This sort of activism, if it was that, is really not a good thing. Not because animals don't deserve to be free but because usually these animals can destroy the local ecosystems.
I remember one time people tried to free rat labs from the immunology lab at my university, not only these rats are not capable of surviving in the wild but also they actually carry lots of dangerous genes and diseases that should absolutely not be out there in the wild, because, well that's exactly what is being researched.
There's definitely space for bigger conversations but we should be much more careful with the way we do activism.
In the 1980s something a bit similar happened here in the same suburb where Microsoft is headquartered. Mink breeding was a hobby farming fad that didn’t pay off, so the farmers just released them. Now they’re a predator that can wriggle expertly through chicken wire and take out your hens. Heartbreaking when it happens.
chickens are profoundly stupid, basically dirty habits, and there are endless numbers of them, mostly in ugly captivity. Yet humans are so competitive to any other meat eaters that 'zero tolerance use of deadly force' is accepted at face-value in a thousand casual conversations. Is it any wonder that more than half of all other large mammals are now gone forever?
I think you’re largely right. Except somehow many of us fall in love with chickens once we care for them. And mine sure aren’t in ugly captivity.
I say these things mostly in support of your point, because my attitude is profoundly irrational. OTOH I have no problem with farming animals humanely.
I had happy chickens myself for years; they had a great time in their dirty chicken way, and I ate some eggs too. I distinctly recall thinking about predators at the time, and I totally stand by my comment..
Is it more heartbreaking when a couple thousand minks kill a couple thousand chicken so that they can survive or when a couple million chickens get slaughtered industrially to make nuggets so industrial nobody should deserve to eat? In the same kind of line: is it more heartbreaking that cats (that we feed and reproduce) kill 500 bird a year each or that suburban expansion, car noise and dangerous highways kills and displaces whole populations? Once again: is it more heartbreaking that poor black people put their tens of kilo of trash out in the street or in a random freestyle dump or that rich white dudes release literal tons of co2 and high-tech trash around the world by flying all the time and buying/discarding useless stuff all the time?
Widen your lens and check the context. You'll see the pollution/exploitation/.. is always in fine done in the name of the people that matter. (the flip side of this being: you can be a zero-waste green-everything aficionado all you want, if you live in the western world, you will have a negative impact globally just because you're living off of stuff that is done in this way) Malcom Ferdinand has popped off mainstream recently writing about these subjects.
> People living outside of the Western world also have a negative impact globally.
Yes we live in a globalized society, everything is linked. Now what?
> In many cases a much worse one.
This is wrong. You seem pretty shallowly convinced so i will just negate you and provide just as much evidence. As far as i'm concerned, i will be happy if this conversation made you actually look up some evidence (to support your point). I'd bet a lot that you will be surprised by what you will find, but hey, everybody deserves to believe what they want when they don't know. Respect (honest). Now i'm out of this thread, it's starting to get out of hand.
Idk if you've ever been to a third world country, but turns out no one outside of the first world gives a ruling fuck about the environment. Trash cans in public aren't a thing. Chemicals are dumped into drinking water sources. Smoke is pumped into the air at staggering rates. First world countries are objectively way more environmentally friendly. Not saying that makes anyone better or worse ( lord knows I've contributed nothing on this front) just stating facts
I'm sure you could argue that their pollution is worse due to all of the trade with wealthier countries, fair enough, but currently the only solution to that would deprive them of the vast majority of their income and would set those countries back decades if not centuries given that trade is a major driver of development within any country.
That’s why it helps to have a guard dog close to where the hens spend the night. Of course, that would mean for the dog to spend the night outside, not inside, as a pet.
> There's definitely space for bigger conversations but we should be much more careful with the way we do activism.
Where is that space and who is occupying it? What conversation do you think belongs there? I’m just not sure what this last paragraph is intended to convey.
At the heart of all this I feel sorry for the minks, and sorry even more for the psychological damage that humans, usually poor, have to endure to feed an absolutely horrific industry.
Having said that, if the perpetrators of this vandalism are caught, I’ll contribute to their legal fund. Love me some ALF chaos.
That analogy makes no sense whatsoever. Humans who were freed would not have inevitable bad consequences on the local flora and fauna. That is not true for mink.
It can be dismissed as incoherent, because doing this will have negative consequences for wild animals in the local ecosystem.
Non-violent for whom ? I see indirect violence for sure here
> are in their regard "bad" from the pov of the slavers
From my pov I can harm anyone and I don't care for your pov or the pov of the surroundings that didn't participate in any previous actions but will be affected by my pov actions
Is this really an argument that can stand in any logic ? We are not alone in this world, these people should know better therefore
Huh? There are a TON of local laws that would be enforced to prevent the overloading and devastation of local resources, in addition to the humans freed having common sense and being able to communicate and integrate into existing society without destroying it. Have you ever tried that with wild animals... that are now ostensibly much more difficult to track and have no self-control or concept of longterm preservation?
