Yup. I went for a run. It was wet, cold and muddy. Waterproof trainers? Yeah, right. As waterproof as a cardboard box.
I also managed to do a little more work on the gene-edit idea, but then got distracted by wild animal suffering. Apparently, wild animals on aggregate contribute much misery to the general stock of utility. Part of this is about predation and starvation and broken limbs and disease but much is due to the fact that of a thousand turtle eggs or fry or whatever, 998 die before they reach adulthood. So it would be better, according to the crazy utilitarian freaks, if there were no turtles adding misery to the universe. And no predation, obvs.
This makes me so angry.
For one thing, consider hunter-gatherers. They will lose a lot of babies, have no anaesthetics and might get killed by a lion. But I don't think their lives aren't worth living. I think they have better lives than many modern people. This isn't some kind of romanticism... it's about fit and belonging and being who one is in a world that makes sense. It's about being alive in an alive world with risk and hardship and real rewards that count. It's about a life in which your actions matter.
Maybe I am romantic.
But, the fry and baby turtles. I don't think it's good that baby turtles dies... but I don't know at that point how aware the baby turtle is of anything. An adult turtle is a complex being, but a baby turtle is almost a foetus.
About being killed by a lion and eaten while alive. Of course, that's horrendous. BUT until that point, I don't think a wildebeest is miserable. In fact, I am inclined to believe that animals are actually often happy. It's not stressful for a wildebeest to find food most of the time. What percentage of them die a horrible death? I reckon it's small. And if they had all the vast lands to roam on, I think starvation would be less of an issue.
They say the animals get cold. Yes, sure, in bad winters. But do they know that a horse's piloerection allows it to moderate its body temperature very finely? Do they know that crows shuggle together in roosts for warmth?
Do they know that ants, goddammit, can regulate the temperature of their nests to a steady whatever degrees?
Do they appreciate that pain isn't always experienced the same? That loneliness might be worse? That boredom may be worse than starvation? Christ, even happiness may not matter. What might matter is freedom, is being me, is breathing the air of home.
They talk about animals from the outside.
Comments