Part of the reason for the USA's failure is MAGA but the other big aspect is a left that does not engage the real enemy
Toxic idealism
Spineless capitulation
Mindless cynicism
"Polite society" "high road" cluelessness
And lazy entitlement
Not financial entitlement but this obtuse entitled foolishness that we have the time and space to criticize some aspect of the left according to deranged standards of perfection when we're facing literal fascism
Make MAGA the target of your venom
@benroyce this reminds me of a recently published argument between Chomsky and Moinbot on whether what happened during the terrible Rwanda wars was a genocide or an atrocity.The letters between them really sounded like they fell out. I think there's a bit of pride in there too.
Appreciate I'm massively simplifying their correspondence. And I say that only to somewhat mitigate fear of trolling, which further highlights your point.
i won't troll you but i will castigate you
never mention #Chomsky again
nevermind him licking #Putin's boots over the invasion of #Ukraine
Noam is in the #EpsteinFiles defending #Epstein
he did this *after* Epstein was revealed as a pedophile human trafficker
Fuck #NoamChomsky
And I am not attacking the left, ironically, in contradiction to what I have said above:
A pedophile/ #imperialism apologist is not of the left
Chomsky is not of the left
Not anymore at least
Ok then, if chomsky isn't on the left because he's a pedophile supporter (agreed) then people who eat other animals aren't on the left either because they perpetuate a globalised violent system of exploitation torture and murder for their own taste preferences in direct contradiction of left principles of justice equality and fairness.
See what non-human victims go through
VVV
https://nationearth.com
#Left #Leftism #Vegan #Veganism #TotalLiberation #Anarchism #Veganarchism #LeftistUnity
@ambiguous_yelp I will not extend the benefit of rights to those who will not reciprocate equal benefits back to me. So fascists and nonsapient animals do not qualify. For the sake of presumptive sentience, I'll avoid eating some species, but I will still not grant them equal rights to humans. Aside from orcas, they ain't out here fighting billionaires.
Sort out the human-on-human predation, and a portion of nonhuman suffering will go with it, with the remainder easier to fight.
Humans learned to torture imprison and murder eachother because we practised on the non-human animals first
From the moment we are born the first kind of hatred we are taught is to hate other animals: we are taught that their lives are insignificant and come second to our trivial interests
If you teach a child that even an ant a small. powerless creature deserves to live and be free from undue pain that goes a long way towards accepting different sizes shapes and colors of humans.
Sapience is a circular logic, it basically means "human-like behaviour" so what you're really saying here is "only those animals that behave superficially like humans deserve a right to life"
Your reciprocation idea would exclude babies and the terminally ill and those with severe disabilities who can be of no benefit to someone who thinks in transactions like this. Unless you think they ought to share rights simply by right of being human, in which case its just arbitrary speciesism:
What specific trait does a chicken lack that a human does not that makes it ok to confine and kill one but not the other?
"
We declare the following: “The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from
experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the
neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with
the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that
humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also
possess these neurological substrates.”
"[1]
[1]
<>
Philip Low, edited by Jaak Panksepp, Diana Reiss, David Edelman, Bruno Van, Swinderen, Philip Low and Christof Koch
2012.07.07
The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness
Churchill College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
<http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf>
> @ambiguous_yelp:ahimsa.chat
2021.05.11 18:20:00 BST
@ambiguous_yelp Mmmhmm. Cool story, bro. As it happens, I don't think human babies have rights. All the protections they get from me flow from their adult guardians--which are likely coincident with their parents, but not necessarily.
The specific trait I am looking for is moral development sufficient to uphold the moral contract. I know a number of nonhuman species whose rights I respect on this basis, and I am nonhuman myself. Sapience is wisdom, not humanness.
What moral contract do chickens break? What reason would you give to them that they need to die for you?
Chickens are thinking feeling creatures who have preferences fears wants memories, they play games and have friends, they want to live in comfort and peace and avoid pain and death.
Just because they can't verbalise an explicit contract with you doesn't mean that they don't value their own life and find enjoyment in it.
You would take everything from them why because they can't speak your language?
@ambiguous_yelp Your argument does not address my moral premises. You have no argument that can, until you produce a chicken that can adopt a moral code.