This doesn't even make sense as humans wouldn't devastate the local environment in an uncontrolled fashion the way new animals would.
> This doesn't even make sense as humans wouldn't devastate the local environment in an uncontrolled fashion the way new animals would.
The current world would beg to differ..
Do you realize that you are using human exceptionalism as an assumption (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exceptionalism)? And that you cannot hope to counter-argue on an ALF-inspired action by using the exact concept that their political stance is built against? To counter-argue you gotta start with a common ground, and your hypothesis are not in any way a common ground against that. The whole point of this thing is that there is a continuum space (not even a line) between rock, human, dog, forest, mushroom colony, dolphin, beetle, ant, ... and that tons of animals are actually pretty near from us or even quite further in several aspects. There is no human exception (or perhaps the human exception is to think there is!).
The human exception is that we would be CHECKED by the existing humans VERY quickly. Way more quickly than what happens in a natural environment. Invasive species overwhelm and surprise local fauna and flora. "invasive" humans or new entrants into the space wouldn't overwhelm local humans due to the infrastructure we have built. There is actual exceptional characteristics here.
:) i'm glad you're one of the lucky people learning today about an important part of ethical philosophy. Ever heard about Peter Singer? You know, the same one that coined "effective altruism". I'm not gonna explain more, this is not something for an hn thread: i'm not gonna botcher the basics against your will right now, but at least please just accept that this is a real thing. It is a long philosophical tradition, well known in ethical philosophy, that basically has always been present as a movement inside human philosophies.
Comparing is not the same as equating. Of course, almost everyone agrees that human slavery is a much greater evil than animal captivity, which is why one practice is universally outlawed while the other is found in just about every human society. That doesn't mean that comparisons between the two should be categorically dismissed; on the contrary, their value is in forcing us to think more deeply about our role in the moral universe.
If the freed slaves acted like mink, this would 100% happen. You think thousands of young people, highly skilled in killing locals, easily able to wipe out almost everyone wouldn’t be killed to the last man?
Yes, I think that liberators of slaves who have no regard for the well being of the slaves after liberation and who are purely focused on economic damage to the slavers and generating media publicity are immoral.
Which is not to say that safety has to be guaranteed, but reasonable efforts to make sure that most of the liberated will survive are a absolutely required or your "liberation" is actually mass murder.
I mean, as harsh as it is, yeah of course you'd say the same thing. If slaves had been genetically modified in dangerous ways or carried diseases which ought not to escape. That would be awful for everyone, including other "slaves" (analogy sorta breaks down here, I'm just saying this hurts the population beyond just humans. It hurts other animals as well)
I'm sympathetic to this view, but in the practical realm we had to fight the bloodiest war in our history to settle the the question of human slavery. It was the right thing to do, but if someone really feels factory farming is as bad as chattel slavery (which is IMO an exaggeration, though I agree it's bad), they should consider acts like this to be the opening salvo in a bloody war, not an end in themselves.
If we're going to start slinging blame, let's start where it's most appropriate: these farms should never have existed in the first place. Other countries have banned them, and the US should as well.
> I remember one time people tried to free rat labs from the immunology lab at my university, not only these rats are not capable of surviving in the wild but also they actually carry lots of dangerous genes and diseases that should absolutely not be out there in the wild, because, well that's exactly what is being researched.
Entire zombie movies have this as a starting premise:
Not really activism, rather ecology/bioterrorism as this will have a disastrous impact on the ecosystem.
Minks eat frogs, fish, crayfish, mice, voles, muskrats, shrew, moles, freshwater mussels, turtles, snakes, birds, birdeggs, insects.. And with 10k released on the spot, well it's not hard to figure out what will happen.
Mink are native to Ohio and all of N. America. Fur farms are more harmful to local ecosystems than mink could ever be. The local impact of fur farms leads to the degradation of land, rural life, property values and economic activities. Plus, waste runoff seeps into soil and waterways, causing severe damage to local ecosystems. The concern here is only their threat to livestock, not the ecosystem. Humans are the problem, as always, not the mink. And the search for civilization continues.
> Meanwhile, reports state that many of the animals who fled were killed shortly after being found, while so many minks died crossing a nearby road that a plow was enlisted to help remove the carcasses, WFMZ reported.
What an awful outcome. Obviously I have no love to share for the fur industry, but I can't imagine how the vandals thought this would ultimately end up saving animal lives.
From a purely ethical standpoint, that's not bad logic. It's like the story of the kid throwing the starfish back into the sea, saying "It matters to that one."
