Dutch Muslims & Jews united together

[Razgovory]

Animal cruelty laws are the product of the anthropomorphization of animals coupled with our alienation from our food supply.

This is an oversimplification. It's like saying civil rights movement was a product of Western economies not having to rely on slave labour anymore.

Animal cruelty laws are a product of ever-broadening concept of "us" and the latest step in this moral evolution is the inclusion of animals (or at least certain, higher form of them). I don't think this is as simple as antropomorphization - more like our increasing sense of empathy (which is, incidentally, also a co-efficient of our civilization level). You, of all people, should appreciate the civilizational development.

Perhaps we will include rocks and dirt as the concept of "us" one day.

[Slargos]

Animal cruelty laws are the product of the anthropomorphization of animals coupled with our alienation from our food supply.

This is an oversimplification. It's like saying civil rights movement was a product of Western economies not having to rely on slave labour anymore.

Animal cruelty laws are a product of ever-broadening concept of "us" and the latest step in this moral evolution is the inclusion of animals (or at least certain, higher form of them). I don't think this is as simple as antropomorphization - more like our increasing sense of empathy (which is, incidentally, also a co-efficient of our civilization level). You, of all people, should appreciate the civilizational development.

Perhaps we will include rocks and dirt as the concept of "us" one day.

Keep laughing, and thinking that just because your molecular bindings are slightly different from those of a petrified Toad, that you are special.

[Razgovory]

What do they teach you people in school?

[Neil]

Animal cruelty laws are a product of ever-broadening concept of "us" and the latest step in this moral evolution is the inclusion of animals (or at least certain, higher form of them). I don't think this is as simple as antropomorphization - more like our increasing sense of empathy (which is, incidentally, also a co-efficient of our civilization level). You, of all people, should appreciate the civilizational development.

I could understand how that would be a narrative that you would like to believe in, but I'm not sure I buy it.  For one thing, there isn't a serious person on the face of the earth who would consider animals to be a part of 'us'.  And then there's the fact that the progress of civilization has made things much worse for animals as a group, and that the spread of 'empathy' is by no means uniform, and that even a country that has the most elaborate animal cruelty laws in the world can engage in the industrialized slaughter of humans.

Also, I'm noting that the explosion of the animal rights movement in North America came about the same time as the kids who watched Bambi in theatres were going to college.  The old movement was an elitist philosophical movement going back to the Enlightenment, whereas the new movement was democratized and based on unthinking emotion.

[Slargos]

What do they teach you people in school?

To think.

[Neil]

Animal cruelty laws are the product of the anthropomorphization of animals coupled with our alienation from our food supply.

This is an oversimplification. It's like saying civil rights movement was a product of Western economies not having to rely on slave labour anymore.

Animal cruelty laws are a product of ever-broadening concept of "us" and the latest step in this moral evolution is the inclusion of animals (or at least certain, higher form of them). I don't think this is as simple as antropomorphization - more like our increasing sense of empathy (which is, incidentally, also a co-efficient of our civilization level). You, of all people, should appreciate the civilizational development.

Perhaps we will include rocks and dirt as the concept of "us" one day.

Give it time.  Eventually, we'll get an oxygen-rights movement that is angry that our bodies are polluting the perfection of nature by binding perfect, pure oxygen atoms with carbon.

[Slargos]

I could understand how that would be a narrative that you would like to believe in, but I'm not sure I buy it.  For one thing, there isn't a serious person on the face of the earth who would consider animals to be a part of 'us'.  And then there's the fact that the progress of civilization has made things much worse for animals as a group, and that the spread of 'empathy' is by no means uniform, and that even a country that has the most elaborate animal cruelty laws in the world can engage in the industrialized slaughter of humans.

Also, I'm noting that the explosion of the animal rights movement in North America came about the same time as the kids who watched Bambi in theatres were going to college.  The old movement was an elitist philosophical movement going back to the Enlightenment, whereas the new movement was democratized and based on unthinking emotion.

Morality is ever evolving, on that we can agree. The notion of a "natural" moral law is preposterous.

Further more, animals have no rights, even if we buy into the notion that people do.

However, I don't need to see Bambi to know that torturing animals is "wrong" and I doubt it has ever been socially acceptable to any meaningful degree.

I certainly disagree with Martinus that supposed "civilization" has anything to do with morality laws. Scandinavian civilization was certainly less evolved culturally speaking in the 9th century than in the 17th, but women generally enjoyed a greater level of freedom and protection during the "Viking" age than during the rennaisance.

[Weijun]

I could understand how that would be a narrative that you would like to believe in, but I'm not sure I buy it.  For one thing, there isn't a serious person on the face of the earth who would consider animals to be a part of 'us'.  And then there's the fact that the progress of civilization has made things much worse for animals as a group, and that the spread of 'empathy' is by no means uniform, and that even a country that has the most elaborate animal cruelty laws in the world can engage in the industrialized slaughter of humans.

Also, I'm noting that the explosion of the animal rights movement in North America came about the same time as the kids who watched Bambi in theatres were going to college.  The old movement was an elitist philosophical movement going back to the Enlightenment, whereas the new movement was democratized and based on unthinking emotion.

Morality is ever evolving, on that we can agree.

[Razgovory]

What do they teach you people in school?

To think.

They should have taught some Chemistry as well.

[Slargos]

What do they teach you people in school?

To think.

They should have taught some Chemistry as well.

The list of what they should've taught you is too long, and too spiteful to mention here.

[Razgovory]

I could understand how that would be a narrative that you would like to believe in, but I'm not sure I buy it.  For one thing, there isn't a serious person on the face of the earth who would consider animals to be a part of 'us'.  And then there's the fact that the progress of civilization has made things much worse for animals as a group, and that the spread of 'empathy' is by no means uniform, and that even a country that has the most elaborate animal cruelty laws in the world can engage in the industrialized slaughter of humans.

Also, I'm noting that the explosion of the animal rights movement in North America came about the same time as the kids who watched Bambi in theatres were going to college.  The old movement was an elitist philosophical movement going back to the Enlightenment, whereas the new movement was democratized and based on unthinking emotion.

I think the emotion thing is the major thing.  I used the example of Fish.  Few people wish to outlaw hook and line fishing, or catch and release which are needlessly painful to the animal (and yes, fish do feel pain).  Why cattle and not fish?  Cause fish look more alien then a cow.  It's easier to identify with a mammal then it is a fish.  It's not logical, or reasonable, or scientific.  It's just as irrational as those worshipers of a "bronze age desert fairies".  Perhaps more so, since those raving on about bronze age torturers have deluded themselves into thinking they are in fact reasonable.  The bronze age torturers typically have no such illusions.

[Razgovory]

The list of what they should've taught you is too long, and too spiteful to mention here.

Shame.  I'm signing up for some college classes for the fall, advice is welcome.

[Jacob]

What do they teach you people in school?

To think.

I guess you never really paid attention in school.

[grumbler]

What do they teach you people in school?

To think.

I guess you never really paid attention in school.

He was absent that day.

[Neil]

However, I don't need to see Bambi to know that torturing animals is "wrong"

No you don't.  The only thing you needed to know was what Hermann Goering thought about it.