At what level is it acceptable to kill

Its all about purpose.  Its probably less acceptable to kill an earwig because they are a bit icky, than to kill a cow to eat.

good point. i meant as an irritant and not for sustainance

I hate wasps and I love elephants. This could change however if I found an elephants nest in my loft.

I could never harm a spider. Let them do their spiderman stuff in peace, for me.

for survival instincts imo .. threats & food

only thing i kill are wasps too

Well I buy killed rats to feed my pet python. I find that quite acceptable. Just part of a food chain.

Anything that flies except birds, bees, butterflies, and dragonflies are fair game.

Especially Ryanair employees

CaptainScarlet, Are you including bats in that statement?

would you kill rats to feed your python though ?

i hate both tbh .. no offence

treble
14 May 12 00:54 Joined: 17 Jan 08 | Topic/replies: 6,073 | Blogger: treble's blog
Well I buy killed rats to feed my pet python. I find that quite acceptable. Just part of a food chain.

If you caught and killed them yourself, that would be acceptable to me, however buying them already dead, well that's makes you worse than Joey Barton IMO............

Treble please excuse my stupidity...bats are most definitely not included in my previous statement...I love bats.

All depends circumstances. I used to work with a guy who participated to the actions against integrists in Algeria, he had absolutly no regret for the men he killed, yet we unfortunately crushed a dog one day during a car patrol and he was devastated.

Tbf i think only a tiny % ever really enjoy killing anything.Apart from wasps,flies,rats and foxes i'm at one with nature.It's always a bit sad when you run dogs over though but i do about 50k miles a yr so have to accept that as collaterol damage.

Starting with Hague, Lansley and Hammond, as a warning to the rest of the cabinet to get their finger out, work harder and stop whinging,would seem perfectly acceptable to me.

I don't like to kill anything, I even try to shoo a wasp out of the house.  However, I do support the death penalty for humans and would be happy to be executioner.  Very strange.

I'm with Java. There's a difference between killing a wasp that's being a pain in the backside through instinct, and being executioner to a human who has done something evil through free will and choice.

I agree with Abolo in that the whole matter is entirely circumstancial. If someone told me he had killed a man who he had found torturing his parents I would find that more understandable than someone who just picked a mouse up off the ground and crushed it for no reason. The more advanced/intelligent the animal, I guess, the better the reason you need to kill it.

To kill something entirely gratuitously, I think you need to go down to the level of bacteria before it's OK. If I saw someone pouring boiling water over ants in a forest miles away from his home (i.e. not inconveniencing him in the slightest), I'd think he was a bit twisted. If I saw someone disinfecting a random bit of pavement for no reason I'd think he was weird, but not bad.

"The more advanced/intelligent the animal, I guess, the better the reason you need to kill it. "

Why?  If a man kicks a dog to death the only reason that he doesn't get charged with murder is because humans have decided you can only get charged with murder for killing other humans.

Up to and including Piers Morgan for me

Personally, I try to coax a fly or a wasp out of the window

On the Radio 4 show 'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue' they have a round suggesting new meanings for words. Stephen Fry mentioned 'Countryside' as 'The act of Killing Piers Morgan' - I was reminded by Rogers 15:56 posting.

Very good (R4 going down market?)

Java,

But don't you agree that that's the way it should be? I think unnecessary cruelty to animals is horrible, but it's not as bad as unnecessary cruelty to humans. More intelligent animals probably suffer more, for one thing. Kicking a dog to death should be punished less severely than kicking a human to death, but more than kicking a mouse to death (which would be very hard anyway) imo. People who kill spiders annoy me a bit, and I tell them off if appropriate, but it's not as bad as going out onto the street and shooting someone, surely?

Our troops (UK) have been attempting to ''Kill'' an endless Opium war for the last God knows how many years in Afghanistan. The Mainsteam Media revel in this.

Does that qualify as ''acceptable'' killing... or government 'policy'.