Of course, whether it was well-thought-out in regards to the local ecosystem is a different matter entirely.
It's also shortsighted and inconsistent as it disregards the countless prey animals that will be taken by introducing 10,000 predators into a new ecosystem.
Most ecosystems actually need more predators, not fewer. One of the negative effects humans have on ecosystems is killing predators like wolves, which wrecks the rest of the ecosystem.
But again, as I said above the effects of these predators on this ecosystem is not necessary someone that was well-thought-out by these people.
This will probably only save animal lives in the distant future, when farms like this are no longer allowed to operate.
It's one thing to hold quiet animosity for the fur industry operating silently and invisibly. But this is now front page news in sleepy northwest Ohio, people from Findlay (where I've done some consulting) to Fort Wayne are now aware there's a newly built mink fur farm in their backyards. And even after the news fades, when your koi pond is suddenly empty, when you hear a rabbit scream at night, when you see a dead squirrel in your yard with its face chewed off, or when you just see an unusual white animal swimming in a pond, residents will think "Oh hey, that's probably one of those mink that were liberated from the farm in Van Wert." That kind of public opinion will eventually get the farm shut down.
I don't think the ALF/the vandals were confused into believing that a likely outcome was 40,000 people adopting those minks to live happy, long lives as family pets.
But every minute that farm is operating, 40,000 mink are suffering in small cages: https://www.farmtransparency.org/facilities/zx0hb-lion-farms... That farm might still continue to operate for another 50 years or more, with each of 20,000 breeding pairs of mink having 8 kits per year. If 10,000 dead today is enough to make it unprofitable and shut down, it's easy to justify sacrificing 10,000 mink today for the sake of 8 MILLION mink over the next 50 years.
It’s a sly way to add emotional effect by enforcing the possibility that they’ll pose a risk to animals in the area.
With news being predominantly digital no one is worried about how much space a headline takes, HTML metadata can even present an alternative headline for social media, no worries about space on the printed page or ink. So pack on the emotionally charged, pressure cooked rhetoric.
I imagine that wild Mink are so rare that the few surviving mink will probably rebalance things more than anything else. How often do you see anything from the weasel family anymore?
Why are we farming mink? Could we just stop with abusing animals merely for minuscule amounts of pleasure we get from using their products over alternatives?
I assume you understand basic economics in a capitalist system, supply vs demand, etc, so I'll interpret your first question as "why isn't it banned," which goes to your second question:
Sure, "we" can ban it, Ohio and the US are still nominally representative democracies, it just requires you and millions of others (people or dollars will work) to make your representatives care enough to enact legislation.
This is generally when ennui sets in and people move on to the next thing in their feed.
It is appropriate to use derogatory names for people that do stupid acts, even if these acts are for a "good" cause (e.g.: vandalizing art in museums as a protest against GW).
In Brazil, supporters of former president Bolsonaro are "protesting" in front of military barracks demanding an authoritarian coup by the Army to "preserve" democracy. The rest of the country just mocks them.
When political activism becomes so stupid we shouldn't refrain to call it stupid.
58 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 112 ms ] threadI remember one time people tried to free rat labs from the immunology lab at my university, not only these rats are not capable of surviving in the wild but also they actually carry lots of dangerous genes and diseases that should absolutely not be out there in the wild, because, well that's exactly what is being researched.
There's definitely space for bigger conversations but we should be much more careful with the way we do activism.
I say these things mostly in support of your point, because my attitude is profoundly irrational. OTOH I have no problem with farming animals humanely.
Widen your lens and check the context. You'll see the pollution/exploitation/.. is always in fine done in the name of the people that matter. (the flip side of this being: you can be a zero-waste green-everything aficionado all you want, if you live in the western world, you will have a negative impact globally just because you're living off of stuff that is done in this way) Malcom Ferdinand has popped off mainstream recently writing about these subjects.
Yes we live in a globalized society, everything is linked. Now what?
> In many cases a much worse one.
This is wrong. You seem pretty shallowly convinced so i will just negate you and provide just as much evidence. As far as i'm concerned, i will be happy if this conversation made you actually look up some evidence (to support your point). I'd bet a lot that you will be surprised by what you will find, but hey, everybody deserves to believe what they want when they don't know. Respect (honest). Now i'm out of this thread, it's starting to get out of hand.
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/air-pollution-hu...
https://www.cgdev.org/media/developing-countries-are-respons...
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/one-thre...
I'm sure you could argue that their pollution is worse due to all of the trade with wealthier countries, fair enough, but currently the only solution to that would deprive them of the vast majority of their income and would set those countries back decades if not centuries given that trade is a major driver of development within any country.
Where is that space and who is occupying it? What conversation do you think belongs there? I’m just not sure what this last paragraph is intended to convey.
