Animal rights activism reaching insane proportions even in Japan

[dariorpl]

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/28/5000-fish-in-ice-at-japan-skating-rink-sparks-uproar.html

Read it to the end for a fantastic level of absurdity that's probably unheard of.

[TylerDurden]

The Japanese had a point. It's one thing to kill fish for food, but to buy them just in order to have them displayed in a vulgar, extravagant, tasteless display is somewhat sick. Reminds me of those Austrian gasthaueser where they sickeningly display stags' heads with huge antlers all over the place. I could understand just one trophy of a stag with small or medium-sized antlers, but there is a limit.(For one thing, always displaying/hunting the animals with the biggest antlers/tusks/pelt etc. just means that the size thereof in the few remaining live wild animals gradually decreases).

[dariorpl]

It's not like they're wasting massive amounts of food on this. And plenty of people would've greatly enjoyed skating over the frozen fish, for many years to come. There's nothing tasteless or sick about it, I actually think it's classy and ingenious. In fact what is tasteless and sick is to demand that they hold a memorial for the freaking fish!! When there are actual human beings dying every day and for whom their loved ones will mourn for many years. This emotional attachment to animals, especially animals that are not even your pets, is what is sick and twisted.

As it regards the heads on display, it's not necessarily that the hunters are hunting the bigger antler prey, but that they display those, and not the others they hunt. If big antlers offer a significant advantage in the wild, then it's unlikely that a few hunters here and there will have much of an effect, and even if they do, that's just another form of natural selection. There's no reason to assume that big antlers must always be good. For instance, there are forests where some adult ungulates (I can't remember which) shed their big antlers during the non-mating season because they interfere with walking inbetween trees.

For a hunter to proudly display having conquered a large prey is perfectly natural and healthy, as it was in ancient times when paleo people would wear pendants with the teeth or claws of the big bears or lions they or their tribe had killed. To the opposite of being sick, it shows respect for the prey they conquered as it also demonstrates their own hunting abilities.

[TylerDurden]

No, it shows contempt, not respect. Also, value is dependent to a large extent on the law of scarcity. For example, there are now c.105,000 wild gorillas worldwide and the human population is some 7.5 billion.  That means that a gorilla has the same value as 71,428 and a half humans. Humans, being so numerous, are therefore practically worhtless as individuals. Also, humans have an obligation not to wipe out wildlife and to maintain Nature's food-chains in reasonable health. Eating for food can be justified, killing animals merely in order to display them in a vulgar, freakish way cannot be justified. It is quite sick and the sign of a diseased mind.

[dariorpl]

Also, value is dependent to a large extent on the law of scarcity. For example, there are now c.105,000 wild gorillas worldwide and the human population is some 7.5 billion.  That means that a gorilla has the same value as 71,428 and a half humans.

No, this is what is completely sick, this anti-human attitude is a big part of what's wrong with the world nowadays. The only reason gorillas have value in the first place is because we humans like to have them around so we can learn about them, to make our own lives better.

[TylerDurden]

No, this is what is completely sick, this anti-human attitude is a big part of what's wrong with the world nowadays. The only reason gorillas have value in the first place is because we humans like to have them around so we can learn about them, to make our own lives better.

You are missing the point. Most humans have no real value. And you are only counting the very low value placed on animals by some shortsighted humans. Gorillas have a great value in terms of Nature and the contribution that  various species make to Nature as a whole, whereas if 99.9% of humanity were to suddenly vanish for good, Nature as a whole would benefit to a vast extent.

[dariorpl]

You are missing the point. Most humans have no real value. And you are only counting the very low value placed on animals by some shortsighted humans. Gorillas have a great value in terms of Nature and the contribution that  various species make to Nature as a whole, whereas if 99.9% of humanity were to suddenly vanish for good, Nature as a whole would benefit to a vast extent.

It's you who is missing the point. Gorillas can't have "value" and nature can't "benefit" in the absense of humanity, because "value" and "benefit" are dependant on something being valuable or providing benefits to a human or a group of humans. There's no such thing as value or benefits devoid of a human or group of humans who judge those things to be or not to be valuable or beneficial.

[TylerDurden]

You are being childish and making a highly artificial definition. One only has to look at the dictionary to see that there are other meanings for "value" unrelated to humans  and the price of goods. For example:-

Webster's:-  Definition of value= ":  something (as a principle or quality) intrinsically valuable or desirable <sought material values instead of human values — W. H. Jones". Or the meaning I previously cited:-

"
 
Definition of value

4
:  a numerical quantity that is assigned or is determined by calculation or measurement <let x take on positive values> <a value for the age of the earth>."

Plus, gorillas and other animals do indeed understand the concept of value in that they place importance on certain tasks and objects over others.

