Should we value animals as something more than sources for us?

[mrt144]

All testing should be done on humans. It should be a paid job. Everything has to be tested on humans in the end anyway, we only use animals cos it's cheaper.

Humans can make their own choice to accept that job. An animal doesn't have the choice.

Yes we use animals for food. But we don't have to do it in a cruel way.

Why not test it on animals beforehand to work out the lethal kinks first?

 

[sonorakitch]

It would be worth it for a billion people to die if it kept the Earth habitable for future humans & curtailed the current extinction event.

I agree completely. Problem is, where do we start if/when it happens?

 

[innonimatu]

I agree completely. Problem is, where do we start if/when it happens?

But it's quite simple: all the people who think that way can contribute by removing themselves from the planet.

 

[sonorakitch]

Good answer....

 

[Narz]

who are you to assign a value to a human life?

I'm Narz. I assign value to lots of things.

But it's quite simple: all the people who think that way can contribute by removing themselves from the planet.

But then only the stupid ones will be left.

 

[Bast]

"As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."

- Pythagoras of Samos

 

[webster]

Humans Rule! If you can't tell a difference between a human and animal you are an idiot!

 

[classical_hero]

Horse meat is on sale in WA for human consumption. Would you eat it? Is it yeah or neigh?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/butcher-reports-death-threats-over-horse-meat/story-e6frf7kf-1225892254863

A PERTH butcher selling horse meat has been bombarded with "personal and nasty" emails, including death threats.

But since most of the protests come from animal rights activists, waking up next to a horse head seems unlikely.

Vince Gareffa of Mondi Di Carne gourmet butchers is believed to be the only butcher selling horse meat for human consumption in Australia.

After being granted a licence by Western Australia's Agriculture and Food Minister Terry Redman, Mr Gareffa opened up his Perth shop on Tuesday with fresh horse meat for sale.

But within two days, he was swamped with emails from around the world attacking him for offering the specialty meat.

"We've had a couple of thousand emails, some of them nasty and personal," Mr Gareffa said.

"The majority of them you can tell that they're from animal liberation groups from all around the world who automatically attack anyone if someone tells them to."

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Mr Gareffa said he interpreted two as death threats and one, which referred to Underbelly, he reported to police.

The butcher called for intelligent and "grown-up" debate instead of abuse and threats.

"Jewish people don't bash me because I eat pork, Hindus don't bash me because I eat beef and I don't bash Thai people because they eat dog," he said.

"But there's no way in the world that something we're already doing should be denied to our population."

According to the Federal Department of Agriculture, between 30,000 and 40,000 horses are slaughtered every year and exported for pet food and human consumption.

Mr Gareffa had planned to supply horse meat at his stall at the Mundaring Truffle Festival at the end of July, but after thousands of emails threatening pickets, protests and boycotts, organisers asked him not to.

"We were concerned that we were getting threats from people trying to drum up support to boycott the festival and run pickets and protests," festival chairwoman Megan Griffiths said.

Since offering horse meat, Mondi Di Carne gourmet butchers has had a constant stream of customers, which has overwhelmed Mr Gareffa.

After being initially hesitant about eating it, Mr Gareffa tucked in on Wednesday, saying the medium rare horse steak tasted like "very rich beef with a slight sweet overtone on the back of the palate".

He believes the present outrage will die down in a couple of weeks and customers will be able to order it quietly.

"We'll be known as the horse whisperers," he said.

"You just whisper 'Can I have a kilo of horse meat please'."

I myself would try it, since I have never had it before. I would even eat animals we consider pets, including dogs and cats.

 

[Winner]

I've just finished watching a documentary on Nat. Geo. Wild channel. It showed chimps using tool sets, which are culture-dependent. Essentially, they display signs of cultural differentiation. They are also clearly capable of planning in advance which tools they're going to need for the task (hunting termites, collecting honey, even hunting).

It seems the more we know about these apes, the more intelligent they appear.

If we drive them to extinction, and we're on the way to do just that, we're going to lose the last link to our roots. Chimps in captivity are useless to us if we want to observe their social/cultural behaviour unaffected by our presence. In this case in particular, the rights of the "animals" to live in their natural habitat trump the interest of humans to clear the forest for farming. We should enforce it.

 

[GoodGame]

We can't ignore that we essentially are sentient animals and some animals may have a degree of sentience. And "lower animals" can provide emotional comfort to humans.

Which doesn't affect my stance that animal research is good for humanity.

