strongvoicesforward said:
The only reason most care about animals going extinct is because they want their presence to keep the world better for themselves. There is no care for the animal for the animal's sake in the argument that we must not kill an animal because it is near extinction. It is for the health of the echo system and hence a means to just keep us alive. It is purely self interest.
So, if we could mass produce whales like cows and pigs, then killing them in great numbers is then ok? -- despite the fact they are highly intelligent animals, care for their young, live in close knit family units, feel pain and misery, display signs of a complex language, etc...
If we have a choice of doing something without causing pain and showing compassion, then why not choose that choice? All animals are worthy of consideration to not cause violence to.
Humans aren`t endangered. We are an animal. If something not being endangered is a criteria for making it ok to hunt, then why not open season on humans? Why not cull the species that is overpopulated just about everywhere destroying the fuana just about whereever it appears?
Yes, if we could mass breed whales then killing them in large numbers would be okay, its the continued existance of the species which counts.
In evolutionary and survival terms alone, without any of that human invented mumbo jumbop, pigs and cows are getting the better deal, we are feeding them, guarding them, watering them, sheltering them, and all they have to do in return is give up their meat once they have reproduced, nature doesnt give a crap about how many animals die, aslong as they get top reproduce, and in domesticated animals, humans are doing most of the giving, it doesnt take much effort nature wise for a cow to chew grass and drink water, then die after its served its purpouse, but us humans are investing time, resources and effort just to get the cows meat, its a more efficient means for us to gain the meat but, the cow would have died eventually and we could have got the meat from it, but by this arrangement, we get more meat, and the cows get everything they need, food and water and the time to reproduce and continue the species before dying, and that is really all survival is about, surviving to reproduce.
So again, in short, if we could domesticate whales, it WOULD be okay to kill them ofr their meat, because then it WOULDNT be any different from killing cows and pigs, because we have ensured their continued existance.
Bossel is right, by maintaining the ecosystem for ourselves, we are maintaining it for all life, afterall, we all share spaceship-earth.
Its no secret that at a lower survival level, its about the survival of the fittest, and all life is competing with each other, were not destroying the world because were somehow evil, were just using our natural given assets (intelligence) to dominate the earth as were programmed to do after millions of years of cold feelingless competition, birth and death.
But on the larger scale, all this competition maintains a life-maintaining earth, the gaia effect or something like that.
If you look at it this way, its actually quite enlightened and advanced of us to actually considor protecting a species at all, any lesser creature who was hunting whales or something to extinction wouldnt even be able to think, let alone think twice about exhausting the prey species.
Chances are humanity could be ethereal beings that safe-guard the virginity of a life-rich universe from the destructive clutches of lesser intelligent species and we would still have individuals whinging that our forms corrupt sub-space or where-ever our ethereal forms exist.
I dont think the universe would allow such a wild imbalance as a rabid species setting out to destroy all life, it would mess up the whole balance between chaos and order the universe has going, and were not in anyway a challenge to the universes vast way of doing things.
So, maybe next time you want to think of humanity as some kind of evil nasty fluke of evolution destined to destroy the earth and all life, remember that we are animals to, and our best interests are ussually the best interests of all life on earth, so it doesnt make sense that we will destroy ourselves, even if we dont really think about it, we have a natural instinctual interest for life to thrive, i highly doubt we'll end up in polluted domed cities on a waste-desert earth as you might fear, chances are, if we feck things up too much, nature will fix the imbalance and bamn, no more humanity, or at least a small stone-age population of humanity.
