Thoughts on human beings, the species, as a whole. Inspired by a stranger on the internet (whom I quoted throughout).
"We give chickens way too much credit. They can't experience things the way we do." Of course they don't. Even you and I don't experience things the same way. From individual to individual and between species, consciousness varies greatly. We can simply not begin to even fathom what we do not know. To try and understand the consciousness of another being, how they think, is impossible. We experience everything from human consciousness and that limits us insurmountably when it comes to knowing how other beings experience things. I think, more so, that we give ourselves, and human consciousness, too much credit. We totally lack humility and empathy in regards to all other life. We may be the most "successful" species as of right now, but we are literally the definition of a virus, destroying our world, our host, killing everything and creating the third largest mass extinction on this planet. Can we really call that success? Are we really the smartest? Or do we just tell ourselves that...
All animals feel. I'm not sure I understand why you find that irrelevant because you believe animals don't think consciously about pain the way we can. Pain is instinctual, not conscious. When we feel pain, it is reactionary first, we think about it after. The animal side of us responds the same way they do to pain. A "pre-programmed robotic piece of meat" would not feel pain (and they do) or strive to raise and protect their families, nor would it suffer feelings of loss when the bonds they from with people or other animals or their children, are broken. They do form bonds and feel attached to other creatures, this isn't deniable, all social creatures do. I can expand on this further if you like, and I'm curious why you and your chickens seem to have formed no bonds.
"My chickens spend hours a day looking for a way through the same piece of fence..." They spend hours a day trying to escape. One of our most basic animal desires is freedom. We have so much of it and we take it for granted. We also take it away from billions of other animals on this planet and have no empathy for what freedom means to them. We usurp this for ourselves because we are "at the top of the food chain." Therefore, we can dominate and rule as we see fit, no compassion, and equate chickens and farm animals to "meat robots" who we have decided deserve no compassion. :/
"...this is in no way excusing animal torturing any animal. Rather, the reason I say this is because there are animals that do think more like us." So, the more like humans they are, the less the deserve to be tortured? That's just such a hierarchal perspective, putting human feelings as the template for suffering. If they feel like we do, then we can relate, so I get what you're saying. But just because we can't relate as well to another animal because we're different, doesn't mean we can pretend to understand how they feel. We can't. If we think back to slavery, it was the differences in skin colour that separated people. People with darker skin were seen as less important just because lighter skinned people were seen as the pinnacle and most important. Differences give people a way to separate, when really, all life forms are capable of feeling pain, capable of suffering, capable of feeling both positive and negative feelings. We are all wired for the same basic thing: survival and procreation. Therefore, we all feel the same basic feelings: happiness, safety, want of freedom, pain, attachment, loss, etc.. These feelings are what perpetuate survival and procreation, they're not conscious, they're instinctual needs.
"Take a look at how nature is..." Where in nature does any other animals capture and enslave another species entirely, torture it for months or years and then mass slaughter it? Nature's way is entirely based on freedom and balance. Humans see themselves above nature, and are destroying everything about it, including ourselves. We annihilate entire species to grow just a few select species and dominate the world, thinking we know best because we're "conscious", but we are fools that have destroyed so much that we can never get back, we've spat in the face of freedom and now we're living in a totally unsustainable system that will inevitably collapse in on itself. A system based on conscious humans unconsciously doing things they don't understand the impact of because we like to think we know, and understand, but we don't. Human beings are so ego-driven, and that's the reason we justify so many things that are just plain wrong, because we can't admit that we might not be right, that we're part of the problem.
We ARE the biggest problem this planet has ever seen.
If we don't make the conscious decision to care about life as a whole, then we will continue to destroy our world and life as a whole. We can't survive without other animals, without biodiversity, without nature sustaining itself. We're part of nature, and yet we think we have risen above it, that we know everything, we know best, we are the "ultimate" and the "top of the food chain" but the reality is we're destroying everything and that will equate to our own destruction. We're the stupidest species to ever exist if you look at the facts and state of the world. We are the epitome of selfish, because everything we do is at the expense of all other life. We annihilate, and we do it consciously, so... Our consciousness is rather useless when you use it as the defining point of why we're superior to all other life. We're not. We're just ass holes.
"I'd say we're doing pretty good in comparison to the rest of nature." We're killing everything and living through the third largest mass extinction this planet has ever seen, and it's caused solely by us. It's that mindset of "us" compared to/versus "nature" that is the root cause. We ARE a part of nature, and we're destroying nature, and therefore, we're destroying ourselves. We're no better than any living thing on this planet. In fact, we are absolutely the worst.
