Published on 12, July, 2020
Does anyone else do this? I really hate suffering (also bullying) of any kind and this extends to saving worms drowning in puddles, snails in the middle of the path ready to be trod on, bees in the middle of the road and such like. Today I walked past a worm drowning in a puddle and had to turn back to go save it. Any kind of animal suffering means huge emotional turmoil for me, more so than any suffering of humans. I’ll think about it for the rest of the day. It also means I really struggle with adverts asking for donations and showing donkeys in awful states and whatever other animals they show. I have to turn it over as I can’t physically do anything to help them and get an awful feeling in my stomach.
Any kind of animal suffering means huge emotional turmoil for me, more so than any suffering of humans.
I don't want to sound offensive but this is the kind of attitude I find incomprehensibly irrational. I find it hard to walk past beggers in the street. But animals, I take no pleasure in their suffering but to me that's usually just a good argument for ending their lives humanly.
I remember years ago I had a good idea for a hoax to set up a fake charity that asked for unwanted pets as donations so they could be turned into meat and sent to poor countries experiencing famine. I was thinking of calling it pet food. The entire point of the hoax being to make fun of the kind of animal lover who'll lavish vets and luxury food on a cat or dog but is happy for humans to starve.
Personally I feel like banning animal charity adverts on TV. At least till human hunger and disease is eradicated.
Don’t worry, you don’t sound offensive to me. In fact it’s this kind of superiority that humans have over any other living creature that is the main reason I favour animals over humans. Humans are the ones that have f&£:3d the planet up and constantly put species in danger of dying out. Yet we’re supposed to be the more intelligent ones…
TBH it's because of this, conscience, or soul or what ever you want to call it that I think individual human life has value where animals don't. No monkey ever worried that it was damaging the forest. Or cried it self to sleep for cannibalising a baby monkey in time of famine. That human beings are developed enough to have things like a sense of guilt, even existential guilt, is what sets us apart from the animals.
Or the way mordin put is https://youtu.be/P-Kko6P5B_4
I'm skeptical about "experts" trading on their competence in one area to back up their arguments in another. He's a linguist not a military strategist. Anyway when it comes to science ... and even more so politics, my approach is 'nullius in verba' which roughly translated is 'I don't care who said it.' If an argument needs to be propped up by a reputation its not much of an argument.
As for nuclear winter my understanding is recent projections suggest this 'winter' might only role temperatures back to pre global warming levels. Thats assuming the loss of around 100 major cities on earth. If tomorrow north korea nuked seoul and tokyo and America nuked pyongyang the global climate would not noticeably change. Don't get me wrong millions would die but even the nations involved wouldn't vanish.