Originally posted by Ungeziefer:Yes, absurd. No, I do not think someone “just up and decides to kill humans”, but that is not the definition of either a psychopath or serial killer. The childhood abuse angle although prevalent is, not universal. You are presenting a simple psychology, yes, but one I would have to suggest is over simple. Common sense is a rather poor citation for exact figures.
If you're gonna try and put words into someone's mouth, at least make an effort to do it discreetly. I never said that, that was the definition of serial killers but a factor. Nor was I citing common sense for my figures, but rather for my point about the child abuse thing.
And yeah, the child abuse angle isn't universal but then again nothing is. Sometimes someone is just born this way and we can't do much to help them aside from drug therapy or psychosurgery. But the biological approach is very small in comparison to the psychoanalytic approach.
Originally posted by Ungeziefer:Can’t say I consider pointing out my ‘laziness’ is ignoring it, but look a citation. And upon closer review, it does not justify your statistic, awesome. I am glad we could do this. Beyond that this citation does not support your claim,
You obviously don't know much about how statistics work. So long as your simple random sample (SRS) is at least 10% of the population, your statistic will give you an accurate measure of the parameter.
If you think that the minimum # of convicts that were animal abusers is greater than 1530, I suggest you take a look at some additional studies and history for that matter.
Originally posted by Ungeziefer:I also question that size of the data sample and the method of selection – but that would be quibbling. Further I would point out the psychological basis of the treatment of animals in your example as pretty text book cause and effect. As opposed to the muddled, factually unsound correlation is causation claim you made before.
You can quibble all you want or you can opt to search for the study yourself and read all the details that went on. Some things can fall under Occam's Razor.
Originally posted by Ungeziefer:I’m skeptical again of your figures, but it does not really matter. But, worth considering that not all energy sources are accessible by us. A field of grass cannot be directly consumed, an animal grazing on said grass can.
True, but rather than have a field of grass be wasted on a cattle ranch, you could very well turn it into a vegetable farm wherein you then get primary access to the food. It should also be noted that most vegetables grow faster than it takes a cow to (vegetables range within 1-6 months while cows take most of a year). Unless we're talking about veal, but that's a whole other argument.
Originally posted by Ungeziefer:Crimeny. You are dictating directly what every human used to feel now? Also this is a simple logical fallacy. You suggest society teaches people to do X, without considering how X became part of that society in the first place.
If we're using logic, the word every refers to greater than the majority. Of course it's impossible to make judgments about everyone in the world as there is a great chance that at least 1 of them doesn't follow the generalization.
Are you asking me how specieism became a part of society? That is a very long story to tell my friend. It would work better as a private message, but only if you insist.
Originally posted by Ungeziefer:Nope, no you didn’t. Is this a Math obstacle, or are you just too obstinate to even acknowledge that your own sources in no way back your pie in the sky numbers?
If you understood how statistics work, the first is more than cited. The second uses BRS #s and simple math, so I don't know how you don't consider it cited. But to each their own I guess.
Originally posted by dd790:What is this ‘empathy as a sense’ you speak of?
Is it a belief you know what something else is feeling because you just push your mindset onto it and think how you would feel/act in that situation? That doesn’t work with women let alone other species!
Lmfao, women.
It's kinda like a screwball version of a somatoform disorder where you can feel the pain being inflicted on another individual, even though it is not direct on yourself. I guess you could say that imagination is a key part of it.
Originally posted by dd790:(This isn’t my area of expertise so sure Vika can provide a better answer but:)
Not really. Yes there are still areas we are rather stretching our knowledge in but for the most part neurology has reached a point where we understand most physical and chemical workings of the mind. Some of the more ‘abstract’ workings are still more a matter of opinion than fact but we can now see relations between emotions, sensations even (I think) moods all by just looking at areas of brain activity and chemical balances.
I was talking more about the abstract thoughts, but this was a poor statement on my part. I'm no neurologist and shouldn't be claiming as such.
Originally posted by dd790:We do…
Don’t know about you but I take my dog for his booster once a year to protect him from some of the nastier canine infectious diseases out there, but I pay the bill.
Pets are vaccinated because owners pay for it
Pets are a different story. There are all these anthrozoologic emotions involved. Essentially, you get your dog vaccinated b/c you want him to live longer out of a personal obligation.
Originally posted by dd790:some livestock will be vaccinated if the owner believes it is worth the cost to protect them from disease, we even vaccinate wild animals where funds exist and it is feasible
Right, that's why mad cow disease, swine flu, and avian influenza all still exist. Think of it like the Holocaust- was it worth it for the nazis to vaccinate the Jews? Sometimes, but for the most part no.
Originally posted by dd790:The main problem is not that we don’t care to vaccinate animals, it is that all the money is in human vaccination research, development and implementation.
Actually all the money is in weapons and war. Did you know that that the world, as a whole, spends $6 billion on weapons every 1.5 hours?
Originally posted by dd790:Agreed. This should be everyone’s answer when ever people say that giving animal feed to animals just to eat them in turn is a waste. That way of thinking is an oversimplified and downright ignorant concept of what ‘food’ is. Feeding grass to a human would likely be an even bigger waste than the energy loss in growing the cow simply because grasses and plants very high in cellulose have a very low nutritional value to humans as we lack the cellulosic bacteria to break down all that cellulose, livestock we feed them to however can break the cellulose down so gain more from it.
In terms of raw energy then yes there is a loss between trophic levels, but in terms of usable energy then there is a much smaller loss, if not a gain due to different digestive physiology of the animals in question.
Read my answer to Mr. Ungeziefer's claim.
