Founder of Sea Shepherd Arrested in Germany

[RandFan]

The point I'm trying to make Rand, is that all animals feel pain when they are killed. Whales feel pain...Cows feel pain...Goats feel pain...Sheep feel pain. Pain is universal to almost all species. For Sea Shepherd to claim that the pain of whales is somehow greater and more significant...does not sit well with me.

1.) Not all animals experience pain the same (that's a scientific fact). 2.) Not all animals are self aware. So, IMO, there is a substantive difference based on empirical evidence. Repeating the same argument over and over isn't advancing the discussion.

 

[WildCat]

Well...Dessi..would you agree that slitting your throat and letting you bleed to death would be less painful than plunging you in boiling water why you are still alive?

Boiling alive is a really suck ass way to go...but lobsters, crab and crayfish suffer this fate everyday. Why aren't Sea Shepherd trying to stop this atrocity?

I don't think crustaceans have the necessary equipment to feel pain.

 

[Marduk]

I'm still wondering why it's ok to kill one animal because it has lesser intelligence than another? If a whale is in fact more intelligent than a cow...does a whale feel more pain when it is slaughtered?

What about a lobster that's dropped in a pot of boiling water? Is the lobster's pain less significant than a whales? Who determines which animals are ok to kill...and which animals are not?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience

 

[Furcifer]

I mean this guy gets his boat and rams a Japanese whaler and it's claimed that this is "doing something"; but what really happened? Did the whaler stop and turn around and say "okay, we quit"?

Didn't they? I seem to recall their 'research' ended early last year.

 

[WildCat]

Didn't they? I seem to recall their 'research' ended early last year.

They're just sightseeing boats now, but the whales keep comin' right at 'em!

 

[RandFan]

1.) Not all animals experience pain the same (that's a scientific fact).

From the link I posted earlier.

Animals are not things, but there is probably a point where legally protecting an organism from pain and fear should cease. From my knowledge of neuroscience, I can be reasonably sure that oysters, flu viruses and bacteria do not need legal protection to prevent people from being cruel by inflicting pain and fear. Advocating for the rights of oysters is something I think is silly.


The key is, does the animal have sufficient nervous system complexity to experience pain and fear and actually suffer? Simple reflexes are not reliable indications of suffering. Removing the cortex of the brain leaves reflexes intact and the decerebrate animal will not feel pain (Woolf, 1983). To suffer, the animal must have sufficient associative circuits in the brain to process pain or fear. This is discussed in a review by Grandin (2002).

 

[Macgyver1968]

1.) Not all animals experience pain the same (that's a scientific fact). 2.) Not all animals are self aware. So, IMO, there is a substantive difference based on empirical evidence. Repeating the same argument over and over isn't advancing the discussion.

How do self-aware animals experience pain that is different from non-self aware animals? Does being self-aware (which is in contention with Minke and Pilot whales) differ from being non-self aware?

Pain is pain...when something bites into your ass...it *********** hurts. and you run away.

Whether you can recognize you image in a mirror or not makes no difference.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Well...Dessi..would you agree that slitting your throat and letting you bleed to death would be less painful than plunging you in boiling water why you are still alive?

Boiling alive is a really suck ass way to go...but lobsters, crab and crayfish suffer this fate everyday. Why aren't Sea Shepherd trying to stop this atrocity?

This is a pretty stupid argument if you think about it.

Something has to be The Worst Thing In The World. For every issue other than that single one, someone can raise the stupid argument "Why do you care? You should be caring about The Worst Thing In The World! Ha ha, you are a hypocrite and I just caught you!".

The answer is simply that there are lots of bad things in the world, we can't all be working to fix all of them, and fixing the second-worst thing should not wait on fixing the first-worst thing. Trying to fix any problem is laudable, and you don't lose credit just because there is some other problem you could be fixing.

On the bright side, you've obviously solved the problems of AIDS, Middle East unrest the common cold because you have time to post here. That's good news at least. I'm glad the only problem left in the world for you to solve is someone being wrong right on the internet.

 

[Macgyver1968]

This is a pretty stupid argument if you think about it.

Something has to be The Worst Thing In The World. For every issue other than that single one, someone can raise the stupid argument "Why do you care? You should be caring about The Worst Thing In The World! Ha ha, you are a hypocrite and I just caught you!".

The answer is simply that there are lots of bad things in the world, we can't all be working to fix all of them, and fixing the second-worst thing should not wait on fixing the first-worst thing. Trying to fix any problem is laudable, and you don't lose credit just because there is some other problem you could be fixing.

On the bright side, you've obviously solved the problems of AIDS, Middle East unrest the common cold because you have time to post here. That's good news at least. I'm glad the only problem left in the world for you to solve is someone being wrong right on the internet.

