating, which many people still believe (wrongly) to be necessary for their health, and animal research, which many people believe (mostly wrongly) to be necessary to save lives ā everyone knows that fur is not necessary for their health; nor does it save lives. So thatās the strongest entry point for awakening them to the horrors they are supporting and sustaining for no vital reason. Once they see that, then the next step is the evidence that meat is not necessary for their health. And after that, the evidence that much (though not all) animal research is just curiosity- or career-driven, not life-saving. Thereās no way to get most people to see all of that at once.
Moral Evolution: Time for Humanity to Become Humane
Traduction FranƧaise par Th.F. au dessous du texte en anglais.
SUMMARY: With rare exceptions (involving progeny and other kin) Darwinian evolution (if it were a matter of conscious design) would have to be described as brutal and psychopathic. Our own species, however ā thanks to the evolution of language and with it the invention of civilization and the adoption of moral and legal codes of conduct to protect one another from harm ā has by conscious design outlawed all but one of our brutal Darwinian tendencies: It is illegal to enslave, torture, rape or kill human beings just about everywhere on the planet. Brutality has not been eradicated; not everyone obeys the laws (there are still true psychopaths, criminals and fanatics); but most people both abide by and approve of the laws protecting other human beings from harm. The one brutal tendency that has not been outlawed is the enslavement, torture and killing of nonhuman animals. The quantity and quality of agony that our species imposes on other conscious animals, needlessly, for food, fashion and entertainment is of a scale that far exceeds the residual brutality that humans still impose on one another. It is time to outlaw this last residual relic of our speciesā brutal evolutionary legacy.
I am going to start by saying some very graphic words to you, although I could have shown you equally graphic images instead. The gist of my talk is that we are unconsciously supporting and sustaining something horrible, something most of us could never support if we knew the truth about it. So we need to know the truth.
Every minute, as I speak, and as you listen, living, feeling animals are being torn from their mothers, confined and caged, pumped with drugs and hormones, kept in a state of deprivation and stress and fear for the entire length of their short lives, only to meet a brutal, terrifying and agonizing end at the hands of overworked, impatient, angry and often sadistic assembly-line workers charged with slaughtering as many of them as possible, as quickly as possible, because time is money and the supermarket counters are waiting for their fresh produce.
The mother cows from which their calves are wrenched as soon as they are born, are kept standing, almost immobile, in a constant state of lactation, by hormones, under the unending stress of pregnancy, of being severed from their offspring 2 days after they are born and deprived of the natural cycle of interaction for which their genes and their brains and their hearts have been prepared by evolution, their udders grotesquely swollen and varicose and increasingly inflamed, infected and painful ā thatās why they are pumped with antibiotics ā they are mechanically and mercilessly sucked by machines, according to the clock, until the day ā somewhere in the 4th year of the life of a creature that normally has a life span of 20 years ā when their udders are utterly depleted and spent and they can no longer stand painfully on their feet and can hardly walk at all, when they are forcibly prodded and pushed to the slaughterhouse, again with the help of machines, because if they cannot be made to limp in on their own, the last piece of revenue to be sucked out of them for meat is lost to the agribusiness industry that thrives on their misery.
And itās not just meat and fish and poultry, and dairy, and eggs: The fashionable fur trim that is making a stealthy come-back in recent years, if it does not come from coyotes and foxes and lynx that have spent agonizing days in traps that are eating through the flesh of their limbs, if they have not themselves succeeded in chewing them off in their desperate struggle to free themselves, the ones still alive when the trapper comes — are freed with the brutal blows that end their struggles so they can be parted from their flesh and fur for your collar trim.
These days many of those collars are actually from China, and from dogs, who are bred, industrial scale for this purpose, and where efficiency dictates that there is no time or need even to kill them before you skin them, so they are violently restrained and skinned alive, leaving them afterward with 10 minutes of agony with their eyes still open and staring out from whatās left of their shocked, trembling bleeding bodies, as the skinners move on to the next victim.
This brutal, heartless, industrial-scale agony that human beings are globally inflicting, daily, hourly, every second, everywhere on the planet, on countless helpless, innocent non-human victims is by far the biggest and most pressing moral problem ā and shame ā of our age and out species.
