Wealth Inequality Continues to Grow

[Ibanez]

First dogs, now lions.

Actually, some dogs do have some use. So I am not calling for rendering dogs totally extinct. Just calling for realizing that they are not sentient beings and it's ridiculous to have laws requiring that they be treated as such.

Lions, on the other hand, have no redeeming value at all. They should be consigned to extinction. They're absolutely disgusting animals. They really are. If you really look at their behavior, etc., I don't see how you can come to any other conclusion. The planet would be better off without them.

You're such an ignorant ass. Lions serve a purpose. What purpose do humans serve? Seriously, aside from our own self-interests (which includes everything in the world we've created) what use do we have?

[Ibanez]

Btw, I don't believe this, "animals aren't sentient beings" crap. They may not feel, or express feelings on our level, but animals do express feelings and emotions. They understand fear, abandonment, hunger, they bond, defend each other, etc... They have an intelligence ( many only as a swarm) that humans don't have.

[Ivytalk]

Btw, I don't believe this, "animals aren't sentient beings" crap. They may not feel, or express feelings on our level, but animals do express feelings and emotions. They understand fear, abandonment, hunger, they bond, defend each other, etc... They have an intelligence ( many only as a swarm) that humans don't have.

Lions 1, JSO 0.

Now, back to wealth inequality.

[Chizzang]

Btw, I don't believe this, "animals aren't sentient beings" crap. They may not feel, or express feelings on our level, but animals do express feelings and emotions. They understand fear, abandonment, hunger, they bond, defend each other, etc... They have an intelligence ( many only as a swarm) that humans don't have.

Lions 1, JSO 0.

Now, back to wealth inequality.

Not so fast Mr.

We first need to ask JSO what characteristics define a "sentient being"
The concept of sentient is Buddhist
and has 5 major characteristics

of which the Elephant and Dolphin exhibit all 5 in spades as well as a myriad of other creatures

its a slippery slope my friend

Elephants recognize themselves in the mirror
They can both learn and teach
they experience empathy and a wide range of other emotions
and they communicate at an elaborate complex level

Thus - they are Sentient Beings

[GannonFan]

This thread has to rank up there pretty high in terms of how far a thread can be derailed. Our collective understanding, as board posters, on African fauna is mighty impressive. Well done!

[Ibanez]

Lions 1, JSO 0.

Now, back to wealth inequality.

Not so fast Mr.

We first need to ask JSO what characteristics define a "sentient being"
The concept of sentient is Buddhist
and has 5 major characteristics

of which the Elephant and Dolphin exhibit all 5 in spades as well as a myriad of other creatures

its a slippery slope my friend

Elephants recognize themselves in the mirror
They can both learn and teach
they experience empathy and a wide range of other emotions
and they communicate at an elaborate complex level

Thus - they are Sentient Beings

Sentience is ability to feel or perceive. Animals are capable of feeling a wide range of emotions. Case closed. Why JSO feels animals don't feel or perceive anything is beyond me. He's trying to justify his abuse of animals.

[Baldy]

Not so fast Mr.

We first need to ask JSO what characteristics define a "sentient being"
The concept of sentient is Buddhist
and has 5 major characteristics

of which the Elephant and Dolphin exhibit all 5 in spades as well as a myriad of other creatures

its a slippery slope my friend

Elephants recognize themselves in the mirror
They can both learn and teach
they experience empathy and a wide range of other emotions
and they communicate at an elaborate complex level

Thus - they are Sentient Beings

Sentience is ability to feel or perceive. Animals are capable of feeling a wide range of emotions. Case closed. Why JSO feels animals don't feel or perceive anything is beyond me. He's trying to justify his abuse of animals.

...or JSO could be trollin'. If he is, it's epic.

[Ibanez]

Sentience is ability to feel or perceive. Animals are capable of feeling a wide range of emotions. Case closed. Why JSO feels animals don't feel or perceive anything is beyond me. He's trying to justify his abuse of animals.

...or JSO could be trollin'. If he is, it's epic.

Impossible. Trolls aren't sentient beings.

[Ivytalk]

Sentience is ability to feel or perceive. Animals are capable of feeling a wide range of emotions. Case closed. Why JSO feels animals don't feel or perceive anything is beyond me. He's trying to justify his abuse of animals.

