population control

Think for yourself

Children are told to think for themselves.

Yet, that is mostly not what we really want them to do. Conformation to social norms usually takes precedence in the real world. So,

the real message is: Don’t think for yourself.

Do as we do.
And that is what most people end up doing.

What does that imply?

It implies that

children may get confused.

On the one hand they are told to make up their own mind, but on the other hand they are forced into obedience to social norms. In other words,

they are raised by their parents like princes/princesses but then subdued by their peers into slavery.

As a result people tend to live in a phantasy world. A world of make-belief, that we are rational and responsible moral agents. Yet, in reality

we are primates

copying our conspecifics. We imitate.

We imitate because

the whip of social coercion is painful.

It is painful and direct. Personal responsibility diverging from social norms is treated as treason.

It implies that

we are not nearly as rational as we often think we are.

This absolves us also from our moral responsibility.

It allows us to exploit animals and to destroy the world,

without feeling guilty, without remorse.

But not being rational and not being morally responsible also implies we are not much different from other primates and from other animal species.

We are animals.

People tend to hide in the crowd. They rarely want to take full responsibility for their actions. If they would, they should drastically change their habits, but if they don’t they should give up their notion of being special. Either way,

we need to change.

Either from thinking we are special, to really living up to it,

or from behaving like beasts to really accepting that we don’t deserve much better.

Think for yourself

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.

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.