At the heart of all this I feel sorry for the minks, and sorry even more for the psychological damage that humans, usually poor, have to endure to feed an absolutely horrific industry.
Having said that, if the perpetrators of this vandalism are caught, I’ll contribute to their legal fund. Love me some ALF chaos.
It can be dismissed as incoherent, because doing this will have negative consequences for wild animals in the local ecosystem.
Non-violent for whom ? I see indirect violence for sure here
> are in their regard "bad" from the pov of the slavers
From my pov I can harm anyone and I don't care for your pov or the pov of the surroundings that didn't participate in any previous actions but will be affected by my pov actions
Is this really an argument that can stand in any logic ? We are not alone in this world, these people should know better therefore
EDIT: formatting
This doesn't even make sense as humans wouldn't devastate the local environment in an uncontrolled fashion the way new animals would.
The current world would beg to differ..
Do you realize that you are using human exceptionalism as an assumption (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exceptionalism)? And that you cannot hope to counter-argue on an ALF-inspired action by using the exact concept that their political stance is built against? To counter-argue you gotta start with a common ground, and your hypothesis are not in any way a common ground against that. The whole point of this thing is that there is a continuum space (not even a line) between rock, human, dog, forest, mushroom colony, dolphin, beetle, ant, ... and that tons of animals are actually pretty near from us or even quite further in several aspects. There is no human exception (or perhaps the human exception is to think there is!).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Liberation_(book)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciesism
Which is not to say that safety has to be guaranteed, but reasonable efforts to make sure that most of the liberated will survive are a absolutely required or your "liberation" is actually mass murder.
Entire zombie movies have this as a starting premise:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_Days_Later
Minks eat frogs, fish, crayfish, mice, voles, muskrats, shrew, moles, freshwater mussels, turtles, snakes, birds, birdeggs, insects.. And with 10k released on the spot, well it's not hard to figure out what will happen.
Minks also have 6-10 babies per year.
Mink are native to Ohio and all of N. America. Fur farms are more harmful to local ecosystems than mink could ever be. The local impact of fur farms leads to the degradation of land, rural life, property values and economic activities. Plus, waste runoff seeps into soil and waterways, causing severe damage to local ecosystems. The concern here is only their threat to livestock, not the ecosystem. Humans are the problem, as always, not the mink. And the search for civilization continues.
What an awful outcome. Obviously I have no love to share for the fur industry, but I can't imagine how the vandals thought this would ultimately end up saving animal lives.
Of course, whether it was well-thought-out in regards to the local ecosystem is a different matter entirely.
But again, as I said above the effects of these predators on this ecosystem is not necessary someone that was well-thought-out by these people.
It's one thing to hold quiet animosity for the fur industry operating silently and invisibly. But this is now front page news in sleepy northwest Ohio, people from Findlay (where I've done some consulting) to Fort Wayne are now aware there's a newly built mink fur farm in their backyards. And even after the news fades, when your koi pond is suddenly empty, when you hear a rabbit scream at night, when you see a dead squirrel in your yard with its face chewed off, or when you just see an unusual white animal swimming in a pond, residents will think "Oh hey, that's probably one of those mink that were liberated from the farm in Van Wert." That kind of public opinion will eventually get the farm shut down.
I don't think the ALF/the vandals were confused into believing that a likely outcome was 40,000 people adopting those minks to live happy, long lives as family pets.
But every minute that farm is operating, 40,000 mink are suffering in small cages: https://www.farmtransparency.org/facilities/zx0hb-lion-farms... That farm might still continue to operate for another 50 years or more, with each of 20,000 breeding pairs of mink having 8 kits per year. If 10,000 dead today is enough to make it unprofitable and shut down, it's easy to justify sacrificing 10,000 mink today for the sake of 8 MILLION mink over the next 50 years.
With news being predominantly digital no one is worried about how much space a headline takes, HTML metadata can even present an alternative headline for social media, no worries about space on the printed page or ink. So pack on the emotionally charged, pressure cooked rhetoric.
I don't want a mink coat but it doesn't surprise me the market is out there. I still have a down coat.
Sure, "we" can ban it, Ohio and the US are still nominally representative democracies, it just requires you and millions of others (people or dollars will work) to make your representatives care enough to enact legislation.
This is generally when ennui sets in and people move on to the next thing in their feed.
It is appropriate to use derogatory names for people that do stupid acts, even if these acts are for a "good" cause (e.g.: vandalizing art in museums as a protest against GW).
In Brazil, supporters of former president Bolsonaro are "protesting" in front of military barracks demanding an authoritarian coup by the Army to "preserve" democracy. The rest of the country just mocks them.
When political activism becomes so stupid we shouldn't refrain to call it stupid.