Hell on Earth (Vivisection)

Not if it is the result of torture.

 

So you would refuse medical care on the basis that the treatment was developed through 'torture'?

 

It has nothing to do with me or anyone else, that’s irrelevant. What matters is developing sound arguments following from logical premises that meet the burden of proof that can be reconciled with reality.

Arrogance has nothing to do with it.

I didn’t mean to imply that sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, etc., no longer exist. However, western society has confronted these things and made substantial progress. Abolishing slavery, the civil rights movement, women’s liberation, etc. However, these were all sentient beings, fellow humans. Also none of these movements proceeded by creating new moral criteria, they didn't have to.

No. this is a very clear distinction. It’s not simply an issue of being smarter, that’s a misunderstanding. Sentience involves a capacity for complex reasoning and comprehension that less complex or less developed brains simply aren’t capable of. Sentient life is of greater value because a sentient life form is a conscious being, an individual with ideas, dreams, values, etc. Sentience has moral weight.

Personally, no. However I have seen footage. I’m not surprised that extremists use these images all the time, but it’s really a terrible excuse for an argument. However, I understand it. This is an attempt to override, to end the conversation by appealing to emotions. I am not devoid of feeling, however, I also know that emotions are irrational, and I certainly wouldn’t allow them free rein over my actions. For example, I might get furious at my boss, but I’m totally responsible if I choose to act on that. I feel sympathy for animals, but I won’t allow myself to be governed by irrational emotions. I’m perfectly willing to sacrifice quite a few lab rats to heal just one little girl who’s paralyzed, or an older man with Parkinson’s.

It’s different in several ways, but two immediate differences, as I mentioned earlier, were of objective, and utility. Let’s be specific and talk about the third Reich, because I think that’s the clearest, and most familiar example. Now, the objective was to exterminate an entire religious/ethnic group, whereas animal experimentation is done to provide medicines and treatments for people. That’s the difference in objectives, the second is the utility. The Nazis concentration camps had very little utility beyond figuring out the most efficient ways to kill other humans, which isn’t a worthy objective, to say the least. It really didn’t benefit anybody to any meaningful extent. As a contrast, animal research has been pivotal in the progress of medical science. It’s contributed to virtually every medical breakthrough, organ transplantation, development of vaccines, there are hundreds of thousands of examples. Those are very fundamental differences. Another essential difference is that concentration camps involved humans. Not only is this against the most fundamental, basic principles of our morality, but when we’re talking about sentient beings it’s not just an issue of physical discomfort or confinement. As I said, freedom (Or it’s opposite.) has a totally different meaning when applied to sentient beings. Each sentient person is a unique, conscious individual, capable of reasoning and awareness, therefore deserving greater consideration.

This is just melodrama..

Most R&D, at least in US companies, is publicly funded, directly or indirectly. Regardless, here again, we have to draw a delineation between product and producer. I have no love for capitalism, but I live in a capitalist society, just like the rest of us. I have no problem criticizing or protesting against ‘company x, y, or z’. However, that doesn’t mean that the production of medicines and treatments are bad. It’s really no different than buying groceries or clothing, or paying taxes. This is a very important issue that I think is very poorly understood, or isn’t given due consideration, however, this really isn’t the venue for that discussion. Maybe if somebody starts a thread about capitalism, or whatever, but not here.

I’m definitely opposed to what used to be called ‘wage slavery’, however, pharmaceutical techs, chemists, etc., aren’t really oppressed or abused in the sense of sweat shop workers or whatever. Either way, it’s bad, like I said; I find the fundamental structure objectionable. However, again, this is a conflation of object with institution, which really doesn’t work. If it were up to me, we’d have a public medical system like the rest of the western world, a public higher education system, too. (Again, like most of the western world.) Essentially, if you follow that logic what you’re doing is distributing the suffering, that’s the wrong objective, what we want to do is bring everybody up to a more equitable level. Second, I would really be reluctant to begrudge anybody medical care, in general, but once treatments becomes perfected, like any other technology, they become cheap and ubiquitous.

I also want to reiterate that all these technical issues asides, what’s being proposed IS mass murder. That is a fundamental truth any way you slice it. Maybe you can reconcile yourselves with that fact, but I’d give it some serious consideration. In either case, this is hardly consistent with a ‘superior morality.’

 

Talking about it doesn't necessarily matter, Sentience does matter.

It's extremely clear. It can be verified, both by behavioral analysis, and a noninvasive brain scan, as well as other means. It's a very sharp and specific dilineation.
For the billionth time there is no evidence, or even the implication, that there is a causal connection between interpersonal violence and agriculture or vivisection.

This is just blatantly untrue. Animal research is done to develop treatments, many of us, myself included, would be dead if not for medical treatments developed through animal research. You might not think that's sufficient, but to say it has no value is just nonsense.

