"The ridiculousness of PETA" Topic

If anyone didn't know about it, here's the story:

link

File this under "weirdness".

It's about keeping their name in the news and maintaining their public profile, so as to keep the donations rolling in.

It is the fate on many large NGO's to eventually become a marketing institution to perpetuate the donations they get addicted to.

Many NGO's are in the business of chasing dollars. There's no business case for trying to save river dolphins, so for instance, Greenpeace focused on minke whales not the baiji.

There's not much I can say that wouldn't get into Blue Fez territory except that PETA constantly strives for attention.

Wyatt

I always eat an extra hamburger every time I see PETA in the news. I had mine this afternoon with peanut butter. It was quite tasty.

Like any one of them wouldn't swat a mosquito or kill a tick that got on them.

PETA = People Eating Tasty Animals

LOL !!!!!

The principle of ahimsa is not unknown in the world of men. It does no-one much credit to belittle it.

Allen

PETA doesn't practice Ahimsa collectively (although there might be a few members who do).

(removed Fezian link) – if you want to know what it was, its the third link on a Google search for "PETA".

Wyatt

I'm a vegetarian tree-hugger type and even I think Peta is ridiculous… I sympathize with a lot of their sympathies but I'd kinda rather they found a different cause to be nutjobs about.

I'll have a lot more time for PETA the day I see them pour paint on a Hell's Angel because leather is murder; just picking on women in fur coats makes them exactly the sorts of cowards and bullies they claim to despise….

My goodness… that's insane…

The principle of ahimsa is not unknown in the world of men. It does no-one much credit to belittle it.

Why not? Sure, it's well-meaning, but so are plenty of other ludicrous philosophies.

It certainly payed off poorly for Tibet.
-Kle.

I rescue bumblebees from my pool, I escort wasps outside if they get caught in my screens. I am a big softy and will not kill a creature "just because." WI will happily kill flies and mosquitos due to the problems they cause. I also happen to be an enthusiastic carnivore.
PETA is overboard and their spokeswomen demonstrated theat wehn given a hypothetical situation. You are driving down the road and all of a sudden notice a baby in one lane and a snake in the other. You have to choose which lane and cannot avoid both. She said she would run over the baby since teh snake was innocent.

Classy….

Aw, you guys were so proud of your shiny new president and it turns out he's just a brutal killer who glories in his deeds.

:-) no really I'm joking…..

He was just proving that he is capable of using force when needed ;-)

Wait a min… Its PETA right? Not PETI (insects)?

"The principle of ahimsa is not unknown in the world of men. It does no-one much credit to belittle it."

It is a fundamentally flawed idea when taken to any level outside of human contact.

It is actually impossible to live and not do harm to other living creatures. If you counted it in numbers of living creatures harmed you are carrying out what we would call genocide in or on your own body. There are no ways around it.

Your immune system kills pathogens as they enter your system, you destroy microbes just by moving.

A fly is a more organized collection of cells than the microbes are, it is bigger, it is visible. Is it any more worthy of not being harmed for this?

No. They are freaking annoying and have possibly been sitting on a pile of dog before they come and land on you.

Nature is war. Doing no harm, like communism, is a neat concept that really doesn't stand up under the microscope. Belittle away.

I'm all for the ethical treatment of animals and do the least harm possible. I try to throw out spiders, bees and wasps alive when I find them in the house. But I will swat the occasional fly or kill a bug if there is no other choice.

The PETA notion that equates human beings to some kind of unnatural monster invader from another dimension that ranks last in the list of life is simply preposterous.

Well said Pictors.

The level of harm you do to a living this is proportunal with how much fear and pain it can feel.

Microbes have no feeling of nervous system, there for they don't realy care of they live or die, they just exist, the same is probebly true when it comes to insects, yes they have a nervous system and a very small brain, but their capasity to feel pain is probebly very small, their capasity to feel fear is probebly none.

Now take a cow or a pig, it's clearly a highly developed animal, it's nervous system is just as developed as ours, which means it will probebly feel pain just the same way we do. Yes their brain is probebly less evolved then ours, but they still feel fear.

So there is no problem ethicaly or biologily to say it's ok to swat a fly but not to run a knife thought the throught of pig.

I always eat an extra hamburger every time I see PETA in the news. I had mine this afternoon with peanut butter. It was quite tasty

Ewww! That's worthy of being dosed in paint.

My cats are clearly not in tune with PETA. Any fly, mosquito, June bug or mobile organism smaller than themselves that enters into our house is in for a nasty, brutish and short lifespan.

I love flies. They are God's creatures and deserve all the love and respect in the world. ;)

Kind of said when your organization has become a permanent punchline.

link

How about fish.

"help me, help me!"

SWAT…

That fly must've had the face of Dick Cheney.

chaz

Wait a min… Its PETA right? Not PETI (insects)?

Insects are animals. Note that they are not vegetables nor minerals.
-Kle.

The level of harm you do to a living this is proportunal with how much fear and pain it can feel.

Microbes have no feeling of nervous system, there for they don't realy care of they live or die, they just exist, the same is probebly true when it comes to insects, yes they have a nervous system and a very small brain, but their capasity to feel pain is probebly very small, their capasity to feel fear is probebly none.

So there is no problem ethicaly or biologily to say it's ok to swat a fly but not to run a knife thought the throught of pig.

Bugs sure as heck seem to feel pain and fear – ever see a bug caught in a spiderweb? I wouldn't be so sure that microbes don't feel pain, either. Certainly, there are at least some plants that react to external stimulus, so they probably feel something like pain, too.

Even leaving our immune systems out of it, we're covered in tiny little bugs all the time – every time we bathe, I expect we kill scads of the teensy things.