I have no idea what you just said...what the **** does AIDS and the middle east have anything do with the justification of killing whales?

 

[mikedenk]

NoahFence++

I usually end up giving a few hundred dollars to Sea Shepard Society every year. I think, especially for what they're doing, direct action really helps, and it brings the issue of whale hunting into the mainstream, and puts huge amount of international pressure on nations which permit research commercial whaling.

I doubt it provides a net benefit to the anti-whaling argument.

I would venture to guess that Watson's idiotic antics have garnered the WHALERS a lot of sympathy and support from people who would've otherwise been neutral or even anti-whaling. Looking through the reactions in this thread provides a pretty good snapshot of this.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I doubt it provides a net benefit to the anti-whaling argument.

I would venture to guess that Watson's idiotic antics have garnered the WHALERS a lot of sympathy and support from people who would've otherwise been neutral or even anti-whaling. Looking through the reactions in this thread provides a pretty good snapshot of this.

If you believe that, I have a whole lot of "I was an Obama supporter but this has forced me to vote Republican!" to sell you.

 

[Macgyver1968]

If you believe that, I have a whole lot of "I was an Obama supporter but this has forced me to vote Republican!" to sell you.

I'm sorry, but your responses make no sense. Please clarify.

 

[Macgyver1968]

Well...I have to go to bed...the simple fact is Paul Watson is a *********** liar and deserves to spend a watery death under the ocean.

 

[mikedenk]

I'm sorry, but your responses make no sense. Please clarify.

He is just pointing out all the filthy liars in this thread, like these people from the first page:

He is an interesting case. I am strongly against whale hunting, I think it's abhorrant and serves no useful purpose.
However I always root for the whalers against this guy.

That pretty much sums up how I feel re this.

Heh, this guy singlehanded turned me into a supporter of the whaling business with his TV show.

 

[tsig]

I don't think the hunters in Barrow are pretending to be "collecting samples for research" though.

I do know there's a difference and I respect what they do.

Japan isn't happy unless they're involved in some sort of slaughter though

Yeah, them Nips just ain't happy 'less they're killin' something. The Yellow Peril approaches.

 

[RandFan]

How do self-aware animals experience pain that is different from non-self aware animals? Does being self-aware (which is in contention with Minke and Pilot whales) differ from being non-self aware?

Self awareness is a benchmark we use for humans (see Terry Schivo).

Pain is pain...when something bites into your ass...it *********** hurts. and you run away.

You poke at an ant and it scurries around. That fact doesn't mean that it comprehends your finger or that it comprehends fear. Frogs don't have an image of a fly in their brain when they seize a fly with their tongue. You have the same ability to react to things you can't consciously see. Also we know that there is an emotional component to pain that makes pain worse for those who have the ability to experience the emotional component than those who do not have the component. For those people pain is largely just another sensation. Lower form animals don't respond to pain based on an emotional component.

 

[Macgyver1968]

He is just pointing out all the filthy liars in this thread, like these people from the first page:

Am I a filthy liar? Please, by all means demonstrate where I have lied.

 

[Travis]

Suppose that we aren't talking about fully self-aware humans, but humans who are at a similar level of awareness as seals and whales, like infants or children?

Euthanasia.

What? There's a horrible food shortage in Ireland I read about!



To get back to what we were talking about, if there were an operation where feeble minded humans were being clubbed to death (for reasons I can't put together but that is not the point) I sure wouldn't try to combat it with vehicle bump and run. And I sure as heck wouldn't let a commercial TV operation tag along while I put into practice what I would do about it.

 

[Macgyver1968]

Self awareness is a benchmark we use for humans (see Terry Schivo).

You poke at an ant and it scurries around. That fact doesn't mean that it comprehends your finger or that it comprehends fear. Frogs don't have an image of a fly in their brain when they seize a fly with their tongue. You have the same ability to react to things you can't consciously see. Also we know that their emotional component to pain that makes pain worse for those who have the ability to experience the emotional component than those who do not have the component. For those people pain is largely just another sensation. Lower form animals don't rely on the emotional component to respond to the pain.

Please explain how the pain of dieing for a whale is different from the pain of dieing for a cow..or a goat or any other animal. How is the death of a whale more tragic than the death of any other creature?

 

[RandFan]

Please explain how the pain of dieing for a whale is different from the pain of dieing for a cow..or a goat or any other animal.

Hold on, I've explained how it is different for lower form animals. Stimulation isn't comprehended or experienced the same. It's just a sensation. We have humans that we can talk to who lack an emotional component for pain and they explain pain as simply a sensation. Further, for other lower form animals the pain isn't part of a conscious experience, they cannot "feel" pain anymore than a computer can. You are anthropomorphizing, you are also engaging in a hasty generalization.

Can you acknowledge that much?