Many will respond: How can that be? Surely the horrors that we inflict on our own species are an even greater moral abomination, and far more pressing. And itās certainly true that there is not one horror that we inflict on non-human animals that we have not also inflicted on human beings, and still do. But the huge difference is that we have outlawed the horrors that humans do to humans, and most humans deplore and would never commit or support such horrors. Not so with the horrors that we inflict on non-human animals. We have, and follow, laws protecting against enslavement, bondage, torture, and killing ā for human victims, but not for nonhuman victims.
Why? I will discuss the two paramount reasons we have these double standards ā the first is the belief that eating and wearing animals is necessary for our survival and for our health and the second is the belief that we are doing this necessary thing in the most humane way possible. Both these beliefs are in fact false, profoundly, demonstrably and patently false. But the evidence that they are false is not widely known, and this is not because the evidence is not available but because people are reluctant to face it. Most of us are in a state of denial about it. We prefer to look away.
So I believe that the only hope for animals is a direct appeal to humansā hearts. Not all humans have hearts. There are sadists, sociopaths and people with hearts that are impenetrably hardened for an entire lifetime.
I am not addressing myself to the sadists, the sociopaths and the hard-hearted. That only leads to conflict and anger. It doesnāt help the animals who are suffering every instant on the kill-counter. And time matters, not to us, but to them.
Every instant means mounting agony for helpless, innocent, feeling beings. By 2050, at the rate of growth of the human population and the industrial means of producing meat and milk to feed it, the kill-counterās total, which is already grotesque, will be twice as high as today. In just two years, as many animals are killed by humans as the total number of humans killed by humans since the beginning of the human race. We feel the urge to throw up our hands and say itās hopeless: weāre each just too small to do anything about it, and it ā meaning the rest of carnivorous, fur-wearing, milk-drinking, puppy-milling, animal-experimenting and hunting humanity ā is just too big. And that is even after we have set aside the minority sadists, sociopaths and impenetrably hard-hearted.
No, the only hope for animals is if that huge majority of humanity whose hearts are not impenetrably hardened can be reached ā if those who have faced, and seen and understood the suffering can manage to win their hearts, by opening their eyes to the enormity, the monstrosity of animal agony imposed by us, and to the fact that this suffering is not necessary in any way, not for our survival, not for our health.
Thatās two huge things: communicating the enormity of animal suffering and its utter needlessness, its gruitousness.
The vast majority of people who still have hearts do not know either of these things. They do not know how cruelly, and on what a scale animals are actually suffering in order to feed and clothe them. And they are completely unaware of the fact that that enormous suffering is totally unnecessary. They think we need to breed, use and kill animals for our own survival and health. They think thatās a law of nature. And they think that what we are doing to animals, because we need to do it, we are doing in the most humane way possible, in fact much more humanely than our ancestors did it in cave-man days.
And this potentially reachable majority is kept in the darkness of these two huge, false beliefs ā necessity and humaneness ā by a global conspiracy of interests, industrial and personal ā that are profiting from keeping the majority ignorant.
I want to stress that this global conspiracy is not human; it does not have a heart. It is collective and corporate. And as that excellent Canadian film a few years ago, the Corporation, showed so graphically, corporations are not humans, and their behavior best fits the description of a psychopath.
The appeal to real humans with hearts is the only hope for animals. There is no way to change directly the industries that have evolved to exploit animals on the monstrous scale that they are doing it today unless there is first a way to reach and change the hearts of the individual human beings that constitute the majority that is sustaining these psychopathic industries. These industries can only be made unsustainable if the hearts of their consumers can be touched, so they realize that laws have to be changed, collectively, globally, so as to put an end to the needless, heartless exploitation of nonhuman animals.
We are in the Web era. PETA and others have provided us with the graphic evidence, many times over, of the horrors that the majority of people do not know about. Domestic pet breeding is also an abominable industry, but one of its immediate effects is that most people have formed bonds with nonhuman animals. I do not believe it is humanly possible to love a family animal and look at the atrocities that are being committed to other animals just like their loved ones.
People will try to look away, because it hurts to see such things, but we must be shown these things, kindly but relentlessly. The truth hurts, but it is hurting them far more then it hurts us.
āIt is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.ā
Craig, W. J., & Mangels, A. R. (2009). Position of the American Dietetic Association: vegetarian diets. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 109(7), 1266-1282.
