The humanistic view is that everything that exists can be exploited for humanity benefit and no other consideration whatsoever should be made with everything that is not a human being.

Humans at the center of everything, human beings the only thing having intrinsic value, and everything else that exists having value (being worth preserving and so on) only and exclusively because of the value it generates for human beings.

This is not economic, this is a value scale.

This is not alienation , and this is not "internalizing the solution". This is having a belief that the only source of value in the universe are human beings (a few people generalize this to "intelligent beings").

So any form of life on earth that is not human (or maybe dolphin or some monkeys, depending on the intelligence thing) is worth as much as a rock on a planet 50 light years from earth (which is utterly 0), UNLESS it provides net value for humanity.

This, if you are humanist.

If you expouse other philosophies which stipulate an intrinsic value on life itself well, that's not "not being alienated", that's having a different value scale.

And we can properly call all value scales that expand intrisic value outside human beings as being literally ANTI-HUMAN, in the sense that giving intrinsic value to things that are not human ends up with leading to choice that don't maximize human quality of life, explicitly sacrificing human values for other living being values.

Which, in my view, is profoundly immoral in an intimate sense and deeply disturbing and disgusting.

Now in an humanistic point of view you can preserve species. But only if measurements add up, cost-benefit analyses, with NO number whatsoever coming from something "intrinsic" in the specie itself, all numbers only and always being number of human value.

That process can't be perfect and giving too much credit to some extimate of value coming from that process would be alienating.

But it is not alienating at all, it is actually the only way to live fully with a humane philosophy, to disgregard completly the idea that things that are not human beings have intrinsic value.

I can walk into a shop, give the owner an inherently worthless piece of paper, on the paper is a symbol. He gives me a flower. The meaning of the symbol on the paper is the objective value of the flower.

If you think this is true, then you are alienated.

Its nothing to do with being humanist etc.

Its do with internalising subjective human arbitrary arrangements and seeing them as true in and off themselves,e.g. objective. As existing outside of the arbitrary arrangements that bought them into being. As seeing the arbitrary arrangement, a thing of time and place, of being natural, transcendent and thus outside of time and space, as inherent.

If you want to say subjective values are all that can exist, that is entirely different.

Which is like saying that people trying to put animal rights in constitutions are literally crusading against humanity, actively acting to decrease human quality of life in order to prop up animal quality of life.

And when environmental regulations come from that approach then we have a problem as big (if not bigger) as the problem we have in the silly AC world.

Only, the silly AC world is a threat only on paper as it never came to fruition and it has an extremely low number of true believer working politically to achieve that.

While the anti-human view that animals and plants have intrisic value and as such need to be preserved even at cost of net human welfare is widespread among radical leftists and already today destroys human quality of life through regulations that are not only intended to fix externalities and maximize human welfare, but also intended to put these purported other beings intrinsic value in the balance decreasing human values as a result.

The only non-subjective value is human life (for a humanist). All other values are imperfect measurements taken in a specific moment by humans, similarly to what happens when we measure the length of something, only with that number depending on personal opinions that can change at any time.

The flower never has objective value. It has a value which differs among people depending on time, situations, opinions.

When you buy it btw that's not the value. Price is not value even in an economic sense, price, when you accept it, is a floor to value measurement in the sense that by definition for you that thing is worth AT LEAST that price, but given the existence of consumer surplus the value of that flower will be price + some consumer surplus.

Now all this has nothing to do with what i said before. It would have something to do with it if radical flower-lovers BANNED the destruction of flowers if they are not sold in 3 days because they think flowers have intrinsic value and so should not be destroyed if they are useless in commerce.

Do you follow this? is it more clear put in that way?

Now that is EXACTLY what's going on with people asking for more regulations on how animals are treated in the egg, milk, meat production system.

It's people asking regulation not for health reasons alone, not for quality-of-food reasons alone, but because for them animals have INTRINSIC VALUE, and as such it must be counted when determining which procedures are allowed in production.

And that is alienation. It is alienation of human values. And it is more dangerous for society and more detrimental for humans than the silly AC worldview.

Except you are reducing humans to fit your mediation, or highly subjective view of humanity.

If humans suffer when animals suffer via empathy, then the (non)suffering of an animal has value to them.

You are trying to make claim to some transcendent view point where you can (subjectively) claim the subjective human value claims of other humans as invalid.

Check where opening up to this kind of reasoning brings you.

There is also internal inconsinstency of animal-right advocates, which comes from the fact that in a world in which their point of view prevails there are less animals (because its not like all those hens and cows will be roaming free, they would be killed and not replaced if intensive production is banned), and so not only they need to believe in intrinsic animal values but also in the idea that a life in cage for an animal has negative value and is worse than such a life never existing in first place.

