Wild Animal Suffering

[Huckleberry]

Ideally the proposed meatbots would mimic the behaviour of real prey animals adequately. I'm not sure why eating them instead of real animals would be a cost to the predators and you have not explained it at all.

If there is a shortage of a herbivore's natural plant food due to drought or something, I am proposing feeding them with the speculated more abundant technology, resources and knowledge available to us at the time. Maybe certain robots have built in replicators like on Star Trek that can produce the herbivore's favorite food on the spot.

The important thing right now is to establish what should be done if we are able, not to figure out how to do everything with today's limited technology, resources and knowledge.

And birth control yes, so some r-selected animal, instead of having hundreds of siblings being eaten alive in childhood, will have a couple siblings that make it to adulthood and die of old age. What's wrong with that?

It’s an interesting idea: drones buzzing around injecting pelicans with birth control, robots exercising pythons before providing them with an ethically superior meal.

Will this ever be possible? Think of the energy requirements! Would humans ever prioritize this project? Humans would be more likely to use advanced drones for war. And what about our (often-predicted) robot successors? They might eliminate the natural world altogether.

You despise the natural world (“nature/the universe isn't right. This is not a nice or fair place.”) but you expect humans, which are part of the natural world, to create a utopia.

 

[silva]

It’s an interesting idea: drones buzzing around injecting pelicans with birth control, robots exercising pythons before providing them with an ethically superior meal.

Will this ever be possible? Think of the energy requirements! Would humans ever prioritize this project? Humans would be more likely to use advanced drones for war. And what about our (often-predicted) robot successors? They might eliminate the natural world altogether.

You despise the natural world (“nature/the universe isn't right. This is not a nice or fair place.”) but you expect humans, which are part of the natural world, to create a utopia.

This entire thread is fine as a story line, but in reality, interfering with how different species live is the utmost in exploitation!

I believe humans would first need to address our own suffering, and exploitation. How about we start there?
That would mean ending the use of all animals, as well as ending things like poverty, medical care,.................

 

[nobody]

It’s an interesting idea: drones buzzing around injecting pelicans with birth control, robots exercising pythons before providing them with an ethically superior meal.

Will this ever be possible? Think of the energy requirements! Would humans ever prioritize this project? Humans would be more likely to use advanced drones for war. And what about our (often-predicted) robot successors? They might eliminate the natural world altogether.

You despise the natural world (“nature/the universe isn't right. This is not a nice or fair place.”) but you expect humans, which are part of the natural world, to create a utopia.

The things you are asking me about are unimportant and irrelevant at this stage in the game. I indicated that in the third paragraph you quoted. Philosophically, you have a problem that premature animal deaths are considered acceptable loss unless they are the result of an incredibly narrow condition - that the death was caused by an omnivore by choice. Animals who die as a result of this are a tiny, tiny fraction of the total number of animals who die premature death annually, most of whom are members of r-selected species who die before reaching adulthood. As I stated previously:

"If you make it about morality, the problem is not animals being killed but who is doing the killing. So you could have millions of antelope passing through an area being killed by starvation, dehydration, disease, parasites, fire, accidents, predators and aboriginal hunters and all these lives lost wouldn't be a problem. An antelope death would only be a problem if an omnivore by choice showed up to this area to hunt and they were the one who killed it. That doesn't make any sense. It should be a pro-animal movement, not a "pro-people livng up to their moral obligations" movement."

I do not have an incongruity in my philosophy, but you do.

 

[nobody]

This entire thread is fine as a story line, but in reality, interfering with how different species live is the utmost in exploitation!

If that is true the following are examples of exploitation:

-Rescuing trapped animals

-Vaccinating and healing sick animals

-Helping animals in fires and natural disasters

-Providing for the basic needs of animals

-Caring for orphaned animals

 

[Huckleberry]

The things you are asking me about are unimportant and irrelevant at this stage in the game. I indicated that in the third paragraph you quoted. Philosophically, you have a problem that premature animal deaths are considered acceptable loss unless they are the result of an incredibly narrow condition - that the death was caused by an omnivore by choice. Animals who die as a result of this are a tiny, tiny fraction of the total number of animals who die premature death annually, most of whom are members of r-selected species who die before reaching adulthood. As I stated previously:

"If you make it about morality, the problem is not animals being killed but who is doing the killing. So you could have millions of antelope passing through an area being killed by starvation, dehydration, disease, parasites, fire, accidents, predators and aboriginal hunters and all these lives lost wouldn't be a problem. An antelope death would only be a problem if an omnivore by choice showed up to this area to hunt and they were the one who killed it. That doesn't make any sense. It should be a pro-animal movement, not a "pro-people livng up to their moral obligations" movement."

I do not have an incongruity in my philosophy, but you do.

