Post: #1

Sort of a related thread to the Global Warming thread.

Today I was listening to NPR and they were discussing bees. There were people on the show who had given TED talks about bees, bee culture, everything relating to bees.

There was a woman talking, and the hostess asked her, "What's it like to think like a bee?"

The beekeeper responded, "Bees are much more quiet and respectful of their environment than we are. They also don't think about thinking, which humans do and I think it sets us back."

I changed stations right there. During this woman's response, the show started playing some very sublime ambient music in the background as if what this woman was saying was some sort of deeper wisdom.

This is a beekeeper and researcher mind you, talking about bees being "quiet" and "respectful". What the fuck? You think bees are even remotely aware of the concepts of "quiet" and "respect"? Humans thinking about thinking holds us back? Why not start criticizing our ability to reason and capacity for abstract thought?

Prior to her, there was another beekeeper, a guy, saying, "We should consider playing a more submissive role in the environment and not always be so concerned with being the dominant species." Self-loathing much?

It's appalling these people would consider themselves scientists, and I can only imagine the millions of listeners, completely enraptured by these intellectual-sounding pundits offering neatly-packaged sound bites and pop-wisdom to help them through their day.

As I see it, here's the fallacy:

It is only in our self-interest to maintain a healthy and diverse biosphere. We need bees and insects to sustain the world's agricultural cycle, and too a much much lesser extent, for honey. That's it! We have no further moral obligation to them! Just like they have no obligation to us! They're fucking bees. Little 6-legged robots buzzing around and pollinating shit and feeding their own puke to their queen. I don't understand this need to glorify certain species and start producing radio segments about "what can we learn from bees". It's incredibly infantile, and reeks of self-loathing towards our own species. Do I think we should invest in technologies and practices that are less damaging to the environment? Hell yes, for the same reason I think it's important to keep a clean house. But not out of any obligation towards any creature. But that comment about "being concerned with being the dominant species" is so completely ignorant. There's not a human on earth that gives a shit about being dominant. We're concerned with self-preservation and comfort, and it's our pursuit of those two things that unfortunately creates a drag on our environment.

Part two of the fallacy is species-ism. There's a huge awareness about the endangered rhinos and tigers and whales and what have you. All big, majestic, beautiful animals. Well, what about the 1000s of others endangered species that people don't know about? Right now there's a bird in the Amazon somewhere, the last one of its kind, with a red throat, green eyes, sparklers shooting out of its ass, and it's about to get mowed down by a bulldozer. What about that bird? Noone gives a shit. Why?

Because tigers and rhinos and whales are beautiful creatures, we admire them and it's only for our selfish desires that we strive to keep them around. They're basically the prettier species. I'm in that camp; I think wild cats are beautiful creatures and I'd like to see them protected. I'd like to see a few out in the wild at some point in my life, and I acknowledge it's only because I think they're pretty to look at. This whole moral obligation to preserving the world's species is horseshit, and noone wants to admit that we only want to save the pretty ones, unless you're an entomologist or other specialist.

We create massive cities of animal slaughter; we've got chicken aushwitz and pig aushwitz and cow aushwitz, entire plants where horrifying acts of animal slaughter take place. Don't those animals lives matter? Why don't we get radio shows about "what we can learn from chickens"?

The thing is, is I think bees are massively fascinating. I do think we should be concerned with their declining population. There should be radio programs talking about this. But not in the way they're doing it. What really pisses me off is if anything, I think they're hurting the cause for whatever it is they're trying to make people aware of. The progressive voice distorts genuine concerns and modern issues into convenient little sound-bites of propaganda that neglects any journalistic integrity and denies the listeners of relevant and key information. The radio program today is just one small example, but it's a daily routine, whether it's politics, environment, psychology, social studies, etc.

This rant was brought to you by a fairly intense hangover.

Post: #2

Until bees can do shit like this I'm not interested in their thoughts.

Post: #3

(09-29-2013 01:32 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  ...