But putting that aside, you are saying "if humans suffer because they know something is happening to non-humans and they dislike that they deserve compensation for that suffering".

Do you understand how this inevitably leads to unlimited potential regulation of life in all aspects of life?

If your dislike for something happening is ground enough to ask for regulation, how can you then contest:

1) cloth regulation in public spaces ("i suffer greatly when i see people wearing clothes i dislike")
2) sexual life regulation ("doing the X sex act is a sin for my god so i dislike the idea that some people are doing it in their bedroom so i need to be compensate by what i suffer")
3) racism ("my quality of life is reduced by the presence of black people because i dislike black people so i need to be compensated")
4) etc etc

If you don't put a strong, invalicable limit on regulation that starts from human value and ends with human value, and only for those of humans directly implicated in the act you are regulating, you are literally opening up to unlimited regulation of all aspects of life and then it's "only" a race between groups to get the power in order to regulate in the way they prefer.

Which is exactly what the radical lefts wants btw. And what i consider a direct and present threat to humanity wellbeing and to civilization.

Think about 2) in specific , think it through. The process that led for centuries to horrendous sexual regulation is EXACTLY THE SAME PROCESS of animal right promoters. "I dislike the X thing happening in private, even if i don't see it, happening without any human being damaged, and i ask for its ban and to punish people who insist in doing so".

If you despise as deeply as i do the idea that the state can regulate sex life you should despise animal right promoters the same way you are disgusted by people who would ban sexual acts they think are sinful.

Before I answer I want to be clear on one thing.

So if a human wants to buy an animal just to stub cigarettes out in its eyes and torture it to death, this is not a problem for you as it provides the human with utility?

No regulation should exist to stop this?

If the market for torture animals was closed, this would be in fact be crueller to the animals? As there would be less animals.

Let's start with the bold, which is EXTREMELY INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST from you.

People who value freedom and think that society rules should be written to increase freedom as much as possible and not to dent it accept the idea that giving freedom to other people is ALL about giving them the chance to do things you deeply dislike. Freedom among options you like is easy, the hard part is accepeting that in a free society a lot of people, a lot of the times, will do things that you consider abhorrent, disgusting, terrible, nocive for them in the long term, a sin (if you are a believer), etc etc.

So inside that model, animal torture is not in the top 20 of the things that are currently legal (AND RIGHTLY SO) but are not banned.

Examples:

I consider religious indoctrination of young kids FAR more evil than animal torture but i don't think banning it is practical or reasonable.

I consider a person who doesn't read a book in 10 years more dangerous to society than an animal torturer but i have no intention of asking for a rule that forces people to read books.

I consider all voluntary obesity a disgrace and a moral failure but i don't want regulation on food intake, nor regulations that ban food that leads more easily to obesity.

I have my value scale as every other person do, but i don't ask to regulate any behaviour that doesn't directly damage other human beings. And with regard to externalities the slope is very slippery so i am extremely careful only to consider the most eclatant, clear, and measurable of them in the cost-benefit analysis of regulation.

People THINK they derive utility from a whole lot of things and they are often WRONG, but they have a basic right to try even if i think they are wrong (and i could be wrong myself).

I think people who derive utility from animal torture in the cigarette-stub sense are almost certainly mentally ill , but regulating on mental illness created so many problems in the past that i prefer animal torturers to be able to torture animal to a society that disregard their preference because based on mental illness.

And of course i really hate the idea of a society giving intrinsic value to animals so that can never be the basis for regulation.

This doesn't mean i find "no problem" in the existence of people that like to torture animals, and that decide to do so. I think it's sad. But i don't find it SPECIAL in any way compared to a whole lot of behaviours that i think are suboptimal or even atrocious and are currently (and rightly so) legal.

Wow what a hand wave of an answer.

Should animal torture be legal?

Yes or no.

Also, according to how you view animals, why would anyone torturing them have mental problems?

In your model, the one disturbed by animal pain is the one with the mental problem.

If its not clear, that animals actually experience pain is what sets them apart from all your other freedom inhibiting examples.

People want to regulate animal pain, the same reason they want to regulate rape.

So yes, no regulation should exist to stop animal torturers from torturing their own animals. I can find some space to regulate if the animal is then put free in the presence of other human beings , especially if it is an animal capable of hurting people, because torturing it can make it more dangerous for other people. In that case a mandatory insurance would probably be enough and insurance companies can decide not to cover you or ask 10x the amount if you torture the animal.

This would work for dogs for example.

But for like a bunny in a cage that is never opened in the presence of other unwilling human beings, no, i don't find any regulatory possible space there.

Not because i would dislike the outcome of such regulation (in the sense of a reduction of animal torture, which isn't necessarily automatic), but because i consider the corollary of that regulation more damaging to society in aggregate.

