Reverence for human life - strength or weakness?

What about non-human introduced pestilence? do you still have reverence for their lives? ok i'm just hassling you 'cos you're a member of that pro-vegan group.

well if they're introduced then humans are to blame. yes you are correct it is the way of the world for humans to destroy biodiversity and create monocultures.

oh i just realised my question was unclear - by non-human i meant introduced species other than humans, such as possums and cats.

i'm not sure whether i think that humans should try to stop non-human introduced pestilences. we probably shouldn't, the only thing we seem to know how to do is fuck things up.

well obviously i disagree with this being an ecological restorationist and all.

like i said before, maria. hey and guess what, i like being alive too. all i'm saying is that we've caused a lot of suffering, we're incapable of getting it right. i'm willing to accept that. why were you offended? i wasn't saying that anyone in particular should die, or even kill themselves.

i think this is just defeatist.

its true though. even when we try to do good it always has negative consequences. its the way of the world.

okay thats what i was getting at - sorry i worded my questions so badly. the most humane way to deal with them (IMHO) is to kill them, which requires a lack of revernce for their right to life.

i don't hold out much hope on the problem being rectified though, cos, like i said, we always fuck things up.

oh i'm just wasting my time then i'm gonna go buy a car now. no actually di the problem is being rectified its just happening slowly. its going to happen a lot faster after the revolution though.

why not rectify problems that were caused before we were alive? i thought you were a feminist?

No it doesn't. thats the limit of my arguing ability by the way.

hamish i meant while human beings in general are still alive. how could you doubt me?

[Actually this is from memory and not right: I'll look it up tomorrow]

yeah it is cheating. i've only been involved in projects where the ecosystem has collapsed in the last century so it hasn't been much of a problem for me. We're usually more worried about getting the right subspecies - if there are no living specimens of a species in the immediate area we try and source some from within a 10km area. so of course we're always cheating but it still protects the biodiversity of the area.

Would it have been possible for us to think 'environmentally' without science's inhuman (or extra-human) perspective?

what is science's inhuman perspective?

I can think of a few good reasons:

-- Because it's a mind-bendingly arrogant POV that's totally unworthy of you;

-- Because it commits the logical fallacy of drawing on metaphysical considerations to devalue the very foundation of those metaphysical considerations (i.e. "reverence for human life is a weakness" -- weakness in terms of what? The evolutionary?);

-- Because there is absolutely no way you can lack reverence for human life in general and still possess it for the lives of the people you care about, the people you're talking to on this forum, and anyone else you care to name. The inescapable consequence of making a generalization about human beings at large is that it applies to every member of that group, so that you are quite literally telling each of us that you have no reverence for our lives -- and, unless you believe yourself some sort of eco-bodhisattva immune to your own pronouncements, it applies to you, too. cf. John Donne.

(I would also point out that human beings are the only species that consistently show concern for the welfare of other species. Any other species would, if it could, wreak the kind of ecological havoc that humans have wreaked, only on a much cruder level.)

i answered the question on dave q's narrow terms, and this was my mistake. but i still firmly believe that humans are pretty irrelevant, and i have a severe hatred of humans in general because i see us as having ruined the earth (sorry if that makes me sound like a hippy). but i really have no issues with people who see reverence for human life as a strength, in many ways it is a strength, i guess thats why one of many many reasons i feel strongly against stuff like war.

so my final answer is: reverence for human life is a strength and weakness. like anything else really, it has its pros and cons. sorry to anyone i offended, and sorry for not thinking hard enough before posting.

sorry Di it won't happen again.

Marryann: its hard for me to answer your question because i don't see science as less human than religious beliefs. i think humans have always thought "environmentally" to some extent, although science has allowed us to be more sophisticated about it. Religion has at times stopped people from thinking "environmentally" because it puts the power it into someone elses hands. A mormon once told me that its good for us to reproduce exponentially and fuck up the planet because we'll all be in heaven soon and Earth is supposed to be fucked up.

Dunno what her deal is, but it seems pretty obvious to me at this point that there is only 2 choices at this point: either the western idea of freedom and democracy or there is the tyrannical leadership of completely backwards blasphemous hypocrites. As some senate member from NJ was saying on C-SPAN, there is nothing to "work out" with these people. There is nothing to negotiate. They have openly stated that they can not coexist with the western world. They will not share this planet with us. They believe that our way of life and our very lives do not deserve to exist. So, it is either us our them; either their government will fall or ours will fall.

Another thing that I really started to comprehend was that the environment over there is a lot like Nazi Germany. Even the most educated young people have "a soft spot for Osama". When I saw these kids being interviewed-- or the 8 year old kids that are beating on a dummy in a suit (obviously a western man) with sticks in the school yard as teachers look on smiling-- I realize that it's not the dozen or so Taliban that took over the people by force. There's a sympathetic climate for this kind of barbarism (speaking of which, they could use a shave and a haircut).

So, as far as this war goes, these people have no reverence for human life, including their own people. It's an idea that shouldn't be allowed to spread globally and should have been nipped in the bud. Now, I believe the entire world has the ability to absolutely crush these underground governments, move in and take over and FORCE it to be part of the western world. In time, democracy and freedom will seem normal to these freaks and they might learn to be happy for once.

hey hamish, "that pro-vegan group" is called Animal Watch Aotearoa. we actually broke off from SAFE because SAFE are too fascist. The point of AWA was to be more inclusive. the cat and possum problem was actually discussed in one of the first meetings and most of AWA feel the same way i do about it, that humans should take resposibility and rectify the problem using the most humane methods possible. i am under the impresssion that the pest problem was one of many points of contention which caused us to break away from SAFE in the first place.