You write: “Philosophically, you have a problem that premature animal deaths are considered acceptable loss unless they are the result of an incredibly narrow condition - that the death was caused by an omnivore by choice.”

When did I say this?

I just want to know why you feel humans are noble enough to build all these robots and drones to save wild animals from parasites, predation, etc.

 

[Huckleberry]

This entire thread is fine as a story line, but in reality, interfering with how different species live is the utmost in exploitation!

I believe humans would first need to address our own suffering, and exploitation. How about we start there?
That would mean ending the use of all animals, as well as ending things like poverty, medical care,.................

Feeding a starving wild animal is exploitation?

 

[silva]

Feeding a starving wild animal is exploitation?

I was referring to the use of plant based 'food-bot's!

If that is true the following are examples of exploitation:

-Rescuing trapped animals

-Vaccinating and healing sick animals

-Helping animals in fires and natural disasters

-Providing for the basic needs of animals

-Caring for orphaned animals

This doesn't interfere with their nature.
Your ideas are very like the Christain missionaries who decimate tribal societies to suit their own moral values

 

[Huckleberry]

I was referring to the use of plant based 'food-bot's!


This doesn't interfere with their nature.
Your ideas are very like the Christain missionaries who decimate tribal societies to suit their own moral values

How are these food robots exploitation?

And let’s not forget how atheists have decimated tribal societies.

Ethiopian Dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam

www.hrw.org

 

[silva]

Where are the restrictions on humans negative impact? Surely you don't believe it comes down to everyone becoming vegan
Feeding wild carnivores meat-bots and shooting prey animals with birth control from drones should come far far after you think up some ideas for our own civilizations

I'll start--since everyone dies, and both burials and creamations are both horribly bad, we can turn the dead bodies into cracker like food,and supplement them. It could be both cheap and green, and easily feed people everywhere!

 

[nobody]

You write: “Philosophically, you have a problem that premature animal deaths are considered acceptable loss unless they are the result of an incredibly narrow condition - that the death was caused by an omnivore by choice.”

When did I say this?

I just want to know why you feel humans are noble enough to build all these robots and drones to save wild animals from parasites, predation, etc.

The majority vegan opinion is the best thing we can ever do for wild animals is leave them alone. I was assuming that is your opinion too. To say that for all time, regardless of how advanced our technology and knowledge become, that the best thing we can ever do for wild animals is let them live alone in the wild with no assistance from us, is illogical for a movement that purports to care about animals. It is the same as if you went on a hike in the woods, came upon a single deer stuck in the mud, unable to move and you said “how beautiful untouched nature is. I am going to camp here and watch this deer dehydrate to death, rather than call in a government wildlife agency to effect a rescue.”

I think humans are noble enough because they are noble enough to go vegan and noble enough to help wild animals currently in the the ways I listed above (the list is from the link in the OP). Each year, technology and knowledge of welfare biology improve, which means we should be able help wild animals in increasingly sophisticated ways going forward.

 

[nobody]

I was referring to the use of plant based 'food-bot's!


This doesn't interfere with their nature.
Your ideas are very like the Christain missionaries who decimate tribal societies to suit their own moral values

If food-bots are the "utmost in exploitation" (even from the perspective of the prey animals who are spared? It's exploitation to interfere with a prey animal's "nature" as meat?) then wouldn't that make "interfering with how different species live" in the ways I listed above exploitation as well, at least to some degree?

I will take that as a complement because there are times when Christian missionaries do a lot of good because the tribal societies are spearing each other to death, prior to their work. This is a famous case of that:

Operation Auca - Wikipedia

 

[nobody]

Where are the restrictions on humans negative impact? Surely you don't believe it comes down to everyone becoming vegan
Feeding wild carnivores meat-bots and shooting prey animals with birth control from drones should come far far after you think up some ideas for our own civilizations

I'll start--since everyone dies, and both burials and creamations are both horribly bad, we can turn the dead bodies into cracker like food,and supplement them. It could be both cheap and green, and easily feed people everywhere!

Restrictions on human negative impact are presumably delineated in the plans and policies of teams involved in wild animal outreach.

 

[nobody]

saying we need universal veganism before doing something about predation makes as much sense as saying we need universal veganism before doing any of these things to help wild animals:

-Rescuing trapped animals

-Vaccinating and healing sick animals

-Helping animals in fires and natural disasters

-Providing for the basic needs of animals

-Caring for orphaned animals

We will probably have universal prosperity and veganism long before we are able to deal with predation, but that is not to say there is any logical reason for having a prerequisite like that for addressing predation but not for the other ways of helping wild animals listed above.

Silva, I believe this quote addresses your main point, if I understand it correctly.

