https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCRspwfKHmI

This is a documentary film all about animal cruelty. It contains VERY GRAPHIC CONTENT! So you have been warned.

Now I am not a person who goes out of there way to stop or spread the word about animal cruelty but this film opened my eyes and taught me how much of an assehole the human race is. I thought I'd bring it up here so that I could see what other people think about animal cruelty. I talk not just about animal cruelty that is well known i'm talking about thing we take for granted and do not think about. Food, clothes and pets. So please check out the video and tell me your views on it.

I don't have to watch the video to have a general idea of all the awful crap people tend to do to animals. I don't think anyone's in favour of animal cruelty, and probably wouldn't object to there being punishment for people participating in particularly inhumane treatment of animals (finning of sharks immediately comes to mind, or the entirety of the ivory trade), but our civilization pretty much can't sustain itself without using animals in some capacity, for all the reasons you mentioned and more. It's not necessarily a bad thing, so long as people respect the animals they're harvesting/ using for domestic purposes.

Actually, one of the reasons I find Dishonored's setting uncomfortable is the whole harvesting whales and skinning them alive for their oil that seems to power their entire energy industry. For some reason, that bothers me more than like 98% of stuff I've seen in entertainment media.

But honestly, none of the cruelty really surprises me. We kind of have a long history of being colossal douchebags to one another and the natural world. I mean we used to fling diseased corpses over castle walls to sicken besieged cities and castles and slaughter entire towns because they happened to be born under the rule of the wrong King.

Precisely i don't want to creep people out or scar them for life with this film I just want the to realise that we need toe respect animals for all that they provide us.

I don't know if there's a 'nice' way to run a slaughterhouse. People eat meat. Don't lose sleep over it.

mdk said
I don't know if there's a 'nice' way to run a slaughterhouse. People eat meat. Don't lose sleep over it.

Eh'. We could be a little more humane if just because from a coldly logical point of view, sticking millions of animals in conditions arguable worse than Africa and then getting surprised when diseases run rampant that kill thousands of them nonstop and develop at alarming rates because they have the perfect environment for it... Well... Hm... We really shouldn't be.

It's in our own self interest to treat them at least a little better. I mean, granted, most of these species require direct human intervention to survive at this point, and hunting is also used as a cheap method for crowd control (else deer would fucking overrun everything with the rabbits), so... More balance would be best. Outright banning these things or disposing of them is sheer folly, but on the other hand, treating them like garbage and then being surprised when a good portion of them do turn out to basically be made of garbage that is as unhealthy for us as it was for them... Uhm... Hm. That's problematic.

Plus, if we're going to raise and kill porky, the least we can do is let porky have a halfway decent life before we stick a knife in his head and send his body through a nightmare factory so the rest of us can eat his delicious, delicious guts... Mmm... Bacon...

Saying that "Humans are cruel" isn't a truly accurate statement. It implies a differentiation between humans and other organisms. It's not that humans are crueler than other organisms, but that nature herself is much crueler than what many people would anticipate. For that matter, generalizing humanity is kind of a hard thing to do. If you've met one ant, you've met them all. However, the human brain facilitates minds as wildly different as Adolf Hitler and Buddha.
And back to other organisms, many animals regularly commit acts of cruelty that would be unthinkable to most human cultures. For example, Chimpanzees eat infants in their own species. Also, try hugging a panda bear.

Anyways, on the topic of human cruelty to animals, it's obviously wrong to burn kittens for our sadistic amusement or even pull the legs off of a spider for fun. Now, I for one believe that animals exist for the sole function to provide for humanity. As such, your average dairy is not a pointlessly cruel endeavor, and ultimately the right of humanity. However, something like forcing pit bulls to fight each other to the death and then electrocuting the loser is no longer utilization of resources, but throwing fuel into the fire of sadistic urges.

I skimmed the video, and it honestly isn't that disturbing.
Try watching a video of a dog being skinned alive, and then left to suffer afterwards then get back to me.
With the people responsible all having fun and joking while doing it mind you.

