Re: Way to go, Dutch - you just made Fuckwit's argument for him.

Rubystars wrote:

> "Jonathan Ball" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> <snip>
>
> > Fuckwit doesn't explicitly say they have a right to be
> > conceived.  It's something that derives *necessarily*
> > from what he does say.
>
>
> Ok. I've read a lot of his posts before and I have to wonder what's going on
> with him.

Nothing worthwhile.  He's a little more out there than 
most usenet loons.

> > > I mean, a hundred generations from now, there will be
> > > cockroaches, but those roaches don't exist right now.
> >
> > Fuckwit makes a distinction between the animals that
> > humans raise to use and other animals.  Right now,
> > today, some humans intend for "future farm animals" to
> > exist.  It is this intent, coupled with his irrational
> > belief that "getting to experience life" is a good
> > thing per se, that confers a "right to be conceived" on
> > them.
>
>
> Is that why he says that farming animals for meat provides both life and
> death for them?

Yes, focusing peculiarly on the "provides life" bit of 
nonsense.

> That doesn't make a lot of sense.

It doesn't make ANY sense, to rational people.  He 
offers the bit of nonsense about "providing life" as 
some kind of moral counterweight to the fact that the 
animals are killed.  Of course, it doesn't provide any 
counterweight at all, being morally empty, hence 
weightless.

> > > If I smash a female
> > > with an egg case on her behind and smash that too, does that mean I've
> > > deprived those roaches a hundred generations from now of the right to
> > > experience life?
> >
> > Yes, but because humans don't intend for roaches to
> > live, you haven't done anything wrong in Fuckwit's
> > weird view.
>
>
> Ok.
>
>
> > On the other hand, if you were to persuade
> > all humans to stop eating meat, so that farm animals
> > were to go extinct, Fuckwit would have to believe that
> > you have done a great evil to "future farm animals":
> > you would have "deprive[d] them of having what life
> > they could have?"
>
>
> I don't have a lot of empathy for animals that don't even exist yet.

Good.  That's evidence that you're sane.

I suppose it's necessary to talk about abstract animals 
that don't exist, e.g., "future farm animals" in the 
vague, amorphous sense Fuckwit uses the word.  However, 
if we acknowledge that in five years, there will be 
billions of animals who haven't even been conceived 
today; in fact, the 'grandparents' and even 
'great-grandparents' of the animals that will exist 
five years from now are not yet born themselves.  But, 
acknowledging that farm animals will exist in five 
years, it makes perfect sense to be concerned, today, 
about the conditions in which those animals will live 
in five years, ten years, and so on.  That isn't the 
same as having "empathy" for them; it's being prepared 
to act on proper animal welfare concerns in the future.

Having said that, wanting to see proper animal welfare 
provisions in the future does NOT mean that the animals 
"ought" to exist in the future.  Fuckwit, irrational 
loon, thinks it *does* mean they ought to exist.

> I mean,
> let's say everyone was a vegetarian, and animals weren't being bred for meat
> anymore. So there would be a lot fewer cows, chickens, and pigs, as well as
> other animals. I still don't see what the problem is.

Nor does anyone else.  Fuckwit is all alone in this 
weird, irrational concern.

> If an animal hasn't
> been conceived yet, then it effectively doesn't exist. How can something
> that doesn't exist be deprived of something?

That's how you look at it, and how I look at it, and 
how any sane, thinking person looks at it.  It isn't 
how Fuckwit looks at it.

> Here's something that involves human intent. My grandmother came from a
> family where she had several brothers, like about 7 or 8 of them. I only
> have one sister and no other siblings. So, according to dh_ld, would my
> parents have denied the other potential kids "the right to experience life"
> because they were never conceived?
>
> (Feel free to speak for yourself, dh_ld)

Fuckwit tries to wriggle out of questions like that by 
claiming, disingenuously, that farm animals are a 
different class of animals, so the issues don't apply.