 

[webster]

There would be nothing wrong with eating horse meat. I am not sure I would call sticks tools, I have seen some of these so called tools and not very convinced. Though trying to protect them is still a good idea. Chimps are our roots so what? And their social/culture is just animal behavior and is not that important expect in saving them from extinction in the wild. Animals have no rights and people do have right to farm, though it would be nice if those farmers could get help in farming efficiently to feed themselves and others.

p.s. I love to see chimps in the Zoo.

 

[warpus]

Humans Rule! If you can't tell a difference between a human and animal you are an idiot!

Hi, i'm a zebra. You were saying?

 

[webster]

Yum Zebra meat just like horse meat but rarer.

 

[GoodGame]

There would be nothing wrong with eating horse meat. I am not sure I would call sticks tools, I have seen some of these so called tools and not very convinced. Though trying to protect them is still a good idea. Chimps are our roots so what? And their social/culture is just animal behavior and is not that important expect in saving them from extinction in the wild. Animals have no rights and people do have right to farm, though it would be nice if those farmers could get help in farming efficiently to feed themselves and others.

p.s. I love to see chimps in the Zoo.

I'm pretty sure we don't eat horse meat simply because it's not tender.

 

[PeteAtoms]

There is a restaurant in Canada that serves horse meat (off-menu). It was on the discovery channel (or NatGeo...don't remember). It's just taboo.

I also have no problem with people eating dogs. Dogs are just animals until you create emotional attachment to specific individuals. I would never eat my dog for the hell of it (I would if I were starving), but some dog I never met, sure. Same thing with the cow we had when I was a kid. I liked that cow in particular, but I still loved hamburgers.

 

[innonimatu]

I'm pretty sure we don't eat horse meat simply because it's not tender.

Exactly. Of "unusual" meats from animals which some people would not like eaten I've had opportunity to try horse and dolphin, and neither beats beef. Really, there's a reason why culturally we don't usually eat them, and it's not because they are "our animal friends", it's because we have better options.

And in any case I don't see why horses should deserve more consideration that cows.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Life facilitates death, and death facilitates life. The neverending cycle is part of nature, and unfortunately, it can't be gotten around. Be it a plant or an animal, life must be terminated to preserve other life.

Arguably, however, if we go the route that sentients have the superior right to life(as we do), then naturally plants get boned. A perfectly vegetarian society could hypothetically be possible, but then we have to keep the animals in check by other means.

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As for experiments and using them for labor, it really depends. Experiments may or may not be cruel, but I think we should focus more on helping our own people out before we care a bit about some damned animal. There are starving children all over the place, horrific diseases, crime, poverty, etc. and yet we care about the animals in captivity first? WHAT?! At least those animals get fed and have an attempt to reconstruct their natural environment!

This goes beyond species and into nations: people care more about people overseas than people in their own neighborhoods. WHAT.

 

[Narz]

A perfectly vegetarian society could hypothetically be possible, but then we have to keep the animals in check by other means.

Not really. Animals have managed to keep each other in check for millions of years. The reason they get "out of check" is because humans usually wipe out large predators wherever they go.

 

[Birdjaguar]

As we learn more and more about animals, what they can do and how they think, we have to keep redefining what it is to be human, so that we can maintain a firm line between us and animals. The more that line is blurred, the more the whole "rights" issue rears its complicating head.

 

[Kyriakos]

The ancient greek distinction between man and animal was that man is an "ellogon" being, which means that he has logic, or rather logos, which among other things means a language.
And although i think that the ability to think predates any ability to form words, nevertheless it would seem that complicated thought, and self-awareness in a deeper level, prerequisite a language, and moreover an advanced one.
Im not sure if any animals have a complicated way to communiocate with each other. I recall that some whales are said to have a highly intricate way of communicating, but obviously they arent able to advance at all, staying in their patterns of behaviour.
Man is clearly more advanced than animals of course, and one should not mix things up by making the mistake to attribute basic similarities between man and other organisms, appear to be more than just a basic common level of existence, shared by most (or all) living creatures in this planet.
An example of such a basic similarity - i think i already mentioned it (?) - is that of the fungus and its differentiation in its behavior depending on whether the environment is friendly (then it expands) or hostile (then it becomes very small, and alters its state to fight the threat). Likewise, at least in some analogy- but not in tautology- man flourishes when he is not in danger, but withers when in danger.
But such simillarities exist only in the basic level of existence, a level that man has in him, but which he routinely goes over, and expands himself in a myriad other ways.