As an angler and carnivore, there’s no love lost between myself and PETA, but this is one topic I agree with them on.
Note that their position isn’t “no pictures of apes” but rather “no posed pictures of apes. That’s a pretty reasonable stance, I would say.
But cats are still okay, right?
My recollection is that PETA doesn’t believe pets should be a thing, so probably not. But in this instance they’ve at least showed some very un-PETA-like restraint in limiting their demands to something approaching reasonableness.
I’m all for PETH, People for the Ethical Treatment of Humans. Or PETAL, that’s PET of Artificial Lifeforms. Or PETM, that’s PET of Me. But animals? I don’t get why it’s ethical for animals to eat people but not vice-versa. Anyway, bacteria are animals too. PETA and vegans are only opposed to eating animals they can see, and they can’t see all the wee beasties on their fruits and veggies. So close eyes when eating meat – that’s the easy ethical way.
I don’t generally agree with PETA’s tactics and messaging but if you’re going to assert intellectual superiority over them then you should probably learn some basic biology.
Bacteria are unicellular Prokaryotic life forms. They are actually less closely related to animals than plants or fungi are.
These portrayals may also increase the black market demand for endangered great apes as “pets,”
Doubtful. I don’t know anybody who has ever expressed interest in adopting an ape as a pet, let alone taken significant steps to do so. If anything, these cards raise awareness of the existence of apes, which probably results in net positive donations to help them.
Seriously, though.
And I don’t personally know anyone who has taken significant steps to buy a Ferrari but I’m not so arrogant to believe they don’t exist simply because they aren’t in any of my social circles.
Latest stats I could find estimate that something like 15,000 primates are kept as pets in the U.S. alone.
So buy a National Geographic calendar. Hell, buy a greeting card with a “Far Side” cartoon of two gorillas having a conversation. Just don’t buy a greeting card with a photograph of a chimpanzee that was forced to wear a tiny bellhop costume.
Enough people have pointed out that bacteria are as far from animals as is possible on the evolutionary tree, but I think this deserves mention too – I think you will find most posters here are actually opposed to animals eating people, to the point of trying to prevent it from happening. Why, where have you seen otherwise?
PETA should really focus on actually doing positive things for animals, instead of stealing and euthanizing family pets, and releasing vulnerable hand-reared lab animals into the wild.
I mean, ethically, I’d say it’s pretty neutral for an animal to kill and eat a human. The animal’s not a moral agent or anything, and generally isn’t under the control of another moral agent.
Practically sure, we want to reduce the number of people eaten by animals, but I’d say it’s quite a stretch that we’re doing so on ethical grounds so much as people don’t like it when they’re eaten.
I’m not going to say a crocodile has made an unethical choice when it eats a person, but I do think it’s unethical to let someone get eaten by a crocodile if you have a chance to avoid it. Regardless, I think that’s beside the point. Either way nobody thinks it’s a good thing for animals to eat people.
[quote=“chenille, post:32, topic:209623”]
Enough people have pointed out that bacteria are as far from animals as is possible on the evolutionary tree…[/quote]
I recall that the first microscopist viewing bacteria referred to them as “wee beasties”. If they go crawling about, they’re critters. QED.
That’s pragmatism, not ethics. I grok one’s pragmatic opposition to being devoured by squirrels or tarantulas. But, are they wrong??
Animalcules or “wee beasties” were generally protists and rotifers and things like that. Back when they only recognized two kingdoms, most bacteria were included with plants, either as algae or as fungi. And now we know better. Seriously, you said something completely wrong here, and doubling down is not going to help you.
And I literally just discussed whether it’s ethics two posts above yours, too.
A reasonable person in your position might simply admit they were wrong instead of doubling down by citing incorrect speculation from someone with a 17th century understanding of biology.
Is peta involved in that weird lawsuit to keep Pablo Escobar’s hippos in fine fettle?
honest question… is anyone actually hiring any great apes to pose for greeting cards… im guessing that hasn’t happened since like the 60s or something and if any greeting cards have them they are some clip art/photoshop ridiculousness like the teddy roosevelt riding a dinosaur card i keep seeing.
