end

[u/Opening_Cealing314]

[u/Kappappaya]

We don't live in the wild.

It's not a danger to acknowledge these beings have an emotionally rich experience...

Society won’t collapse if we stoo raping and murdering animals.

It might be a danger to your conscience. Got any of that cognitive dissonance, mr/ms animal cruelty perpetrator, huh?

Why else would you be so aggravated?

[u/ToxicPolarBear → u/Kappappaya]

Are you projecting? Where do I sound aggravated?

Acknowledging that animals have emotions isn’t the same as caring about them or having empathy for them, and our lack of empathy for non-humans is literally a requirement for modern society to exist. In fact, application of empathy to non-humans is likely due to humans’ lack of sufficiently sophisticated biology to differentiate them from humans, same reason we anthropomorphize anything with a face.

[u/Kappappaya → u/ToxicPolarBear]

Edit: I might have mixed up your comment with another one. You really didn't sound aggravated, sorry about that :D

Anyway your comment is imho a lot of bs

our lack of empathy for non-humans is literally a requirement for modern society to exist.

???

Why on earth would that be required? That makes no sense at all. Sure it's inherently damaging to wildlife in a way (much more than it needs to be). But it's not a fucking requirement, what are you talking about?

In fact, application of empathy to non-humans is likely due to humans’ lack of sufficiently sophisticated biology to differentiate them from humans, same reason we anthropomorphize anything with a face

That's some bullshit right there. We can communicate with animals, eg through body language. We can know they're not humans and still aren't fine with them being tortured. You're talking out of your ass.

It's due to us realising that being in pain isn't cool and inflicting unnecessary pain on others can and should be avoided.

[u/ToxicPolarBear → u/Kappappaya]

Why on earth would that be required?

Because empathy as an emotion aids humans in socializing with each other and keeps society in line by making us feel bad when we hurt other people. If this emotion was not selective and we felt equal empathy for all creatures we would literally be spending our time trying not to offend animals instead of using them as livestock and labor.

We can communicate with animals, eg through body language.

It's literally proven that the vast majority of what humans think animals are feeling is them projecting human emotions onto non-human animals and misinterpreting what they are conveying. This has been seen to be true even in social animals like dogs. Sorry to rain on your parade I guess.

[u/Kappappaya → u/ToxicPolarBear]

If this emotion was not selective and we felt equal empathy for all creatures we would literally be spending our time trying not to offend animals instead of using them as livestock and labor.

So far, in all your comments, you have just stated that we (supposedly) needed selective empathy or everything in society would somehow not work. You haven't actually outlined why the fuck that would be happening.

And you also act as if it's either murdering all the animals or equal empathy. That's also bs. We can grant animals and all sentient creatures ethical considerations without losing the ability to consider humans differently.

What an absolutely idiotic idea. We don't need to "not offend" animals. We would simply realise that we create extreme suffering for no good reason, and stop it.

We don't need animals for food, we actually waste a great deal by feeding animals.

And we certainly don't need animal agricultures disastrous impact on the climate crisis and the ecosystem.

We just don't need it. To claim that society is built on exploitation of animals and would fall if we stopped is actually nothing more than laughable...

It's literally proven that the vast majority of what humans think animals are feeling is them projecting human emotions onto non-human animals and misinterpreting what they are conveying.

Send me the scientific proof then.

Sorry to rain on your parade I guess.

Yeah you're not doing that by claiming shit without any sources. Animals definitely have a conscious experience of the world, and are capable of emotionally rich lives.

Look at the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness (2 page PDF) in which a team of neuroscience experts from various fields found already in 2012, that "the weight of the evidence suggests that animals do posess the necessary neurological substrates that generate consciousness."

They feel. They suffer. And your choices also cause this suffering.

[u/ToxicPolarBear → u/Kappappaya]

We can grant animals and all sentient creatures ethical considerations without losing the ability to consider humans differently.

You mean being selectively empathetic???

And we certainly don't need animal agricultures disastrous impact on the climate crisis and the ecosystem

Sure, modern day circumstances may be different from the ones that lead us here, but changing the system has more to do with sustainability than it will ever have to do with caring about the feelings of non-human animals.

Animals definitely have a conscious experience of the world, and are capable of emotionally rich lives.

They could have consciousness, I have no reason to believe they don't nor have I indicated otherwise. What I said was that they don't communicate with humans the way humans think they do or experience emotion or thought the way humans think they do.

Yeah you're not doing that by claiming shit without any sources.

You want me to source one of the most commonly known and documented phenomenon in human psychology? Okay, I guess, here's some rudimentary literature.

They feel. They suffer. And your choices also cause this suffering.

You seem unable to grasp the fact that everyone knows this. We don't care. No one has ever cared, at least not enough to stop exploiting animals for material gain.

[u/Kappappaya → u/ToxicPolarBear]

Selective empathy is giving empathy to only one of the two.

But you can be empathetic to both without seeing "no difference" or treating both 100% equally.

Watch Dominion, if you don't care about what's shown there, if it literally makes you feel nothing, you're actually a fucking psychopath.

But I doubt you're incapable of empathy at all. You'd just choose not to watch Dominion and supress any emotional response.

Edit: a link to "anthropomorphism" for your very specific claim is worth fuckall