What is Your Philosophy for Animals?

i adore animals.    mostly just birds and mammals though.    I was a strict dietary vegan for some time, in an effort to stand up for animals, unlike the rest of you (just joking).    But thats stupid... 
 
i'm (we're) the number one predator..  so all animals are prey.  But since we have so much livestock, the cuter animals need not worry.

 

What impulses might cause one to better survive, doesn't mean it was developed for survival. Death is an inevitability, yet life continues to make it's mark. Is it important? Only for those who have the desire to live. Life is inherently meaningless. Yet still the desire exists to prolong and protect it. Life is an anomoly. It's not real, it's an illusion. Existing for a moment and disappearing again. Yet from that which it arises, that always exists. That has no permanent form. All the feelings that arise with life, depart with it. So why is compassion important? It's all in the name of universal development. Call it living in accordance with the Tao.

As for differences in between animals and humans, there are many and there are few. It depends on how you see it. As for better or worse, even those ideas exist within a context.

 

 
My feeling on the dog is that dogs have basically evolved to be our companions so the natural place of a dog is with humans. Other animals like fish I'm on the fence, but then again those pet store fish probably couldn't survive in the wild either as they have probably been bred to look good, not function well. 
 
But other than that, I believe humans should do whatever is neccessary to survive. Some people eat dogs, a friend from Chile told me that she has eaten dog "Perros es muy deliciousa!" so to each there own. Paradoxically she has pet dogs whom she does not plan on eating.

 

Actually they sruvive in the wild even better than natural pets.

That's why there are so many laws banning fish from.certain areas.

Gmo glofish are banned in most countries. And they are an invasive species in the wild.

I also have eaten rabbit and have a pet bunny. I don't think its a paradox. Its human nature.

I just believe humans have evolved to the point where we can reaist the more primitive parts of our nature. Like eating animals.

-yuri

 

I've been wanting to write out my musings about animals for some time now.. but it's like there's so much one could say and I want to say it all, then basically just overload myself and don't say anything.. but when someone else starts it, I can chime in with bits and pieces and that works out better.
 
My personal philosophy is appreciate and let live when you don't NEED to kill.. I am an animal lover, born into a hunting home but never really hunted. So I saw a lot of dead animals.. and dead animals were a fascination.. but I was too curious about them when they're alive to kill them. Was never a vegan or even a vegetarian though.. I love meat and being an animal lover, I don't see anything wrong with that. We are animals.. and animals eat animals. I don't feel bad for livestock.. as long as they aren't mistreated. Some say that killing them is mistreatment.. but I don't see it as such. Now beating them and torturing them for kicks would be fucked up, there's no point in that. My dad was a trapper too and I'd go with him to check traps, set a lot of fox traps on farms.. but he always killed them swiftly and that's how it should be.
 
We also had live foxes kept in cages.. technically illegal.. and tried raising a couple fox pups once. Grandpa has a dog catcher and he'd bring home dogs that were meant to be put down, at one point probably had 20 some foxes at my dad's and 10 dogs at my grandpa's. In terms of pets though, I've never personally "owned" anything above a rodent, but a lot below them. Rodents, spiders, snakes, lizards, ants, fish, birds, turtles, spiders, other random insects, a pig that lived in the house at my grandparents. Worked with dogs off and on my whole life, they call me a dog whisperer at my work.. but never owned my own dog. It's like animals with more evolved brains/emotions.. just can't do it, I feel too bad cause in a way, it does feel selfish. I'd never look down on someone for it and I do plan on getting my own companion in the future.. but for now, I am cool with everyone else having them so I can play with them.
 
