Then there is your family, your education, and your emotions (if seeing a man get tortured doesn't bother you more than seeing a fly get its wings ripped off... he).
The law? Yeah OK, interesting But it's only 'our' law, made for humans, by humans, and of course, we're more than a little biased.
As for the others...
family: animals have families too, and I see no inherent reason why the well-being and continuation of animal families should not be equally important to us as our own. Unless you want to argue for 'survival of the fittest', which is just a glorified version of 'animal pitted against animal' anyway, by the way.
education: education is merely what we surround ourselves with in a culture. How we are brought up. We are brought up by others - who in turn have been brought up by those before them, etc. - to believe that humans are inherently of more value than animals. Note that I said 'inherently'. You may believe we are, but this is not objectively true.
emotions: I don't mind seeing a fly die (most insect lifespans are not more than a few days anyway). But it saddens me to see species of animals killed out as much as it does humans. That may be ridiculous, but it's just me. Point is, emotions are objective too. They are as varied as human beings are. Neither do they provide an inherent reason for the superiority of humans.
'We're learning songs for baby Jesus' birthday. His mum and dad were Merry and Joseph. He had a bed made of clay and the three kings bought him Gold, Frankenstein and Merv as presents.'
The least intelligent human being in the world is of greater value than any animal.
Have you ever heard of Darwinism?
Humans are not inherently superior to any other living organism on this planet. It's only our delusions that make us think we are.
Have you ever heard of Darwinism?
Humans are not inherently superior to any other living organism on this planet. It's only our delusions that make us think we are.
I watched a lecture recently that suggests every lifeform on the planet is equally as evolved. They used the example of a type of creature that is solar powered, it consumes some kind of chemical that allows it to collect energy from the sun. I thought that was pretty amazing.
I still eat chicken though.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
I watched a lecture recently that suggests every lifeform on the planet is equally as evolved. They used the example of a type of creature that is solar powered, it consumes some kind of chemical that allows it to collect energy from the sun. I thought that was pretty amazing.
I still eat chicken though.
That does sound pretty interesting. I don't suppose they had a website?
I eat chicken too. Chicken. Yum.
'We're learning songs for baby Jesus' birthday. His mum and dad were Merry and Joseph. He had a bed made of clay and the three kings bought him Gold, Frankenstein and Merv as presents.'
That does sound pretty interesting. I don't suppose they had a website?
I eat chicken too. Chicken. Yum.
A solar-powered sea slug
Kevin Kelly traces the remarkable similarities between the evolution of biology and technology, ultimately declaring technology the "7th kingdom of life." He poses an intriguing question: "What does technology want?" As we hurdle forward, evolving increasingly complex, biological and independent machines, how will it affect our humanity? Kelly, widely regarded as an expert on digital culture, has played leading roles at the Whole Earth Review (editor), Wired Magazine (founding executive editor), the WELL (co-founder), and the All-Species Foundation (co-founder). He's author of several books, including Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World. (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 20:39) http://ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=k_kelly
Which raised the question, if white is the total reflection of light and black is the total collection of light, then do dark skinned people collect more energy from the sun?
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
The least intelligent human being in the world is of greater value than any animal.
'In Much of their history and all of prehistory, humans did not see themselves as being any different from the other animals among which they lived. Hunter-gatherers saw their prey as equals, if not superiors, and animals were worshipped as divinities in many traditional cultures. The humanist sense of a gulf between ourselves and other animals is an aberration. It is the animist feeling of belonging with the rest of nature that is normal. Feeble as it may be today, the feeling of sharing a common destiny with other living things is embedded in the human psyche. Those who struggle to conserve what is left of the environment are moved by the love of living things, biophilia, the frail bond of feeling that ties humankind to the earth.
The mass of mankind is ruled not by it's intermittant moral sensations, still less by self-interest, but by the needs of the moment. It seems fated to wreck the balance of life on Earth - and thereby to be the agent of it's own destruction. What could be more hopeless than placing the Earth in the charge of this exceptionally destructive species? It is not of becoming the planet's wise stewards that Earth lovers dream, but of a time when humans have ceased to exist.'
John Gray - 'Straw Dogs - Thoughts on humans and other animals'
This is fascinating. But do humans not extract vitamin D (I think) as well as other nutrients from the sun?
'We're learning songs for baby Jesus' birthday. His mum and dad were Merry and Joseph. He had a bed made of clay and the three kings bought him Gold, Frankenstein and Merv as presents.'
This is fascinating. But do humans not extract vitamin D (I think) as well as other nutrients from the sun?
We do, but I think we get the majority of our nutrients from plant life that is specialized for absorbing sunlight.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
We do, but I think we get the majority of our nutrients from plant life that is specialized for absorbing sunlight.
