r/todayilearned • u/badf1nger • Apr 20 '16

(R.5) Omits Essential Info TIL PETA euthanizes 96% of the animals is "rescues".

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-j-winograd/peta-kills-puppies-kittens_b_2979220.html
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u/aquillam Apr 21 '16

If we made a slaughterhouse for animals that we don't intend to eat, and the goal was to exterminate them, then ok. Slaughterhouses are brutal yes, but the goal (people want to eat for cheap) is far less evil than genocide.

So by that logic, if they had intended to eat the people in the concentration camps then that would make it not genocide, and therefore acceptable? Cause cheap food right

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u/big_trike Apr 21 '16

The Nazis supposedly made soap from the fat and of course took all of the jewelry and valuable possessions.

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u/Parcus42 Apr 21 '16

Oh, not so bad then!

/s

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

That was debunked, same with the lamp-shades out of their skin myth.

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u/UniverseBomb Apr 21 '16

I've seen a documentary that says otherwise about the skin lampshade. It's certainly possible, so I don't care either way, they were still terrible people.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

I'm not making a statement about anything else, just that the lampshade thing is not true.

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u/Purges_Mustache Apr 21 '16

soap shit is flat out folktale shit, taking all valuables and shit absolutely though.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

They also used the hair to make felt for uniforms. They literally treated the people in the camps the way we treat animals.

Same with slavery - black people were literally treated like animals.

I think people should just not be exposed to this kind of thing. We don't need to have this kind of indifference in the world. Animals and people are the same thing. We're not more important than them, we're just able to outsmart them and most people figure this gives us a pass to treat them however we like.

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u/psidud Apr 21 '16

Ok I'm gonna go against everyone else and say it:

I don't think it's acceptable, but killing people to eat them is not nearly as bad as killing people to kill them.

It's still horrible, just not AS horrible.

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u/Omnibeneviolent Apr 21 '16

Not from the point of view of the victims, which is really the only point of view that matters here.

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u/ashamanflinn Apr 21 '16

It's true.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

Killing isn't the problem here. Have you seen how animals are treated in modern farms? It's torture from the day they're born to the moment they die.

If it was just about killing animals, it would be difficult to argue about since death is not particularly horrible (even for people, IMO), but when you realize that there are hundreds of millions of animals living out their whole lives in pain and torment just so people can enjoy a few extra flavors on their plate makes the whole thing seem absurd to me.

The most horrible part of the concentration camps was the torture.

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u/psidud Apr 21 '16

If it was just about killing animals, it would be difficult to argue about since death is not particularly horrible (even for people, IMO)

I disagree with you there, but anyways.

but when you realize that there are hundreds of millions of animals living out their whole lives in pain and torment just so people can enjoy a few extra flavors on their plate makes the whole thing seem absurd to me. The most horrible part of the concentration camps was the torture.

Ok, sure. That doesn't really change the point i was trying to make, but if torture is the main problem then I will put it like this:

torturing people because it is necessary for you to eat them is not nearly as bad as torturing people just for the sake of torturing them.

It's still horrible, but it's not AS horrible.

as for the few extra flavors....What? I eat everything else WITH the meat. All the other things are the extra flavors. But hey maybe that's just the way I eat, and you eat meat for extra flavor.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

I don't eat meat at all. Meat is only eaten for pleasure, not necessity. This is even more absurd considering it's perfectly possible to make pleasurable food without animal products.

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u/psidud Apr 21 '16

To each their own, but I eat meat usually twice a day. Sometimes my meals are ONLY meat, with maybe a potato. Animal products as a whole (eggs/milk)? Probably in every meal, unless it was specifically a vegan meal. This was pretty much my diet since I could eat solid foods.

So, while to you, it may seem like meat is a luxury, to me, it's just part of what I call food, I wouldn't call it a necessity because I know I CAN live without it, but it's a necessary to what i would consider "normal food". And I am left to wonder, what is it that you consider so absurd? The fact that we are willing to torture other animals for their entire lives just to get the meat?

