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 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Never heard of an animal killing another animal because it was a different color. Animals kill out of necessity. they eat their kills. We just kill because of any number of ridiculously petty reasons.

Chimpanzees have been observed to wage tribe wars, which I think would qualify. link

 Goliath wrote:

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Never heard of an animal killing another animal because it was a different color. Animals kill out of necessity. they eat their kills. We just kill because of any number of ridiculously petty reasons.

Chimpanzees have been observed to wage tribe wars, which I think would qualify. link

Indeed. Ants also will freely exterminate each other.

Okay maybe I should restate my question. A lot of the answers so far have centered around valuing human life more than animal life, which is not really what I was trying to get at. I value human life more than animal life as well, because at the end of the day a human life amounts to much more than an existence entirely dictated by instinct, survival, and the need to procreate, as animals are.

However, this does not mean that animal cruelty isn't more upsetting to me than human cruelty. There are many instances where a human being frankly deserves to be tortured or killed, such as child murderers or rapists, sex slave traffickers, and terrorists. When it comes to animals though, I don't believe that there is anything they could do to deserve that. They are inherently innocent creatures that could never understand why something like that is happening to them, or be able to communicate what happens to them.

Animal cruelty gets to me more than human cruelty purely because animals don't usually understand what's going on, the tamer ones such as pets are too trusting and animals really don't have anyone to defend them. You could say rspca but that's IF someone reports it and IF they decide to respond, don't remember them being around when Cecil the lion was being hunted down and he was supposed to be protected!!! Don't get me wrong human cruelty is terrible but I view animal cruelty as the greater eevil. Sorry for the rant. Can't remember when I became a softy.... Must be all those hamsters we have :-)

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
Okay maybe I should restate my question. A lot of the answers so far have centered around valuing human life more than animal life, which is not really what I was trying to get at. I value human life more than animal life as well, because at the end of the day a human life amounts to much more than an existence entirely dictated by instinct, survival, and the need to procreate, as animals are.

However, this does not mean that animal cruelty isn't more upsetting to me than human cruelty. There are many instances where a human being frankly deserves to be tortured or killed, such as child murderers or rapists, sex slave traffickers, and terrorists. When it comes to animals though, I don't believe that there is anything they could do to deserve that. They are inherently innocent creatures that could never understand why something like that is happening to them, or be able to communicate what happens to them.

Animals are not innocent. Innocence is a human concept. You can't apply such concepts to animals. If there are innocent animals, then there should also be guilty animals. If a guilty animal does not exist, then neither can an innocent animal exist. For something to be present (innocence in animals in this case), it must also be able to be absent.

Generally speaking, yeah, animal cruelty does get to me more. Not to belittle humans that go through torture or any other form of cruelty but I guess its just generally the feeling that the animal is more helpless in a way and come off as more innocent than human. That plus animal cruelty is terrible in the sense that there's no purpose behind it besides malicious intent, whereas human cruelty towards one another is unfortunately very common given hatred towards certain groups of people or trying to interrogate them for information.

 d-usa wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Animal cruelty gets to me a bit more because unlike a person an animal can't do much to speak out for itself. A human can fight back, raise a fuss, tell other humans, and usually those humans will do something to try and help. Animals don't have the communication skills.

It's the same reason why reading "2 year old beat to death" bothers people a lot more than "22 year old beat to death".

Yeah. Regardless if one bothers you more than another, beating a child or a puppy still makes you a dick.

Yeah. Clear violation of our most sacred law;

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Never heard of an animal killing another animal because it was a different color. Animals kill out of necessity. they eat their kills. We just kill because of any number of ridiculously petty reasons.

That totally depends on the animal. Some animals kill just to kill, and some animals kill wastefully. When we raised chickens when I was a kid, we had problems with raccoons getting into the chicken house. They wouldn't just kill one and eat it. If one got in, they would kill every bird in the chicken house, eviscerate them, and leave them to rot. We literally lost twenty chickens in one night to a raccoon. The idea that animals only kill out of necessity is a completely false, romanticized notion. A lot of people seem to think that raccoons are sweet, cute little animals. I'm pretty sure most people who think that aren't familiar with what they're capable of.

Relevant:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill

Yes, I often find myself feeling more sympathetic to the suffering of animals than people. Frankly, I don't see any point in trying to justify that feeling, it might be completely unreasonable, but it's certainly something I can identify with. Though I think animals are more likable than people, generally. However, I would also say that I place a greater value on human lives and human suffering.

There is a quote by Milan Kundera that I really like: "True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which is deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals"

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I don't know. Some people just really seem to need a solid punch to the jaw. As intelligent as humans can be, there's a case to be made that some failures are too face palm inducing



Seriously bro... What are you doing?