Yes, and I guess this adds to the argument that animals have evolved 'differently', but not necessarily 'less' than humans.
'We're learning songs for baby Jesus' birthday. His mum and dad were Merry and Joseph. He had a bed made of clay and the three kings bought him Gold, Frankenstein and Merv as presents.'
Yes, and I guess this adds to the argument that animals have evolved 'differently', but not necessarily 'less' than humans.
Not necessarily any more or less than plants either.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
'For Jaques Monod, one of the founders of molecular biology, life is a fluke which cannot be deduced from the nature of things, but once it has emerged, it evolves by the natural selection of random mutations. The human species is no different from any other in being a lucky throw in the cosmic lottery.
This is a hard truth for us to accept. As monod writes ' The liberal societies of the West still pay lip-service to, and present as a basis for morality, a disgusting farrago of Judeo-Christian religiosity, scientistic progressism, belief in the "natural" rights of manand utlitarian pragmatism'. Man must set these errors aside and accept that his/her existence is entirely irrational. He 'must at last awake out of his millenary dream and discover his total solitude, his fundamental isolation. He must realise that, like a gypsy, he lives on the boundary of an alien world; a world that is deaf to his music and as indifferent to his hopes as it is to his suffering and his crimes'.
Monod is right to accept the fact that humans are no different from other animals. He does not accept it himself. He rightly scorns the modern worldviewbut his own philosophy is another version of the same sordid mishmash. For Monod, humanity is a uniquelt priveleged species. It alone knows that it's existence is an accident, and it alone can take charge of it's destiny. Like the Christians, Monod believes humankind finds itself in an alien world, and insists that it must make a choice between good and evil: 'The kingdom above or the darkness below: it is for him to choose'. In this fantasy, mankind in future will be different not only from any other animal but also from anything it has ever been. The Christians who resisted Darwins theory feared that it left humanity looking insignificant. They need not have worried. Darwinism has been used to put humankind back on it's pedestal.
Like amny others, Monod runs togethertwo irreconcilable philosiphies - hmananism and maturalism. Darwin's theory shows the truth of naturalism: We are animalslike any other; our fate and that of the rest of life on Earth are the same. Yet, in an irony all the more exquisite because no one has noticed it, Darwinism is now the central prop of the humanist faith that we can transcend our animal natures and rule the Earth.'
John Gray - 'Straw Dogs - Thoughts on humans and other animals'
Not necessarily any more or less than plants either.
Indeed.
'We're learning songs for baby Jesus' birthday. His mum and dad were Merry and Joseph. He had a bed made of clay and the three kings bought him Gold, Frankenstein and Merv as presents.'
Think you're better evolved than a fish? Ever tried to breathe underwater?
I don't think so. Differently evolved would be a more appropriate choice of words. I don't think there's any rational argument that you can make about our evolution or biology or intelligence that makes a human life inherently more valuable than any other life.
To humans a human life is more valuable than an animal life, simply because we're human and we depend on each other. To an ant a human life is no more valuable than an ant's life is to a human. In fact, a dead human would be far more valuable to an ant, because it would be a source of food. . . See what I'm getting at?
what can i say this post, you are right......
all that i want is for people to respect everything that's around them, that's all....
These photos were taken in the back alley of a chicken slaughterhouse in Vancouver Canada Thursday night. They are a bit out of order, but the baby chicken you will see in some of the photos was found standing beside 8 garbage barrels in the alley after a day of slaughter. These barrels were full of dead chickens. It is common practice for these slaughterhouses to simply throw sick or underdevoloped chickens into the trash to either die of exposure, suffocation, or crushed at the rendering plant. I've heard that this happens all the time, but to come across this tiny defenseless creature shivering in the alley surrounded by blood and death....it broke my heart. She is now at my house nice and warm, eating and drinking, finally away from the life of abuse which is all she has known up until now. She will be going to a farm sanctuary tommorow.
The rest of the photos were all taken from the alley. I did not need to enter the facility to get these, so you can imagine what it's like in the rooms I couldn't see. This "production" facility sends there chicken products to stores like Safeway and KFC. This is the true face of the meat industry and only a small portion of the horrible violence and abuse that goes on so people can get their "protien", which they could also get without this carnage.
for people to respect everything that's around them, that's all....
The native american way... respect for mother earth and all her creatures. We all (humans, animals & plants) have our place and purpose on earth and our lives are interlaced (though I'm not sure where the cockroaches fit in!).
I guess animals (including humans) and plants have evolved in the way they need to be able to survive. We just survive differently - no one specie is better than the other - just different.