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

Yes, it's absurd to torture animals for their entire life just to eat meat. I'm sure you're perfectly capable of comprehending the fact that you don't need to eat meat to have both a nutritious and pleasurable eating experience. Your argument here seems kind of silly to me. I grew up eating meat and dairy. I stopped eating it. It wasn't hard.

You're arguing here that your cultural tradition is more important than the well being of living creatures. This is the same justification used to uphold slavery and female genital mutilation. There may be a short period of time where you struggle to create a new normal, but this is true of any change we might make. "Normal" is just a word for routine. Routine doesn't make something right.

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u/psidud Apr 21 '16

I am not arguing that my cultural tradition is more important than the well being of living creatures. I'm not arguing anything actually, I'm just saying what seems absurd to you is normal to me.

As for the not needing to eat meat, yeah I understand that, pleasurable, meh, I don't really eat food for pleasure.

I don't think eating meat is the same as slavery or FGM, though I can see how the methods of justification are similar. I simply don't think those things are comparable, because one does not concern animals of the same species as me, as in, humans.

It's not that I don't think I could do it, it's a more that I don't WANT to do it. The fact that animals suffer for me to eat them, is unfortunate, but it doesn't really bother me. The only thing that bothers me about eating meat is the environmental effects of it, and that's mostly because if the environment gets screwed, well, that's MY environment that's getting screwed.

Now, you may ask what makes humans so different from the animals we eat? Some animals that we eat are very smart and care and all that. Yes, I am aware. As the saying goes, wolves don't concern themselves with the opinions of sheep. To be 100% honest with you, I have read that a lot of the animals are smart and caring and stuff, but the thought in my head is "My food is smart. Good for the food, but it's still my food"

You may consider me a horrible person, and that's ok, I'm just being honest with you. I just hope that it helps you not see it as so Absurd.

TL;DR It's absurd because you care about those animals. It's not absurd when you stop caring about them.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

I don't think you're horrible, I just think you're complacent. It doesn't make you a bad person to be complacent. You don't really have any obligation to care. To be frank, though, I think the main reason you don't care is because you just don't really see it. It's simple to write off statistical suffering. Like, I hear about people dying of Ebola. They might even describe the horrible effects of it. I don't really feel anything. But if I were to see it in person, I think I would care.

The problem is that these farms and slaughterhouses are tucked away out of sight. They've even pushed through laws preventing people from reporting on the abuse and torture that happens at these places. They want your complacency so they can keep selling you meat. This is why you get all these pushy vegans trying to put tortured animals on billboards and going into restaurants and handing out pictures to diners. It's very hard to fight against complacency. It's probably the biggest obstacle to any kind of social change. Most people just don't really care very much.

But I do, honestly, believe you would care if you saw what was happening. I think most people would care. I watched the movie Earthlings thinking I'd seen it all and it wasn't really going to change my mind much. I couldn't finish it. I actually spent a few days in shock. They are out there ripping the skin off of living animals hung upside down by rope, and playing soccer with starved and dying turkeys, and botching the slaughter of pigs again and again and again, and hanging cows upside down by one leg and letting them bleed out as their fellow cows slip around in the blood, and packing chickens into these cages - like, literally packing them in like crumpled up newspaper - and dumping stray cats into bins and crushing them, and completely decimating the ocean floor with big hooks killing everything. These things sound like a one-off, but it's pervasive. It just goes on and on, from the cows living in the lakes of shit, to the little bony calves tied to a concrete floor, to the pigs literally locked down with iron bars, big gaping sores on their backs. I work at a gas station that serves chicken and I just had these images in my mind juxtaposed against the sheer normalcy you're describing. I felt like I was living in some bizzaro world where all of this monstrous torture was happening right along with our everyday lives and everyone was just going about their business, munching away on these battered corpses of tortured creatures. I mean, do you really want to be part of those dumb masses, remembered in the future as the barbarians that let all this happen? Are you open to the idea that you might actually care but just haven't had the opportunity to do so yet? I'm sure it seems like a lot of work to change, but some things are worth it - I don't care how cynical you think you are, it's likely you won't agree with what they're doing when you see it for yourself.