I'm with Pictor's – trying to do no harm is akin to the philosophy of the Airtarians, who think that you can derive sufficient sustenance from breathing.
-Kle.

Yes, Seem is the right word, the probebly do get stimules like pain, but they don't have the brain capasity to realy feel pain as we feel it, for them getting their wings pulled of might be nothing more "painfull" them when you strech your leg, that is you feel you legstrech you leg and your brain regitrers it, but it's not pain.
The "fear" you see is just instinct in trying to get way.

Microbes have noe nervs or sentral nervous system there is there for nothing that hints that they feel anything we can call pain.
Plants might react to stimulus but it's a local thing, again no nerves no sentral nervous system.

I agree that trying to go though life not killing anything that qualifies as life is impossbile and quite stupid.
But going though life not wanting chikens boiled alive in acid might have something to it.

Yes, Seem is the right word, the probebly do get stimules like pain, but they don't have the brain capasity to realy feel pain as we feel it, for them getting their wings pulled of might be nothing more "painfull" them when you strech your leg, that is you feel you legstrech you leg and your brain regitrers it, but it's not pain.
The "fear" you see is just instinct in trying to get way.

Sure, but the point is, we're just guessing. They can't tell us how it feels, and if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, you might as well call it a duck.

But going though life not wanting chikens boiled alive in acid might have something to it.

I find that sort of thing kind of distasteful, but just as long as whoever's doing it owns the chicken in question I figure it's their business.
-Kle.

There are laws against animal crualty, just as there are laws againt torture on humans.

So if someone owns a dog, it's perfectly ok for you if they preform a Vivisection on it with out Anesthesia?

There are laws against animal crualty, just as there are laws againt torture on humans.

Sure, but I think the animal cruelty laws are silly and hypocritical.

So if someone owns a dog, it's perfectly ok for you if they preform a Vivisection on it with out Anesthesia?

Distasteful, but okay. It isn't as though people in other cultures don't use dogs as food animals.

It's even sillier in the case of (for example) a pet pig.

I don't see much point in elevating the protection of certain animal species (with the minor exception of humans, since they can generally affect their own treatment) above others, based upon arbitrary preferences.
-Kle.

Bugs sure as heck seem to feel pain and fear – ever see a bug caught in a spiderweb?

I'm sure they do which is why spiders sucking the innards out of a living but paralyzed creature horrifies me. Can you imagine taking such a long time to die that way? Good lord.

In the 70s, all the biology courses I took insisted animals acted only on instinct. Anyone with a pet cat, dog, bird, or whatever knew that was pure nonsense. I'm sure eventually we'll realize the same about bugs and even plants…
--
Tim

Yes, Seem is the right word, the probebly do get stimules like pain, but they don't have the brain capasity to realy feel pain as we feel it, for them getting their wings pulled of might be nothing more "painfull" them when you strech your leg, that is you feel you legstrech you leg and your brain regitrers it, but it's not pain.
The "fear" you see is just instinct in trying to get way.

"Probably", "might be". Weasel words. Oddly, weasel words that were once used to justify man's inhumanity to man. "They" don't feel pain the way we do. "Their" brains aren't like ours. Hell, it was said about people of the same ethnicity, but differing genders.

I don't buy the 'they don't feel pain' argument in any organism, including plants or microbial species. Just because we don't understand how they deal with stimuli as readily as we understand how humans so deal does not mean it doesn't happen in a similar fashion. If you have to kill them, do it, but do it quickly and as humanely as possible.

What is fear but an instinctive reaction to a given stimulus? Therefore anything that has instincts can potentially feel fear.

Actualy the word probably is one of the most reasonable words known to man, the problem starts when you start saying we know 100% for sure.

But if you say probably then you have room to expand your knowlage and understanding.

And the don't feel pain or their brains ourt like ours at the time when they were said, wasn't based on science but pure guessing with no basies in reality.

When we say probebly dosn't feel pain like us, then it's based on mountains of evidence. With out nerves the stumules info simply can't be transmited, and therefor no ability to feel.
We know insects has some nerves and they do have brains so they probebly can feel some sort of stimules, but their brain isn't even close to complexity to feel fear, it only works as a very small computer with a few very simple command.
This had both advantages and disadvantages, one is that it can use almost all it's brain for flight the ecrobatics of flies or locust are fantastic, because they simply don't prosses info the same way we do.
When a fighter pilot sees a missle comming at his plane, a million things go though his had. This ability is very good when you try to solve the mystories of the universe but get in the way when you got a missle on your as.
Now a fly wouldn't have that problem, it would see the missle(or rolled up newspapper) and just react to it, becasue it only has a few commands, and one is to dogde things comming at it.
Yes it probebly does feel the fangs of the spider as it goes into it, but nothing science has found show that they are even close to presiving pain as we do it. They can not fear pain, they can not remember pain.

A sponge is a animal but it's the most basic of basic animals, it makes flies look like the mars rover.
It has no nerves, no nervous system and can there not feel pain, unless you want to give the thing a metaphysical soul that can feel pain.
We need to feel pain because we need to know if our legs are broken. a sponge dosn't need to feel pain as it's just stuck there.
A plant dosn't need to feel pain as having it's leaf plucked dosn't have the same affect on it as having your arm cut of by a chain saw.

It's all about what you need to know. a tree dosn't need to know if one of it's branches fall off, it has an automatic system that makes sure it dosn't loose moisture. It would therfore have no purpose for it to feel pain. And more importantly it dosn't have any nerves to transmit the pain even if it had it.

So if a dog scratches his fleas what are we supposed to do?