///

For the "market for torture animal", you should ask people who think animals have intrinsic value. I don't , so for me a tortured animal out of my sight is worth the same as a living animal i don't interact with or an animal that never existed in the first place, which is 0.

If you give intrinsic value to animal life i can see absolutists (similar to catholics right now) that think that whatever life is worth living more than death, and others considering some lifes worse than never having been lived, and among those a life of torture.

But given i don't think animals have intrinsic right what you are asking me is similar to "would the rock be better off if made into cement, or sand, or left alone in the valley?" the question is meaningless.

Yes, my answer was extremely clear on that.

EDIT: except when it can lead to danger to other human beings, in which case some sort of regulation is in order for security/safety reasons.

Lol no! the one disturbed by animal pain has a MORAL PROBLEM IF he/she wants to limit other people action according to his own value scale. And that moral problem is called authoritarianism.

Why would a torturer have mental problems? because i consider sadism without consent a mental problem. And animals can't give consent. I am not a psichiatrician though and i don't care what the official opinion of that field is , so i could be wrong technically, and it's just my opinion.

While for example i don't consider mentally ill a researcher that puts anmal into unbearable pain with an aim to find some solution for human healthcare, or just to explore their neurological system. Unless he feels physical pleasure in the pain being inflicted, that is.

For you and people like you, because you arbitrarily decide that "being able to feel pain" is what makes something worth of intrinsic value.

If you don't see that "wanting to regulate rape" has NOTHING TO DO WITH PAIN, because we ban rape also in combination with drugs that make you senseless (AND RIGHTLY SO of course) i don't know how i can help you with that.

Animal pain = rape is a new addiction to radical left absurdities for my collection.

So OAK do you think animal-right promoters would be ok with genetically modified animals structured as inable to feel pain and put into massive intensive egg, milk, meat production factories?

Or the "animals can feel pain so that's why we care" was only a strawman?

My example had nothing to do with pain, lol you again.

Its to do with consent you fool. Animals feel pain as part of range of responses, they have subjectivity, they have a degree of agency.

So unlike your other examples, say I am offended by the sexual actions of others, but the others are consenting, its as you argue, non of my business. Insert an animal hypothetical, one of the parties experiences suffering and is not consenting, important difference. Yes animals cant give consent formally, but I think we can safely assume they dont want to be tortured.

Anyway, cliffs are most of the freedoms you are afraid of losing were won by the left, apart from the ability to use certain language.

Noble Lucio, willing to put even the slightest trivial inconvenience of man above infinite suffering and pain of animals because slippery slope leftists might call him a racist.

Amazing, bravo you are an excellent specimen.

Im done with your alt right ranting.

Also btw, you keep claiming I argued things are of intrinsic value, try again.

Wait a minute, is Luciom alright with rape if the victim is unconscious and doesn't know it happened?

Lol ACists & libertarians . I tried to run them all out of the forum when I was the moderator over a decade ago because I thought they were full of it and closet racists/nazis. Ten years and one Trump later, turns out I was right.

no i am not. Do you fail at reading comprehension? I wrote that since you can have rape without pain, rape is not about pain.

you anthropomorphize animals repeatedly in the reply yet fail to realize that that is literally giving them intrinsic value.

And you call "alt right" being against animal rights. Lol dafuq? So now being against radical left latest crusades is being alt right?

Lol at freedoms being won by the left, in my country the left tried to install a communist regime at the same time they claimed to be fighting nazis, and it's only thanks to american tanks, soldiers and money that we managed to escape that hell.

And the Marshall plan was voted both by republicans and by democrats, because at that time both parties in the us considered fighting against both the radical right and radical left a moral duty of decent people.

Nowadays while the disintegration of gop decency is well under way, the radical left comes out of the sewers yet again proving the world yet again that they can match in indignity and infamy the worst the alt right can offer.

As long as society won't treat radical leftism as least with the same response we give to antisemites and Islam terrorism, no progress will be possible

ye it's totally normally to call racist/nazi people who are against animal rights. That's not radical at all.

Can you please come back and mod the forum, sweet Christmas we have needed a good housecleaning.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I am referring to the phenomenon where all the libertarian “I love Ron Paul” types suddenly morphed into Authoritarian “I love Donald Trump let’s build the wall!” Types and started marching with literal Nazi flags.

I still think my “AC containment thread” was my finest work. Others disagreed...

I thought you were referring to the last quarrel between me and oak, as before that, the thread is years old.

That Ron Paul fans were not liberal (in the old sense of th word) was pretty clear from the beginning. How can a libertarian even think of not being absolutely pro abortion?

What I don't see is why that should justify being banned from a politics forum though