LāĆ©chelle industrielle et planĆ©taire de la souffrance infligĆ©e aux animaux par les humains est le plus grave problĆØme moral et la plus grande honte de notre Ć©poque. Un compteur des victimes en ligne indique les chiffres monstrueux et en constante Ć©volution des animaux qui sont cruellement tuĆ©s Ć chaque seconde qui passe. La plupart dāentre vous ĆŖtes dĆ©jĆ conscients du problĆØme et de ces chiffres monstrueux qui Ć©voluent Ć chaque instant. La plupart dāentre vous ĆŖtes dĆ©jĆ vĆ©ganes, activistes et essayez de rĆ©soudre le problĆØme. EspĆ©rons que cette confĆ©rence vous aidera Ć structurer vos idĆ©es pour travailler ensemble et rĆ©ussir Ć ouvrir les yeux et le cÅur du reste du monde. Parce quāultimement, le seul espoir pour les animaux est de toucher le cÅur des humains.
Les ĆŖtres humains nāont pas tous un cÅurā¦ Il y a des sadiques, des sociopathes et des gens dont le cÅur est dur comme la pierre et restera impĆ©nĆ©trable tout au long de leur vie. Nous ne nous adressons pas aux sadiques et aux sociopathes ou Ć ceux qui ont un cÅur de pierre; nous les garderons pour plus tard. Tenter de sāadresser Ć ces gens mĆØne immanquablement Ć des conflits et cela nāaide pas les animaux. Le temps est comptĆ©; pas pour nous, mais pour eux. Je vous demande de toujours vous souvenir que le temps compte. Chaque instant que nous Ć©chouons (et nous Ć©chouons toujours), provoque des millions dāagonies pour ces animaux, innocents et impuissants.
Ceux qui ont un cÅur faible voudront baisser les bras et dire que cāest sans espoirā¦ Ils penseront que nous sommes trop peu nombreux et que le reste des carnivores, porteurs de fourrure, buveurs de lait, exploiteurs de chiots, responsables de lāexpĆ©rimentation animale et les chasseurs sont beaucoup plus nombreux et ce, mĆŖme en excluant les sadiques, sociopathes et les cÅurs de pierre. Ć ceux qui pensent que la majoritĆ© des carnivores est trop grande, dĆ©trompez-vous. Le seul espoir pour les animaux est la majoritĆ© de lāhumanitĆ© qui possĆØde un cÅur qui nāest pas dur comme la pierre ou impĆ©nĆ©trable et qui peut encore ĆŖtre touchĆ©. Nous devons rĆ©ussir Ć gagner leur cÅur, en ouvrant leur cÅur devant la rĆ©alitĆ© et la monstrueuse situation des animaux qui souffrent Ć cause des humains. Il faut leur montrer que cette souffrance est aucunement nĆ©cessaire, ni pour notre survie, ni pour notre santĆ©.
Voici deux concepts trĆØs importants: communiquer lāĆ©normitĆ© de la souffrance animale et le fait quāelle ne soit pas nĆ©cessaire. La vaste majoritĆ© des gens qui ont toujours un cÅur ne savent pas ces deux choses. Rappelez-vous quāici nous parlons et nous prĆŖchons Ć des gens dĆ©jĆ convaincus et sensibilisĆ©s. Nous savons tout Ƨa et nous avons dĆ©jĆ vu les images dāhorreur de la rĆ©alitĆ©; ce nāest pas le cas de la vaste majoritĆ© des gens qui ont toujours un cÅur. Ils ne savent pas combien cruels sont les humains et Ć quāelle Ć©chelle les animaux sont en train de souffrir. La majoritĆ© ignore le fait que cette immense souffrance est complĆØtement inutile. Ces deux concepts Ć©vidents pour nous, que nous connaissons tous, ne le sont pas pour la majoritĆ©. Ils pensent que nous avons besoin de reproduire, dāutiliser et de tuer les animaux pour notre propre survie et notre santĆ©. Ils pensent que cāest la loi de la nature. Ils pensent que ce que nous faisons aux animaux, parce que nous devons le faire, nous le faisons de la faƧon la plus humaine possible. En fait, encore plus humainement que nos ancĆŖtres prĆ©historiques le faisaient dans le temps des cavernes ou que les animaux font entre eux. Cāest ce quāils pensentā¦ Et cette majoritĆ© susceptible de comprendre est gardĆ©e dans lāombre en cultivant de fausses croyances: La nĆ©cessitĆ© de le faire et lāexĆ©cution la plus humaine possible. Cette conspiration dāintĆ©rĆŖts planĆ©taires, industriels et personnels, profite de la situation en gardant la vaste majoritĆ© des gens ignorants. Je veux ajouter que cette conspiration globale nāest pas humaine. Elle nāa pas de cÅur. Elle est collective et corporative. Ć ce sujet, un excellent film canadien prĆ©sentait, il y a quelques annĆ©es, les corporations sous forme de graphiques rĆ©vĆ©lant ces derniĆØres comme nāĆ©tant pas des ĆŖtres humains. En fait, le comportement des corporations concorde avec le comportement et la description dāun psychopathe.
