WOW, PETA people really are crazy!

[Peter666]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"Lack of long-term memory != incapable of suffering"

That is the only reasonable thing you said. What people view as "suffering" seems to be intimately linked with memory, intelligence, and rationality. Feelings like dread, loss and despair, which are the heights of human suffering cannot be felt by animals. Even physical pain requires a great sense of awareness of what is going on. We don't feel pain when unconcious. How concious is an animal really?

[/ QUOTE ]

Conscious enough to feel pain. If you ignore this, you are either a liar or a retard, possibly both.

[/ QUOTE ]

Backhanded insults are another thing that animals are incapable of. You are clearly anthropomorphizing animal conciousness and pain when it is clear that human awareness is on a completely different level. How sapient is an animal?

[Kaj]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"Lack of long-term memory != incapable of suffering"

That is the only reasonable thing you said. What people view as "suffering" seems to be intimately linked with memory, intelligence, and rationality. Feelings like dread, loss and despair, which are the heights of human suffering cannot be felt by animals. Even physical pain requires a great sense of awareness of what is going on. We don't feel pain when unconcious. How concious is an animal really?

[/ QUOTE ]

Conscious enough to feel pain. If you ignore this, you are either a liar or a retard, possibly both.

[/ QUOTE ]

Backhanded insults are another thing that animals are incapable of. You are clearly anthropomorphizing animal conciousness and pain when it is clear that human awareness is on a completely different level. How sapient is an animal?

[/ QUOTE ]

I already answered: enough to feel pain.

Is your actual position that animals are incapable of feeling pain as we generally define it? If so, there is nothing backhanded about my insult. Consider it a forehand. And redefining what you call pain is not really debating the issue -- use this definition if you really need explicit words: "a basic bodily sensation induced by a noxious stimulus, received by naked nerve endings, characterized by physical discomfort (as pricking, throbbing, or aching), and typically leading to evasive action" ... and by the way, did you just make this up? " Even physical pain requires a great sense of awareness of what is going on" or do you have some source for this?

[m_the0ry]

If I had a magic wand, I would wave it in such a way to get rid of animal cruelty and suffering.

That said, I have a few personal problems with PETA. First of all, almost all of their campaigns are overly sensationalist. I find it hard to believe that the only way to increase awareness about animal cruelty is to shove footage of cattle being slaughtered in our faces. Instead of ruining their own credibility like that, they could lobby to increase the cubic footage required for an egging hen, or press for subsidies of free range farming, or do a number of things. Animal cruelty is a serious subject and shockvertisement does nothing but undermine it and portray it as shallow.

Second, I think the folks at PETA should consider priorities. While I think the suffering of each turkey and alpaca is unfortunate, the world is being hurt far more by the decreasing trend of biodiversity. Biologists from think tanks around the globe are starting to speak up about how large scale fishing and sea dumping are killing off innumerable numbers of species of fish. Recently a chinese dolphin species went extinct, the first large vertebrate extinction in five decades.

Cruelty to animals can/will be stopped at some arbitrary point in the future. Extinction is something that cannot be reversed. It's permanent. Once the species is gone it's gone for good. I think the PETA folks really like animals, but I think they're stuck in a rut with their priorities and strategy all bungled up.

[Kaj]

[ QUOTE ]
I find it hard to believe that the only way to increase awareness about animal cruelty is to shove footage of cattle being slaughtered in our faces. Instead of ruining their own credibility like that, ...

[/ QUOTE ]

If they are against the unnecessary suffering involved with cattle butchering, then showing the practice is a perfectly valid tactic of exposing its brutality. To say this "ruins their credibility" merely demonstrates your own personal bias to what you want to see and what you don't want to see. And of course, showing slaughter footage is not "the only way" PETA advocates its goals, just one of many many efforts it undertakes. So again your point is moot from the start. You should attempt a logical argument next time, this is after all a science, math, philo forum where arguments should have more backing than just personal preferences.

[Neuge]

[ QUOTE ]
If I had a magic wand, I would wave it in such a way to get rid of animal cruelty and suffering.

That said, I have a few personal problems with PETA. First of all, almost all of their campaigns are overly sensationalist. I find it hard to believe that the only way to increase awareness about animal cruelty is to shove footage of cattle being slaughtered in our faces. Instead of ruining their own credibility like that, they could lobby to increase the cubic footage required for an egging hen, or press for subsidies of free range farming, or do a number of things. Animal cruelty is a serious subject and shockvertisement does nothing but undermine it and portray it as shallow.