 

Again you skim over the truth:

NGNM85 wrote: "It’s different in several ways, but two immediate differences, as I mentioned earlier, were of objective, and utility. Let’s be specific and talk about the third Reich, because I think that’s the clearest, and most familiar example. Now, the objective was to exterminate an entire religious/ethnic group, whereas animal experimentation is done to provide medicines and treatments for people. That’s the difference in objectives, the second is the utility. The Nazis concentration camps had very little utility beyond figuring out the most efficient ways to kill other humans, which isn’t a worthy objective, to say the least. It really didn’t benefit anybody to any meaningful extent. As a contrast, animal research has been pivotal in the progress of medical science. It’s contributed to virtually every medical breakthrough, organ transplantation, development of vaccines, there are hundreds of thousands of examples. Those are very fundamental differences. Another essential difference is that concentration camps involved humans. Not only is this against the most fundamental, basic principles of our morality, but when we’re talking about sentient beings it’s not just an issue of physical discomfort or confinement. As I said, freedom (Or it’s opposite.) has a totally different meaning when applied to sentient beings. Each sentient person is a unique, conscious individual, capable of reasoning and awareness, therefore deserving greater consideration."

Dr. Josef Mengele ran an entire camp that did nothing but medical research on live humans and not all but about a third of his documented experiments were of great value to the worlds scientific community. Many of his experiments were conducted on the human threshold for pain and he was specially fond of conducting torture of twins to compare results more favorably from one twin to another. So its a very slippery slope you tread on, as well studied as you claim to be I think you know much more about all this than you let on. As far as being melodramatic, it was a factual first hand observation of mine deep inside the research facilities at the Novartis Corpration. Those researchers were not happy people, I like to base my conclusions from my own observations as I've told you countless times NGMN85, I have never not once watched any propaganda film or pictures (other than the one of the monkey posted on here the other day) that are put out by AR radicals. All of the things I talk to you about are from firsthand experience, I don't see how that is melodrama.

 

I was generalizing about Nazi concentration camps as a whole. Yes, I've read about Mengele. A few of his expiriments may have produced findings, but A-that was not the purpose of the Nazi concentration camps, and B-he did not perform his expiriments in a scientific way. Scientists focus on efficiency, utility, they try to minimize unnecessary suffering, and keep meticulous records. Mengele's expiriments often had very little utility, he kept poor records,...it was essentially sadism loosely disguised as science. Very loosely. On the flipside, even with mice, an expiriment has to have a proven utility, it has to meet guidelines, there are ethics comittees, and bodies that try to make sure the animals don't suffer any more than necessary. Mengele seemed, if anything, to have the opposite motivation. I want to mention some figures from the Dept. of Agriculture. According to a 2006 study, only 43% of animal expiriments involved inflicting lasting distress or pain on the animal, 36% of the remaining number were anesthetized. So, there really is a substantial effort to minimize pain and suffering. Animals are euthanized if they are seriously injured so as not to prolong suffering, and care is taken to euthanize them quickly, and by the least painful methods. I'm sure none of the lab techs are particularly thrilled about the process, but I think they manage like everyone else. I experience an automatic sympathetic response, myself, but putting that up against potentially thousands or more suffering and dying humans, the course of action seems quite clear.

 

The coke in me requires me to treat each pst individually and this is the first one I came across that I thought needed addressing.
Concentration camps vs. vivisection. This sounds to me very, very much like keying it up a bit too much, especially as you're mentioning both the torture of animals and humans in one sentence. There IS a distinct difference...we are NOT the animals we vivisect. We ARE however the 'animals' we sent to the gas chambers and the mass graves.
As for the medical benefits, as of yet, there seem to be no RELIABLE alternatives. Not that animal testing is too reliable in and of itself, but it gives a clearer picture nonetheless.

 

Adding one more thing to this thread for now would be the.... fuck can't think of the name. Basically it was the experiment with 'guards' and 'captives' that spawned the ethics code for human testing.
This is in my personal opinion a completely different beast. Men are animals, basically (as are women, before I get any snide remarks). Let me rephrase HUMANS are animals. Then again a crow is a bird, but not every bird is a crow...

 

Really, this is a problem of language. Obviously humans are mammals; the point is simply to dilineate between sentient and non-sentient life.

Oh, and what you're thinking of is Prof. Zimbardo's Stanford prison expiriment. It was also the basis for a book called "The Wave."

 

Yeah, I knew it was some kinda -ford, thanks.

 

I don't think it is, when products other than medicines are tested on animals it is torture as well. By the way, not that you people are doing it on purpose, but you are in line with most Christian religions when it comes to animals, they believe that animals are only meant to serve mankind in any capacity it see's fit. Again I invite anyone that has an anti AR stance to visit the inside of a research facility in person and witness with your own eyes the things that are done in the name of science and/or product testing, not what others say or show, then form an opinion based on your experience.