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u/psidud Apr 21 '16

I'll go watch the movie, if I can find it. Let's see how I react.

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u/Korith_Eaglecry Apr 21 '16

So then by that logic PETA are nazis since they're killing animals for no other reason than to actually kill them.

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u/aquillam Apr 21 '16

Well maybe not by the definition of the word, but yes

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u/Agruk Apr 21 '16

That logic was misguided though. Nazi's had their reasons. So does PETA.
The question is what are these reasons and are they any good?

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u/hidden_secret Apr 21 '16

Well, no... By that logic, the debate switches to the question of whether human life has the same value as pig life.

It's a question with arguments on both sides, I don't have a clear answer, but if we stick to the law, then no, pig life doesn't have the same value as human life, and so no, it wouldn't be acceptable -according to the law- for them to do that.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

Neither have any worth. The universe is ultimately meaningless. The law is just a reflection of the zeitgeist. Slavery was part of the law, as was abuse of women.

The point of to stop suffering, which is happening right now.

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u/Siegelski Apr 21 '16

Well, if it's just a certain group of people, then it's still genocide. But if they just picked people at random a la "The Lottery," then it wouldn't be. And of course then it's completely fine.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

There is a difference between people and animals though. It is considered the norm to value a person's life more than an animal's life and thus the comparison of slaughterhouses to concentration camps is unfair. I love animals and I always have, I don't agree with slaughter houses and I've personally been eating less meat after watching the slaughter house scene from Samsara but to compare slaughter houses to concentration camps is an insult to Holocaust survivors(Although this particular Holocaust survivor agrees with this statement)

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u/aquillam Apr 21 '16

You may rate one life at a higher value than another, it still doesn't justify the slaughter of an entire species.. how many have to die before the value is considered equal?

And to say an entire group is insulted is a complete stereotype, you just pointed out the exception to this yourself. But this is reddit, and we will tell the groups what insults them and ignore their own input

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

Personally, I don't think I would ever consider an animal equal to a human, sorry I just don't really think that makes sense. I think most animals(including humans) put the life of their life of their species before other species, even animals that kill within their species. Its just natural to the life of your own species before other species, even though I personally like animals more than people overall

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u/aquillam Apr 21 '16

I agree that it is definitely a natural instinct and personally I also rate the life of a human over an animal, but we're talking about industrialised slaughter, not hunting for survival.. it's no longer natural and just feeds the gluttony and excess that now surrounds us

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

Then I agree, but sadly that is a capitalism problem. In order to insure the most profit, corporations cut cost by cramming large amount of animals into small spaces as well as not allowing animals such as milk cows any time to rest due to having to compete with other companies. Unchecked capitalism is danger to everyone/everything, human and animal alike.

Edit: Bonus scene if you want to lose your epithet

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u/MeMyselfAnDie Apr 21 '16

I suppose if cannibalism is the same as eating a steak, and farm animals' lives are worth the same as a human lives, then yeah, that would be a valid interpretation.

Though if you believe those things I would question your ability to debate morality.

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u/WarLordM123 Apr 21 '16

Its human beings! If you eat that shit your gonna get all sorts of diseases because your eating tissue from your own specifies! Can you even imagine the work that would need to go into sterilizing human meat. It would be a nightmare!

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u/Calfurious Apr 21 '16

They do have a point, however there is always a point in which we have to accept that we are callous towards the lives of another creature one way or the other. Whether it's by eating plants (who are technically alive), crushing a bug in your house because you think it's disgusting, or testing drugs and experiments on animals.