Whether they enjoy life or not is entirely irrelevant. If you wish to protect one, use your capacity as a moral entity to become the guardian of a chicken. We have a ready-to-use system in place for this--property. Buy a chicken, make it your property, defend it against all comers, and it is safe from me killing it, forever.
Buying property implies a previous property owner, who was the first property owner of a chicken? Where did their property rights come from?
Treating someone as something is how you end up doing horrible things
And no I'm not trying to produce a chicken that will fulfill your moral code, I'm asking you to consider that creatures that can't speak to you have an internal life, and that they have feelings, the same feelings that you and I have, the same feelings that make life worth living for anyone
@ambiguous_yelp I can consider that separately. With respect to whether those animals have rights, it is a nullity.
"Feelings" is not the source of rights. The moral contract is the source. Creatures incompetent to enter that mutual exchange between equals do not benefit, ever, unless a creature that *can* join is willing to extend the aegis of *their* rights over it. Which usually has a price. And limitations.
You can protect as many chickens as you can afford to keep. No more.
@ambiguous_yelp I am not your professor. Educate yourself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
Yes, the non-aggression principle is a form of social contract. It is not the only one.
I know what the social contract is in relation to political philosophy, I'm familiar with Hobbes, what I'm curious about is how it relates to your personal understanding of why you get to hurt innocent chickens
What precisely about the specific social contract you are invoking means that you should be allowed to hurt chickens who have done nothing to hurt you
#Ethics #ThomasHobbes #SocialContract #PoliticalPhilosophy #Chickens #Speciesism #HumanSupremacy
@ambiguous_yelp Chickens are neither innocent nor guilty. They lack the moral capacity for it. Their defense against being eaten by human or cryptid is the same as their defense against being eaten by a fox--roost somewhere safe.
They have zero access to the social contract. They are not moral actors. If a person kills a chicken, it is not murder; it is predation.
I could hurt chickens, if I wanted. I don't. As you say, they have neat little personalities. But they are not *people*.
Why can't a chicken decide to act morally?
Here are some clips of non-human animals acting altruistically plus the attached video
Dog saves stranded bird by carrying them outside
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vCm-ZOWVrc
Hippo saves baby impala from dogs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OI6qGPW1Nw
Pig brings food to sick brother
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/R8fbIlWiDj0
Its called a counter example. You said they can't make moral decisions, I gave many counter examples of them making moral decisions therefore your premise was false
So chickens deserve to die because you can't read their minds? What reasoning from a chicken would convince you they deserve a right to life?
"
Rats free trapped companions, even when given choice of chocolate instead
"[1]
[1]
https://news.uchicago.edu/taxonomy/term/49941
2011.12.08 XX:XX:XX
Helping your fellow rat: Rodents show empathy-driven behavior
UChicago News
<https://news.uchicago.edu/story/helping-your-fellow-rat-rodents-show-empathy-driven-behavior>
> @ambiguous_yelp:ahimsa.chat
2026.02.06 17:XX:XX XXX
@ambiguous_yelp Deserving death and having the right to not be killed while participating in civilization are two *completely* different standards. I am utterly indifferent as to whether any individual chicken lives or dies. They're on their own against any threat to their continued existence. Chickens, in short, are not my problem. Nor can they meaningfully assist with any of the very real and non-frivolous problems I do have--such as American fascism.
Are you done yet?
"The fastest way to lose your rights is to only care about your own"
And you obviously are not indifferent because you eat other animals so you have a motivated reasoning to maintain your privilege of eating your preferred sandwich filling.
This "not my problem" thinking is exactly how privileged people let fascism slide because they are either unaffected or benefited by fascism.
The way of looking at the world you have detailed over this thread is one where no one but you really matters, and if someone can't profit you then they might as well be dead to you, and in fact you will pay for someone to murder them.
And if you want to say that affairs that ultimately benefit or harm you are the only ones worth moral consideration well then why can't the chicken say the same thing, you can't both be right. You are not the center of the universe. Others have feelings and preferences outside of your perspective that are just as valid as yours.