The native american way... respect for mother earth and all her creatures. We all (humans, animals & plants) have our place and purpose on earth and our lives are interlaced (though I'm not sure where the cockroaches fit in!).
I guess animals (including humans) and plants have evolved in the way they need to be able to survive. We just survive differently - no one specie is better than the other - just different.
I watched a lecture recently that suggests every lifeform on the planet is equally as evolved. They used the example of a type of creature that is solar powered, it consumes some kind of chemical that allows it to collect energy from the sun. I thought that was pretty amazing.
Are you being funny?
It doesn't matter if you're male, female, or confused; black, white, brown, red, green, yellow; gay, lesbian; redneck cop, stoned; ugly; military style, doggy style; fat, rich or poor; vegetarian or cannibal; bum, hippie, virgin; famous or drunk-you're either an asshole or you're not!
These photos were taken in the back alley of a chicken slaughterhouse in Vancouver Canada Thursday night. They are a bit out of order, but the baby chicken you will see in some of the photos was found standing beside 8 garbage barrels in the alley after a day of slaughter. These barrels were full of dead chickens. It is common practice for these slaughterhouses to simply throw sick or underdevoloped chickens into the trash to either die of exposure, suffocation, or crushed at the rendering plant. I've heard that this happens all the time, but to come across this tiny defenseless creature shivering in the alley surrounded by blood and death....it broke my heart. She is now at my house nice and warm, eating and drinking, finally away from the life of abuse which is all she has known up until now. She will be going to a farm sanctuary tommorow.
The rest of the photos were all taken from the alley. I did not need to enter the facility to get these, so you can imagine what it's like in the rooms I couldn't see. This "production" facility sends there chicken products to stores like Safeway and KFC. This is the true face of the meat industry and only a small portion of the horrible violence and abuse that goes on so people can get their "protien", which they could also get without this carnage.
Really makes me want to not eat meat ever again. That place looked really unhealthy. You should send the pics to a news station.
Oh, ok, nudibranchs. I missed that. I thought you were being a smartarse and just talking about plants.
Actually, just for interest's sake, symbiotic partnerships between marine invertebrates and photosynthetic algae are extremely common, particularly on coral reefs. There are hundreds of species of coral, anemones, nudibranchs and clams with similar relationships with sybiotic algae. They allow those organisms to survive in extremely oligotrophic (nutrient poor) waters.
It doesn't matter if you're male, female, or confused; black, white, brown, red, green, yellow; gay, lesbian; redneck cop, stoned; ugly; military style, doggy style; fat, rich or poor; vegetarian or cannibal; bum, hippie, virgin; famous or drunk-you're either an asshole or you're not!
Comments
I am as atheist as it gets and I distingush that people are more important than chickens.
I agree with this.
naděje umírá poslední
The law? Yeah OK, interesting
As for the others...
family: animals have families too, and I see no inherent reason why the well-being and continuation of animal families should not be equally important to us as our own. Unless you want to argue for 'survival of the fittest', which is just a glorified version of 'animal pitted against animal' anyway, by the way.
education: education is merely what we surround ourselves with in a culture. How we are brought up. We are brought up by others - who in turn have been brought up by those before them, etc. - to believe that humans are inherently of more value than animals. Note that I said 'inherently'. You may believe we are, but this is not objectively true.
emotions: I don't mind seeing a fly die (most insect lifespans are not more than a few days anyway). But it saddens me to see species of animals killed out as much as it does humans. That may be ridiculous, but it's just me. Point is, emotions are objective too. They are as varied as human beings are. Neither do they provide an inherent reason for the superiority of humans.
- the great Sir Leo Harrison
What? Even Palestinians and Iraqi's?
Have you ever heard of Darwinism?
Humans are not inherently superior to any other living organism on this planet. It's only our delusions that make us think we are.
I watched a lecture recently that suggests every lifeform on the planet is equally as evolved. They used the example of a type of creature that is solar powered, it consumes some kind of chemical that allows it to collect energy from the sun. I thought that was pretty amazing.
I still eat chicken though.
That does sound pretty interesting. I don't suppose they had a website?
I eat chicken too. Chicken. Yum.