Darwinism in action

Always thought it was more if you died but regardless his seed won't be spreading. Though I hate to see people in pain some people need to stop being so stupid and maybe surviving their stupidity will help them learn....I hope.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Never heard of an animal killing another animal because it was a different color. Animals kill out of necessity. they eat their kills. We just kill because of any number of ridiculously petty reasons.

Then you haven't looked well enough. Animals kill on the basis of malformations and abnormalities all the time. Albinos will be starved, ostracised or simply killed. Then you have a whole bunch of animals who'se social structure revolves around killing the members of allied (but competing) bloodlines. Then you have primates and insects that quite literally wage wars.

I have seen videos of pretty ladies stepping on a kitten's head and laugh as if it was nothing. It enraged me for at least a day. To the extent that I do not believe (or want to believe) that there are videos of pretty ladies crushing a baby's head all the while giggling, I think it's difficult to relate our reactions to each of those cases. Human social norms are just too damn bipolar and ambivalent when it comes to the treatment of human vs animal cruelty.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I don't know. Some people just really seem to need a solid punch to the jaw. As intelligent as humans can be, there's a case to be made that some failures are too face palm inducing



Seriously bro... What are you doing?

Darwinism in action

Always thought it was more if you died but regardless his seed won't be spreading. Though I hate to see people in pain some people need to stop being so stupid and maybe surviving their stupidity will help them learn....I hope.

The Darwin awards only require you to remove yourself from the genepool, they don't require you to actually die(though that is generally the most common result).

I get pretty enraged at all forms of cruelty to the innocent, whether animal or human. Even in books when I know the situation is a work of fiction, my blood boils when terrorists and criminals in the story kill innocent people in cruel and unusual ways. It just hurts my sense of justice when innocent beings suffer. I get less worked up when I hear that someone was shot and killed, compared to when I heard some story about a pretty lady who got acid thrown in her face by a jealous ex-boyfriend or something. Its the suffering that gets to me worse than the death.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
I have seen videos of pretty ladies stepping on a kitten's head and laugh as if it was nothing. It enraged me for at least a day. To the extent that I do not believe (or want to believe) that there are videos of pretty ladies crushing a baby's head all the while giggling, I think it's difficult to relate our reactions to each of those cases. Human social norms are just too damn bipolar and ambivalent when it comes to the treatment of human vs animal cruelty.

If I saw someone step on a kitten's head, I might not be able to resist stabbing them or beating them to death myself, murder charges and other consequences be damned. My blood just boiled when I read that. I don't even need to see those videos; they might just push me over the edge.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
Okay maybe I should restate my question. A lot of the answers so far have centered around valuing human life more than animal life, which is not really what I was trying to get at. I value human life more than animal life as well, because at the end of the day a human life amounts to much more than an existence entirely dictated by instinct, survival, and the need to procreate, as animals are.

However, this does not mean that animal cruelty isn't more upsetting to me than human cruelty. There are many instances where a human being frankly deserves to be tortured or killed, such as child murderers or rapists, sex slave traffickers, and terrorists. When it comes to animals though, I don't believe that there is anything they could do to deserve that. They are inherently innocent creatures that could never understand why something like that is happening to them, or be able to communicate what happens to them.

Animals are not innocent. Innocence is a human concept. You can't apply such concepts to animals. If there are innocent animals, then there should also be guilty animals. If a guilty animal does not exist, then neither can an innocent animal exist. For something to be present (innocence in animals in this case), it must also be able to be absent.

Animals are absolutely innocent. There is no such thing as a good or evil animal, because they are all completely governed by instinct. Animals do not get jealous, do not kill for sport, and are incapable of acts of cruelty because they could not possibly understand what cruelty is. When animals do horrible things to human beings, it's only because they perceive their young to be in danger, or are territorial, or, in exceptional cases, because they see us as dinner. The impossibility of a guilty animal does not in any way mean that animals are not innocent.

I have little to no apathy to most human suffering. I do not agree with suffering at all of any kind, but after seeing what humans do to each other to see. What happens... Well I care less and less. If i had to choose a 12 year old dog or a middleage human... Well good news is I got a friend for life a new doggy.

Sorry guys I just hate most humans they do crule acts to each other for a idea to try out, then do even worse things just because they feel like it.

As someone whose continually had two cats at a time, I can tel you animals totally get jealous, do kill for sport, and are capable of being vindictive, and not just with each other but with people too. And oh boy do they know when they've done a naughty. Abby always tucks her tail in and tries to hide behind a curtain somewhere

Im a farmer and have spent my whole life working with and surrounded by animals. I love animals its the reason i do what i do. Animal cruelty is sickening beyond words. I see people walking dogs around towns, dogs that are massively obese as they rarely get the exercise they need, my wife has friends who put their cats on leads if they take them out at all. Cruelty to animals comes in many guises and is much more widespread than the extreme cases that should result in criminal prosecutions. In many cases owners of pets do not realise how cruel they are being denying the animal any access to natural behaviour.