@ambiguous_yelp To reach that conclusion, you must equate food animals with people, which I have repeatedly stated is not the case. So, again, I must ask whether you made that invalid leap of logic maliciously, or accidentally.
Animals that cannot uphold the social contract do not benefit from any rights included in it. That is the principle. You have not yet restated it back to me in your own words, such that it indicates to me you understand what that means.
And that social contract you are talking about is the ability to benefit you personally. I have to assume that because you wont tell me what contract you want someone to join to gain rights.
So I'll ask again: What social contract are chickens not upholding?
@ambiguous_yelp I will incorporate by reference the specific social contract that enumerates several specific rights.
The UN Declaration of Human Rights: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf
Obviously, as a nonhuman myself, I prefer to disregard species-specific language found therein.
So when did a chicken ever deprive you of any of these rights? Why can't you extend the same to them out of fairness.
I call out injustice where I see it I don't need a license to stand up for victims of oppression. If you don't like that you can do what you like about it or try to convince me I'm wrong
Then why is my moral reasoning relevant? Chickens aren't fascist nor do they threaten your rights AND you consider us both useless to you. So what is it specifically about moral reasoning that means I deserve the live and the chicken doesnt? The potential to be useful to you? Because that is still selfish reasoning
Also I maintain that chickens do moral reasoning and that you have highly motivated reasoning not to recognise it
@ambiguous_yelp You seem to think that I care whether you think me selfish or not. You also seem to think that someone less than useless to me, as one spewing constant fallacy and distraction, has the right for me to take them seriously. You are not of value to me. Your constant argument has not once laid a single mark upon my repeatedly restated premise. We cannot be allies.
I'm going to tell my human porter to eat chicken for lunch. They'll do it, too.
You must find some value in trying to convince me or you would never have spoke to me.
Both I and the Chicken are considered useless to you, so what trait do i possess that the chicken does not that makes it wrong to torture and kill one but not the other?
@ambiguous_yelp I'm not entirely convinced you're not an LLM-powered bot. I don't particularly care, either.
To answer your question directly, it is the capacity for moral reasoning and principled action--which an LLM would not have, being a glorified probability matrix. Maybe you don't actually deserve rights. You're awfully hashtaggy there. Not something I usually see in human punching bags. I akso notice you didn't say whether you vote in US elections when I asked. Do you?
Why does the capacity for moral reasoning and principled action confer rights for you? Because then they might be able to defend your rights? If so then once again everything comes back to other people only mattering because they can profit you.
As a technical point I can actually prove I am human I keep up to date with state of the art image generators and I happen to know that an image drawing of an analogue clock displaying a time of your choosing, plus some text of your choosing I can draw with a mouse would be too much for an AI to generate. Individually these are difficult for AI to do together its virtually impossible
I use hashtags for discoverability
I'm not answering the question because its a setup to either a non-sequitur or a genetic fallacy. The veracity of my argument has no bearing on anything I do or don't personally do.
Wasn't a non-sequitur, there was a larger point arguing about leftist unity in general which OP was arguing for. I laid that full argument in this comment thread
You are responsible for your own actions here I'm trying to defend them its not my fault if youre so evil that you see others suffering as a joke. And your pathetic attempt to shut me up out of some utilitarian calculus isn't going to work, nor does your photo offend me Ive been desensitized to it by the violent society we live in
@[email protected] This is the larger point I was trying to make and why I don't consider what I did as hijacking You start off by saying the left must be united against the right, but then you carve out a specific exception for when we should shun those on the "left". When people "divide the left" they do it for principled reasons not because theyre opposed to any sort of collaboration. In fact it is the whole idea of "leftist unity" that is idealist, the idea that eveyrone on the left shares fundamental values is just naive and kind of patronising. Really the labels left and right aren't very useful at all they are broad tendancies and don't point to any particular ideology or set of foundational beliefs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-jwkMEGHG8
@ambiguous_yelp Ok cool, glad you think you weren't derailing OP's discussion, but I strongly disagree.
I'll answer for you that you do not vote in US elections, and hazard a guess that if you vote, it's for Green Party. If so, good for you. UK is getting bullshit political spillover from the US.