- the great Sir Leo Harrison
A solar-powered sea slug
Kevin Kelly traces the remarkable similarities between the evolution of biology and technology, ultimately declaring technology the "7th kingdom of life." He poses an intriguing question: "What does technology want?" As we hurdle forward, evolving increasingly complex, biological and independent machines, how will it affect our humanity? Kelly, widely regarded as an expert on digital culture, has played leading roles at the Whole Earth Review (editor), Wired Magazine (founding executive editor), the WELL (co-founder), and the All-Species Foundation (co-founder). He's author of several books, including Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World. (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 20:39)
http://ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=k_kelly
I also just read this article
http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_green_040520.html
Which raised the question, if white is the total reflection of light and black is the total collection of light, then do dark skinned people collect more energy from the sun?
http://www.seaslugforum.net/factsheet.cfm?base=solarpow
'In Much of their history and all of prehistory, humans did not see themselves as being any different from the other animals among which they lived. Hunter-gatherers saw their prey as equals, if not superiors, and animals were worshipped as divinities in many traditional cultures. The humanist sense of a gulf between ourselves and other animals is an aberration. It is the animist feeling of belonging with the rest of nature that is normal. Feeble as it may be today, the feeling of sharing a common destiny with other living things is embedded in the human psyche. Those who struggle to conserve what is left of the environment are moved by the love of living things, biophilia, the frail bond of feeling that ties humankind to the earth.
The mass of mankind is ruled not by it's intermittant moral sensations, still less by self-interest, but by the needs of the moment. It seems fated to wreck the balance of life on Earth - and thereby to be the agent of it's own destruction. What could be more hopeless than placing the Earth in the charge of this exceptionally destructive species? It is not of becoming the planet's wise stewards that Earth lovers dream, but of a time when humans have ceased to exist.'
John Gray - 'Straw Dogs - Thoughts on humans and other animals'
Yes, forgot to add that, written by Douglas Adams.
naděje umírá poslední
This is fascinating. But do humans not extract vitamin D (I think) as well as other nutrients from the sun?
- the great Sir Leo Harrison
We do, but I think we get the majority of our nutrients from plant life that is specialized for absorbing sunlight.
Yes, and I guess this adds to the argument that animals have evolved 'differently', but not necessarily 'less' than humans.
- the great Sir Leo Harrison
Not necessarily any more or less than plants either.
This is a hard truth for us to accept. As monod writes ' The liberal societies of the West still pay lip-service to, and present as a basis for morality, a disgusting farrago of Judeo-Christian religiosity, scientistic progressism, belief in the "natural" rights of manand utlitarian pragmatism'. Man must set these errors aside and accept that his/her existence is entirely irrational. He 'must at last awake out of his millenary dream and discover his total solitude, his fundamental isolation. He must realise that, like a gypsy, he lives on the boundary of an alien world; a world that is deaf to his music and as indifferent to his hopes as it is to his suffering and his crimes'.
Monod is right to accept the fact that humans are no different from other animals. He does not accept it himself. He rightly scorns the modern worldviewbut his own philosophy is another version of the same sordid mishmash. For Monod, humanity is a uniquelt priveleged species. It alone knows that it's existence is an accident, and it alone can take charge of it's destiny. Like the Christians, Monod believes humankind finds itself in an alien world, and insists that it must make a choice between good and evil: 'The kingdom above or the darkness below: it is for him to choose'. In this fantasy, mankind in future will be different not only from any other animal but also from anything it has ever been. The Christians who resisted Darwins theory feared that it left humanity looking insignificant. They need not have worried. Darwinism has been used to put humankind back on it's pedestal.
Like amny others, Monod runs togethertwo irreconcilable philosiphies - hmananism and maturalism. Darwin's theory shows the truth of naturalism: We are animalslike any other; our fate and that of the rest of life on Earth are the same. Yet, in an irony all the more exquisite because no one has noticed it, Darwinism is now the central prop of the humanist faith that we can transcend our animal natures and rule the Earth.'
John Gray - 'Straw Dogs - Thoughts on humans and other animals'
Indeed.
- the great Sir Leo Harrison
what can i say this post, you are right......
all that i want is for people to respect everything that's around them, that's all....
Respect!
The native american way... respect for mother earth and all her creatures. We all (humans, animals & plants) have our place and purpose on earth and our lives are interlaced (though I'm not sure where the cockroaches fit in!).
I guess animals (including humans) and plants have evolved in the way they need to be able to survive. We just survive differently - no one specie is better than the other - just different.
Well said
Are you being funny?
-C Addison
Really makes me want to not eat meat ever again. That place looked really unhealthy. You should send the pics to a news station.
Rest in peace, chickens. =(
Lollapalooza. 8.5.07 West Palm Beach. 6.11.08 Bonnaroo. 6.14.08
Hartford. Mansfield.
www.myspace.com/lkatmeimsandrab
Actually, just for interest's sake, symbiotic partnerships between marine invertebrates and photosynthetic algae are extremely common, particularly on coral reefs. There are hundreds of species of coral, anemones, nudibranchs and clams with similar relationships with sybiotic algae. They allow those organisms to survive in extremely oligotrophic (nutrient poor) waters.
-C Addison