 

Probably.

 

No prob.

 

I am not anti-AR, I just don't agree with the arguments brought forth.
Also I have other priorities to be honest.

 

Setting aside the bogus characterization of medical research as 'torture',.... Do you realize that if you were to apply this principle you would basically have to refuse all medical care?

 

Do you not know what 'probably' means? I'm vegan, I refuse all animal products as far as reasonably possible. Mediation, though not all of it, is just another such product. Sometimes there are alternatives, sometimes not. When no alternative is available I make a decision. For example, I know this laptop is not vegan, but I use it anyway. My choice. Medication is similar, I do refuse most, especially that which doesn't seem necessary, and perhaps I suffer a little as a result. I get a migraine, I live with it, for example, and I have never taken any mediation for asthma / hay fever. I do use antiseptic creams, etc, for cuts/burns, and use alternative medication. I have not faced the situation why my life depends on medication, though no doubt I will sometime. I don't know what I will decide when faced with that, though I do feel that I have already lived too long. I dunno, when it happens, I'll get back to you. So anyway, that's what 'probably' means. With the world the way it is, it is impossible to be 100% vegan, without killing yourself, so compromise is the order of the day. I try my best.

 

It doesn't take a lot of time and effort to think about such things, nor to be vegan.

The argument: I can live without it, so I do. You disagree with this?

 

::sigh::.....................

Well, it's you're decision. However, I think most people, especially people who generally enjoy life, would choose to live. I have far less compunctions about animal products, obviously. My bigger concerns are things like pollution, or sweatshops, etc. However, ethical purchasing is sort of a game socially conscious people play with ourselves. In the age of globalizations, with monopolies (Or, more technically correct, oligopolies.) controlled by multinational corporations. It's sort of idiocy or hubris to think our individual purchases make any difference. The way I see it, the only way to make big changes is through either a large national or, ideally, international campaign, as there has been against Nike and others, for example. The only other alternative is through political action to enact legislation to force these companies to change, like California's mandate for electric vehicles before the companies teamed up and killed it. On second thought, I guess you could include mass action like the Seattle and G20 protests as a third option.

Such is the nature of our predicament, we are born into a society governed by these vast monolithic structures. They are unavoidable, and thus, against our will we are 'daily made agents of injustice.' I don't think we should give up, but I think we have to change the way we think about it. There's a quote that Naomi Klein cites in "NoLogo", she gives it short shrift, but I think it's rather profound;

"..we prefer to contrate our attention on the indpendant use of mass culture products, a use which, like the ruses of camoflaged fish and insects may not "overthrow the system", but which keeps us autonomous and intact within that system... Going to disneyworld to drop acid and goof on mickey isn't revolutionary;..Going to disney world in full knowledge of how ridiculous and evil it all is and still having a great innocent time, in some almost unconscious...way, is something else, altogether. This is what de Certeau described as "the art of being in-between", and this is the only path of true freedom in our culture. Let us revel in Baywatych, Joe Camel, Wired magazine....but let's never succumb to the glamour of these things."

I believe this is the way to go. To consume without being consumed. This is the 'Third Way' between the spartan lifestyle of the urban guerilla terrorist and the beverly hills fashionista.

So,.........take two asprin and call me in the morning. Or not. Suit yourself.

 

Maybe it don't make a difference to the world, but it sure makes a difference to me. Sure, I can join in and add my voice and action when required, maybe it will make a difference, maybe not, but at the same time I can take direct control of my own life and live it the way I believe I should. I'm not going to wait around for the glorious day when I can make these changes in my own life, today. I don't want to consume shit, nor do I have to, so guess what, I aint going to, whenever possible. I mean, been there, done that, it's got nothing to offer.

 

Fuck, i didn't want to get in to this thread but i just can't help myself! Always the same ones asking for arguments and when they get arguments, they don't even try to concider them to be legit as such. Anyway, now i'm here and have to say something.
There are alternatives to animal testing, the reason it's not used more than it is, is because the demand is not high enough compared to the profits the medical companies make from using the cheaper animals. If more people would actually make the effort of just asking every time they got meds subscribed, to get a not animal tested version of what they need, there would be less winnings for the medcompanies to use animals.
I agree with Ivanovich here, I don't use animaltested medicines or medicines containing anything made from animals unless i have to. There have been times i have made the choice of taking such meds but it has been kinda special situations. I don't take a pill just because i get a headache, partially also because the headache isn't a symptom of lack of pills. I try to figure out why i got it and do something about that instead.
I also use alternative medicine as much as possible, often with better results and without side effects.
I only buy vegan soap, deodorant, toothpaste, whatever stuff like that, such as is often in regular brands tested on animals. It's not a sacrifice in any way to just buy a different brand of toothpaste, anyone can do that.
As Ivanovich said, it's impossible to be 100% vegan but i do what i can.