Bees are a very magnificent species, but one of their main drawbacks is a lack of diversity. I've noticed, in my observations, that a bee colony is 100% homogeneous and they do not tolerate other insects - or even other species of bee - visiting their hive.

We should both learn from and teach the bees in order to both reach higher realms of consciousness.

Post: #4

A progressive wouldn't survive for 2 seconds in a bee colony. Yes, we have something to learn from the bees.

Post: #5

Furthermore.... thedude3737's superb post is more reflective of clear thinking than of a hangover, not that the two are incompatible...

Think of the outright insanity of this exchange:

Quote:There was a woman talking, and the hostess asked her, "What's it like to think like a bee?"

The beekeeper responded, "Bees are much more quiet and respectful of their environment than we are. They also don't think about thinking, which humans do and I think it sets us back."

Why would someone ask this nonsense question and why would someone give this demented answer?

There are reasons for this. People say this because they hate the human being and they hate the human being because they've decided that life is meaningless and have fundamentally despaired of it. As I wrote more extensively in a different context:

Quote:Here is something else that is interesting. By an odd coincidence, the people that you probably regard as your exact ideological opposites, the progressive, feminist, Frankfurt-schooled left, share your certainty of totalized collapse and decline as completely as possible. They place the blame elsewhere -- we will be ruined because we have destroyed the planet, like the greedy pigs that we are we kept extracting more and more and more fossil fuels so we can keep our disgustingly large houses unforgivably chilled in the 100 degree summer heat of Houston, and now Gaia, who always bats last, will exact a terrible price. They, too, know -- much like you know -- that "technology won't save us this time". They, too, know that the rot has set too deep, that we have gone too far, that the day of judgment is near. In one case it's the "culture" that goes under, in another, the "environment". Either way, we're doomed. Some curious similarities, wouldn't you say?

There is a simple reason for this: the convicted mythologies of decline shared by the would-be Gaia worshippers on the left and the would-be traditionalists on the right are two sides of the same terrible coin, with Nietzsche's moustached head engraved on either side. For you are both equally in thrall to Nietzschean despair; you both know what you know because like your teacher, you have seen through the illusions and into things as they really are. The right's affectations of traditional religious belief and the left's demented Gaia idolatry are both classic cases of protesting too much, because what both know above all else is the absolute reality of the "lack of meaning or purpose" to which you refer above.

The deranged theater of bee adulation that so correctly drove the OP away from NPR on a hung over Sunday is but an example of what I called "demented Gaia idolatry" and which proceeds from an all-encompassing sense of despair about the human being and life itself.

Post: #6

I don't think feed lots are starving and gassing the chickens and other animals to death. More like overfeeding them.

As for bees they are quite important in terms of spreading pollen around, and they are sort of a bellwether for the health of everything like a frog is. I heard somewhere there was a major bee shortage and I don't remember seeing as many this year too.

Post: #7

I wouldn't quite call this a form of mental illness, but a form of extreme hamster rationalization.

In my opinion people who think like this feel alienated from other humans, and instead of being OK with that they develop resentment towards other people. As if it's OTHER people's fault that the other 6.99 billion of us can't relate to THEM.

Because humans NEED emotional relationships they then seek an animal substitute. These are the crazy cat ladies we talk about. They get from animals what most people get from other people.

Here is where they get it wrong: Animals are no more compassionate or caring or peaceful than humans. Humans cannot speak "dog" or "cat" or "bee" or "tiger" or "rhino". If we could I'm sure we'd find some pretty fucked up individuals in their species, just like we have in ours.

The animals cannot talk back. The animals only love you because you feed them. It's a ONE-WAY relationship, in which the human gets the most benefit because the human gets their emotional needs met without having to deal another human being. Instead of interpreting this as odd or strange, they instead rationalize it as animals being "more compassionate". If the animals could talk back and communicate their feelings I don't think the humans would be so in love with them.

Post: #8

Thinking is dangerous. When you think you ask questions. Asking questions is scary.

Post: #9

Good writeup, OP, you're right alot of these people are hypocritical, morally self-assured, infantile narcissists. Having said that, I do think we have a moral responsibility not to despoil the ecosystem.