Having said that animal cruelty is not as bad as human cruelty i don't think as humans have much more complex relationships and lives. But its difficult to put cruelty in any form into a hierarchy. Pain is still pain, depression is still depression.

 LordofHats wrote:
As someone whose continually had two cats at a time, I can tel you animals totally get jealous, do kill for sport, and are capable of being vindictive, and not just with each other but with people too. And oh boy do they know when they've done a naughty. Abby always tucks her tail in and tries to hide behind a curtain somewhere

I think that all goes back to survival if they are the beta then they surive if they are not ,well they are less likely going to make it. It is not killing for sport it is keeping skills present to survive, they do not know most of us will not abandon them. But when a husband abandons his kids to die for something new, a mother tosses a new born in a dumpster because it is not in her plans. Thats a different story, we know what to do to make things work and better animals still love in the wild in their minds just in a controlled wild inviroment we make for them. People blow them selves up because ey feel wronged, animals do what they need to make sure they live. Humans kill becuse they feel anoyed or wronged that has nothing to do with survival.

Sorry hving a hell of a time typing on my tablet the words do not show up til I am about 9 words away so I tend to spell things wrong.

 d-usa wrote:
Relevant:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill

I was going to mention that one.

I believe I heard in one of those BBC documentaries with the goofy cameras that a male polar bear will kill a female's cubs before trying to mate with her if they're not his.

 daedalus wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Relevant:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill

I was going to mention that one.

I believe I heard in one of those BBC documentaries with the goofy cameras that a male polar bear will kill a female's cubs before trying to mate with her if they're not his.

A lot of animals would kill their own offspring and eat them rather than starving to death.

Lions also kill all the cubs in a pride when they take over.

Sea otters rape baby seals to death.

Seals rape penguins in the south pole.

*shrug*

I don't believe in evil, but animals sometimes inflict suffering or death on other animals for reasons other than food. Whether those animals are capable of the same emotional reactions to this as humans is definitely up for debate though.

It's surprising to me that more people don't see the link between animal cruelty and eating meat.
I eat meat, but I accept that this involves cruelty towards animals. I want that cruelty to be minimized as much as possible in a trade off with environmental concerns (generally, treating farm animals better means giving them more space which means more wild habitat is destroyed to make room for them, killing off wild animals. So in some senses, intensive farming practices are more environmentally friendly if waste products are dealt with appropriately.)

If you are really outraged by animal cruelty visit a slaughterhouse or have a look at a cattle transport truck. Neither of these things are nice. Check out the conditions of the bacon you eat before it becomes bacon.

I think it should be part of the school curriculum personally, but most people disagree with me.

This thread has come up to the same conclusions as me, and I have no reason to believe it isn't even more widespread.

Animals and children have an innocence to them that means their suffering has value. Adult and adolescent humans less so, but circumstances will vary this, some people attract sympathy, some bugs need to be crushed.

 Iron_Captain wrote:


Meanwhile, in Russia...

<image>

Resource this please so we can see it. Raw link wont work for me either.

If I had to rate them fro most hated to less

Most Hated
child abuse
spousal abuse, mostly when its a woman being abused, if its a guy I wouldn't care it's his problem. man up
all other human abuse
animal abuse, while detestable I must always choose human life over an animal.

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:

spousal abuse, mostly when its a woman being abused, if its a guy I wouldn't care it's his problem. man up

Another one with his testosterone levels set to 'fake macho'.
Not responding heavy handedly to a violently abusing female partner doesn't imply a lack of manhood in anyone who understands the term.
Stop victim blaming, the many many male victims of domestic abuse need and deserve this gak attitude to end.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:

spousal abuse, mostly when its a woman being abused, if its a guy I wouldn't care it's his problem. man up

Not responding heavy handedly to a violently abusing female partner doesn't imply a lack of manhood in anyone who understands the term.

Agreed. The dude would go in prison for conjugal violence.

Cruelty to humans definitely effect me more deeply than animal cruelty. That's not to say animal cruelty doesn't effect me at all mind you, it does especially if it's needless.

Pets are different mind you, as you develop a bond with them. Even then though, a pet dying from another's actions probably wouldn't effect me as much as a close family member.


Also on the whole 'animals are innocent' thing... Yeah no. Have you seen/heard how depraved certain animal species are? Male adélie penguins sexually and physically abuse their chicks and other female adélie penguins and perform acts of necrophilia, not to mention that they have been seen to (rarely, truth be told) pimp out females for prostitution.

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:
spousal abuse, mostly when its a woman being abused, if its a guy I wouldn't care it's his problem. man up

Seriously feth this, no one should have to tolerate abuse regardless of gender.

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Rune Stonegrinder wrote:
spousal abuse, mostly when its a woman being abused, if its a guy I wouldn't care it's his problem. man up

Seriously feth this, no one should have to tolerate abuse regardless of gender.

Indeed. Guys getting abused isn't funny either, precisely because of attitudes like that which demean their situation.