[dariorpl]

Now you are just derailing. I never said the only kind of value is market value. What I said is that all kind of value must be determined as such by a human entity. And that's still the case, even for mathematical values like Earth's age, even though a mathematical value is a completely different kind of thing and the only reason to bring that up is to derail the conversation. But yes, even mathematical values cannot exist or make sense without humans making the calculations and putting them to use.

My point was that the very concept of something being beneficial or valuable for gorillas or for nature is nonsensical. It's those things that are either beneficial or detrimental, or valuable or not valuable to us humans. They don't hold those qualities in and of themselves devoid of human judgement.

[TylerDurden]

This is just idiotic. Even animals are capable of placing value on concepts, individuals  or objects.For example, gorillas prize the value of  certain herbs over others,  or place more value on the local silverback gorilla compared to other gorillas and so on and on.

[TylerDurden]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bron-taylor/the-value-of-a-gorilla_b_10214928.html

[dariorpl]

You can anthropomorphize gorillas or nature all you want, but the truth is that gorillas have no concept of value, because they have no concepts whatsoever. They act purely based on instinct, they have no ability to engage in abstract thinking and in particular, no ability to conceptualize the future and to compare present value to future value. The concept of value requires that you're able to do these things, and gorillas cannot, and certainly "nature", whatever that means, cannot. The same applies to beneficial things, as those things that are beneficial are simply those which increase our chances of acquiring more value for ourselves, or those things that provide said value.

The article you linked is pure nonsense. As even if you disregard the moral argument for the value of any human over the value of any animal, and if you just look at the economics alone, that kid, as he grew up, would've earned a lot of money over his lifetime (on average), and in so doing he would be helping to provide value to the rest of his society, and to an extent, to the rest of the world. If he chose to spend even a fraction of this money or time on breeding gorillas, he could've bred many more than just one single gorilla. And what's more, those gorillas could in turn become an attraction and earn plenty more money from visitors, which in turn could be used to breed even more gorillas. Hence the economic value of a child vastly exceeds that of a gorilla. To suggest otherwise is not only evil on a moral level, but completely stupid on the math side of it as well.

In reality, we both know that the reason you (and the person writing this article, and those agreeing with it) have this reaction, much like the radical vegan activists who complained about the fish in the ice skating rink, is because you hate humanity and you have a twisted fetish for all living things that are not human. This usually stems from being taught to hate oneself as a child for one's own humanity and individuality, and internalizing that in a way that all humans become the object of hate, and non-humans become the only thing there is to love or praise. It's the same kind of thing that gets people to say that only animals can be trusted, when in fact animals cannot be trusted, since they could never understand what trust means or how to be trustworthy.

[TylerDurden]

Again, you are talking paranoid, utter nonsense. I don't hate humanity in general, quite obviously, I am just aware that the law of scarcity is endemic to the Universe and is not even an entirely human concept. I am also aware that some humans have far more intrinsic value than others, and so on. Also, value is an abstract concept, not even necessarily human.

The incredibly foolish point you made, of course, was to  falsely assume  that animals have no concepts of value  or that they cannot engage in abstract thinking or conceptualise the future etc. I have already shown JK that animals can understand and create art, in order to demonstrate that art requires talent, not intelligence per se. In fact, there are even very low-IQ humans who can create great artwork or music:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Lemke

Evidence that animals can understand the future as a concept:-
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0074896
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/jul/03/research.science

Evidence that animals can engage in abstract thinking is widespread:-

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/many-animals-can-think-abstractly/

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/07/video-ducklings-capable-abstract-thought

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Dogs-Found-to-Have-Abstract-Thinking-72319.shtml

Then there is birds' nesting behaviour, which happens well before the chicks even hatch, and so on and on and on....

Basically, foolish people have tried again and again to suggest that animals are not conscious or lack something that humans have etc., and they have invariably been proven wrong in the end.  There has even been evidence to suggest that some animals understand the concept of religion, for example.

Re your ridiculous economics claim:- you are claiming, without proof, that humans are a good thing for gorillas. I seriously doubt that gorillas like being caged in zoos  and suspect would rather be in the wild and, even then, unaffected by poachers and other humans. Also, in most cases, human efforts to preserve species have been often faulty, and, in a vast number of  cases, humans have been rather more skilled at wiping out other species(eg:- the dodo, aepyornis, passenger pigeon etc. etc. etc.). Also, economics is a science poorly understood by humans, which is why most countries have such vast national debts amid many other economic problems. Quite frankly, a society based on valueless concepts such as money is invariably corrupt and against Nature.

Re unconditional love etc.:- Again, you are being confused. Animals do indeed understand the concept of trust. I have seen dogs turn on their owners, ranging from  minor to severe ways, because their trust in humans was broken by some infraction by their human owner.