Brovo has a point in that we really should not be surprised the quality of our food gets bad when we treat it bad. It make sense both from a health and moral stand point to treat these animals better.

Protagonist said Saying that "Humans are cruel" isn't a truly accurate statement. It implies a differentiation between humans and other organisms. It's not that humans are crueler than other organisms, but that nature herself is much crueler than what many people would anticipate. For that matter, generalizing humanity is kind of a hard thing to do. If you've met one ant, you've met them all. However, the human brain facilitates minds as wildly different as Adolf Hitler and Buddha.And back to other organisms, many animals regularly commit acts of cruelty that would be unthinkable to most human cultures.

This is all true, but there's a key difference.

We humans evolved to the point to have a higher intelligence, skills at rationalizing, decision making etc.
Most animals operate on very basic impulses, eat, drink, shit, sleep, breed, repeat.

Humanity has grown far past that, and unlike most wild animals we actually have the means and ability to reduce the suffering if we wish too. But we choose not to, which speaks a lot for our kind.

Protagonist said Now, I for one believe that animals exist for the sole function to provide for humanity. As such, your average dairy is not a pointlessly cruel endeavor, and ultimately the right of humanity. However, something like forcing pit bulls to fight each other to the death and then electrocuting the loser is no longer utilization of resources, but throwing fuel into the fire of sadistic urges.

We evolved from the same ancestor's they did. Nothing exists solely for the benefit of anything else.
We all came into being my chance and natural selection. We humans just happened to get lucky and be the only species on our planet to obtain sentience.

We're just as much part of this world and nature as everyone else, and at the moment we've been doing a pretty awful job is both keeping it alive and treating it well for having created us.
Now granted, food chain and survival. We are the predators, those species are prey. It simply works that some animals do serve a purpose to us to help feed us (and if we went all Vegan and ignored this not only would be lack a lot of nutrition but the food cycle would be messed up and populations of animals would run rampant) but that isn't their only purpose.

Which reminds me, next time you guys sink your teeth into any kind of meat (or plant for that matter) know you're eating a relative both descended from a great, great, great, great, (add many more great's) ancestor. In other words, you're eating your relatives all the time. :P

Note: On phone. Sorry for typos.

@Gwazi: His belief that animals service us has nothing to do with evolution. One can hold that belief regardless of where they believe they came from, mate.

In a sense they do serve us anyway. As pets, companions, and food. It's simply logical to treat them better because then more survive for us to eat and less diseases have the chance to evolve and jump species to us.Beyond that, it matters not how one feels: We eat them.

I realize that.

I was simply highlighting there wasn't anything that came down and said "These animals only exist to serve humans". The idea that animals only exist for humans would be an idea/purpose that humans made/invented, and is definitely not nature's intention (especially since Nature has no intention, nature simply exists).

If you refer to species we specifically bred for ourselves then it does hold more weight. Those species specifically were made for the purpose of serving humans, but not all animal species over all.

Magic Magnum said
I realize that. I was simply highlighting there wasn't anything that came down and said "These animals only exist to serve humans". The idea that animals only exist for humans would be an idea/purpose that humans made/invented, and is definitely not nature's intention (especially since Nature has no intention, nature simply exists).If you refer to species we specifically bred for ourselves then it does hold more weight. Those species specifically were made for the purpose of serving humans, but not all animal species over all.

Except that we define what services us. We hire people to service other people all the time.

And all modern pets and farm animals have been bred to serve our needs and desires.

Brovo said Except that we define what services us. We hire people to service other people all the time.

That's a planned/purposeful service though. Most wild animals did not evolve to serve humans.
They may indirectly (or directly by human means) end up being a service (ex: Hunted Deer = food, Dragonflys = eats Mosquito's) but it wasn't their made or designed purpose to be a service to us.

Brovo said And all modern pets and farm animals have been bred to serve our needs and desires.