...or JSO could be trollin'. If he is, it's epic.

I hadn't considered that possibility.

Was waiting for JSO's rejoinder on pachyderm sentience.

[Ibanez]

...or JSO could be trollin'. If he is, it's epic.

I hadn't considered that possibility.

Was waiting for JSO's rejoinder on pachyderm sentience.

Look! This Lion is CRYING!

[Ibanez]

I think we can all relate to this feeling.

[D1B]

Sentience is ability to feel or perceive. Animals are capable of feeling a wide range of emotions. Case closed. Why JSO feels animals don't feel or perceive anything is beyond me. He's trying to justify his abuse of animals.

...or JSO could be trollin'. If he is, it's epic.

Nice hedge, idiot. Don't sweat it, we all know you're a simpleton.

[CID1990]

Lions 1, JSO 0.

Now, back to wealth inequality.

Not so fast Mr.

We first need to ask JSO what characteristics define a "sentient being"
The concept of sentient is Buddhist
and has 5 major characteristics

of which the Elephant and Dolphin exhibit all 5 in spades as well as a myriad of other creatures

its a slippery slope my friend

Elephants recognize themselves in the mirror
They can both learn and teach
they experience empathy and a wide range of other emotions
and they communicate at an elaborate complex level

Thus - they are Sentient Beings

What if they're delicious?

Dog is delicious, and I dont mean in the BrokebackJon sense.

If they are delicious does that affect their standing in the Buddhist sense?

[Ibanez]

Not so fast Mr.

We first need to ask JSO what characteristics define a "sentient being"
The concept of sentient is Buddhist
and has 5 major characteristics

of which the Elephant and Dolphin exhibit all 5 in spades as well as a myriad of other creatures

its a slippery slope my friend

Elephants recognize themselves in the mirror
They can both learn and teach
they experience empathy and a wide range of other emotions
and they communicate at an elaborate complex level

Thus - they are Sentient Beings

What if they're delicious?

Dog is delicious, and I dont mean in the BrokebackJon sense.

If they are delicious does that affect their standing in the Buddhist sense?

No. The ability for them to be killed, cooked and eaten has no bearing on their sentience.

[kalm]

Wealth inequality is about coming out of a vagina...

“It’s a myth,” Brand interjects, “a story that if you’re rich you deserve to be rich, and that story means if you’re not rich, you don’t deserve to be — and that means that everything’s the way it should be and nothing should change.”

It’s a myth, Monbiot says, that you have to “espouse and espouse and espouse and espouse when you have great inequality, like you do at the moment. You have to constantly bang home the idea that the people at the top got there through their amazing genius and talent and efforts, and that they deserve to be there because this is the correct social order.”

“For example,” Brand then says, “Lord Rothermere [the chairman of Daily Mail and General Trust], what he’s brilliantly done is he came out of the vagina of this lady who’s married to a person whose name is also ‘Lord Rothermere,’ and that means he got a thing called a Daily Mail — which is a type of newspaper — given to him. If he hadn’t come out of that vagina, he wouldn’t have got it. Brilliant!”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/russ ... the-right/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Ibanez]

Wealth inequality is about coming out of a vagina...

“It’s a myth,” Brand interjects, “a story that if you’re rich you deserve to be rich, and that story means if you’re not rich, you don’t deserve to be — and that means that everything’s the way it should be and nothing should change.”

It’s a myth, Monbiot says, that you have to “espouse and espouse and espouse and espouse when you have great inequality, like you do at the moment. You have to constantly bang home the idea that the people at the top got there through their amazing genius and talent and efforts, and that they deserve to be there because this is the correct social order.”

“For example,” Brand then says, “Lord Rothermere [the chairman of Daily Mail and General Trust], what he’s brilliantly done is he came out of the vagina of this lady who’s married to a person whose name is also ‘Lord Rothermere,’ and that means he got a thing called a Daily Mail — which is a type of newspaper — given to him. If he hadn’t come out of that vagina, he wouldn’t have got it. Brilliant!”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/russ ... the-right/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Well, that's certainly the case in many instances. But Jay-Z hustled his way to the top.

[JohnStOnge]

You're such an ignorant ass. Lions serve a purpose. What purpose do humans serve? Seriously, aside from our own self-interests (which includes everything in the world we've created) what use do we have?

