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Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia

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Re: Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia

#201

Post by Momquist »

swombat wrote: post #196
Momquist wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think another point to add is that raising animals for food can be seen as a symbiotic relationship. If not for the development of animal husbandry, would pigs, chickens, and such be as successful (from a total population pov)? I think not. Many animals have the chance to be alive, only because they are supported by humans. This relationship is not only one-way: they are protected from predators, sheltered, and fed…

> Of course this doesn't justify mistreatment. But it puts in perspective the idea that turning vegetarian, and banning meat would be good for those animals in question. It wouldn't: they wouldn't be alive in the first place. It's highly arguable whether they are better off being "alive", when this "aliveness" is so far off what they are genetically programmed to enjoy as a normal life. For example, if an alien speci…

Yes the way we treat them is definitely a point of contention.

> when this "aliveness" is so far off what they are genetically programmed to enjoy as a normal life.

I assume, just like humans, other animals can adapt and even enjoy a life partly controlled and radically different from natural conditions.

I think the basis should be: are they better off than in the wild? In terms of pain, comfort and stress. And I'd argue that we can give them a better life. But, especially with factory farming, we often don't.

In your specific example of aliens raising humans. If aliens let them live in decent conditions, with some added benefits: say diseases, illnesses and poverty completely eradicated, and wars forbidden. But with the caveat that aliens do decide when you die. (Somewhat similar to Logan's run...). I think many may see it as better than our current life.

Re: Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia

#202

Post by hnaccy »

dorfsmay wrote: post #186
hnaccy wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Which animal we morally can eat is a huge and difficult concept... I'd say it's rather simple, the issue is most people are unwilling to make the sacrifices required to live morally. Given their clear intelligence and ability to suffer the ease with which people deny that animals are moral beings is disgusting.

Plants release pheromones when being collected, cut etc...[1] which some people argue is a way to express suffering and has lead some people to "eat only fallen fruit" [2]. The whole debate of vegetarianism vs vegan, is exploiting animal for food (milk, eggs) ethical? Some people argue that a pure vegetarian lifestyle is unhealthy... This is why I am saying that one needs to draw a line, and that it isn't necessarily…

I fail to see how the possibility of further debate in the finer details makes the answer to your original question, what animals are moral to consume, less obvious.

Would you accept a plantation owner claiming slavery's immorality was not obvious because there were arguments to be had about the ethics of "wage slavery" etc?

>but that isn't the case for everybody.

This is a moral failing.

Re: Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia

#203

Post by xj9 »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #160
xj9 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

combine the eating of other animals, a rational brain and a mind at peace, you need some amount of self deception i'm at peace with killing animals for food. i know that they feel pain, but life is pain in general. maybe i'm a terrible person or something, but a good bbq is def worth more than the life of a pig or a cow.

As long as you accept then that there is no moral problem with some superior species coming along and and deciding the same about you, at least your backwards philosophy will be consistent.

oh yeah, totally fine! if i can't stop them, "moral superiority" isn't going to protect me anyway ;)

Re: Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia

#204

Post by indubitable »

hnaccy wrote: post #171
indubitable wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion it's quite simple. I eat what I would be willing to personally kill and butcher myself. I think trying to justify why 'A' and not 'B' to ourselves is somewhat unproductive. Two people watch a movie, one person likes it - the other dislikes it. Both can give their reasons for such, but neither is right or wrong. Attempting to quantify subjective matters is arguably one of the big reasons so many of the s…

Is justifying the wrongness of slavery unproductive? Was it just a subjective discussion with no right or wrong answer?

This is interesting as slavery is something that ostensibly has no room for shades of gray. So let's try it. Can you justify to me why you believe slavery is wrong? And to be clear, I am not suggesting that it is not - but rather I think you'll find that creating completely coherent arguments for why it is - without exception, is not as easy as you would think.

Re: Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia

#205

Post by esaym »

mmjaa wrote: post #57
viridian wrote: post #5

This is super cool, if a bit scary. Man Australia has it all though, 8/10 of the deadliest spiders, half the deadliest snakes, crocodiles, rockfish, and now firebirds. Inhabiting Australia is a testament to man's arrogance.

As a native-born Australian, your last sentence really resonates with me. I was lucky to have been born there, and raised a bit, but when I was old enough to have a religious-like experience out there in the north-western deserts, I realised I couldn't ever feel comfortable for as long as I, a privileged white boy, lived on the Australian continent. So, I left. 30 years later, I'm taking my kids back for a bit of tou…

I guess I don't know much about Australia. Why were you no longer comfortable there and what are humans doing to it??

