Forest Board

Frieden-und Freudenland wrote:

I don't think suffering is related to IQ to be honest.

I am inclined to agree there. They might understand the suffering more, and mental suffering is likely linked to IQ, but if you're murdered, it hurts equally, even if you are a pig.

Frieden-und Freudenland wrote:

I don't think suffering is related to IQ to be honest.

The more aware of pain and suffering you as a concept the worse the pain and suffering is. Bugs don’t suffer as much as a dolphin can as an example. If you can’t contemplate death or pain beyond instinct then I think its a lot easier to accept death and pain. Cows for example suffer immensely when they know they are going to be slaughtered. But if you separate them, do it behind closed doors and make sure they can’t anticipate being slaughtered they are less upset. Death being instant, there is no time for them to suffer.

I’d argue that some Down Syndrome people suffer less as well, because some are often ignorant to the horrible things around them.

Perhaps IQ is not a factor, but certainly awareness which is tied in someways to IQ.

The criteria for which animals can suffer is essentially whether we can anthropomorphize them or not. If you don't see animal x as being human-like then sorry, it's f*cked. Never mind that honey bees are able to perform complex calculations, develop their own problem solving skills and even distinguish between different human faces. This makes them more intelligent than some mammals, even if we erroneously give human traits to those mammals.

Mount Seymour wrote:

No, if you're a vegan, you will in fact die.

[marches around the RMB with "Entropy Kills!" picket sign]

Einswenn wrote:

There's no such thing as "grow up" when it comes to naturally sensitive people. I am not one of such but I do know many of different age. It's not about mental maturity. It's the same as your ability to tolerate pain on different level than the others, but with moral/mental triggers/irritators instead. I got what you mean but I couldn't help resist to reply to it.

I suppose seeking the assistance of qualified professionals to deal with anxeity or related issues is part of "growing up." I can see how my specific phrasing might have seemed dismissive, but I stand by the general notion. Speaking as someone who's done the panic attack thing at work/in public more than once.

Uan aa Boa wrote:

Don't you miss bacon? Do you eat fish? Where do you get your protein? Why are vegans so judgmental? What are your shoes made of? I tried going veggie once but I only lasted a week. Would you eat meat if you were starving? If everyone went vegan farmers would go out of business/what would happen to all the animals? Do you take a vitamin supplement? What about vitamin B12? What does vegan cheese taste like? Did you know that plants feel pain/bread actually has meat in it/humans are naturally omnivores? I don't agree with PETA. Don't you think humans are more important than animals? If you had a dog would you make it vegan?

An Internet quiz!

Uan aa Boa wrote:

While The Cypher Nine likes to see some missionary fervour, to be honest I don't really have the energy.

I've found hosting a vegan/vegetarian meal to be highly effective in at least convincing people they won't immediately die. A lot of the time, they actually like it. Although I'm just following Isa Chandra's recipe's most of the time.

Uan aa Boa wrote:

Lentils are a path to many abilities, some of them considered... unnatural.

[stumbling walk]

Beans....BBBEEEAAAANNNSSSS!

Imperium helvetiorum wrote:

Only tangentially related, but I sometimes wonder why it is okay for us to eat livestock meat but not meat prepared from cats, dogs, et cetera. People often say that it's somehow cruel to eat cat/dog/etc meat, and I somewhat agree with the sentiment, but why are farm animals any different? (For the record, I'm not a vegan.)

Cats and dogs have been accepted into the human social group, originally for their utility (hunting, guarding, killing pests, etc). At no point hundreds of thousands of years ago did cows start following humans around while providing precisely the same utility, so that particular variety of domestication didn't occur. It probably helps that cats and dogs are socially sophisticated in a way that cows are not, which is to say that humans, cats, and dogs don't herd in precisely the same way cows do.

Of course, if avoiding unnecessary suffering on the part of any animal capable of experiencing it is ethically important, then none of this is particularly relevant.

The Cypher Nine wrote:

Cats and dogs are much more intelligent and thus have a greater degree of suffering than most farm animals theoretically. Killing of pigs is abhorrent though, thats like slaughtering a small child.