Nous devons adresser notre appel aux humains qui ont un cÅur. Ils sont le seul espoir pour les animaux. Nous ne pouvons pas changer lāindustrie qui exploite les animaux Ć lāĆ©chelle planĆ©taire, sans changer le cÅur de la majoritĆ© des humains qui rendent cette industrie profitable actuellement. Nous devons mettre un terme Ć cette industrie. Nous devons gagner le cÅur des consommateurs, afin quāils rĆ©alisent que les lois doivent changer collectivement et globalement. Nous devons mettre fin Ć cette industrie inutile et Ć lāexploitation honteuse des animaux. Nous sommes dans lāĆØre dāInternet. PETA, ainsi que dāautres organismes nous ont fourni des preuves et des Ć©vidences Ć plusieurs reprises dĆ©nonƧant lāhorreur que la majoritĆ© des humains ignorent encore.
La reproduction des animaux domestiques est aussi une industrie abominable, mais elle a des effets immĆ©diats sur la majoritĆ© des gens qui dĆ©veloppent des liens avec ces animaux. Je ne crois pas que cāest possible dāaimer un animal, tel un membre de la famille, et ĆŖtre capable de regarder et de tolĆ©rer lāatrocitĆ© qui est commise Ć dāautres animaux. Les personnes qui sont vĆ©ganes sont dĆ©jĆ convaincues que les choses doivent changer et nāont pas besoin de voir les images dāhorreur, parce quāelles les ont dĆ©jĆ vues et prennent dĆ©jĆ des actions pour y faire face. Par contre, nous avons besoin de convaincre tous les autres. Rappelons quāil nāy a pas de diffĆ©rence entre nos animaux domestiques et les crĆ©atures qui subissent lāhorreur; cāest comme voir son propre chat ĆŖtre torturĆ©.
Les gens vont tenter de regarder ailleurs, parce que Ƨa fait mal de voir les images de lāhorrible rĆ©alitĆ©, mais ils doivent quand mĆŖme se faire montrer la rĆ©alitĆ©; gentiment, mais pertinemment. Par qui? Par nous. Les images de la rĆ©alitĆ© ont dĆ©jĆ eu un impact sur nos cÅurs vĆ©ganes, alors notre mission est dāouvrir les yeux de tous les autres sur la planĆØte.
Il faut Ć©tablir un ordre dans nos prioritĆ©s et le compteur des victimes mentionnĆ© plus haut est notre prioritĆ© premiĆØre. Argumenter avec les sadiques ou les sociopathes nāaide personne. Nāentrez pas en conflit avec les gens. Notre objectif nāest pas dā endurcir le cÅur des gens, mais bien de lāadoucir. Ce nāest pas une prioritĆ© et Ƨa nāaide pas les animaux de rendre les gens en colĆØre envers vous. Je ne sais pas combien de fois j’ai entendu un chasseur ou le propriĆ©taire dāun animal, quand il se sent confrontĆ© par une personne vĆ©gane indignĆ©e, rĆ©pondre āJe vais faire tout ce que je veux faire avec mon [!] dāanimalā et ils rentrent chez eux et font mal Ć leur animal juste par vengeance Ć cause de la provocation. Restez loin des sadiques et des sociopathes. RĆ©servons leur cas pour plus tard, lorsque le reste de lāhumanitĆ© aura dĆ©couvert son cÅur et aura rĆ©digĆ© des lois pour protĆ©ger les animaux. Alors, ce quāils font deviendra illĆ©gal; pour lāinstant ce nāest pas illĆ©gal. Sāimpliquer dans de violents conflits avec eux nāaide personne. Ća peut seulement satisfaire votre conscience, mais Ƨa nāaide pas les animaux.