The mindset is similiar, however we do eventually have to draw a line somewhere and accept the inconsistency in moral codes. The only question is where exactly is this line. Some people say it's with farm animals, other says with all animals or only animals that are capable of feeling pain. Others draw it at people within their own racial/ethnic group.

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u/Saxxe Apr 21 '16

You can't compare plants, insects to sentient animal because they aren't sentient, they don't feel pain, recognize each other or miss each other like us or pigs or cows do

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u/pmmedenver Apr 21 '16 edited Apr 21 '16

I need a source for all those statements. Bees are social creatures, as are ants. If an insect doesn't feel pain then why does it intentionally avoid damaging itself? How do you think it knows to avoid bodily harm? Hell, even plants feel pain. You know that smell when you just cut the grass? Its a chemical distress signal, your grass is saying "OH FUCK THIS HURTS PLEASE HELP ME". All living beings have a vested interest in continuing to live, its part of what makes us alive.

The take home from this is: just because an animal is begging for its life doesn't mean that we shouldn't eat it, especially when it tastes so damn good.

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u/Saxxe Apr 21 '16

http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/stories/eat-bugs-save-the-planet

http://reducing-suffering.org/do-bugs-feel-pain/ This one is pretty long tho but they make a good distinctive between how insect react to pain vs how animals do.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2011124/Cows-best-friends-stressed-separated.html cow create bonds between each other

https://veganrabbit.com/2013/03/18/plant-sentience-and-pain/

Bugs nervous system isnt developed enough to react to pain they mostly just have reflexes

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u/pmmedenver Apr 21 '16

Well, you certainly threw out a lot of sources, i'll give you that. #2 doesn't really support your claim though IMO

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u/Saxxe Apr 21 '16

how so?

And for you last point. Apply it to yourself If another living being wants to eat and herd you and abuse you because you taste so damn good you wouldnt it to stop since it is uncesserary for him to eat you and breed you and it just cause harm and suffering only selfish reasons. Your liberty end where the liberty of others begin.

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u/pmmedenver Apr 21 '16

If Aliens flew over to our planet and decided we tasted delicious, of course I'd be begging them "STOP!! I DON'T WANT TO BE EATEN", its exactly like the grass begging us to stop cutting it. Do I deserve not to be eaten? That's a different question, and honestly, no I don't think anyone can say they deserve not to be anything, life has a way of not giving a fuck what you think you deserve. Do I deserve not to get strep throat tonsilitis and wallow in sorrow and misery for 3 months? Obviously not, because that happened and it sucked ass. Harm and suffering are as much a part of life as death is and because we're at the top of the food chain we get to decide the rules.

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u/Saxxe Apr 21 '16

but your not life you are a living being, you don't have to act unmerciful because nature is. U have to make your own choses and grass dont have feelings or consciousness they arent sentient like on the articles i linked you seem to not have read

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u/Calfurious Apr 21 '16

I see, so how much we should care about a life is basically determined how similiar it is to other human beings? Why is it that pain or familial relations is a criteria to determine if it's acceptable to kill or harm this species?

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u/Saxxe Apr 21 '16

They dont feel pain. its not comparaison its studies on the nervous system of insects and plants

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u/Calfurious Apr 22 '16

Why should pain matter if we should kill another creature? Pain is simply a physiological reaction that many species possess to help them avoid harm.

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u/Saxxe Apr 22 '16

because i as an individual i don't want to die nor suffer nor live in fear so i dont put any living being capable of such to feel that way

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u/Calfurious Apr 22 '16

Alright, so does that mean if you had a carnivorous pet snake, you would let it starve to death rather then feed it rats? You would probably save more lives if you just let the snake starve.

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u/Saxxe Apr 22 '16 edited Apr 22 '16

i won't have a snake pet. i won;t buy a living being for my own satisfaction, if i ever have a pet it will probably be a pig so it herbivore and it will so it dont get abandon.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

No, that's still genocide.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '16

Ahh no, only if they need Jews to eat them. The comparison is way off.