 

[Huckleberry]

Where are the restrictions on humans negative impact? Surely you don't believe it comes down to everyone becoming vegan
Feeding wild carnivores meat-bots and shooting prey animals with birth control from drones should come far far after you think up some ideas for our own civilizations

I'll start--since everyone dies, and both burials and creamations are both horribly bad, we can turn the dead bodies into cracker like food,and supplement them. It could be both cheap and green, and easily feed people everywhere!

Ok now you can’t be taken seriously.

 

[silva]

Ok now you can’t be taken seriously.

Neither can this thread!!!

 

[nobody]

Neither can this thread!!!

What about the subject of WAS in general?

Wild animal suffering - Google Search

 

[Jamie in Chile]

The idea that we should fix all problems caused by humans before addressing purely animal issues seems arbitrary. What if improving wild animal suffering were (hypothetically) a way to reduce suffering by a greater amount for less effort? If so, wouldn´t it then at least worth considering?

I do think that the human species is going to have to treat animals better before it can intervene as a species as a whole. In practice it will work that way. But I don´t see why any individual who themselves is already vegan shouldn´t try to help with wild animal suffering.

Saying we should fix all problems caused by humans first is like saying “no man should assist a woman under threat from another woman until he has stopped all other men everywhere from all the bad things they do” or “no English person should help anyone in China until they have stopped every English person anywhere doing any bad thing”. Those don´t make sense, and so if an argument doesn´t make sense when applied to races or sexes, why should it when applied between different species?

Saying we shouldn´t try to change or interfere with obligate predators doesn´t make sense to me because what if some humans were born with the natural instinct to kill and eat other humans – and that was the only way for them to survive? Wouldn´t it make sense to try and fix the issue with perhaps medicine or fake lab (human) meat? Rather than just saying “well, that is their nature so nothing can be done”. I am always skeptical of ideas that are completely reversed for no reason when the species under consideration is changed.

The appeal to nature viewpoint does make some sense when we talk about how ecosystems are delicately balanced and that does likely mean that humans shouldn´t intervene on a large scale for some decades or centuries more – if and when they became wiser.

I think feeding fake or lab grown meat to predators in the future is an idea worth considering, providing it can be done in a way that keeps the ecosystems in balance. Interventions might be done in a non-forceful way. For example, you put the fake lab meat next to the lion and walk away and then it´s the lion´s free choice whether to take the meat or kill the zebra.

The one area I disagree with you Nobody is how we handle questions about wild animal suffering when debating the ethics of meat eating with omnivores. If you say “yes, we should control wild animals” the average omnivore will just think you are a loony and not take you seriously after that, and so it will damage your argument. It is just too radical a position for the majority of omnivores. It also allows them to divert the discussion away from their own meat eating. I think the better response is to say that lions are irrelevant when you are standing in the supermarket choosing whether to buy a steak or a veggie burger. You have to debate strategically at times.

 

[nobody]

The one area I disagree with you Nobody is how we handle questions about wild animal suffering when debating the ethics of meat eating with omnivores. If you say “yes, we should control wild animals” the average omnivore will just think you are a loony and not take you seriously after that, and so it will damage your argument. It is just too radical a position for the majority of omnivores. It also allows them to divert the discussion away from their own meat eating. I think the better response is to say that lions are irrelevant when you are standing in the supermarket choosing whether to buy a steak or a veggie burger. You have to debate strategically at times.

I said this earlier somewhere but humans have been controlling nature for their own comfort and for the benefit of their pets and livestock throughout their entire history and in recent times we have been controlling nature on a limited scale for the purpose of select wildlife management and conservation, and also in rescue and immunization operations.

IMO, to suggest a future where predators are fed a replacement diet is the perfect response to an omnivore who insists their animal use is insignificant in light of the trillions of animals eaten by other animals daily, but I wouldn't just bring that up to someone who does not appeal to nature in this particular way. And if it is necessary to bring it up, I can mention the stuff from the first paragraph to make the idea of controlling nature seem less radical.

EDIT: Or sometimes, maybe it is better to bring it up out of the blue because it establishes the idea that animals have intrinsic value and that their welfare is important. Some people cannot agree that individual farm animals have intrinsic value when premature wild animal death is deemed acceptable.

 

[Bardiel]

We don't have the technology to combat predation across the board without causing ecosystem collapse, but we will be able to do more in the future than we can now, and there are ways to adjust things for less misery in the meantime. I tell you, we all are bigger than that, that’s why there are already companies like Raccoon Removal Louisville | Raccoon Removal and Wildlife Control Service that will never harm an animal. They just take you from your place and deliver it to a normal habitat for the animal. It’s really amazing to see how our world is evolving day by day.

 

[Lou]

There may be a better reason not to interfere besides technology, cost, ethics, etc.

Over the course of time wildlife managers have learned that you must keep a light hand on the reigns. the law of unintended consequences has been very apparent when interfering with wildlife in particular.