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Wolfram87
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20 Jul 2015, 9:58 am

Amity wrote:
Torturing animals like this is completely unnecessary, they know they are going to die, its a simulation of the fear invoked in a hunted animal, except a hunted animal has a chance of escape.


And no hunter worth the name would willingly inflict this sort of suffering on any animal. Vegans are not the greatest animal lovers, hunters are.


BirdInFlight wrote:

It's also not anthropomorphizing to acknowledge that animals are as capable as we are of:

Fear
Panic
Distress
Fight or flight adrenaline rush
Anger-type reactions
Bonding (oxtyocin is in animals too, not just us)
Distress reaction from bonds broken or bonded animal witnessed suffering


Emotional reactions have an evolutionary basis, no one is contesting this.

The key word here is the little word "as". These things are not binaries. I acknowledge that other animals are capable of all these things. I contest that they are capable of it to the same extent that we are, for we are extraordinarily capable of them. A deer may have a new calf every second year or so, and will drive it off after some time even if she's not having a new one. If the calf dies, she might be distressed, but she will not be crippled by grief, and is likely to have a new calf next year.

As for humans, our brains really are an aberration in the animal kingdom. We survive almost exclusively because of it. Compared to other primates, we are extremely weak. Because of our large heads, human birth is particularly traumatic, leaving mother and child vulnerable and relying on others for survival. Because of our big brain, we require extraordinary amounts of nourishment growing up. Because of our big brains, we are children for longer than most other animals are alive. Because of all the above, our emotional reactions and bonds have had to be proportionally stronger than most other animals, and this is why even most other mammals are not "as" capable of these things.


Quote:
The people who talk condescendingly about "anthropomorphizing" forget one important thing:

WE ARE ANIMALS ALSO.

We are mammals.


So are rats.

And so are elephants.

Are you contending that a rat, with a brain the size of a pea, is "as capable" of such emotions as is a four year old human child? (That is roughly the same intelligence level as an adult elephant.)

People "talk condescendingly" about anthropomorphization because it's a very, very important thing to avoid while studying animals. Many species mating is pretty violent, but that does not mean we can judge it and call it "rape". Rat fathers need to be kept away from the offspring while raising rats, or the female offspring run the risk of dying from what I will simply term "fatal impregnation". Are rat males evil, as we would term a human engaging in equivalent behaviour, or is that just a consequence of their explosive breeding style? Animals have to be viewed on their own terms, not ours.

Quote:
All this is traditionally pooh poohed as "anthropomorphizing" when in fact these things are true and it's we who have decided to elevate ourselves by claiming to be the only mammals who "developed" these traits, then naming them our own human names such as "love" etc.


Why are you putting "emotions" in quotes, like it's not a valid term? Emotions are emotions. Just because other animals don't have words for them does not invalidate our words for them. And the mere fact that other animals experience attraction and urges does not mean that they have all the bells and whistles that come with the term "love" for humans. Considering the rather long list of things done by humans in the name of love that run quite counter to increased likelyhood for survival, had other animals had the same thing in the same way, they would die out. My point is that not all animals are the same, and humans are pretty different from most animals. If elephants bonded for life (they don't), I think a case might be made for them having something that could be termed "love". Maternal love, perhaps. Also, elephants are one of very few animals that seen to exhibit grief.

Quote:
The issue here is a pretty freaking simple one.

It's not about "ooh don't eat that, in my country that's a pet"

Its not about "I eat meat but ooh YOU shouldn't kill that doggie for food"

IT'S ABOUT "WHAT THE CRAP ARE YOU TREATING THEM THIS INHUMANELY FOR?"


1: Who are you saying disagrees that this is the issue?

2: I explained exactly why they are torturing animals and exactly what I think about this reason.

3: Why are you suggesting that having a more nuanced discussion somehow constitutes agreeing with the opposite of your position?

4: The reason I brought up the "it's bad to eat dog" reaction, is because I've seen that exact reaction in other discussions about this exact festival, and I brought it up exactly because of how badly it missed the point.


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Amity
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20 Jul 2015, 11:52 am

Wolfram87 wrote:
Amity wrote:
Torturing animals like this is completely unnecessary, they know they are going to die, its a simulation of the fear invoked in a hunted animal, except a hunted animal has a chance of escape.


And no hunter worth the name would willingly inflict this sort of suffering on any animal. Vegans are not the greatest animal lovers, hunters are.

Maybe I am having difficulty understanding your perspective, but I don't quite agree with your last statement.

I don't believe that the Yulin Festival can be placed in the same category as hunting, consider canned hunting, the tame/game animal is 'hunted' in an enclosed space removing the element of fair chase, but its generally not recognised as hunting because there is no escape for the game.

