Author Topic: Humanity is the cause of most of the world's suffering?  (Read 4363 times)

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Offline Igrie

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Humanity is the cause of most of the world's suffering?
« on: March 31, 2012, 07:16:05 PM »
A quick question: how did you derive the conclusion that the human species is responsible for the majority of the world's horror and suffering?

While I would agree that humanity is responsible for an outrageously disgusting amount of suffering; the total number of animals suffering in the “natural world” vastly exceeds the total number of animals suffering in factory farms, laboratories, circuses etc. I would have thought that the suffering of wildlife incurred from starvation, predation, disease etc would be noticeably greater in size than the accumulated weight of suffering humans impose on nonhuman animals (and each other).

Are you including events such as radioactive poisoning, or the poisoning of oceans via plastic; to conclude that humanity eclipses the horror that is incurred "naturally"?

Offline E.A.S

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Re: Humanity is the cause of most of the world's suffering?
« Reply #1 on: April 11, 2012, 10:27:28 AM »
There is no doubt as you said that the total number of animals suffering in what is usually referred as the natural world vastly exceeds the total number of suffering creatures directly exploited by the human race, however what we mean by the related statement is most of the suffering and not most of the sufferers.
The suffering in factory farms is much more intense. Take for example the billion battery caged chickens who are suffering every single moment during their two years of horrible imprisonment.

In addition, if you are familiar with our "vegan suffering" and "occupied territory" articles, where among other things we discuss some of the allegedly none direct suffering caused by humans which is actually absolutely direct as we argue in these articles and in many others as well, you can see that of course we take humans’ enormous pollution into account and also deforestation, global warming, desertification, habitat destruction, land destruction, land division, agriculture and etc.
Taking all of the above and many other factors into account, all in all we conclude that most of the suffering is caused by humans.

By the way usually we need to convince activists that they must do the best they can to stop the suffering caused to nonhuman animals by other nonhuman animals and believe it or not, that there is enough suffering in nature that can justify our solution, so it is a little bit strange (but positively refreshing) to address the natural suffering from the opposite direction of what we are used to.
For example someone asked how did we conclude that most of the creatures suffer most of the time assuming that except for predation, starvation and diseases creatures in nature are having good lives. We think you’ll find this discussion interesting. It is calle: "Most of the creatures suffer most of the time" and you can find it in this category.

In any case we don’t find this question relevant to the only one solution initiative. Either way we must find a way to stop all the suffering regardless of who is responsible for it.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2012, 10:32:41 AM by O.O.S »

Offline Igrie

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Re: Humanity is the cause of most of the world's suffering?
« Reply #2 on: April 11, 2012, 02:02:26 PM »
"The suffering in factory farms is much more intense"

I'm not convinced that it is much more intense in a lot of cases.

Slowly dying from starvation over several weeks or months is certainly comparable to the suffering a chicken would experience in a factory farm... and I would estimate that at least a few hundred and probably thousands of nonhumans die from starvation every few seconds or so. You then have to include death from lack of water, disease, slow consumption via parasites etc. A hyena, say; that has part of its body ripped off but successfully escapes their attacker will endure intense pain for potentially large time periods - accompanied by a need for food, thirst etc; driven by fear and unable to rest - the horror this organism would endure I would estimate is also comparable to the constant suffering and misery of factory farming.

Many animals are also eaten slowly in freezing cold for hours upon hours which is likely more intense than most of the suffering endured on factory farms... but does not last for the same length of time.

"Either way we must find a way to stop all the suffering regardless of who is responsible for it. "

I agree - I just feel that you are under-selling the scale of suffering and horror that is incurred without humans. I would emphasis that humanity isn't an aberration in terms of cruelty; but is rather just one monstrosity in a long list of monstrosities.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2012, 03:46:38 PM by Igrie »

Offline E.A.S

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Re: Humanity is the cause of most of the world's suffering?
« Reply #3 on: April 26, 2012, 04:04:04 AM »
We disagree, but from all the possible disagreements we can have with other activists, this one is probably the one we feel most comfortable with since as we mentioned in the former post: "usually we need to convince activists that they must do the best they can to stop the suffering caused to nonhuman animals by other nonhuman animals and believe it or not, that there is enough suffering in nature that can justify our solution
These are the activists we must convince otherwise.

Regarding the overselling…
Non Speciesist Suffering (along with vegan suffering) is not by chance our biggest and most invested article.
It fits the proportion of this extremely significant suffering element. Its size and extent goes to show how we observe “natural” suffering and how important in our eyes is the concept that many activists fail to understand which is that since "wild animals" belong in the moral community just as “farm animals” do, their suffering should be included in the solution just as much. Suffering is suffering. It doesn’t matter who cause it. That’s why our two biggest and most invested articles deal with the suffering caused by vegans and nonhumans. Two groups who are unjustifiably morally shield because the suffering they cause is allegedly necessary.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2012, 04:24:38 AM by O.O.S »

 

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