I already said I agree with this part though... :/

I skimmed the video, and it honestly isn't that disturbing.
Try watching a video of a dog being skinned alive, and then left to suffer afterwards then get back to me.
With the people responsible all having fun and joking while doing it mind you.

Brovo has a point in that we really should not be surprised the quality of our food gets bad when we treat it bad. It make sense both from a health and moral stand point to treat these animals better.

That happens in the film.

Magic Magnum said
That's a planned/purposeful service though. Most wild animals did not evolve to serve humans.They may indirectly (or directly by human means) end up being a service (ex: Hunted Deer = food, Dragonflys = eats Mosquito's) but it wasn't their made or designed purpose to be a service to us.

Does it matter how domination came to be? Humans dominate the globe. It's ours. We'll do with it as we please; we'll be nice to animals when it's convenient (that's why we're all about saving the spotted owls, and care less for all those endangered fungi), and we'll eat them when we're hungry. Facts of life. If the only counter-argument is 'food will taste bad if you're mean to your food,' that only reinforces this point.

It's not true, btw. 'Kobe beef' is a marketing myth; cows don't taste better when they're slaughtered happy. They're machines which convert grass into protein, and we're machines that convert protein into poop. Apply feelings to the process in whatever manner best suits your ideology, then cook to medium-rare and enjoy.

Hm. I see a lot of people commenting on food that is treated bad tastes bad, and, um, no. That's not what I meant to convey.

What I meant to convey, is that if the quality of life of the animals is so absolutely abysmal and poor that they cannot even achieve basic hygienic standards, that's a problem, because thousands will die wasted and diseases will run rampant. The more diseases run rampant, the greater the evolutionary potential of each one, which in turn means the greater the chance one will jump species and hit us next. So from a purely, coldly logical point of view, we don't have to be "nice" to them to justify increasing QoL. We only have to keep the QoL above the "worse than Africa" line to keep us safe.

Beyond that, it's totally and entirely personal preference, whether or not that fits into your moral guidelines is irrelevant in the equation because we're also the ones keeping the majority of them alive.

As for wild animals, depends. If they're endangered, sure, try to save em', cuz' biodiversity is a wonderful thing and a healthy thing. However, if we held that "no hunting" policy that the film asks for, deer and rabbits would overrun everything, increase predator populations, then deplete their own resource, starve to death, and then go extinct when the overabundant predator population goes wild on them while they're all starving to death.

Yes, we fucked up mother nature, but we're part of mother nature. Guess what? We're simply on top. Of course we're affecting every food chain and every area of the planet: We live and dominate over every fucking part of the planet. The best thing we can do is get involved in our own environment and try to produce one that benefits us the most, because that usually involves at least keeping a species alive so it can keep doing whatever it does that we find useful...

mdk said Does it matter how domination came to be? Humans dominate the globe. It's ours. We'll do with it as we please; we'll be nice to animals when it's convenient (that's why we're all about saving the spotted owls, and care less for all those endangered fungi), and we'll eat them when we're hungry. Facts of life. If the only counter-argument is 'food will taste bad if you're mean to your food,' that only reinforces this point.It's not true, btw. 'Kobe beef' is a marketing myth; cows don't taste better when they're slaughtered happy. They're machines which convert grass into protein, and we're machines that convert protein into poop. Apply feelings to the process in whatever manner best suits your ideology, then cook to medium-rare and enjoy.

It wasn't a "Food will taste bad" argument, it was a "Diseases and spread and food can be far less healthy" argument.

Also, as human's it's important we remain conscious of our environment. Even if something may not help us directly it may benefit the environment and ecosystem. So by helping it survive/keep going we are benefiting from a better environment. This also goes in reverse though as Brovo highlighted, if we simply let things like deer's run rampant they'd over populate and ruin everything, so hunting them (to a limit) benefits both us and the environment. It's a balancing act, one that humanity is best off taking note in better understand and not simply going for the result that gives immediate satisfaction.