As for emotions.. a lot of people don't like to think of them as having emotions like we do.. they try to call them instincts.. but instincts are emotions. I really don't see anything unique about human emotions.. or really even unique about humans at all except cooking with fire. Our emotions are a product of evolution.. meaning that they came from the animals we evolved from. When you look at the general path life took.. single celled to multicellular to invertebrates to fish to amphibians to reptiles to rodents to larger mammals and how they live their lives, you can get a good idea of why they came to be. Fish and amphibians don't feel much emotion.. that's why they have so many offspring. They don't really have the emotional ability to care for their offspring, so they have tons and let nature take it's course. As animals evolve though, they become more complex.. needing more development and more care. Emotions had to evolve though in order for evolution to continue. There needed to be emotions there for the parents to feel like they need to take care of them longer.. if there weren't, they would of never survived to continue the species. Emotions, like the ones we feel day in and day out, are very similar to all the other animals.. just more complex. Any social species is going to have a wider range of emotions than nonsocial species.. and there isn't a single emotion in humans that I don't 'see' in other animals. People like to say that it is only humans that can ask a question.. but I see dogs asking questions all the time, when they cock their heads and sometimes make a noise. That is the dog version of "huh?".. only obviously they can't say it in our language.. 'Huh?' is one of the top most internationally known words.. and pretty much the same in all languages as it isn't actually a word we say, it's a noise we make.. and a lot of us cock our heads when asking it too.
 
And now I'm at the point where I could go a million different directions.. so yeah, Norse.. check your local wildlife laws. In some areas it is illegal to keep a native wild bird. Granted, I have been guilty of it myself and highly doubt many people will put effort into following it up.. but best to check.
 
If anyone is bored, I have about 100 videos uploaded: https://www.youtube.com/user/Mantikore420/videos Got some spiders and lizards crawling on me.. snakes, a fish with "legs", ants ants and more ants.
 
Like this guy.. a five lined skink. Was pulling a dead tree at work and he was living in it, ran up my arm and just chilled on my shoulder. He stayed there for awhile, even while I was mowing and weed whacking.. then I took him to a tree and let it go. A few days later I ended up with 2 on me, first a little one on my shoulder.. then a bigger one which pushed the little one up into my hair. So I had 2 skinks just hanging out on me.. even walked through the office and kennel with them chilling on me, it was great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8koq6rkhUoY

 

 
They are, but that is really just because most place have a ban on GMO fish in general. Like they are banned in California, but only because CA banned GMO fish before Glofish were even around. All they are are modified versions of fish that are sold in countless numbers as it is.. and have the same amount of survivability, which is very little. Even more so when you are something new that stands out, glofish more than likely would not survive long in the wild. Cali actually did give them the go ahead, kind of.. told the company that they would exempt them if they paid for an asinine amount in testing first. http://www.glofish.com/about/faq/#california
 
Just don't want people thinking they actually pose a threat so they can use them for their anti-GMO campaign..

 

don't get the wrong idea. I'm not anti gmo.

I have a glofish tank actually which is why I brought that up

-yuri

 

 
I didn't think you were, but them being an invasive species isn't really accurate.. and accurate or not, someone who is anti-GMO is just going to use that to confirm their bias.. and possibly try to spread it to other people. People fear GMOs enough as it is.. and confirmation bias and the internet make one hell of a duo.
 
They wouldn't be anymore of an invasive species than their non-GMO relatives.. and where ever glofish are sold, chances are the non-GMO ones are sold there too. If anything, they'd be less invasive because they have an unnatural appearance and will still out like a sore thumb. Just being a GMO doesn't mean it's invasive.. us plugging in a trait is pretty much on par with a random mutation and out in the wild, nature goes through countless random mutations until a beneficial one appears. Some traits we plug in would act as giant bulls eyes out in the wild.. and glofish would be one of them.
 
..unless, they manage to blend in with the countless heaps of trash with bright plastics floating in our waters.. but if an area is trashed enough for them to establish a population.. I'd say that area would be fucked either way.

 

I believe glofish are just regular fish that are made to be more vibrant in color...so, a glofish tetra, for instance, is just a tetra which has been made brighter and more colorful...a glofish could only be invasive by being introduced into an improper environment, and in that case it would be no different than their non-glofish counterpart.

