Shameless Self-promotion Sunday #49
Here's a pretty old post from the blog archives of Geekery Today; it was written about 15 years ago, in 2009, on the World Wide Web.
It’s Sunday. It’s May. Shamelessness is in the air.
What have you been up to this week? Write anything? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.
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“(+) Logically, environmentalism and animal rights are not closely related issues, but their cultural associations are strong enough that I believe it appropriate to link them here.”
How so? Apart from what the complete disappearance of animal species can do to human well being as part of the environment; why is it legally relevant? I think dog fighting is extremely distasteful, but it’s not a crime. I don’t think there any rational consistent way to grant non-human animals the same legal standing as animals.
To abstract the principle of non-intitation of force away from a distinctly human consciousness is to render it meaningless.
Morally shunning the guy who beats his dog may be a wise thing, but it doesn’t justify locking him up. To be consistent: you’d have to make killing an animal for food murder.
I mean the same legal standing as humans heh.
A bit of interweb radicalism: Steal this number: 595-12-5274. First in a series, though it doesn’t mention that…
I’ve been pretty busy with school work lately, but there are a couple of new things that you all might be interested in. First of all, a few weeks ago I started A weekly “What’re You Up To? Wednesday” post. So far only a few people have been contributing, but I’d be happy to hear from anyone. What’re You Up To? Wednesday #3 Next, I posted a little video from an art student in NYC who makes little robots and sets them loose in the city. I filed it under Renewing Faith in Human Decency
…I also wrote a short post about the Supreme Court hearing on Strip Searching Children in Schools. Needless to say, I was pretty pissed off about the fact that they seem to be leaning toward allowing it. Finally, just to be as shameless as I can, you can now follow me on twitter @jmtrombley. Thanks, Jeremy PS – sorry for the dual posts, I had trouble getting it submitted.
Nick,
I responded to this same comment in another thread, so I’ll repost it here.
That would be a consequentialist argument, not one that animals have “rights” independently of their usefulness to us. “Rights” advocates find the very idea of reducing animals to commodities repugnant on principal.
Animal rights and deep ecology both share a common hatred for anything that reeks of anthropocentrism, and many environmentalists at least have that sentiment, even if they’re not deep ecologists. Then again, it’s hard to separate that from the standard garden-variety altruism that pollutes most “social justice” positions; it’s meta-selfish to care about our biological category more than others (because apparently when a wolf kills a rabbit it has the entire biosphere in mind, not just its own hunger).
I tend to agree with Will that the consistent application of this kind of thinking logically requires anarcho-primitivism. Reject any part of it and you might as well reject biology as a basis for anything, in which case we shouldn’t shrink from actively using whatever biological superiority we have to transcend inconvenient biological limitations like mortality, limited memory, unwanted sexual dimorphism and substandard sense organs (I mean, we can’t even see most of the electro-magnetic spectrum. What’s up with that?!) however “essential” they might seem to the biologically reductionist definition of what it means to be human.
Would it be inconsistent, or just impractical to realize given the majority of people’s preferences? I think pacifism is consistent, but also ridiculously naive and unrealistic. Refuse to fight and you will be eaten.
To animal rights advocates, “suffering” is the important metaphysical, not consciousness. Plants don’t have central nervous systems; animals do.
I recently encountered a militant vegan who compared killing chickens to the Holocaust.
Matt,
You’re right. I was thinking of what the destruction of animal species can do to upset the ecosystem we inhabit — falls into Aster’s category of intrapersonal aggression.
What I meant was that I can’t see a coherent principled objectively valid argument that could be consistently applied — to test its objectivity.
What I meant is the justification for the non-intitation of force is its interference/cramping of a free mind.
Oh, and I probably should have mentioned this yesterday:
Saturday was the one year anniversary of the passing of Deborah Jeane Palfrey (aka the DC Madam), who hung herself at her mother’s home following the conclusion of a highly public and humiliating trial. There’s a tribute site to her. Anyway, a friend of mine blogged about it and I forwarded her message to the “Agora!” and “Sexual Freedom” groups on Bureaucrash Social.
Speaking of people that actually should die:
And it gets worse . . .
It’s times like these that I wonder when that Satanic curse I put on him is gonna finally kick in.
Read the whole thing if you dare. Thanks to Darian Worden for pointing it out to me.
Discussed at aaeblog.com /#
More Crap from the "Libertarian" Party | Austro-Athenian Empire:
Awww, I was hoping to ignite a discussion of animal issues. I was genuinely curious to see what position Aster was hinting at.
Matt,
The LP is on the road to becoming the party of the minutemen…
For more Libertarian head scratching:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/schiff/schiff19.html
I am surprised to read this on Lewrockwell. I always thought they were pretty in tune with Rothbard’s corporate state analysis. I expected orthodox Objectivists to paint Wall Street as the completely innocent victim of government credit excess, but this article seems one sided. Obama is bringing in foreign capitalists to invest in the stagnant enterprise. The United Auto Workers is going to own 55 percent of the downsized enterprise, but they are taking a hit on wages/benefits. Obama is turning out to be an economic conservative who believes in government bailouts/welfareism. It astounded me to see a Moveon.org sign in the subway reading “Help Obama end the Iraq War”. “Our” national delusions continue unabated ) :
Ferguson: “The proper response is simple. The government should use its rightful authority over the border to control entry into our country of foreign nationals who pose a threat to our health by spreading the virus into areas where it does not exist.”
This is the ‘Libertarian’ Party?
Utterly revolting. The enthusiasm for ‘control’ no less than the anti-immigration stance.
One wonders what the Authoritarian Party will have to say in order to sufficiently distinguish their position.
More Ferguson: “America’s doctors, hospitals and health care professionals – the best in the world – should then take the lead on eradicating the virus where it already exists.”
LOL. ‘The best in the world’?
I have a chronic illness. I couldn’t find a doctor in the U.S. who would treat (or even identify) my condition competently and seriously through 8 years of trying, partially because it was automatically written off as a result of transsexuality. The New Zealand health system found something to help in the first month after I sought treatment, and I’m now on increased dosage of a second drug. I’m doing things now which haven’t been possible for me in a decade. Needless to say this has significantly improved my quality of life.
The U.S. was once ‘best in the world’ in quite a number of categories, but those who easily say the same today are primarily proclaiming their indifference to and ignorance of comparative political reality.
Peter Schiff isn’t really an Austro-libertarian. He spoke at the recent Mises conference and people in the audience were all grumbling that he needed to read more Mises and Rothbard. So I don’t think LRC’s running his piece is much of an endorsement.
I like ice cream.
The editor of Meefers.com/ finally got done with the three day concert he was organizing in Michigan and posted my article about the NV Domestic Partnership billthat I wrote almost two weeks ago.
Well, you know the old saying about the relative values of late and never…
This song is a feminist individualist manifesto:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5UdPWnDXZo&feature=related
Sort of. The end lyric goes “no I won’t sit down and be quiet” to paraphrase ( :
A defiant sounding woman!