Global Warming

[Lorizael]

And your motivation for killing the plants you eat?

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Blake
If an advanced alien species comes along and is being bothered by our radio pollution (it's a problem to them), would it be just as thinkable for them to genocide humanity to solve this problem, using the same logic of "We're smarter and better builders and it's the quickest and cheapest solution"?

Good point! Most people in my neighbourhood think in that 'being superior' mindset. Then again, most of those people lack any ethical thought whatsoever.

It resembles a bit how these people look at food production. In our nice rich community meat is a commodity like any other that can be mass produced. The living conditions of the cow from which that juicy steak originated don't matter. On top of that they have no problem with raising zillions of cattle in the rich western world, being fed by cheap food grown in poor countries where rain forest is being cut.
Instead of cutting down on meat consumption a bit, raising animals in an old fashioned way (meaning: not confined to small cages causing them to stress tremendously; not force feeding them crap etc etc), and thus making meat prices higher, they claim that humans are superior to every other lifeform on this planet so we have the right to do so, forgetting the long-term implications of that unbridled consumerism.

Humans can be both bad and good. The fashion these days is to ignore all positive aspects of humanity and promote the negative ones. There is nothing 'good' about nature, btw. It's a bloody struggle of self-interest. Only humans have any concept of philanthropy or ethics. That's what makes us special (one of the things).

Yes, self-interest. In my book that's being bad. Objectively spoken self-interest is not 'bad' per se but simple reality. However, we're also conscient beings trying to make something good out of this life. And so that behaviour is bad, because it'll hurt others at some point in some way.
Now, humans typically try to do good (consciently) or let's say most of them do, but at the same time humans always pursue self-interests (inconsciently) = humans are bad, and not good.

Self-interest might yield some benefits to another person one day through altruism or whatever (which is also a self-interest strategy), but I'm convinced that there will be more instances of disadvantages to that person in the long run.

These new smileys kick ass, I've only just noticed them!

[Blake]

It's not necessary to kill plants in order to eat.

Does an oat plant care if some of the seeds it bears don't ever grow into full grown plants?

No. It doesn't. In fact this is necessary, if every oat plant was so successful, the world would soon be nothing but oat plants and soon after nothing but dead oat plants, for oat plants cannot survive with only their own kind.

Part of life for an oat plant, is that some of it's seeds get eaten by animals.

Many plants, suffer the indignity of getting their leaves eaten. It's okay, they can easily regrow them, it's a part of life.

Just because something is a part of life, does not justify let alone mandate taking that principle to unreasonable extremes - just because it's okay to take one leaf from a plant, doesn't necessarily justify taking all the leaves (which may kill the plant). I don't kill plants for no good reason either.

There's no such thing as perfect action - perfection exists only in the realm of mind. In the world, all actions are imperfect and fall short of ideals. Instead of perfection, we do well to strive towards betterment, just doing what is better rather than what is worse. It's usually not difficult to tell the difference between better and worse, and just because you can't tell the difference for SOME situations, doesn't justify switching off your judgment for everything.
"I can't be perfect" justifies nothing. Nothing and no-one can be perfect.
Anyone can do better than they do. Every day I live, I try to live better than the last day, every experience makes me more skillful at telling the difference between better and worse. The fact that I wasn't born with perfect judgment, doesn't stop me from perpetually and actively improving my judgment.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Blake
Now if the alien species came along and picked up a random human and used that human to determine what human morality is and decide to use OUR morality (not theirs) to decide the correct thing to do...

Would you rather they pick me, or you?

Whatever gives me a greater likelihood of surviving. I'd either lie about my morality, or have them pick you.

And?

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Blake
Part of life for an oat plant, is that some of it's seeds get eaten by animals.

Many plants, suffer the indignity of getting their leaves eaten. It's okay, they can easily regrow them, it's a part of life.

I'm cutting out the part about nothing being perfect, because that's just the sad excuse you use to justify your actions.

...

So what, then, is a part of life? Would that be whatever happens most often during the life cycle of a particular kind of organism?

[Blake]

Originally posted by LordShiva
Whatever gives me a greater likelihood of surviving. I'd either lie about my morality, or have them pick you.

And?

FYI, they simply read your mind. This is how feeble your brain is compared with theirs.

Having read your mind, the aliens, intrigued by what they find, now make a new offer (these aliens are really quite dickish):

"Okay. We're going to give you a choice. We're willing to spare the planet, if you let us kill you instead. Or we can kill everyone on the planet and let you live, you can come with us and see our planet, it's nice, you'll live a long happy life with us, you'll see marvels beyond your imagination and experience pleasures you've only dreamed of.
So who shall die, LordShiva? You? Or every human on the planet?"

[Blake]

Originally posted by Lorizael
I'm cutting out the part about nothing being perfect, because that's just the sad excuse you use to justify your actions.

It is an excuse, but it's not a feeble one.

Like Gandhi said:

"A weak man is just by accident. A strong but non-violent man is unjust by accident"

If we act with good intentions and good motivations, sometimes we cause harm by accident.
If we act with bad intentions and bad motivations, sometimes we cause good by accident.

The question is, if everyone in the world was to pick the same paradigm (good or bad), and to then take that to heart, and to live that. Which world would be the one which is, on average, better? Make an educated guess, or a wild guess if it's not obvious .

So what, then, is a part of life? Would that be whatever happens most often during the life cycle of a particular kind of organism?

Observation; you should try it.

[Krill]

Every human on the planet of course, if we continue to go the way we are going. Doing them a favour, really.

[Elok]

Y'know, Blake, you might be on to something there. Maybe in the future we'll be able to eat leg of lamb without killing any lambs. Just cut the leg off the living animal, staunch the bleeding, and use something like stem cells to regrow it. Just like picking leaves

[Blake]

I suspect that cutting a limb off would be distressing to the lamb, and emotionally numbing to the person doing the cutting. I don't see it as being no-harm.

Maybe if you create a lamb with no brain - in fact just a self-replicating mass of muscle protein, then I'd agree it causes no harm.

[Elok]

Yes, tumor-farming does sound much more ethical than eating meat like humans have been doing since before they were human.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Blake
Observation; you should try it.

This time I'm cutting out the part where you think that because your version of morality is obvious, it's right.

...

Anyways. Carnivores in nature kill and eat other plants and animals on a regular basis. Natural part of life, right?

Of course, we have the capacity to think, which differentiates us from animals, which means we can make the intelligent choice not to kill them all when we can just take leaves and eat those instead.

But wait, that means you've qualified humans in some fashion, stating that they are, in fact, different from animals. They have a useful ability that animals don't have. That means they're better than animals.

But uh oh, once you start saying that one organism is better than another, you can place different values on them and treat them differently.

But wait! You already did that when you decided torturing plants was okay but torturing animals was not.

Oh, pooey, this is all annoying and complicated semantics. How about you just go with what feels right instead - only eating plants and claiming the moral high ground.

[Cort Haus]

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe had an animal that wants to be eaten. Clearly the way to go.

[Blake]

dp.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Elok
Yes, tumor-farming does sound much more ethical than eating meat like humans have been doing since before they were human.

I'm pleased you agree.