 

Yeah, all of them are personal videos.. except for the 'What the Ancients Knew' series I uploaded. The skinks are cool, when they are babies their tails are bright blue and as they grow up, they lose the blue tail and sometimes gain a bright red head. During the summer they are all over the place at work, but only really see the little ones. They get more aggressive as they age and the big ones carve out their territories, forcing the lil ones to run around all over the place.

Was the scorpion a desert hairy? I had one of those, thing was a beast. Had some emperor scorpions too, but they didn't last long.. kind of one of the reasons I never liked to buy animals at a store, they were usually weaker than a wild one. Had most my pets when I lived at my dad's.. was kind of a white trash setting, but at least I was living on the edge of a few hundred acres of forests. Pretty sure most of the animals found their way into our house off and on.. even had a flying squirrel fly through our screen window and I kept it for a few days before letting it go. Had several snakes living in the house, both wild and as pets. Used to have a wild black rat snake keep warm in my bed with me.. it'd leave me 'gifts' of piles of field mouse bones and fur.

Feeding my pet snakes wasn't bad. I mean, part of me felt bad.. but that's nature. I didn't believe in giving the rat a good whack though, my snakes got as full of an experience as possible with alive and kicking food and never had an issue.

 

 
This is a desert hairy. Even though they say their stings aren't bad.. I never really handled mine much cause he had an attitude and would probably pinch me rather than sting me.

They're not really hairy though.. If you ever get to watch videos, I have a video of a pseudoscorpion. First and only one so far that I've even seen. Looks like a scorpion without a tail and the size of an ant.
 
The Indigo snake looks neat, never saw one in person. Seems they are south of me yet, but I do find a good many snakes in the VA wetlands. Cottonmouths, black rat snakes, and green snakes all over the place.

 

 
I know how you look. I will find you and rape you. Also, I think emotions are like the most basic expression of instincts in animals. Except maybe worms, but who knows? Emotions are an interesting thing. They're just feelings and make us think and feel a certain way.

 

 
... thanks?
 

 
This might sound bad.. but think of a kid with a rather severe autism disorder. Kind of alone in their lil world, detached from some of their normal sensory input.. but when you touch them, they wig out.. and that reminds me of when you touch a worm. They don't really have much in terms of senses, they have no clue what is touching them.. can't see or hear where the threat is coming from.. can't see where to go. So basic fear kicks in and they do all sorts of crazy avoidance maneuvers..
 
Way I see it, anything that has a sense needs at least fear so they know to react to dangers they sense.. that's the whole point of senses, to sense. Pretty much every living organism that has a sense has a brain that feels what was sensed and reacts.. and that's really just what our emotions are, just ours and way more complex.

 

I have a friend who is a vegan bodybuilder and he eats 24/7. You can get everything you need from plants but you need to eat a really varied diet and you need to eat a LOT as well. Personally I don't think we should inflict any unnecessary harm to animals. I do eat meat occasionally but I'd be much happier if I had hunted it rather than it being farmed. When I think about farming it's basically like the holocaust. I mean sure animals don't have the intelligence to know what's going on as much as us but they still feel the pain when they're treated like shit. And farming is rarely as humane as we'd like to think. But then I'm a massive hypocrite anyway since I do eat farmed meat.


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I am fond of the idea of making a matrix like setup for our cows.. disconnect their mind and place it in a virtual reality for cows. Let them run and frolic without any humans or predators around, while advancing our knowledge on virtual reality.. and when it comes time to harvest, a quick shot to the head. Of course we'd have to figure out how to keep their muscles building so we can get meat, but it'd be the most pleasurable experience for their consciousness in my opinion.

 

would you be in favor of this is a more advanced alien race ate humans?

Or would you rather humans not be eaten at all?

If this is about necessity, then we should all be vegans. Modern humans don't need meat.

-yuri