Jāai participĆ© Ć un panel de discussion sur les recherches mĆ©dicales. Ćvidement je suis un abolitionniste Ć 100%. Je souhaite mettre une fin Ć tout Ƨa, absolument tout: les manger, les revĆŖtir, les utiliser pour lāexpĆ©rimentation, mais Ƨa ne peut pas ĆŖtre fait tout en mĆŖme temps. Il faut mettre de cĆ“tĆ© les cibles pour qui les deux concepts mentionnĆ©s plus haut ne sont pas applicables: lāexploitation des animaux nāest pas humaine et est aucunement nĆ©cessaire, ni pour notre survie, ni pour notre santĆ©.
Le dossier des recherches mĆ©dicales doit ĆŖtre le dernier dossier Ć ĆŖtre rĆ©glĆ©. Nous devons dāabord mettre fin aux dossiers qui ne sont complĆØtement inutiles et tout Ć fait inhumains. Lāindustrie mĆ©dicale, pour ce que Ƨa vaut, est rĆØglementĆ©e. Elle est mal rĆØglementĆ©e, mais au moins il y a une rĆØglementation. Les rats de laboratoire sont traitĆ©s infiniment mieux que les animaux reproduits pour lāabattage, ou que les chiens encore vivants sur lesquels on dĆ©chire la peau Ć vif. Je prĆ©sente souvent une image dāun cas rĆ©el montrant un chien chinois qui se fait dĆ©chirer la peau du corps et qui est dans un Ć©tat de souffrance et de terreur inimaginable. Ses yeux sont encore ouverts et il agonise pendant 10 minutes avant de mourir. Ce genre de chose atroce est notre prioritĆ© premiĆØre. Et ce genre de chose peut ĆŖtre dĆ©fendu avec le principe que ce nāest pas nĆ©cessaire pour notre survie ou notre santĆ©. Ce nāest pas le cas des expĆ©rimentations et recherches mĆ©dicales. Certaines recherches contribuent vraiment Ć sauver des vies humaines. Gardons ce dossier pour plus tard. Remettons les choses en contexte.
Animal Abu Ghraib
Below is a letter to the NY Times from Judith Economos about “U.S. Research Lab Lets Livestock Suffer in Quest for Profit: Animal Welfare at Risk in Experiments for Meat Industry
Sir: Where do they find enough psychopaths willing to do these things?
It is certainly not scientific. They show no understanding of either fitness by Natural Selection or the logic of gestation and the bearing of offspring. Mammals are capable — often just barely — of sustaining the number of babies which they customarily produce (after many many generations of adaptation). Unless you find a way to reduce a sheep or cow to a giant womb and its auxiliary support systems, these animals currently bear as many young in one parturition as their bodies can nourish and support. It is obvious that if you short-circuit this ancient arrangement to generate more embryos, the nourishment will necessarily be divided among them, resulting in not enough for any of them. Thus are lambs — sentient as are all animals — born starving and already dying. The mother’s resources are depleted; even the ones the she accepts are bound to be malnourished.
STOP THIS SO-CALLED RESEARCH! It is bad enough that we eat meat unkindly raised and often brutally killed. That we now support fake science to make “meat production” (we don’t want to call it animals and their babies, do we? Not that many people care) more profitable for the meat factories is insupportable.
It is horrifying.
It is psychopathic.
Judith Economos
44 Beech Hill Road
Scarsdale NY 10583
914 725 5430
Setting the Scale 2015-01-08
Schubert died
at 31
and I
at 69
not
a single song
writ
Doubts and Benefits
In “Consider the Oyster,” Christopher Cox [CC] seems to me to be rather glib in discussing animal suffering, even though his heart seems to be roughly in the right place:
CC: āThere are dozens of reasons to become a vegan, but just two should suffice: Raising animals for food (1) destroys the planet and (2) causes those animals to suffer…Ā
While there are limitless ways in which humans are different from nonhuman animals, one thing we share with most is the ability to feel pain.”
So far, this all seems both kind and reasonable. (I would add only that (3) eating animals isn’t necessary for human survival and health.)