There is no chicken army, if you want animals to have even a semblance of rights, that's in your hands (if you have hands). You follow your dream.
The rest of us have real work to do.
Begging the question that chickens rights are not important to them.
This idea that they don't deserve rights that they themselves can't fight for is just might makes right thinking and is a cornerstone of fascist thinking.
If chickens ever have rights, you argue, its because someone uses force to stop you from killing chickens. Otherwise, you have a natural right to dominate the chickens because they are powerless to defend themselves, and that powerlessness is the same reason they can't fight for your rights either
So you are just doing fascist might makes right ethics
@ambiguous_yelp That's a fun little diagram there. Let's bring it back to reality here. Chickens, as a species, in a negotiation with humans, as a species, have no leverage. Their sole bargaining chip is, in fact, people who really like them as living creatures. Gallophiles.
What can the chicken do to convince the human to, on a purely moral basis, refrain from domesticating chickendom as a livestock animal? What do they bring without the gallophile?
@ambiguous_yelp @log @jlou I think that Log here is arguing for the sake of fun, while Ambiyelp is expressing things sincerely. Key is Log’s bio and the hashtags there.
I find value here in seeing such well articulated arguments for extending rights to other emotional and sentient beings besides humans. And value in thinking about rights of ecosystems and non-human-centered epistemologies (recent recognitions of rivers, mountains, forests having rights).
@leftyknowitall @ambiguous_yelp @log I hope that they’re only arguing for argument’s sake cuz the position they’re defending is horrid.
What do you mean by harmony? I generally take it to mean freedom, and for moral agents, inalienable rights.
@jlou @ambiguous_yelp @log I also hope so, but given that their account includes #absurdism and they mix flawed moral philosophy with claims to being a part fungal cryptid, I think we can count them as at least unserious.
By harmony I wanted to imply that I can’t know others’ subjectivity. While I won’t eat animals (or have kids) I know other people that feel physically ill without ingesting meat or utterly despairing at the idea of not parenting. (1/2)
@jlou @ambiguous_yelp @log Hence I hesitate to be fully prescriptive about my ethical choices applying to everyone. But I believe that we can work together to do our best to be better as a society, and find ways to alleviate as much suffering as possible while also fostering wellbeing and creating beauty.
Sorry if it’s not a fully articulated position on rights. I’m an anthropologist and find myself suspicious total absolutes. Just trying to connect and enact good change where I can. (2/2)
All essential nutrients can be found on a plant based diet[1] on the other hand eating meat is associated with the worlds biggest killers: heart disease, certain cancers, obesity, kidney disease etc
If someone feels sick not eating flesh its probably either because theyre not eating enough calories (people often overestimate the calories in vegan meals + vegans need more calories to synthesise non essential nutrients) or theyre not taking b12 which can lead pretty quickly to lethargy
It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that, in adults, appropriately planned vegetarian and vegan dietary patterns can be nutritionally adequate and can offer long-term health benefits such as improving several health outcomes associated with cardiometabolic diseases. Vegetari …
If historical diet affects your health thats more reason to change to a plant based diet (especially given the ties to humanities highest mortality diseases), when a human gets a little bit sick then apparently we should defer to the human's experience, and damn any other creatures that have to die for the continuation of that diet
@log @ambiguous_yelp this is a reductio ad absurdum of your position. You literally just admitted that you believe toddlers have no inherent moral value. What if the moral agents whose guardianship they’re under are abusive? How does your faux-morality handle that?
You think human children are property, why do you care about guardianship being beneficial to human children but not that owning other creatures should be beneficial to those other creatures.
What is the trait difference between a human child and a chicken legally owned by a human that makes it ok to kill and eat one but not the other, neither human children nor chickens can defend your rights in a war
#Ethics #Speciesism #HumanSupremacy #Chickens #YouthLiberation
@ambiguous_yelp @jlou You are free to create a convention on the rights of livestock animals, if you are so inclined. Such could certainly create protections that would invalidate one person's ownership of an animal and transfer it to another. I do not think it will achieve widespread voluntary adoption, if it does not allow for a noted omnivorous species to eat animals under any circumstances.
The main difference, I think, is that most adult humans seek vengeance if you eat their babies.