I don't understand this cultural tradition, (Mao from what I understand was not fond of pets, he considered pet ownership to be bourgeois/rebellious) but its not about hunting, its more akin to a market festival for specialised livestock produce. China does not have an established relationship with humane slaughter methods, or animal rights; extend to cats and dogs the same slaughter methods as the other domesticated livestock in China and imo that is a realistic outcome, to each their own. (I like that Hindus do not force their ideology onto me, the cow is sacred, yet they tolerate others who do not share that belief.)



kamiyu910
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20 Jul 2015, 12:06 pm

I think everyone is agreeing here, but maybe emotions are getting in the way? I understand, and agree, with what Wolfram is saying. I grew up on a farm and we treated our animals with great care and made sure they were happy and comfortable come butchering day, feeding them their favorite treat before the final blow. I have been called a lot of things by vegans/vegetarians, doesn't make it true. I *have* to eat meat. My diet restrictions are so severe now I can't not eat meat unless I want to die of starvation.

And though I have to eat meat, and don't care what kind of meat it is (I've seen plenty of strays who have no love for humans, and the relationship between owner and dog on a farm tends to be different than that in the city - dog being a worker rather than a pampered pet), I can also be against the cruel treatment of animals. I think that suffering actually makes the meat worse, makes it tougher, full of acid. I want my animals to be treated with decency, not shoved into a cage packed full of other animals.

In China, I got to see all sorts of examples of animal cruelty. Please don't google the Moon Bear in China, but that's another thing they do that I abhor. They keep these bears in cages with their insides open so they can drain their bile for their supposed medical reasons (that have been proven time and again to be wrong). They have absolutely no respect for animals, and their belief that torture makes things better is damaging. They also have very little respect for humans, too. I saw many people on the streets, and no one cares about the homeless there. It's such a vastly different world there, and it's hard to change such strong beliefs, no matter how unfounded and cruel they are. Especially when so many still hold strong to those beliefs. All we can do is keep trying.

Also, no true hunter (sport hunters don't count) would willingly inflict such pain and torture on any animal. I have seen nature at work, I have seen how no creature in nature has any ounce of caring for their prey or for others. It is a fight or flight to survive, everyone creature for itself out there. How many videos of animals getting eaten alive are there? I have personally seen this happen. Cats are especially notorious for purposefully torturing an animal for sometimes hours before killing it. And they kill for fun. I have watched spiders and praying mantids eat their prey alive. Tarantula hawks paralyze their prey and lay eggs in them so the young can eat the spider alive. Nature is cruel and uncaring, with no respect for life. No empathy.

We have empathy, we can make lives easier, deaths quicker and with less pain. We have that ability and we should use it, not succumb to being like the animals, inflicting pain and torture.


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Wolfram87
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20 Jul 2015, 12:27 pm

Amity wrote:
Wolfram87 wrote:
Amity wrote:
Torturing animals like this is completely unnecessary, they know they are going to die, its a simulation of the fear invoked in a hunted animal, except a hunted animal has a chance of escape.


And no hunter worth the name would willingly inflict this sort of suffering on any animal. Vegans are not the greatest animal lovers, hunters are.

Maybe I am having difficulty understanding your perspective, but I don't quite agree with your last statement.


I don't mean to say vegans aren't animal lovers. I mean to say that hunters are often placed on the wrong end of the scale in that regard. Historically, hunters tend to be the group most dedicated to wildlife preservation, even with regards to non-hunted species.

Modern hunting places heavy emphasis on ethics and on ecology, and the hunting is done in such a way as to be beneficial for the local population of the animal hunted and/or as a measure to balance out the population so as not to upset the ecosystem vis-à-vis other local species. Hunters are also absolutely integral in modern methods of monitoring population growth of wild animals, and also serving as early detection for disease breakouts and thinning populations to mitigate such outbreaks. I could go on for a bit about this, but it might in fact be worth a thread of its own.

Quote:
I don't believe that the Yulin Festival can be placed in the same category as hunting, consider canned hunting, the tame/game animal is 'hunted' in an enclosed space removing the element of fair chase, but its generally not recognised as hunting because there is no escape for the game.


Oh, absolutely not. I would argue that Yulin is the polar opposite of hunting: one is attempting to kill a wild animal with the least amount of pain, the other torturing a caged (and possibly tame) animal for as long as you can.


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Amity
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20 Jul 2015, 1:00 pm

Wolfram87 wrote:
Amity wrote:
Wolfram87 wrote:
Amity wrote:
Torturing animals like this is completely unnecessary, they know they are going to die, its a simulation of the fear invoked in a hunted animal, except a hunted animal has a chance of escape.


And no hunter worth the name would willingly inflict this sort of suffering on any animal. Vegans are not the greatest animal lovers, hunters are.

Maybe I am having difficulty understanding your perspective, but I don't quite agree with your last statement.


I don't mean to say vegans aren't animal lovers. I mean to say that hunters are often placed on the wrong end of the scale in that regard. Historically, hunters tend to be the group most dedicated to wildlife preservation, even with regards to non-hunted species.

Modern hunting places heavy emphasis on ethics and on ecology, and the hunting is done in such a way as to be beneficial for the local population of the animal hunted and/or as a measure to balance out the population so as not to upset the ecosystem vis-à-vis other local species. Hunters are also absolutely integral in modern methods of monitoring population growth of wild animals, and also serving as early detection for disease breakouts and thinning populations to mitigate such outbreaks. I could go on for a bit about this, but it might in fact be worth a thread of its own.

I understand, thanks for clarifying and can agree with hunting as a form of pest control, or keeping an ecosystem in balance.