The world would be fine without lions. They don't have that much of an impact on the populations of their prey species to begin with and even if they did or we decided they had enough to matter we could make up for it by killing the animals ourselves.

And the question of what purpose we serve doesn't matter. We're us.

No other animal species worries about what impact their activity has over the particular state of given ecosystems, whether or not it causes other species to go extinct, etc. For some reason we think we have to. And we even invent things about the persistence of EVERY species being important when it's self evidently not true. Like we're doing fine without Dodo birds, passenger pigeons, and numerous other species persisting. In fact we've THRIVED to an incredible degree while causing the extinction of numerous other species and dramatically altering all kinds of ecosystems. This stuff about how CRITCIAL is to maintain the NATURL balance of ecosystems is SUCH crap. It's just proponents of that "preservationist" philosophy I've encountered as dominant in the fields of biology and environmental science during my career looking for excuses to be preservationist.

Oh it's going to be the END OF THE WORLD if the snail darter goes extinct. HEAVEN HELP US. Or...even WORSE...the RIDLEY TURTLE. OMG! How is the world going to go ON without the RIDLEY TURTLE! So we ahve to do all SORTS of ridiculous crap like tell people they can't have lights by the beach and have to have turtle excluder devices on shrimp nets. Make members of our own species lives miserable because HEAVEN FORBID if the Ridley Turtle dies out.

Truth is it'd gone on pretty much fine and most people would never even realize the RIdley Turtle was gone. Would make absolutely no difference in their lives.

[Ivytalk]

Wealth inequality is about coming out of a vagina...

“It’s a myth,” Brand interjects, “a story that if you’re rich you deserve to be rich, and that story means if you’re not rich, you don’t deserve to be — and that means that everything’s the way it should be and nothing should change.”

It’s a myth, Monbiot says, that you have to “espouse and espouse and espouse and espouse when you have great inequality, like you do at the moment. You have to constantly bang home the idea that the people at the top got there through their amazing genius and talent and efforts, and that they deserve to be there because this is the correct social order.”

“For example,” Brand then says, “Lord Rothermere [the chairman of Daily Mail and General Trust], what he’s brilliantly done is he came out of the vagina of this lady who’s married to a person whose name is also ‘Lord Rothermere,’ and that means he got a thing called a Daily Mail — which is a type of newspaper —
given to him. If he hadn’t come out of that vagina, he wouldn’t have got it. Brilliant!”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/russ ... the-right/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I guess my friend Lloyd Blankfein fought and elbowed his way to the top, then.

[JohnStOnge]

This thread has to rank up there pretty high in terms of how far a thread can be derailed. Our collective understanding, as board posters, on African fauna is mighty impressive. Well done!

Actually it morphed into discussion of one aspect of the Climate Change controversy. One of the motivations behind wanting to cut off or severely curtail fossil fuel use is the concern that climate change will cause species extinctions. And we really shouldn't give a crap about that unless it's an extinction that threatens our own well being.

For example: If you're talking about causing oceanic plankton that produce oxygen to die off that's a huge issue. Obviously we'd want to avoid that.

But if you're talking about some little bird in a temperate forest going extinct because its range is going to become sub tropical and it's very specialized to its environment so that it'll be threatened by that? No. We shouldn't be talking about inconveniencing large numbers of our own species to save that little bird. If it can't adapt it dies. That's the way of nature.

[JohnStOnge]

They understand fear, abandonment, hunger,

Not they don't. They don't "understand" any of that. They just experience it.

Like if they're abandoned they don't think "I've been abandoned." They don't even know there IS an "I" in their case. They don't have that concept with a very few exceptions like maybe dolphins and chimps.

[CID1990]

Theres a lot of nuanced discussion over an assertion that basically boils down to. "I am entitled to determine how much of your ancestors' wealth you are entitled to."

It's real easy to bitch about the haves but you know better than to offer the only real solution.

[Ibanez]

You're such an ignorant ass. Lions serve a purpose. What purpose do humans serve? Seriously, aside from our own self-interests (which includes everything in the world we've created) what use do we have?

The world would be fine without lions. They don't have that much of an impact on the populations of their prey species to begin with and even if they did or we decided they had enough to matter we could make up for it by killing the animals ourselves.

