And what are we pretending to be?
“Humans”.
And what are Humans?
“Not animals, that’s for sure!”
This is called speciesism, the believe that your live is worth more/you are better simply because of your species.
I am? [farts]
I love people who are like “we need to return to nature!”
Like, I get the sentiment and we should definitely try to coexist with the rest of the animals since were smart enough to, but i think its important to remember that we are nature. We cannot separate ourselves from it. Even skyscrapers are natural. Just ask a termite.
That’s why furries were invented
Humans could all be grey blobs and people would still argue they are greyest and blobiest. They love to feel special.
Hey, I recognize a The Fairly OddParents reference when I see one. That’s good taste, fella 👌
You might be interested in looking into Cynic philosophy and into the sparse but colorful stories surrounding Diogenes of Sinope
I know my fella Dionegenes pretty well. He was based as fuck 🔥🔥
We are above animals though, humans were able to conquer the earth, light it up, send its people beyond it, create complex language and more whilst animals can’t really do any of that
Can you do any of that?
I could with enough motivation yeah
animals literally did that. we are those animals.
But only one specific species of animals did that. Most animals are incapable of doing that, which is why we are superior
We still have this notion and hubris that we’re above animals, and animals are below us who are alright being stepped on and abused. I noticed that in a lot of cultures, their insults and profanities is being compared to an animal (in Europe, the profanities seem to be generally sexual).
Also, for the religious, admitting we’re animals is definitely an insult and denial of biblical teachings that god created humans. When Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution first became a mainstream sensation, some cartoonists drew him as a monkey. I debated with a religious before who believes in conspiracy theories. After pointing out about evolution, I was called a monkey. I wasn’t even insulted though because, yes, that is basically what I’m trying to say. But technically I’m not a monkey, I’m an ape. Humans are apes. The monkeys are our cousins. Religious folks don’t like to admit we’re animals because it contradicts their beliefs.
To be fair, if I took my cats values and morals there would be a bloodbath.
Religious folks don’t like to admit we’re animals because it contradicts their beliefs.
Their religion is based on the idea that we’re special somehow. It allows their followers to feel better than the ‘lesser’ animals, and the ‘lesser’ races/cultures. They teach that we’re the chosen ones with our tools, and language, and emotion, and thoughts.
The fact that we’re all equal, and that other animals have all of those qualities is a threat to their power.
I knew the furries were right all along
The Furries saw the truth and transcend.
“I am cringe, but I am free”
That’s literally my mantra, and I’m waaaaay more happy since I accepted it
You and me baby ain’t nothing but mammals so let’s do it like they do on the discovery channel
I don’t know that taxonomy is our biggest problem…
The view that we’re better than the rest of the life on this planet is likely one of the drivers behind climate change. It’s used to justify the destruction of entire habitats. Habitats other beings feel is their home.
A lot of folks may know that they’re animals, in a scientific sense. But they don’t feel it in their bones or really empathize. Folks are often raised to think of animals as potential food, after all. So, it runs a bit deeper than taxonomy. And is more like a cultural habit of feeling better than, because we often eat animals and don’t have many predators to worry about other than each other.
That view isn’t necessarily taxonomically based: We could still be like, “Ok, we’re apes, but we’re the best apes!”
Furthermore, not everyone holds that view.
The real issue is greed.
No. The biggest problem with climate change is that people are profiting off it. That’s it. Nobody needs to pretend that they’re better in order to care only for themselves.
There’s psychology that goes along with it, it’s not just scientific classification. It’s also about ego.
Agree we are animals…but not sure that is the biggest problem…
Like, yeah of course there’s a lot other things. Maybe I should should have say “one of the biggest”
If aliens were to visit Earth, human vs. not-humans (aka sentient vs. not) would be the single biggest thing to consider. Far more so than male vs. female, plants vs. animals, even alive vs. nonliving (rocks), humans can literally send nukes in their direction while they hang in outer space, while literally nothing else can. We light up the night sky… on purpose and could stop it in a moment if we wanted.
We’re kinda a big deal.
Although now computers (e.g. Skynet) could do it too, so it’s humans and those highly specialized rocks together on one side, vs. literally everything else on the other.
So humans are not “just” animals, like computers are not “just” rocks.
So, what we are then?
(And, at the risk of sounding harsh, what’s with the constant duology? Why the mania of dividing everything into “this” and “that”?)
We are humans. We are animals. And we are more than that. Perhaps we are also lesser than that at the same time?
The duality was how the idea was presented to me - this is not my OC, or perhaps the words are but the concept I first heard told by an atheist apologeticist (if that’s a thing) Daniel Dennett speaking out against Intelligent Design (which at the time was still a thing that people bothered arguing against). I believe he was relating it to a binary classification scheme such as machine learning approaches are often built to follow. Anyway it’s just a vehicle for the conveyance of the idea - obviously nuances exist irl, yet there is some value in keeping things simple too, especially at first.
Hmm, ok. Now I can see the point you where making. Thanks for elaborate.
Yeah I was thinking about this the other day after watching some Twilight Zone or something. It’s interesting that a lot of our fantasy/sci-fi is about how pathetic humanity might be compared to alien beings, especially since in reality we actualy play the role of the highly superior beings.
That style does seem to predominate, especially in video form, but there are others where humans compete more on if not quite fully equal than at least more equal terms. Babylon Five springs to mind there.
Also more outside but some still fully inside of “scify” the more “fantasy” elements may posit the existence of alternative universes that we travel to & from not by traversing physical space in between but through portals, accessible here on earth. Like Stargate.
So, those others are out there, but yeah it definitely meshes less well with what we see and know now about what might be in space.
Pretending to be an animal doesn’t solve much either but it’s fun from time to time.
If we pretend to be other animal, sure isn’t helpful. Is not about pretending to be this or that, but to stop the antropocentris and start to see ourselves as part of something, not something apart of everything else.
I knew someone from this instance was going to post. I knew it!
