killing

AnimalMindedScience

This post describes my views, suggestions and campaign ideas related to the world-wide public consultation for the Dutch science agenda. Note that the deadline for submission of ideas has passed (May 1, 2015).

Introduction Tweets & Facebook posts on the approach method of #‎AnimalMindedScience Tweets & Facebook posts on key suggestions for #‎AnimalMindedScience First submission (English version): How to make the science agenda and society animal minded? Dutch version of the submission: Hoe kan de wetenschapsagenda en de samenleving het dier indachtig gemaakt worden? Conclusion Further specification in tweets

Introduction

The Dutch government and main science organizations have launched a public consultation on the future of science (Wetenschapsagenda in Dutch; science agenda in English). Until May 1 2015 all people in the Netherlands can submit questions concerning issues that should be addressed by science the coming years. By sharing these questions on Twitter and Facebook submissions can gain momentum when they are favorited/liked/shared. We believe it is important that the Dutch science agenda takes special interest in issues related to animals. For this we started a campaign on Twitter labeled as #‎AnimalMindedScience. The idea is that we want to solicit as much support as possible to emphasize this point. We therefor started a worldwide query for brilliant ideas concerning the Dutch science agenda (which we will translate in Dutch and submit before the deadline of May 1 here). In addition, for existing ideas such as the ones suggested below we’d like to request your support by way of Twitter retweets and/or favorites, and/or by Facebook likes and/or shares. But the very best place you can support submissions like ours is on the official site in English and/or Dutch! .

Tweets & Facebook posts on the approach method of #‎AnimalMindedScience

URGENT! Brilliant ideas needed to make Dutch science more ‪#‎AnimalMindedScience‬ <May1! Make NL science >> Animal Minded! PLZ vote for #AnimalMindedScience on Twitter or Facebook! Help make NL science more animal minded by RT or FAV sug < May 1! YOU can help make NL science more Animal Minded! How? Go to ‪#‎AnimalMindedScience‬ & Submit idea, OR RT existing one! Search ideas @ “#AnimalMindedScience & SHOULD” on TW / FB & VOTE by RT/FAV! E.g. #AnimalMindedScience SHOULD help make Animal Minded decisions E.g. #AnimalMindedScience SHOULD make animals happy

Tweets & Facebook posts on key suggestions for #‎AnimalMindedScience

#‎AnimalMindedScience‬ should show that lab animal suffering can be reduced substantially! #‎AnimalMindedScience‬ should prevent species from going extinct! #‎AnimalMindedScience‬ should show compassion in world farming! #‎AnimalMindedScience‬ should help feed the world without making animals pay the price! #‎AnimalMindedScience‬ should show that animals have feelings too! #‎AnimalMindedScience‬ should show that an apology is warranted for behaviorism, and its denial of animal feelings! #‎AnimalMindedScience‬ should study animal autonomy, freedom and justice! #‎AnimalMindedScience‬ should refrain from allocating budget to institutions responsible for creating welfare problems in the first place. #‎AnimalMindedScience‬ should reduce population growth! #‎AnimalMindedScience‬ helps people make AnimalMinded decisions. #‎AnimalMindedScience‬ should help people control damaging desires (like >>$$$ and pwr)! #‎AnimalMindedScience‬ should show that what we eat determines who we are! #‎AnimalMindedScience‬ should make veggieburgers taste better than real burgers! And both cheaper and more healthy as well!

First submission (English version): How to make the science agenda and society animal minded?

Sustainability and economics are important themes. The Netherlands is only 41.5k km2 with 17m people and billions of animals. The balance between the interests of people and animals must be restored. Firstly, an animal-minded science-agenda demands a critical redirection of the budget for research involving laboratory animals to substantially reduce suffering. Secondly, it addresses wildlife issues such as species preservation, climate change and welfare in zoos, the exotic pet trade and fisheries. Thirdly, it solves pet problems (e.g. trade, abandonment, breeding, neglect and social isolation). Finally, but not least importantly, it solves production problems of livestock (e.g. breeding, housing, transport, slaughter and consumer demand). The animal-minded science agenda not only studies problems, but actually solves them, both at the perceptual and technological levels. This requires an elevated focus on ethics, psychosocial, epidemiological, big-data and technological research strategies. The current agnosticism regarding animal feelings is still dominant and needs to be counteracted. Similarly, the perceived importance of material hedonism needs to be challenged. Perhaps, science should even enable politics to discourage economic and population growth, and develop technological alternatives to the sacrifice of animals for medical ‘hope’ research, as well as alternatives to the consumption of meat and dairy products. Note: this English version was submitted here, but English was not allowed, so I submitted a Dutch version as well (see below, or here).

Dutch version of the submission: Hoe kan de wetenschapsagenda en de samenleving het dier indachtig gemaakt worden?