And the question of what purpose we serve doesn't matter. We're us.

No other animal species worries about what impact their activity has over the particular state of given ecosystems, whether or not it causes other species to go extinct, etc. For some reason we think we have to. And we even invent things about the persistence of EVERY species being important when it's self evidently not true. Like we're doing fine without Dodo birds, passenger pigeons, and numerous other species persisting. In fact we've THRIVED to an incredible degree while causing the extinction of numerous other species and dramatically altering all kinds of ecosystems. This stuff about how CRITCIAL is to maintain the NATURL balance of ecosystems is SUCH crap. It's just proponents of that "preservationist" philosophy I've encountered as dominant in the fields of biology and environmental science during my career looking for excuses to be preservationist.

Oh it's going to be the END OF THE WORLD if the snail darter goes extinct. HEAVEN HELP US. Or...even WORSE...the RIDLEY TURTLE. OMG! How is the world going to go ON without the RIDLEY TURTLE! So we ahve to do all SORTS of ridiculous crap like tell people they can't have lights by the beach and have to have turtle excluder devices on shrimp nets. Make members of our own species lives miserable because HEAVEN FORBID if the Ridley Turtle dies out.

Truth is it'd gone on pretty much fine and most people would never even realize the RIdley Turtle was gone. Would make absolutely no difference in their lives.

Tl;dr

You missed the point. I'm not surprised.

[kalm]

Theres a lot of nuanced discussion over an assertion that basically boils down to. "I am entitled to determine how much of your ancestors' wealth you are entitled to."

It's real easy to bitch about the haves but you know better than to offer the only real solution.

The first question is whether there's a problem that requires solving.

If there is, there are multiple solutions but yes, reducing it to "I built that" is probably not going to lead very far.

[houndawg]

You're such an ignorant ass. Lions serve a purpose. What purpose do humans serve? Seriously, aside from our own self-interests (which includes everything in the world we've created) what use do we have?

The world would be fine without lions. They don't have that much of an impact on the populations of their prey species to begin with and even if they did or we decided they had enough to matter we could make up for it by killing the animals ourselves.

And the question of what purpose we serve doesn't matter. We're us.

No other animal species worries about what impact their activity has over the particular state of given ecosystems, whether or not it causes other species to go extinct, etc. For some reason we think we have to. And we even invent things about the persistence of EVERY species being important when it's self evidently not true. Like we're doing fine without Dodo birds, passenger pigeons, and numerous other species persisting. In fact we've THRIVED to an incredible degree while causing the extinction of numerous other species and dramatically altering all kinds of ecosystems. This stuff about how CRITCIAL is to maintain the NATURL balance of ecosystems is SUCH crap. It's just proponents of that "preservationist" philosophy I've encountered as dominant in the fields of biology and environmental science during my career looking for excuses to be preservationist.

Oh it's going to be the END OF THE WORLD if the snail darter goes extinct. HEAVEN HELP US. Or...even WORSE...the RIDLEY TURTLE. OMG! How is the world going to go ON without the RIDLEY TURTLE! So we ahve to do all SORTS of ridiculous crap like tell people they can't have lights by the beach and have to have turtle excluder devices on shrimp nets. Make members of our own species lives miserable because HEAVEN FORBID if the Ridley Turtle dies out.

Truth is it'd gone on pretty much fine and most people would never even realize the RIdley Turtle was gone. Would make absolutely no difference in their lives.

There you go again trying to pass off your opinion as fact. For all you know they think about it all the time and would write scathing editorials on the subject if they had opposable thumbs.

The veneer of science and reason and statistics that you use to disguise your sociopathy at least suggests that you have the decency to feel shame about your lack of feeling. Don't beat yourself up too bad; you were born that way.

[houndawg]

Theres a lot of nuanced discussion over an assertion that basically boils down to. "I am entitled to determine how much of your ancestors' wealth you are entitled to."

It's real easy to bitch about the haves but you know better than to offer the only real solution.

When there is nothing left to take from us the haves will steal from each other. Once the wealth becomes concentrated in few enough hands the people won't have to kill as many of them. Otoh, some argue that they should be killed earlier in the cycle when there are more of them so that their carcasses may nourish larger numbers. Probably works out the same in the long run.