Originally posted by vikaTae:It is nice to know where you stand. Your dislike for the Tuskegee experiments was purely racism based. You have no problem using members of your own species as unwilling guineapigs in general, despite the fact that they are capable of informed consent
It is so nice to know where we stand, and also worth knowing that individuals with your code of ethics would be utterly unemployable by any reputable scientific institute today – your research would be widely condemned, and you would face criminal charges, precisely because you are denying the option of consent to lifeforms capable of making informed consent decisions.
Lol, your sarcasm is duly noted. But, Brave New World, aint it?
Look, the consent issue only applies when humans choose to embark on this quest for perfection. I advocate strongly to end all medical experiments of such nature. But if people are gonna do it either way, then the consent issue should be null/void with EVERY species including humans. Condemning someone for conducting unconsensual experiments on their own kind is speciest hypcocracy.
If your reputable scientific institute is capturing innocent non-humans and subjecting them to torture for the sake of humans, then it's lost all reputability in my book.
Originally posted by vikaTae:The genes are not codified and absolute. They respond to environmental changes. There is a slowly building pile of evidence to suggest such expression changes are indeed hereditary in nature.
One more reason to end the ‘family tree’ of any creature exposed to a process that radically alters its gene expression, unless we fully understand the nature of the changes we have wrought.
I see, so essentially we have to conduct a Genome Project for every other species.
Originally posted by vikaTae:This sentence is pure bullshit. You are saying here:
The individuals of any species are capable of imagination and codifying abstract thoughts internally, but only in regards to members of their own species – which even linguistically, makes absolutely no sense; it does not parse.
Bullshit indeed. What I was essentially saying was a rewording of the language barrier, can't believe I did. Understand that it would make sense if a foreign species was unable to understand the abstract thoughts of another species. Or perhaps that is a downfall of humans- unable to understand said thoughts of other species.
Originally posted by vikaTae:As dd has already pointed out, you are projecting and anthromorphising your own internal desires onto others. You’re making shit up to conform the world to how you imagine it should operate, nothing more. Mirror neurons do not function across great differences in cognition, so you cannot even associate it with that. They only function when both sides have a similar mental architecture.
You are assuming the mental achitecture will always be similar when this flies in the face of all the solid evidence we have collected thus far. You’re using emotions instead of reason, in other words.
This was my own personal opinion. I wasn't trying to sell it as fact.
Originally posted by vikaTae:If you are that against it, may I suggest you start blowing up hospitals? You can stop the ‘ungodly’ practice of curing the sick if you kill the sick in large numbers before they can be treated. You would however, have to give up this pretense of your acting in everyone’s best interest if you do so.
Curing the sick at the cost of other species? No thank you. Technically I would be acting in everyone's best interests by controlling overpopulation.
Originally posted by vikaTae:As dd has already explained quite well, we don’t limit treatment to any one species, but try to innoculate and cure wherever possible. Have you heard of something called a vetenarian? It is a doctor who treats non-human sick creatures. Such a concept would not exist if we only cared about our own species.
BS. Funds for such practices are limited severely as it is at bottom of most countries budgeting. We do not try to do it wherever possible but whenever possible, and by whenever I mean whenever we're feeling generous and have some money leftover.
Tell me, how many animals exist compared to humans? Now answer me how many vet offices have you seen compared to hospitals? Now answer me how big these vet hospitals have been compared to human hospitals. Yeah, you care a lot.
Originally posted by vikaTae:Well, understanding how the brain works, is clearly a great mystery to you. However, to the rest of us, it is anything but. Whilst we have far to go yet, much of the brain’s function is already codified, and we are interfacing with it directly. Two-way communication between the brain’s direct thoughts and subconscious impulses, and our machines, with both understanding one another. Such would simply not be possible if the brain really was ‘a complete mystery’.
Specifically, we are aware that higher thoughts – abstract thoughts, imagination, sense of self, et al, only exists in the cortex of the brain. As the cortex grows larger and more complicated, with a greater number of specialised divisions, so the quality of such thought increases. Conversely, as the cortex simplifies and specialised processing regions disappear, so the abilities of the mind as a whole diminish greatly. Below the cortex, the mid-brain is mostly about memory storage, the encoding of the brain, syntax parsing and ‘compilation’ for lack of a better term, housekeeping and the like, whilst the hind-brain controls the body itself.
Whilst we cannot say what any given neuron does, yes we can tell exactly what the purpose of a given area is, and study it in real-time via fMRI, ECoG or EEG, as the neurons light up in sequence, processing a given task. We can monitor the existence (or lack thereof) of dreams and abstractions in real-time. We are fully aware of which brains are capable of such things, which are not, and why.
As to my employers, I cannot see why that is of any relevance whatsoever, but I will humor you. Touch Bionics, specialists in connecting smart prosthetic limbs to the body, which engage in two-way communication with the brain.
Knowing how something works is not the same as creating it. But you're right, I guess I am behind on neuroscience. I'm more concerned with using that brain to help the world rather than using it to learn how to recreate it.
Originally posted by vikaTae:Why should I need to find ‘solutions’ for that? It will solve itself. Too many humans, means not enough food and drinkable water to go around, resulting in a natural cull. Don’t try to fix what is not broken.
Lol, is that a joke? If nature were to fix human overpopulation we wouldn't have near 7 billion of us in the world still growing at an exponential rate.
You're right in the sense that nature will eventually win, but you're assuming that those humans that exceed the limit will just drop down dead. No, it will be a long painful process, one that could be easily avoided if we didn't cure all these diseases we're naturally inherent to and let several millions die yearly as opposed to the 2 billion to come.
I'd also be concerned with the massive environmental damage that is to come alongside this unhealthy growth, but to each their own.