Reality does have a habit of biting.

it's one of the great paradoxes of existence imo. anyone who has developed an iota of empathy will come to view life, all life, as sacred. yet when you look at the way the world is configured, clearly it is kill or be killed, nature red in tooh and claw.

most town and city dwellers are spared first hand exposure to the bloody slaughter, food arrives neatly sanitized and packaged. yet in order for you to live, something else has to die.

if there was a super being who set the whole thing up then i think s/he's a right cnt.

You are now on ze lizt...

PatraTheCat     14 May 12 18:56 
Java,

But don't you agree that that's the way it should be? I think unnecessary cruelty to animals is horrible, but it's not as bad as unnecessary cruelty to humans. More intelligent animals probably suffer more, for one thing. Kicking a dog to death should be punished less severely than kicking a human to death, but more than kicking a mouse to death (which would be very hard anyway) imo. People who kill spiders annoy me a bit, and I tell them off if appropriate, but it's not as bad as going out onto the street and shooting someone, surely?



so let us suppose there's loads of planets with life, and it transpires we humans are way down the universal pecking order. you'd be ok with some super race coming along and squashing us like a bug?

Yes...where do you live...?

"People who kill spiders annoy me a bit, and I tell them off if appropriate, but it's not as bad as going out onto the street and shooting someone, surely?"

Have you asked the spider his opinion? 

if you rape someone and you see someone you know who walks past, and sees you raping her.

then you've got to kill said witness, so i guess in that situation yeah.

Why did you rape her...?

obviously cos of power and control.

Nothing sexual...?

i probably cummed on her.

it'll do yeah?

when i read a series of posts like those it makes me question if all life is indeed precious

Java and gvl,

Are you seriously suggesting that all non-vegetarians should be jailed for murder? If not, what exactly are you saying?

I've said that unnecessary cruelty to animals is horrible (so the same would apply to aliens who gratuitously wiped us out), but I think that most people, myself included, would rank humans above dogs above ants in just how bad we consider unnecessary cruelty to be.

"Are you seriously suggesting that all non-vegetarians should be jailed for murder?"


where the fck did you get that from? don't put words in my mouth err posts. i never suggested any such thing.

i said the whole thing is a paradox that i don't understand. my example was an attempt to show it's all a matter of perspective, and that going down the road of one life is worth more than another is dangerous territory. what next? a white man's life is worth more than a black? a native born brit's life is worth more than an immigrant's? if you start categorising and valuing then there's no stopping it.

but i don;t have an answer, as i said it's a puzzle i don't understand.

OK, reading my post again it does look like I'm putting words in your mouth, so sorry about that. Personally I think more complex lifeforms should be valued higher but I guess it isn't as clear cut as all that.

By the way, a while back I accused you of not being able to pass the lipstick test. Since then I have often reflected that I should have put an exclamation mark afterwards, even though I don't use very many exclamation marks. It looked quite unfriendly without an exclamation mark.

I feel better now.

The question of evil in a universe ruled by a supreme being is an interesting one. I can't work out how much of a problem it causes for Christians and the like, since they can always invoke the "God works in mysterious ways" defence to reasonable effect, given the impossibility of second-guessing the motives of a being intelligent enough to design an entire universe from scratch.

what fascinates me is the criteria we use to assess when it becomes acceptable to kill.

Is this purely because, in every day life, larger animals are less of a pain in the arse or a threat? i.e the fly gets in through the window and lays its eggs whereas the fox stays outside and raids your bin.

Or is it because as the size or mental ability of an animal increases, we start to identify and empathise with it more. How do we know a fly doesn't feel pain but we presume a badger would?

Why do we care about the beaver but not the wasp?

not sure of your use of "we". speak for yourself.

i stand corrected. Suppose I was putting forward what I think of as the majority view and not my own. If you read my opening post, you will see my view probably isn't a million miles away from yours.

the whole things puzzles the fck out of me. more baffling than women's tennis, and that's saying a lot.

A cow spends it's life being veggy....

which is hard work on the guts...

so then we come along and eat it...

to save us sitting around digesting all that goodness..

and we take advantage like all meat eaters...

Happy Days!