Post: #10

(09-29-2013 11:21 PM)Wadsworth Wrote:  Good writeup, OP, you're right alot of these people are hypocritical, morally self-assured, infantile narcissists. Having said that, I do think we have a moral responsibility not to despoil the ecosystem.

For the sake of argument, why?

When I hear "moral obligation" or "moral responsibility", it starts to wander into the region of playing god. Of imposing our judgement on the way things should be. That's a slippery slope to me because I think it sets off a chain reaction where humans start to think they're something more than an intelligent species. We start applying demi-god status to ourselves.

I think we have a self-serving responsibility not to despoil the ecosystem. It's obviously in our best interests to preserve biodiversity.

I didn't emphasize it on the global warming thread, but you'd be hard pressed to find a bigger nature boy than me. I'm happiest when I'm up in the mountains or in the desert. I just got back from a phenomenal snorkeling trip in Baja Mexico. I wanted to be a veterinarian when I was a kid. (Ironically now I cook animals instead of saving them, oh well) I love animals and the natural world with a deep passion, and it's for that reason that I have an interest in environmental affairs.

I think it's very important to differentiate between having moral obligations and identifying selfish incentives. One is honest and the other is incredibly disingenuine and reinforces a negative human trait; the trait of superiority and resulting alienation that occurs. It's when people can come together and say, "We want this" that change occurs. The moral statement would be "It should be this way", and that's when trouble arises.

Post: #11

Self-loathing, that's what all of this lefty shit is about, it's psychological.

Post: #12

(09-30-2013 03:29 AM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

(09-29-2013 11:21 PM)Wadsworth Wrote:  Good writeup, OP, you're right alot of these people are hypocritical, morally self-assured, infantile narcissists. Having said that, I do think we have a moral responsibility not to despoil the ecosystem.

For the sake of argument, why?

I suppose because I don't see us as being distinct or separate from nature but profoundly connected to it. If you had an appendage that you shared with everyone else, would you claim others had a moral obligation not to despoil it?

Quote:I think it's very important to differentiate between having moral obligations and identifying selfish incentives.

Let me put it to you this way. As our destructive capacity increases in terms of waging wars, do we not have an increasing moral obligation to find alternative solutions? You could make the argument that this is merely the selfish incentives you speak of, but isn't it more than that? Don't we fundamentally have a moral obligation to each other, and to respect life? If it were purely selfish incentives, wouldn't it be OK to nuke a bunch of people provided we felt no ill effects?

With nature, it's much the same as other human lives. It is of value on its own terms, regardless of whether humans benefit, though as it happens our connectedness means we do benefit.

Quote:The moral statement would be "It should be this way", and that's when trouble arises.

I agree, but I haven't made this kind of judgement. I do think we have an ever-increasing moral obligation as our capacity to destroy and despoil the ecosystem increases, but I haven't proposed a solution. Many of the narcissists think they have the solution, when in fact they don't it's merely their own self stimulation.

Anti capitalists, for example, who profess to be nature's guardians, merely project their anti capitalism through their environmentalism. Their "it should be this way" is infantile because they're OK with destroying our society in deference to nature (not a functional solution).

Post: #13

To say that we have a moral responsibility toward "the environment" is an absurdity.

There is no such thing as "the environment". It's a mere collection of things, just material of various kinds. To the extent that the idea of moral responsibility has any meaning, and sometimes it does, it's about how people treat other people. That's it. There is no Gaia. The earth is no goddess but a rock spinning around the sun. It's ours to use and exploit as we see fit at any time.

This was already clear to the Jews thousands of years ago. What can be more demented than idolatry, the worship of mere things? Whether it's the Golden Calf or "the environment", people create these false idols when they despair of the human being and its possibilities and tremble in abject fear of the future.

None of this means that man cannot enjoy or even love nature. Indeed, the more we exploit nature the more we love it, since mere things acquire meaning and texture only when the sentient being enters into relation to them for its own purposes.

