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tbp posted:Gorillas are the best animal on earth. Gentle and intelligent if they were allowed to live unthreatened in their big salad bowl worlds they would do it. They're ftw, and to kill and hurt them is among the most evil things that I can think of due to their goodness of heart. Chimpanzees are loving dicks though. I think killing or keeping some animals in non-scientific/conservational captivity can be made illegal and carry enough of a severe penalty that we don't need to get into personhood issues. On the other hand this is some crazy poo poo and primates probably deserve some category of their own: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_language#Primate_use_of_sign_language
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Dec 5, 2014 15:06
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 16:05 |
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Miltank posted:How good are apes at sign language? Koko the gorilla understood approximately 1000 signs and 2000 english words. No understanding of grammar or symbolic speech. Somewhere around the level of an older toddler? Apparently an chimpanzee taught ASL to other chimps as well. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_language#Primate_use_of_sign_language I don't know, if there is an animal that can understand even something as simple as "Get the apple from the third closet" etc. when it's done by sign language that is seriously creepy to me and I think we should really start thinking about categories of intelligence and rights beyond "human" and "everything else".
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Dec 5, 2014 17:55
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You know what's also creepy? Like 2 million years from the equivalent of an chimpanzee to human, 10,000 years from wolf to an animal capable of understanding human speech and commands, working in official duties, leading a blind person around, serving as a therapeutic assistance, etc. with what all intents and purposes is minimal training. What if one day somebody starts selectively breeding chimpanzees or gorillas? Dolphins? Any other species that is way smarter then wolves to begin with? I mean it took us less then a blink in evolutionary terms to breed a perfect, intelligent slave race that eagerly does all our bidding and loves nothing more - without any knowledge of genetics or ability to manipulate them on a deep level. I'm pretty sure we're going to encounter other sentient species we have created way before we meet aliens.
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Dec 5, 2014 18:10
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Miltank posted:We should breed a monkey butler race that is totally obsessed with getting us beer and making our houses clean. That, or dogs with opposable thumbs. I've seen a dog that was perfectly capable of getting us beer already. However it's contribution to cleaning was mostly barking at the vacuum and finding a wet floor absolutely hilarious 
DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 18:23
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I'm OK with rights for mammals as we give birds nothing. We triumphed over dinosaurs through sheer cosmic intervention, we better not give those fuckers an inch or we'll find ourselves scurrying through the terrifying legs of giant predatory crows or something. Damned feathered beasts have some internal memory of ruling over this planet, how else do you explain seagulls 
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Dec 5, 2014 18:45
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 16:05 |
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Ethiser posted:I guess the question I have is how do we apply giving animals rights when it comes to those we find in the wild. If for some reason a dolphin kills a gorilla is that counted as some form of murder? I know that that is a ludicrous example but would we have a duty to intervene if we ever saw the life of an intelligent creature threatened by a predator? I think you can already have legal protection even if you can't be held legally responsible for your actions. Children, mentally handicapped, etc. on the other hand people also have a legal duty to stop and restrict them from doing criminal actions. Harder in the case of dolphins who get up to some pretty sick poo poo actually. It's a pretty difficult question - should be intervene in inter-chimpanzee wars and the like? I think you would have a moral duty to intervene if you are capable of doing so and it doesn't put you in danger - and there are already official government organizations protecting endangered animals from poachers and the like. For non-human threats...I'd like to say that if I saw a baby gorilla getting chased by a lion I'd probably shoot the lion. I don't think anyone has a legal duty to intervene even in the case of humans...unless they are professionals like cops or soldiers.
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Dec 5, 2014 20:22
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