Duurzaamheid en economie zijn belangrijke thema’s. Nederland is slechts 41.5k km2 met 17m mensen en biljoenen dieren. De balans tussen de belangen van mensen en dieren moet hersteld worden. Allereerst, vereist een dier-indachtige wetenschapsagenda een kritische herverdeling van onderzoeksbudget voor proefdieren om het lijden drastisch te verminderen. Ten tweede, komt er aandacht voor wilde dieren, zoals behoud van biodiversiteit, klimaatsverandering en welzijn in dierentuinen, de handel in exoten en visserij. Ten derde, lost het problemen op met gezelschapsdieren (bijv. handel, wegdoen, fokkerij, verwaarlozing en sociale isolatie). Tenslotte, maar niet minst belangrijk, lost het problemen op met de productie van vee (bijv. fok, huisvesting, transport, slacht en (de behoefte aan) consumptie). Een dier-indachtige wetenschapsagenda bestudeert niet slechts de problemen, maar lost deze ook feitelijk op, zowel qua perceptie als technologie. Dit vereist meer focus op ethiek, pychosociale, epidemiologische, big-data en technologische onderzoeksstrategieën. Het huidige agnosticisme m.b.t. de gevoelens van dieren is nog dominant en moet uitgedaagd worden. Misschien moet het onderzoek aan de politiek wel de mogelijkheid verschaffen om de economische – en populatiegroei tegen te gaan, en technologische alternatieven ontwikkelen voor het opofferen van dieren voor medisch ‘hoop’ onderzoek en ook alternatieven voor de consumptie van vlees en zuivelproducten. Note: See English version above or at the Wetenschapsagenda website. Note: this version may be removed from the website of the science agenda, because they don’t allow English submissions. Later, the Dutch version was submitted as a separate question: Hoe kan de wetenschapsagenda en de samenleving het dier indachtig gemaakt worden? (above or here).

Conclusion

Please support these submissions on Twitter by retweet/favorite and on Facebook by liking/sharing. But the very best place of support is at the submissions on the official site in English and/or Dutch! There you can also submit new ideas that need to be included in the science agenda. But if you understand Dutch and live in the Netherlands, you can also submit yourself here.

Further specification in tweets

I love you now, little puppy
but when you’re grown I won’t
and when I’m grown I’ll be a stone.

Hè, you!
Scientist in your glass bowl
please come out into the real world
where feelings matter!

#AnimalMindedScience:
* replaces self-interested objectivity with objective other-interestedness.
* will reveal that our highest good is neither heaven, nor eternal life or beauty, neither omniscience nor omnipotence.
* shows respect for all soals, all subjects-of-a-life, equally, for justice overrides selfishness.
* shall bring mankind back down to eye-level with the other animals.
* shall support the democratic agenda of protecting the least-well-off, and one vote for all.
* will never never mind, as science has done.
* follows the golden rule: Don’t do to otters what you wouldn’t others have do to you.
* shall not be the slave of public opinion, nor its master. They will co-evolve mankind.
* would never do to society what science has done to animals.
* will transform the clever man (homo sapiens) into the wise man (homo sapiens empaticus).
* does not treat humans as if they were animals, nor animals as if they were humans.
* will never again never mind.
* is to science what man has been to ape in evolution.
* is a matter of keeping balance
* shall support the conservative agenda of preserving what is good about the past.
* shall support the democratic agenda and give animals a vote.
* shall support the liberal agenda of freedom for all.
* supports the Labour agenda of demanding labour rights for animals, e.g. to work for food in a species-specific way.
* shall never treat other animals as just animals.
* was not born out of idealisme, but out of necessity, both moral and physical necessity.
* The more #AnimalMindedScience will be rejected, the more it will be needed and demanded.
* bends what was straight, and straightens what was twisted.
* acknowledges that we belong to the family of soals (subjects-of-a-life).
* treats all soals, ie all subjects-of-a-life, as equals, and not some as more equal than others.
* turns our world upside-down. Linear suppression becomes soal (subject-of-a-life) centralization.
* is for animal welfare what cradle-to-cradle is for the environment.
* says ‘No!’ to more money making
* says ‘Yes!’ to tender loving care.
* blows dust on science, so as to get rid of nasty parasites.

The dark forces ruled society, ignoring the needs of helpless animals…

Foal on back:
I’m on my back
want you to get back
on track
Mind our fate
before it is too late

Owl:
I’m a wise bird of prey
I do as I may
Tell you to mind
And ever be so kind

Giraffe tongue:
I lick.
I like.
My tongue
is strong.
I tell a tale
of human primacy gone stale

Lion:
I’m sexy and I know it
I’m sexy and I’ll show it
Unless you’re a boar, you’ll listen to my roar

In nature power implies the ability to mate and perpetuate life. Powerful ideas like #AnimalMindedScience are sexy.