But then:
CC: ā[S]ince oysters don’t have a central nervous system, they’re unlikely to experience pain in a way resembling oursā
1. Oysters (like all bivalve molluscs) donāt have a central nervous system, but they do have a nervous system, including a nociceptive (pain-sensing) system that resembles the nociciceptive system in other invertebrates as well as vertebrates, anatomically, physiologically, and pharmacologically.
2. The issue is surely not whether the way other species experience pain resembles the way humans do, but whether they experience pain, i.e., whether they suffer.
CC: āWe also can’t state with complete confidence that plants do, or do not, feel painā
We canāt feel anyone elseās pain. So forget about “complete confidence” when it comes to what or even whether others feel. (On doubt vs. certainty, see Descartes!) This is called the āother minds problem“, and it applies to our own species too ā and not only to prelinguistic infants but even to people telling you that they are in pain: You believe them, and give them the benefit of any doubt, because of their similarities to you and your own own pain. Those similarities are both behavioral and neural. And oysters share them (even though they can’t talk). It’s just a matter of degree.
Plants, in contrast, do not share these behavioral and neural similarities (fortunately, because even if they did share them, we would have to eat them anyway, or else we could not survive). Plants lack nervous systems altogether (although there is a bit of controversy over some more general similarities with tissue signalling systems that fall in the category of information transmission rather than feeling).
Not so of cows and pigs and chickens and fish and lobsters and, yes, oysters: They do have nervous systems. They do behave and function as if they feel pain. And it is not necessary to hurt, kill and eat them, for human survival and health.
So why are we speculating on the possibility that despite having nociceptive systems and despite behaving like creatures that feel pain, oysters might not feel pain? If it were a life-or-death survival issue, we would have to do the same as we do with plants, and hope they donāt feel.
But it is not a life-or-death survival issue:
CC: āmake an exception for oystersāfor it is surely foolish to deprive yourself of an icy plate of white-shelled Watch Hills.ā
In other words, CC is proposing to withold the benefit of the doubt from oysters simply because he likes the taste ā which is more or less the justification of most meat eaters for eating cows and pigs and chickens and fish and lobsters.
Not something to speak about so glibly, I think.
Yes, it would be far better if everyone ate only oysters and plants, rather than cows and pigs and chickens and fish and lobsters.
But why not just eat plants only, and give the oysters, too, the benefit of the doubt? Itās not just a matter of taste, but of compassion.
[And is it not idle — if not callous — to speculate about whether it would be more destructive to the planet to feed the growing number of human mouths by cultivating oysters vs. cultivating plants (or waiting for a way to clone meat) while taking human population growth for granted, rather than seriously considering ways to reduce or reverse it?]
Human Rights & Human Wrongs
Although it is now outlawed almost everywhere, and although most of us consider it wrong and would never knowingly or willingly do it, support it, collude in it, sustain it, profit from it, or consume its products, some people still enslave, torture or murder human victims. But by what right do we expect (or deserve) to be exempted or protected from such horrors as long as most of us still knowingly and willingly support, collude in, sustain, profit from, and consume the products of the enslavement, torture and murder of countless animal victims — and do not consider this wrong? [photograph by Jo-Anne McArthur]
Humanitarianism and Pascal’s Wager
It may or may not be true that most humans have no hearts. No one knows — nor can know for sure — whether it is true. What we can know for sure is that if it is true that most humans have no hearts, then that means doom for nonhuman animals.
But if it is not true that most humans have no hearts, then thinking, saying and acting as if it’s true also means doom for nonhuman animals.
So the moral is that it is much better for animals if we assume that it’s not true that most humans have no hearts — that, rather, most humans are exactly like us, but are not yet aware of the horrors that humans do to animals, nor of what their own role is in sustaining those horrors, nor of the fact that those horrors are completely unnecessary, nor of what to do to help bring them to an end.
Ours is not only to help save animals but also to keep trying to open the hearts and minds of humans about the truth of animal suffering, its enormity and monstrosity, its gratuitousness, and what they can do to help end it.
For that we must assume that most humans do have hearts.
(The similarity of this observation to Pascal’s Wager is ironic, not just because of the flaw in Pascal’s reasoning — which is that there is not one but a multiplicity of rival supernatural creeds on offer, all threatening dire consequences if their own dictates are unheeded — but also because most of those diverse creeds solemnly sanction the monstrous things humans do to animals, preferring to focus on the immaterial and immortal “souls” of humans in the eternal afterlife, rather than the bodies and suffering of all creatures living in the here and now.)