The Animal Argument

[Orgazmo]

[Yesterday 09:12 AM] Dent: Cool! you can pretend you're in 21st century auschwitz with one of those. iAnimal - Animal Equality

[Yesterday 01:19 PM] Orgazmo: Are animal rights your cause currently, Dent?

[Yesterday 01:38 PM] Mr. Blonde: You don't even know

[Yesterday 01:38 PM] Mr. Blonde: Lol.

[Yesterday 01:38 PM] Mr. Blonde: one of the nobler gentlemen I know, Dent is

[Yesterday 01:38 PM] Mr. Blonde: but he may be a few centuries before his time

[Yesterday 01:39 PM] Mr. Blonde: that said he still has my unwavering support

[Yesterday 03:44 PM] Dent: I don't like rights/deontological stuff and relieving the max amount of suffering is my main focus - human, non-human and possibly digital or something else.

[Yesterday 03:44 PM] Dent: Tackling speciesism - treating other beings differently solely based on species membership is what i've been doing of late, but I've been poached(lol) by people who are very worried about an intelligence explosion spreading suffering throughout the universe, intentionally or not.

[Yesterday 03:55 PM] Dent: Not long moved to Kensington and I’m living on land Newton owned in 1716, there’s a Lambo 5 feet from the door right now, it’s not mine

[Yesterday 04:09 PM] Dent: Prolly Fc's

[Yesterday 04:40 PM] Mr. Blonde: Try to turn FC onto EA imho. Would be interesting

[Yesterday 04:40 PM] Mr. Blonde: back to VR: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/i-t...irtual-reality

[Yesterday 04:58 PM] Orgazmo: Oh nice. Dent, so do you treat all living things equally then? Curious how that works. My brother's girlfriend has a very similar outlook in life that I find to be pretty interesting. She takes it to an extreme I didn't realize anyone did. Curious if you're the same.

[Yesterday 05:12 PM] Dent: Not equally no, if there is an irreconcilable difference between two living things, anopheles mosquito vs human for example I value higher sentience/capacity to suffer more. Down with the Mosquito.

[Yesterday 05:20 PM] Dent: Maybe not a tactful thing to say, but pigs are as sentient and for what it's worth as sapient as prelinguistic toddlers, we don't treat toddlers who are born disabled or are unlikely to live past the age of three in the same way .

[Yesterday 05:21 PM] Dent: Both are worthy of care. Jeremy Bentham: “The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but "Can they suffer?”

[Yesterday 05:31 PM] Dent: Depending on whether you think humans will spread paradise or malaise throughout the galaxy you might want to give them some extra value to survive, I don’t know how likely it is that Roo's will evolve enough to get started on the project.

[Yesterday 11:20 PM] Mr. Blonde: The amount of time and consideration most humans give to the suffering of animals is fucking horrible

[Yesterday 11:47 PM] Orgazmo: Ya, pretty much 0 for me. I guess my justification is how shitty other animals are to one another (/r/natureismetal, anyone?)...but that's probably not great logic.

[Today 03:07 AM] Dent: Fetch the belt boy, don't you know dinosaurs used to exist? and mosquitoes still do!

[Today 03:08 AM] Dent: "We have enslaved the rest of animal creation and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form."

[Today 03:08 AM] Dent: "The animals you eat are not those who devour others; you do not eat the carnivorous beasts, you take them as your pattern. You only hunger for the sweet and gentle creatures which harm no one, which follow you, serve you, and are devoured by you as the reward of their service."

[Today 03:15 AM] Dent: Most of us already show compassion to some non-human animals, we just need to extend our circle of compassion. their actions are driven by selfish genes, it's no fault of their consciousness. It's also no fault of people that have been misled by the meat industry.

[Today 03:19 AM] Dent: Anyway you might be intellectually tickled by the "meat eating problem" - maybe the amount of suffering on pastures is less than what would have gone on in the forest that was there before it. The world may well contain less suffering now than it did a century ago, insect numbers are down. Still no excuse, we can do better.

[Today 11:46 AM] Repugnant Abomination: By saying it's just their selfish genes you're removing all responsibility. With that kind of deterministic view of human action you're undercutting your own argument, because nothing you say will, or even can, change their actions.

[Today 12:06 PM] Mr. Blonde: He's referring to the animals RE: selfish genes, not humans

[Today 01:36 PM] Dent: By 'their actions are driven by the selfish gene' I mean the reason why animals aren't super nice to one another is that in the ancestral landscape that type of behaviour was maladaptive.

[Today 01:36 PM] Dent: You must think pretty low of me if you think I accept genetic determinism.