Happy New Year, PETA
I would like to live in PETA's world, where no animals are owned, mistreated, or exploited by humans. I see there's a lot of criticism of PETA for taking extreme positions or protesting in extreme ways, but I can't quibble with their basic conclusion that animals do not and should not belong to us. PETA has a principle and PETA volunteers & supporters follow that principle. Saying that humans benefit from owning animals doesn't sway them.
For example, they oppose seeing-eye dogs, which sounds like an extreme position at first. They also oppose all use of animals in medical research, period. Their point is that the animals are not able to consent to these uses. And, right, they cannot consent.
They oppose keeping pets! But they do support bringing home a companion animal from a shelter, preferably more than one at a time, if the animals can be provided with a good home in which they can keep each other company, given that the alternatives are either keeping the animals in cages at the shelter, or euthanizing the animals. They oppose acquiring animals from breeders or shops, and say all companion animals should be neutered to reduce the overpopulation.
I'm not a vegan, but I don't oppose living in a vegan world. My biggest criticism of vegans has always been that I wouldn't necessarily privilege animals over plants, as I have no way of knowing whether plants are also sentient, so if you say you don't want to eat animals because they're sentient, well ... what about plants? At least when we cook meat the animal is already dead, I'm not so sure about plants.
Anyway, I can respect the principle that no animals should be owned or exploited. It's a move toward a better world. Still a long way from my neo-gatherer ideal, which would also abandon agriculture. But we'd have to drop our population by over 99% to do that.
If I, like Tony Stark of the Avengers, programmed an extremely powerful AI to implement my ideals by force, very few of you would like the result. Your only hope is that I'm thoroughly nonviolent and democratic, heh.
I added PETA to my list of charities this morning to bring me over 10%. Mainly because I cannot forget this Washington Post article about what they're doing to rescue abused dogs. If there is God's Work on this planet, these people are doing it. [Trigger warning, descriptions and pictures of horribly abused dogs.]
For example, they oppose seeing-eye dogs, which sounds like an extreme position at first. They also oppose all use of animals in medical research, period. Their point is that the animals are not able to consent to these uses. And, right, they cannot consent.
They oppose keeping pets! But they do support bringing home a companion animal from a shelter, preferably more than one at a time, if the animals can be provided with a good home in which they can keep each other company, given that the alternatives are either keeping the animals in cages at the shelter, or euthanizing the animals. They oppose acquiring animals from breeders or shops, and say all companion animals should be neutered to reduce the overpopulation.
I'm not a vegan, but I don't oppose living in a vegan world. My biggest criticism of vegans has always been that I wouldn't necessarily privilege animals over plants, as I have no way of knowing whether plants are also sentient, so if you say you don't want to eat animals because they're sentient, well ... what about plants? At least when we cook meat the animal is already dead, I'm not so sure about plants.
Anyway, I can respect the principle that no animals should be owned or exploited. It's a move toward a better world. Still a long way from my neo-gatherer ideal, which would also abandon agriculture. But we'd have to drop our population by over 99% to do that.
If I, like Tony Stark of the Avengers, programmed an extremely powerful AI to implement my ideals by force, very few of you would like the result. Your only hope is that I'm thoroughly nonviolent and democratic, heh.
I added PETA to my list of charities this morning to bring me over 10%. Mainly because I cannot forget this Washington Post article about what they're doing to rescue abused dogs. If there is God's Work on this planet, these people are doing it. [Trigger warning, descriptions and pictures of horribly abused dogs.]