First this was posted…
To which you replied…
Which brings me to ask…
And you wonder why some people prefer animals to human beings, even up to deciding life or death? Dear Og.
What about children? Are the survivors who are children allowed to be upset about their dogs dying? Or are they selfish whiny losers too?
Hey, I was with him up until the point when he said he’d rather save his dog than a fellow human being. Most human beings treat me like crap too, but I can rise above that and see why the human’s life is more important, instead of deciding who should live or die based on which entity has been nicer to me. That is fifth grade logic, right there.
Who said anything about children? Most of my replies were to posters here, and presumably we are all adults (the sign-up cutoff age is 13, which should be old enough to grasp the fact that human trumps animal). But yes, I suppose children are exempted, seeing as how they are too underdeveloped mentally to grasp the suffering of other humans and cannot look beyond their own noses. In that way, they’re like animals, except for the fact that they (hopefully) grow up into rational, empathetic adults. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to happen; judging from some of the replies here the process isn’t always so smooth.
Wow, thanks. I totally was not expecting that. Thanks, too, to LHoD for calling me a sweetie.
davenportavenger, that’s beyond cold. You can’t control grief, especially when you’re mentally and physically exhausted. These people who have lost everything aren’t allowed to mourn their pets? You condemn them for that? You cannot shut off emotion like that. Surrounded by suffering and not allowed to mourn without censure. Jesus Christ, woman. I hope a Bumbleball is lodged up your ass in the very near future and the doctor who treats you is unprofessional enough to crack bad jokes while very awkwardly attempting a removal. Hello, colostomy bag!
So much for being a sweetie. It’s much easier to be selectively compassionate. To hell with anyone who isn’t a paragon of cold logic when faced with Armageddon. Obviously they are emotionally retarded if they cannot leave their own suffering completely behind them and, St. Christoper-like, carry strangers out of danger on their backs. :rolleyes:
I’d rather be a cold Vulcan than a dude who would save his dog over another person because “doggy is nice to me!” But then, I am not a “sweetie,” never have been, and never want to be if that means I am forced to accept every response to a situation as equally valid. I know this makes me a fuck, but I do respect the person who can overcome fear and grief and fly a rescue helicopter into NO more than I can a person who spent all last week sobbing into a pillow over their drowned Pekingese.
Aside: what’s a Bumbleball?
Somehow, it’s worse to mourn the loss of your pets than the loss of your home and your posessions? How is that any better?
Hmmm…well, you were calling survivors upset about leaving their pets to die selfish whiny losers. I was just curious if your psychopathy was total or if you were able to muster up a tiny droplet of compassion for the children in that circumstance.
Oh, I see what happened. You’re making the common mistake of confusing “not giving a shit about your dog” with “saving lives.” And “giving a shit about your dog” with “letting people die.”
Did I say common? Sorry, I meant totally psychotic. You need a brain transplant.
People have said that they’d only “reluctantly, and with a lot of tears” sacrifice their pets for humans, or said they would choose their pets over humans, and I’m the psychopath? At least I can put myself into another human’s shoes and see the ways in which their death or suffering will hurt them, as well as extrapolate how their survival will impact the future and the world, instead of judging who should live or die based on how they’ve treated me. Personally I found PapSett’s post to be one of the most psychopathic and/or infantile things I’ve ever read, but then I’m not a sweetie.
Huh? We’re still on that? Cuz right now I’m focusing on the posters who have said point-blank that they WOULD let humans die to save their pets. There have been several in this thread already.
You’re feeding your brother’s dog, while people are starving all over the world? Gee, it sounds like you value animals more than humans.
I too would respect someone who flew a helicopter into NO more than some guy who just cried into his pillow over his dog, but I’m not about to call survivors of Katrina who mourn their pets selfish and whiny. They can have all the emotional leeway they want. At least you recognize this is pretty cold. It just amazes me that your compassion can’t extend itself to embrace that loss as well. Why not that loss? What is so execrable about that emotional attachment? I agree that animals are less important than people, but that doesn’t mean they don’t matter at all.
This is a Bumbleball. They’re the size of a very large grapefruit and vibrate violently.
Hey I’m calling *you * a psychopath because *you * said that *survivors * who grieved about leaving their pets to die were selfish whiny losers who didn’t deserve consideration.
It’s just priceless that after that you go on about how you can put yourself in another human’s shoes.
This actually happens? To live animals? Holy Shit!
Yep–and, horrifying as it is, it’s an example of the sort of medical research on animals that I don’t oppose, because there’s no good non-animal model for studying burns like that, and because it’s research that, once complete, will save burn victims (human and nonhuman) until the end of civilization.
Daniel
Just tell me that it will be complete. Soon. I seriously cannot comprehend setting a dog on fire and watching it burn to death. It is an image that literally sickens me.
I sat in on a medical ethics seminar given by the director of a burn center in 1997, where he spoke of this research; I’m not really sure what the status of it is today. It’s pretty grim.
Daniel
Let me preface this by saying that I only speak for myself, and not for the other people I tend to agree with. I know this should be obvious, but some peope on this thread seem to have trouble with this concept.
That being said, I am so fucking sick of people saying humans have inherently more value than animals. Life is life, period. It’s hard for me to figure out what to say next because I’m sure anything I say will make me sound like a raving lunatic, but fuck it.
The way a person treats animals says a lot about that person. The fact that those animals, be it pets or livestock, are down there because we as humans brought them down there and cared for them down there and that means that we have a responsibility to see that they are not harmed if we possibly can. The veterninary college at my university is sending people down to where they can help out any animals because that’s what they can do to help; they can’t work on sick people because they don’t have the training, but they’re not just gonna sit around with their thumbs up their asses because, after all, it’s just animals.
Because we have resources that animals don’t have (like opposable thumbs) that means we should do what we can to better the situation for all living things. But because we can see past our own assholes, we do shit like dump toxic waste in the ocean, cut down rain forests, all for our momentary gain. So fuck the animals that live there, because they’re just animals and not as important as us (and, by extention, fuck the people who already live there or who make a living off of the place the way it is because they’re obviously not as important as us either).
And, you know, I hope I never have to choose between saving a human or an animal, because I’d probably have to save the person, but I would never let myself forget that something died because I couldn’t do enough.
God, I hope that makes sense.
<wipes froth from mouth and backs away from the keyboard>
Well said, liberty 3701. It’s too bad that the willfully obtuse, like UB, will blow right past the meaning of what you’ve said to screech “People hater! Animal rights wacko!”
Good article in the Economist this past week that discusses the subject (at least for the U.K. I’d link it, but it’s for premium subscribers only in the online version (so I do not think it would do much good).