Hello everyone,
the following message was posted on the guestbook but since it is limited to 5,000 characters only, i posted the original message and our reply here. Of course you can steel feel free to respond.
I agree with everything you say. This world is an abomination that shouldn't exist. It's a factory of suffering. Even if you try really hard not to hurt others you can't do this while living - so there is no other true solution to the problem.
However I don't think you will succeed. Why? Take a map and look at Iran and Israel. Iran is huge and still has problems in hiding a nuclear base. It's full of devoted people who will do virtually anything to annihilate Israel and Israel (a really small country) is still standing. So what is your chance?
I think that the analogy you made is not relevant. The differences between international, anonymous and extremely discreet groups of activists who look, talk and act as anyone else, and between a country that make public and mass media statements about their nuclear weapons development intentions constantly are extremely huge.
For example from time to time we need to look for jobs to finance the project (needless to say we finance everything ourselves because it is a little hard to look for financing for this kind of project), and in our workplaces we don’t even tell that we are vegans not to mention what we do.
As opposed to us Iran has political reasons to state their destruction declarations which most are inner politics and I am not sure that they are really interested in destroying Israel. But even if they are, I don’t know what the size of Israel is and how many nuclear bombs are needed to accomplish their destruction, but I have no doubt that it would be possible some time in the future and surely other countries like Pakistan, north Korea, UK, France and of course the country that already used nuclear weapons in the past USA already have the ability. But anyway that is not the question. There are tremendous differences which makes the analogy not relevant.
Another important difference is that Iran plans to survive its nuclear attack on Israel and the fear that it wouldn’t since USA or other countries would probably counter attack it, is a key reason why they probably never nuclear attack Israel. I think it is a too big risk for them. And that key element is not relevant for us since it is absolutely obvious that we would go with everyone else.
Obviously we don’t know yet what the practical method for the solution would be and of course once we started the theoretical movement, it is a little out of our hands what other activists would do. But we really really hope that nuclear weapons would never be one of the options. As you said the technical obstacles make this method practically impossible and the chances for it to stop all the suffering is extremely small. It is much more likely to increase suffering. So that shouldn’t even be a last resort. The way we see it nuclear weapons are not an option.
But more importantly than the analogy, which I understand could have been something totally different, is the conceptual moral state we think everyone should be in. once you know, you are responsible. Not for the causing of all the suffering but for the stopping of all of it. If I would have to summarize the whole website into one sentence that really capture the spirit and idea of the whole o.o.s movement it would probably be it.
You write that you totally agree and that’s already a lot, but the harder part is to really internalize that this is what you got to do. You must find a way to stop all the suffering.
We all must try until someone, somewhere, sometime will succeed.
Although we disagree with you that it is impossible, we acknowledge that it is so complex and extremely difficult to operate such a mission and that’s why our first decision as a group was to create more of us. That’s why we think everyone who cares about stopping all the suffering in the world must try. Acknowledging how difficult the mission is, as written in the what can I do? Question in the FAQ, the first thing we focused on is how to create a movement before we conduct our own research group.
We realize what we are dealing with here and we also realize that the complexity and lack of believe in the accomplishment of the goal is what prevents most activists from trying. So we decided to construct a serious moral argument supporting the idea and tried to show in every single article, slideshow and the manifest of course why the bad old conventional campaigning won’t change the world.
The chances to succeed might be small but the chances to stop all the suffering with conventional methods are zero. We don’t think so because we are tired and weary or because we personally failed to change things within our community or anything subjective and personal, but since by definition it won’t solve all the problems.
The animal rights movement is not even aiming at stopping all the suffering. Two major examples are the total ignore of the tremendous scales of suffering happening in what they call nature as if this word is magical and can eliminate all the suffering involve in it just by pronouncing it, and the horrible veganism “solution” which is cruel, oppressive and violent and the only reason why it is considered cruelty free is that the rest of the options are much much worse. If you haven’t read/watch the related articles about these issues please do. They are called non-speciesist suffering and vegan suffering.
None of us knows until we start conducting research that this mission is impossible and the more of us trying, the greater the chances of success. On the other hand, as long as nobody tries, it would never happen and the suffering will continue. A simple and extremely cruel statistic fact.
We see the O.O.S project as a future vision as well as an option that might be nearer and can be executed in the present. Anyway, we tried to construct an argument around an idea and a feeling that many activists and people share. The hardest part is probably switching from the wishful thinking to the actual attempt, to actually try to do it. It is extremely hard to seriously start and many people think like you that there is no way, it is too big on me and I would probably waste my time on this. That’s why we have invested so much time showing people that conventional activism is also a waste of precious time. The difference is, in one way there is a chance to convert some people to veganism and in the other there is a chance to stop all the suffering including the suffering caused by the new vegans.
Think about all the time you have wasted on the efforts to convince such a small number of people. Can you really hand out another leaflet or shout another slogan knowing that at the same time you could start building a new activism cell aiming at all the suffering?!
If you agree this insane world must be stopped, if you wish for suffering to cease, then you must try. Initial thoughts about the likelihood of success are irrelevant because you don’t know what the chances are and because as extensively explained all along the website the conventional activism can’t stop the suffering.
The image of a world with no battery cages, no slaughterhouses, restraining devices, rapes, diseases or wars is the strongest motivation of all.
Our power lies in our numbers and diversity. Each single cell may stand a small chance of success, but this is not the case for hundreds of cells with hundreds of different varied points of view, approaches, ideas, abilities, resources and methods. The cell with the right lead and the right resources and resourcefulness is bound to come along. It's simple statistics. All it takes is for one group to succeed, and the suffering will be stopped forever.