We belong to the animal kingdom. We shouldn’t rule it.

If we breed like rabbits, crawl the earth like ants, and dig burrows in it like rats, we won’t be the crown of creation, but a problem pest.

@AnimalMinded Digital soal. Interested in everything about animals, including farm & lab animals, wildlife & pets.

Look at me!
I’m the king.
My kingdom comes.

Diet

Choosing an animal-friendly diet may well be the single most important contribution to animal welfare one can make as an individual.
The welfare of farm animals is most problematic, because of its scale and because of its financial constraints.
Diet selection affects animal welfare directly on a daily basis.
Becoming a vegetarian or vegan also has an impact on one’s identity. You are what you eat.
It takes an effort to go veggie, but it is also a signal. It shows you have compassion, that you care. It also indicates that you are likely to disagree with the legal framework under which the raising and slaughter of animals for food consumption is still allowed. It is hard to predict how long this is going to continue. Perhaps a very long time. However, inevitable the time will come that livestock farming will no longer be acceptable, neither morally nor legally.

Moral dilemma

Here is a moral dilemma in a thought experiment. You see a train coming down the track towards a group of workers. Standing near a lever, you must decide whether to leave the lever along and let the train kill the workers, or to pull the lever to let the train change tracks and kill only one worker on s subsidiary track. What would you do?

This moral dilemma can be considered using a consequentialist, deontological and virtue-ethics framework. According to consequentialist view something like the greatest good for the greatest number of people is to be obtained. Prima facie, a utilitarian might prefer to pull the lever. Deontology prescribes duties, such as not killing people. Prima facie, a deontologist might not pull the lever, e.g. because of the duty not to be actively involved in the killing of an innocent person. Finally, a virtue ethicist might focus on one’s capabilities, e.g. practising intellectual virtues like theoretical and practical wisdom, and moral virtues like prudence, justice, temperance and courage. Prima facie, a virtuous agent might pull the lever, in as far as this is in accordance with the human/societal flourishing.

A thought experiment like this is not just a theoretical exercise. When dairy farmers are confronted with exploding field mouse populations, it may cost about 100.000 Euro’s/dollars per farm. Population control using poison is considered socially undesirable, and alternatives like drowning and gassing also have serious drawbacks. As a result, farmers prefer to wait for a cold spell, such that large numbers of mice would be frozen to death. Another example is the myxomatosis rabbit. It has swollen eyes, sits by the side of the road and doesn’t run away. Such rabbits don’t eat and will eventually die when left alone. However, it may be more humane to take a minute to kill the rabbit so as to reduce unnecessary future suffering. The train, the mice and the rabbit constitute moral dilemma’s because they involve a choice between being passive or being active, and between more or less harm done to the individuals concerned.

Train: Pull lever → 1 person dies; don’t pull lever → 5 die
Mice: Poison/gas/drowning →quicker death; wait for cold →slower death
Rabbit: Hit → quick death; leave along →die more slowly

What is better: to stand by and let ‘nature’ take its course, or to act so as to reduce overall harm?

The morally best course of action would be to do one’s duty in minimizing harm and maximizing happiness and flourishing. While contributing to happiness and flourishing may be supererogatory, i.e. morally good/laudable but not required, it is a morally required obligation to refrain from causing considerable harm to others whenever possible.

In general, moral dilemma’s can be solved relatively easily. This is because the bigger the dilemma, the smaller the difference between the moral value of the alternatives. Hence, the bigger the dilemma, the more likely it is that the problem can be solved by tossing a coin. For tossing either will make you do what is morally right, or it will make you do what approaches doing what is morally right, and there is no strong moral obligation to be perfect.

Another route to solving moral dilemma’s may be to critically examine the underlying assumptions, e.g. that non-human animals can suffer and that human lives are valuable. When animals were mere reflex machines, then all concern about animal welfare would be erroneous, and the moral dilemma’s of the mouse overpopulation and the myxomatosis rabbit would dissolve instantly. Similarly, when humans were only destroying the earth by overpopulation and self-interested hedonistic materialism devoid of moral decency, or something like that, then we may be mistaken about the presumed value of human life. If the railroad workers were in fact morally equivalents of somebody like Hitler, then surely the approaching train could be turned into a moral solution, rather than a moral dilemma.