Intelligence and suffering are tangentially related, at best. Again, we can go to certain IRL trolley problems to demonstrate that it can be ethically permissible to favor one individual/group over another, even if both are equally intelligent.

Don't confuse sapience with sentience. Such confusion is probably the origin of speciesism.

The Cypher Nine wrote:

Perhaps IQ is not a factor, but certainly awareness which is tied in someways to IQ.

IQ is racist and economically tone-deaf statistical chicanery that needs to go away.

Terrabod wrote:

The criteria for which animals can suffer is essentially whether we can anthropomorphize them or not.

More likely, it whether the animal in question can be reasonably expected to experience pain, anticipate it, and take active measures to avoid it. The ability to anticipate and prepare for future eventualities helps.

Such non-humans share characteristics with humans, sure, but that's not particularly surprising given how evolution works.

Nattily Dressed Anarchists on Bicycles wrote:

More likely, it whether the animal in question can be reasonably expected to experience pain, anticipate it, and take active measures to avoid it. The ability to anticipate and prepare for future eventualities helps.

Such non-humans share characteristics with humans, sure, but that's not particularly surprising given how evolution works.

Of course some non-human animals share traits with humans, like the ability to walk on two legs or to communicate verbally, but this doesn't mean we should attribute human motivation, characteristics or behaviour to those animals in a way that we don't for animals that do not walk on two legs or do not communicate verbally. My point was that if a non-human animal doesn't look or behave in a way that's familiar (human-like) to us then we value their suffering less by default regardless of the factors you mention.

Ftr, I am vegetarian and my brother vegan (I'm working on it smh), and I can assure you that we are, statistically speaking, most likely to one day eventually die.

Jutsa wrote:

Ftr, I am vegetarian and my brother vegan (I'm working on it smh), and I can assure you that we are, statistically speaking, most likely to one day eventually die.

Correlation does not equal causation, Mr. Jutsa. It is disingenuous to try to imply that not eating meat causes death. 😤

Terrabod wrote:

Of course some non-human animals share traits with humans, like the ability to walk on two legs or to communicate verbally, but this doesn't mean we should attribute human motivation, characteristics or behaviour to those animals in a way that we don't for animals that do not walk on two legs or do not communicate verbally. My point was that if a non-human animal doesn't look or behave in a way that's familiar (human-like) to us then we value their suffering less by default regardless of the factors you mention.

We might be talking past each other, but I wouldn't attribute human motivations etc. to non-humans either. I'd simply posit that recognizing that non-humans can have their own motivations and cognitions does not mean we are "anthropomorphizing" so much as we are simply recognizing animal behavior.

If that behavior includes the ability to hold preferences and suffer for their loss, then concluding that non-humans are due ethical consideration is not that great a leap.

Nattily Dressed Anarchists on Bicycles wrote:

We might be talking past each other, but I wouldn't attribute human motivations etc. to non-humans either. I'd simply posit that recognizing that non-humans can have their own motivations and cognitions does not mean we are "anthropomorphizing" so much as we are simply recognizing animal behavior.

If that behavior includes the ability to hold preferences and suffer for their loss, then concluding that non-humans are due ethical consideration is not that great a leap.

I think we're in agreement here. My point is just that we don't live in an ideal world and research shows that due ethical consideration isn't handed out on a scientific basis but on a basis that's tainted with human prejudice. For example, giving dogs human characteristics (like "he/she is a good listener") makes people more invested in the dogs' safety and welfare compared to when the dogs' behaviour is described accurately. This might be beneficial because it tells us how we can encourage people to care for animals but it also shows that if we can't see a particular animal's behaviour through a human lens then our bias denies that animal due ethical consideration for no legitimate reason.

The best thing I've read in a while.

Uan aa Boa wrote:

This is simply not true, as evidenced by vegans not dying.

Mount Seymour wrote:

No, if you're a vegan, you will in fact die.

Jutsa wrote:

Ftr, I am vegetarian and my brother vegan (I'm working on it smh), and I can assure you that we are, statistically speaking, most likely to one day eventually die.

Isbjorn Maerenne Bava Paerani wrote:

Correlation does not equal causation, Mr. Jutsa. It is disingenuous to try to imply that not eating meat causes death. 😤

I'd like to just point out that not only are there no vegans who are dead, but moreover that nobody who has never heard of vegans will ever, never die, either. So to be clear, nobody will die. And that's that.