Certainly a farmer who raises and then slaughters his prize pig will have a far stronger feeling for it than some city bred "animal rights activist" whose thin ideology proceeds from hatred of the human being if it's an academic monster, or from worthless sentimentality if it's a simple-minded female. But the oil engineer may have a feeling for his rig which is just as great, perhaps greater.

We may love the sight of nature unspoilt by the human being but like any other virgin it is there to be ravished and only then fulfill its purpose.

As for "playing God", that's all we've ever done and it's what we'll keep doing. We've gotten better at it and we're just getting warmed up.

Post: #14

The following piece, entitled "Dogs Are People, Too", appears in the NY Times today. It is not a joke or a parody.

Some freak, a "professor of neuroeconomics" (whatever the fuck that is) at Emory, decided to put some dawgs into an MRI scanner and look at what is going on in their brains. He got their consent first

Quote:From the beginning, we treated the dogs as persons. We had a consent form, which was modeled after a child’s consent form but signed by the dog’s owner. We emphasized that participation was voluntary, and that the dog had the right to quit the study. We used only positive training methods. No sedation. No restraints. If the dogs didn’t want to be in the M.R.I. scanner, they could leave. Same as any human volunteer.

Strangely enough, he found that there is stuff going on in the dawgs' brains. I'm not really sure what he was supposed to find, that there is nothing there at all? In particular, in some part of the brain called the caudate nucleus which apparently is present in both dawgs and people

Quote:Although we are just beginning to answer basic questions about the canine brain, we cannot ignore the striking similarity between dogs and humans in both the structure and function of a key brain region: the caudate nucleus.

What did they find there?

Quote:In dogs, we found that activity in the caudate increased in response to hand signals indicating food. The caudate also activated to the smells of familiar humans. And in preliminary tests, it activated to the return of an owner who had momentarily stepped out of view

Unbelievable, I mean who would have thought, right?

So what is the conclusion from these insights about the dawgs' cawdate nucleus?

Quote: The ability to experience positive emotions, like love and attachment, would mean that dogs have a level of sentience comparable to that of a human child. And this ability suggests a rethinking of how we treat dogs.

DOGS have long been considered property. Though the Animal Welfare Act of 1966 and state laws raised the bar for the treatment of animals, they solidified the view that animals are things — objects that can be disposed of as long as reasonable care is taken to minimize their suffering.

But now, by using the M.R.I. to push away the limitations of behaviorism, we can no longer hide from the evidence. Dogs, and probably many other animals (especially our closest primate relatives), seem to have emotions just like us. And this means we must reconsider their treatment as property.

So because some areas lit up on some meaningless scan this "would mean" that dawgs have some entirely hypothetical "level of sentience", which "suggests" a "rethinking". They "seem" to have emotions "just like us" which means, at the end of the day, we "MUST reconsider their treatment". Makes perfect sense.

******************************

It is truly incredible to what lengths these freaks will go and what grim nonsense they will spout to rhetoricize their utter hatred of the human being under the guise of "animal rights".

This is no joke, there is a real darkness here. This repeated empty ceremony of solemnly conducting completely pointless scans of these dogs, after having those terrible "consent forms" signed, is something that I find scary and sinister. I think what these people really want to do, whether they know it or not, is to torture human beings because unlike dogs we know that life is meaningless.

Attached to the article is a cant picture of a dawg just standing there amid the truth of nihilism, waiting for its personhood to be recognized. Scary stuff.

Post: #15

^ Reminds me of when Caligula appointed as horse as a senator

Post: #16

Nice find Lizard. Again with the species-ism. It's well known that pigs are smarter than dogs, probably the most intelligent domesticated species on earth. Why isn't there an article called "Pigs are people, too?"

Oh, that's right, because we eat them and they're delicious. Noone keeps pigs as a pet so clearly they're not worthy of these ridiculous brain examinations.

The hypocrisy of this way of thinking is

Post: #17

Samseau, if only this was as relatively innocent as Caligula's old school antics.

These people don't have Caligula's blithe willingness to chop heads off, at least not yet (thank God). But the darkness that is in their minds is of a far more sinister kind.