Euthanasia

The 47-year-old Gaby O. received euthanasia in a special end-of-life clinic in March 2014. Gaby was suffering unbearably because she heard the continuous sounds of a braking train in her head. Many people suffer from tinnitus, as it is called, and fortunately it only rarely leads to euthanasia. Gaby had tried everything. She even considered having her auditory nerves cut, but doctors didn’t want to operate, because it often worsens the tinnitus. However, in cases where the patients are desperate and considering ending their life, experimental surgery may be the only option left. In fact, every capable person should have the right to decide what is to happen to the own body, including how and when life should end.
While her chances were small, Gaby should have been offered an experimental treatment. Brain surgery perhaps, sharing the fate of a laboratory animal. If so, Gaby might have recovered, and, if not, at least she would have been granted the honour of becoming a contributor to the advancement of science. That would have been true eu-thanasia, a ‘good death’. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. Nevertheless, I hope her death won’t be in vain and her memory shall contribute to the enhancement of compassion in society. Gaby, R.I.P.

Charlie

The attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in France has shocked the world. Terrorism has come to Europe. A few Muslim fundamentalists have succeeded in disrupting society. A huge police force was activated and the assasins were killed. Mass protests centred around Freedom of Speech using the phrase ‘Je suis Charlie’, as if wanting to say: ‘I am in favour of Freedom of Speech too’. In this blog post I will present a personal view on fundamentalist suicidal terrorism and explain why this is relevant for this website called ‘Animal Welfare Solutions Network (AWSN)’.

Charlie Hebdo cartoonists would make fun of Muhammad. This is a hurtful sin according to Muslim fundamentalism. From a rational perspective Muslim fundamentalists appear to be crazy. From an emotional, emphatic perspective, however, religious fundamentalism gives security and hope, where the Free Market Democracy offers little more than social isolation, discrimination and exploitation. Against this background terrorism may be seen as both rational and irrational.

Fundamentalist terrorism is irrational in as far as it emanates from mistaken beliefs. Fundamentalist terrorism can, therefore, be an abnormal behaviour resulting from chronic frustration about the discrepancy between how the fundamentalist perceives the world and how he/she would like it to be. Similar abnormal behaviours can be found in animals, for example in laying hens and fattening pigs showing cannibalistic behaviours such as feather pecking and tail biting. Mechanisms underlying these behaviours have been studied for decades and this knowledge can be useful to better understand abnormal behaviours in humans as well.

Alternatively, terrorism can be regarded as inherently rational. Biological organisms are virtually always competing for scarce resources. Overpopulation will result in chronic failure to succeed. If the situation is hopeless a suicidal attack can be rational as it appears to be one of the most effective ways to reduce losses and to bring about change. This appears to be a paradox: what is there to be gained from giving up one’s life in a suicide attack? However, ‘War is the father of all things’, Heraclitus wrote 25 centuries ago, and so it is. Suicide attacks will raise fear and this will cost a lot of money in the overstrung, hedonistic Western societies. Aggravating the problem is the fact that Free Market Democracies are driven by a perpetual need for economic growth. The insatiable hedonism drives increased production efficiency, and this, in turn, destabilizes society. It works like the proverbial boiling frog. The gradually increasing water temperature may kill the frog before it realizes what has been going on. Over the years broiler breeders and milking cows have gradually been forced to produce more and more meat/milk. This has resulted in extremely high production levels at a very low cost. However, the actual cost to animal welfare has been, and still is, substantial. In addition, the slightest alteration in environmental conditions tends to disrupt the whole system of production: High producing animals dropping dead, leg problems, indigestion, mastitis. Large amounts of antibiotics have been used to cover up the mess, leading to bacterial resistance and human health risks. In other words, many years of gradually increased production efficiency have led to highly efficient systems which have lost the ability to respond to challenges. In biology this is called allostatic load. This also applies to non-agricultural systems and institutions in Western societies. Having been subjected to years of increased production efficiency has weakened their ability to resist challenges like terrorism. Having grown ‘old’, we are likely to suffer from immunodeficiency, so to say. Chances, therefore, are that, contrary to what politicians try to say, Western societies are not very well equipped to deal with terrorism.

Having been a perpetual loser in the rat race, the suicide terrorist may finally make the winners lose out as well. The ‘winners’ will lose their sense of security, their ability to enjoy the pleasures of life as suicide terrorism will inevitably result in vast amounts of time and money being spent on prevention, surveillance and defence. This is what makes fundamentalist terrorism inherently rational, as it reduces the discrepancy between the losers and the winners in the rat race.

This blog has presented a personal view on terrorism, suggesting that it may be regarded both as an irrational, abnormal behaviour in response to chronic frustration, and also as an inherently rational strategy when competing for limited resources. In doing so, relationships to animal welfare issues like harmful social behaviours (e.g. feather pecking in laying hens and tail biting in pigs) and production diseases (indigestion, lameness, mastitis) became evident, suggesting commonalities between terrorism and animal welfare, both for understanding the problem and, perhaps also for their solution. Both problems urgently need a solution; terrorism because it evokes frustration and fear, and animal welfare because it evokes suffering and compassion. Both issues require reflection on our own shortcomings and responsibilities in bringing about a better world for ourselves and for the Charlies at the bottom of society.

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