We should interfere in nature to reduce wild animal suffering, but that is more complicated than the straw man you’ve constructed of banning predation. Moral agents shouldn’t intentionally cause increases in total suffering for personal pleasure.
Also, pro-animal people don’t think that eating animals, under absolutely any circumstances is wrong, anymore than eating people is wrong in cases where there is extreme starvation and deprivation. You’re engaged in a straw man
@log @ambiguous_yelp Vampires are moral agents. They’re responsible for any murders they choose to commit.
This is also a false equivalence. All we are asking is for humans not to kill animals when it isn’t even necessary for their own survival. Humanity can thrive without killing animals.
@jlou @ambiguous_yelp The value is that adults will kill for them.
Look, are you here to fight fascism, or not?
@ambiguous_yelp @jlou Yeah, sure. If you think you can get away with that, go for it. You should have some cash in the bank and some nasty characters to back you up. At least, that's what the Epstein documents suggest.
The guardianship of a guardianless child escheats to *anyone willing*. If no one is willing, that means no one *knows*. In which case, you're probably good. Except you would know. And you would rather eat that baby than tell someone else? Better keep that secret well.
Humans are animals a species of great ape. Please refer to non-human animals as such or equivalent and not simply "animals" as this framing places humans as separate from and above other animals, reinforcing speciesism and human-supremacy
@jlou @ambiguous_yelp So now I present another question.
If you accept as a given that all animal protections stem largely from the rights of their advocate, and that fascism presents a meaningful threat to the rights of animal advocates, is it prudent for any animal advocate to join in common cause with anti-fascists to ensure their own rights continue, in preference to going hard for anything and everything that does not know what is going on in global politics?
@jlou @ambiguous_yelp "Moral agents shouldn't intentionally cause increases in total suffering for personal pleasure."
I do not accept this as axiomatic. It is not one of my premises, and my principles do not support it as a derivation. Pleasure and suffering are subjective, and unsuited for use as a moral metric, even ignoring that morality is not well suited for metrics.
@jlou @ambiguous_yelp The trolley problem is a useless hypothetical. You constructed this one to force me into a false binary. I am not obligated to respond to your questions, just as you are not obligated to answer mine.
In any case where the well being of a toddler is pitted against the well being of an adult, the first question that must be asked is why the choice is necessary. It is only after that is answered satisfactorily that I pick the adult, barring any other relevant information.
@jlou @ambiguous_yelp Illustrating an important difference between us, but doing nothing to suggest either is a morally superior choice.
You would prefer to defend the defenseless. I would prefer to protect the one that could pull or not pull the lever if we were transposed.
Its not a preference I don't prioritize non-human rights over human rights: its about equality and justice, I don't confine exploit kill and eat humans either..
You're seriously asking me to defend the position that a moral framework that disallows eating dumpster babies is better than one that allows it?
Chickens have memories emotions preferences and make decisions, they are people.
Why should the world be human centric? Because we control everything? That is just might-makes right thinking again
You shouldn't hurt other creatures because like you they want to live and be free and anything else would be arbitrary discrimination
We can also look at the veil of ignorance thought experiment: there are far more chickens than humans, so it was more likely you would be born a chicken. Why should someone experience violence and discrimination based on the circumstances of their birth?
Heres another argument, I would hope you would say its wrong to bash a stray dogs head in for fun. But how is that any different from the sensory taste pleasure you profit after slicing a chickens throat open who did nothing to harm you?
@ambiguous_yelp It is wrong to inflict unnecessary cruelty upon animals. But not because the animal has a right to not suffer such cruelty. We enact laws against it mainly so that the people who do it can be contained and corrected or culled before they become a bigger problem. Sadists are a threat to people as well as non-people.
Your thought experiment does not seem relevant or elucidative. We'd all be arguing for arthropod rights.
I do argue that arthropods should be free from undue suffering. They have preferences they feel pain, they are thinking feeling creatures. As much as possible they shouldnt be made to suffer because their happiness is just as important as mine.
ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES
TenPastTwo
🌱🏴🅰️🏳️⚧️🐧🔧📎 Ambiyelp
Log 🪵
J Lou
Jeremy le fou