Hippity hoppity hi there friends!

Hello from the Alps!

Ok I have moved here!

Einswenn wrote:

Thanks for sharing! This clarifies my question's matter too, I appreciate it. But as for the outside part, even if you're okay with your counterpart ordering meat dish do you still feel somewhat uncomfortable because of that, if I may ask?

Not really.

BREAKING NEWS: ThatVeganTeacher is now banned at TikTok

Jutsa wrote:

...people who are vegetarian might, at some point, become statistically more likely to live forever, although, again, this is not statistically very likely.

We'll sure as hell die trying.

Terrabod wrote:

I think we're in agreement here. My point is just that we don't live in an ideal world and research shows that due ethical consideration isn't handed out on a scientific basis but on a basis that's tainted with human prejudice. For example, giving dogs human characteristics (like "he/she is a good listener") makes people more invested in the dogs' safety and welfare compared to when the dogs' behaviour is described accurately. This might be beneficial because it tells us how we can encourage people to care for animals but it also shows that if we can't see a particular animal's behaviour through a human lens then our bias denies that animal due ethical consideration for no legitimate reason.

I agree that everything is affected by our human lens but there is no way around that. If you start to look at this from the bottom up you see science does inform the foundation of how we treat animals and then in turn our lens decodes that information. You don’t care what happens to rocks right? Because rocks aren’t alive and we have a high degree of confidence that rocks are not alive. But why is it that you care more about things that are alive vs. not? Well, because you are alive of course. Why else?

Some of you will find this a ridiculous argument but if agree that all creatures should be treated ethically equally(An ant vs a dog) you will start to run into logical inconsistencies on how you arrived there. There is no difference to prefering Alive to Inert in our ethical standards and prefering animals that have additional human traits. And it would be absurd for me to expect you to treat rocks ethically just in case we simply don’t understand them through a human lens.

That being said, I purposefully avoid stepping on ants and bugs even though in some ways its logically inconsistent with what I know. I am nice to my anthropormophic AI devices despite the likelyhood they aren’t sentient. But if other people don’t do that, I am not sure I can fault them on it. That applies to all animals as well.

The only thing we can hold people accountable to ethically is on things we know.

Kepler-0085 wrote:

BTW WHO THE HELL IS VOTING HERE AGAINST CONDEMNING LILY?

That looks a little bit illogical to me but I can’t say I am surprised though. Apart from raiders themselves, there could be many people who don’t like the language of the proposal or who don’t even know who are those Lily guys (the name of the region seem nice comparing to, say, The Black Hawks, and not everyone reads proposals’ body).

Kepler-0085 wrote:

BTW WHO THE HELL IS VOTING HERE AGAINST CONDEMNING LILY?

Me. They have raided all my puppet dumps, and I don't like them, but I'll just point to my earlier comment:

Garbelia wrote:

I think there are going to a lot of badly-written SC proposals that are quick-writes to get on the back of the Embassy invasion. About half the queue is 'Repeal Liberate The Embassy' or 'Condemn ___', they were involved in the raid.

Basically, it's people wanting one of those shiny badges, and using The Embassy to do it.

I want Lily to be condemned, but firstly, it is a badly written bandwagon proposal, and secondly, raiders want to be condemned. They see it as a symbol of their power, or similar.

Edit: Completely unrelated, but I found this satisfying thing at the bottom of my nation page. "Garbelia is ranked 5,444th in the world and 54th in Forest"

Einswenn wrote:

That looks a little bit illogical to me but I can’t say I am surprised though. Apart from raiders themselves, there could be many people who don’t like the language of the proposal or who don’t even know who are those Lily guys (the name of the region seem nice comparing to, say, The Black Hawks, and not everyone reads proposals’ body).

Garbelia wrote:

Me. They have raided all my puppet dumps, and I don't like them, but I'll just point to my earlier comment:
I want Lily to be condemned, but firstly, it is a badly written bandwagon proposal, and secondly, raiders want to be condemned. They see it as a symbol of their power, or similar.

True :(