Second, I think the folks at PETA should consider priorities. While I think the suffering of each turkey and alpaca is unfortunate, the world is being hurt far more by the decreasing trend of biodiversity. Biologists from think tanks around the globe are starting to speak up about how large scale fishing and sea dumping are killing off innumerable numbers of species of fish. Recently a chinese dolphin species went extinct, the first large vertebrate extinction in five decades.

Cruelty to animals can/will be stopped at some arbitrary point in the future. Extinction is something that cannot be reversed. It's permanent. Once the species is gone it's gone for good. I think the PETA folks really like animals, but I think they're stuck in a rut with their priorities and strategy all bungled up.

[/ QUOTE ]
My problems with PETA are their financial support of ecoterrorism, blatant hypocrisy in euthenizing animals, and misrepresetations of nutritional science to push a vegan diet.

[Peter666]

"Is your actual position that animals are incapable of feeling pain as we generally define it?"

I have already made it clear that animals feel pain but not to the same degrees that a human can.


"... and by the way, did you just make this up? " Even physical pain requires a great sense of awareness of what is going on" or do you have some source for this?"

Anyone who has taken an introductory psychology course knows that pain perception is not merely an automatic reaction to stimulus, but has many contributing factors such as expectation, personality and mood.

[Kaj]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone who has taken an introductory psychology course knows that pain perception is not merely an automatic reaction to stimulus, but has many contributing factors such as expectation, personality and mood.

[/ QUOTE ]

And anyone who has stepped on a tack or watched a dog step on a tack knows that both feel physical pain through similar biological mechanisms. So to take any subtle differences and pretend that means there are few similarities is disingenuous.

[L'ennemi.]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
For example, they have the right to live. This is the claim that they exercice against the rest of humankind. It means that no one is allowed to kill a newborn child.
They don't have to sue anyone. The state will se for them. What is interesting in this case is that it is the same for an adult, as a murdered adult can't personnaly press charges.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think that philosophically we need to distiguish rights from laws. Laws prevent people from doing certain things. Rights are an entitlement based on a duty. Maybe we should start a thread discussing this.

A lot of people here have these two concepts mixed up and interchanged.

If we are willing to have laws regarding the treatment of animals, that's one thing. If we want to give rights to animals, that's quite a different thing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Law defines rights. If you have law preventing the murder of animals, it means that animals have the right to live.
You should not make up definitions and false distinctions to justify your points. Newborns do have rights.

[Peter666]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Anyone who has taken an introductory psychology course knows that pain perception is not merely an automatic reaction to stimulus, but has many contributing factors such as expectation, personality and mood.

[/ QUOTE ]

And anyone who has stepped on a tack or watched a dog step on a tack knows that both feel physical pain through similar biological mechanisms. So to take any subtle differences and pretend that means there are few similarities is disingenuous.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually I have seen both and dogs appear to feel far less pain. This is most notable when getting a needle. Animals hardly react to a needle, if at all, while some people will scream and even go unconcious. The biological mechanisms are similar, but only to a certain point. The capabilites of our brain far advances that of our pets, with a corresponding perception of pain.

[Kaj]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Anyone who has taken an introductory psychology course knows that pain perception is not merely an automatic reaction to stimulus, but has many contributing factors such as expectation, personality and mood.

[/ QUOTE ]

And anyone who has stepped on a tack or watched a dog step on a tack knows that both feel physical pain through similar biological mechanisms. So to take any subtle differences and pretend that means there are few similarities is disingenuous.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually I have seen both and dogs appear to feel far less pain. This is most notable when getting a needle. Animals hardly react to a needle, if at all, while some people will scream and even go unconcious. The biological mechanisms are similar, but only to a certain point. The capabilites of our brain far advances that of our pets, with a corresponding perception of pain.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is weak. Do animals have the capacity for pain when subjected to unnecessary cruelty? Yes or no? The answer is clearly yes. To have any discussion on how much pain a dog feels over a needle is silly since PETA isn't protesting things like dog shots, but is protesting things far more painful to the animal. You are incapable of an intellectually honest debate.