Re: Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia

#206

Post by vasilipupkin »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #193
vasilipupkin wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's relevant. My philosophy assigns a lower worth to beings, who are not human, who have low IQ. I assign low worth to individuals who belong to low IQ species, not to low IQ individuals.

And I'm saying, why? What does it matter what species they are? Your original claim implied that you believe this is because lower IQ equates to a lack of consciousness, which as I've already described cannot be objectively determined and is therefore a poor metric. If I understand you correctly, you are now saying that it's really the species that determines consciousness, which is equally invalid. Either you are ta…

you are engaging in semantics and sophistry. It can be objectively determined that cows are significantly less intelligent than humans, or even african grey parrots, or dolphins. I do not want to eat species that, as a species, exhibit intelligence level that is similar to human intelligence. The reason i wouldn't eat a dumb human is because I don't want to perform an intelligence test on every parrot or every human. Aggregate knowledge about the species is enough knowledge. You may say this is arbitrary, but to tell me I shouldn't eat a cow is even more arbitrary. Also, discussing whether or not I would eat a human is silly because I can't go to the supermarket and buy human flesh. So, let's keep this discussion away from meaningless hypotheticals.

Re: Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia

#207

Post by phillc73 »

jacques_chester wrote: post #24
electric_sheep wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, this has been a well-trod rant of mine for years. Don't forget scorpions, vampire bats, great white sharks, and the world's top 4 deadliest jellyfish!

I grew up in Darwin and lived to tell the tale. It's really very simple. Here is a diagram: [place where bad things are] [me] So long as I am not doing something dumb like going near an estuarine river filled with invisible deathbeasts, or getting into an ocean filled with transparently-tentacled murder-squigglies, or stomping through grass near logs with dozing fangjectors, I will be fine. It's just not difficult.

One doesn't have to be "dumb" to be in some danger from the fangjectors.

A friend of mine was driving around his property and found the track blocked by a fallen tree. He started pulling branches off the road and trod on a tiger snake in the grass. He was bitten and survived after administration of anti-venom. He wasn't doing anything particularly dumb and probably 99.9% of the time wouldn't have trodden on a snake.

I used to work on a farm. One day after moving the irrigation sprays I went to the well to turn the pump on. Around the well was about a 3 foot high concrete wall, maybe 3 inches wide. I sat on the edge of the wall to wait until the pressure came up and sprays started working. As I turned to leave I happened to notice on the wall, about 30cm from my hand, was a red-bellied black snake sunning itself. Close call.

I remember as a child, my mother chasing brown snakes out of our front garden so they wouldn't be a danger to us children.

If you're outside of a major urban environment in Australia, snakes are around. One just needs to be a bit careful.

Re: Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia

#208

Post by indubitable »

dorfsmay wrote: post #176
indubitable wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion it's quite simple. I eat what I would be willing to personally kill and butcher myself. I think trying to justify why 'A' and not 'B' to ourselves is somewhat unproductive. Two people watch a movie, one person likes it - the other dislikes it. Both can give their reasons for such, but neither is right or wrong. Attempting to quantify subjective matters is arguably one of the big reasons so many of the s…

So if your neighbour is willing to kill and butcher a human being, you're OK with that? What about another ape or an elephant?

I'm not really sure by what you mean "OK with that." I'm perfectly fine with people having views I find detestable. Going further there, I suspect if we were all 100% honest then any two people could find at least some reason to find the other detestable.

Re: Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia

#209

Post by pathseeker »

hnaccy wrote: post #145
dorfsmay wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which animal we morally can eat is a huge and difficult concept... In some cultures eating horse meat is normal, in others vegetarianism is the honourable goal. Have you ever asked yourself why you eat or why you don't eat some animals? It is typically a product of the culture we grew up in, rarely the product of an intentional thought process. Would you eat another human? What about another ape? An elephant? A monke…

>Which animal we morally can eat is a huge and difficult concept... I'd say it's rather simple, the issue is most people are unwilling to make the sacrifices required to live morally. Given their clear intelligence and ability to suffer the ease with which people deny that animals are moral beings is disgusting.

Where does the implication that other animals are moral come from? Is a wolf that eats pigs moral? If so, then why is a human eating pigs immoral or even 'disgusting' as you put it?

Re: Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia

#210

Post by dukeflukem »

toyg wrote: post #148
FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Thanks to the technological and cultural advancements of the Afro-Euro-Asian human cluster, we could wipe 99% of these “threats” tomorrow if we wanted to. We can be wiped out by some of the simplest lifeforms, and even simpler, not quite lifeforms on the planet.

> We can be wiped out by some of the simplest lifeforms And yet, we are not.

Yes hell never win that "wiped out" argument!
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