China and animals

[Shundi]

There is plenty of water. This is a fact. There is technology (sorry Dani, I cannot bring myself to put it in quotes and spell it the way you do) that makes desalination and filtration possible. In fact, technology made this ( hxxp://www.gizmag.com/go/4418/ ) item a reality and will reduce the amount of people suffering from lack of water. The problem is the 3rd world warlords and governments that deny their own citizens water either because they are simply too poor to afford such technology or because they simply do not care. Maybe people should stop sending money to PETA and start sending it to fight 3rd world genocides, etc.

When you boil it down, each species only has one thing they must do to survive: reproduce. Not look after the cuddly puppies, not say that the vicious man-eating tiger is "misunderstood" but reproduce. It is the only thing that a species, as a whole, must do to continue existence. To say otherwise is to go against science and against the very nature that you swear by.

I think it's foolish to say that the world needs fewer people and then turn and argue that a lack of clean water is a bad thing. If you want fewer people in the world, then you should be hoping for less clean water as this will reduce our populations to a level that you consider more "manageable."

[jnagy]

pugwash, i wasn't implying you are anything.please don't pick a part of my statement and respond,respond to the whole thing.non-belief in god doesn't make you a rapist, but if you were,it would make it excusible.after all,human nature is the same as animal nature,correct?or am i missing something in regards to my understanding of nature/evolution?if you have a desire to do something, who am i ,or who is anyone to tell you what is right in regard to your desires?again, your idea of right and wrong ceases to be valid due to the fact another group of people positively has another idea of right and wrong.if you want your idea to be valid,you MUST enforce it.and that is how leaders like pol-pot,stalin,hitler,idi-amin and others tried to enforce their ideas.and it is how modern leaders in kosovo,sudan,darfur,china,iran,iraq,intend to enfoce their ideas as well.you obviously believe those leaders are evil as any rational human does.but they are POSITIVELY excused under natural law,due to the fact those men were just doing what any TRUE evolutionist should do if he/she wants to be king of the species.if you want something you absolutely have to take it or get out of the way of someone stronger and more motivated so humans can continue to advance.according to an evolutionist hitler should be a genius.if someone doesn't believe that statement and CLAIMS to be an athiest/evolution believer ,then that person may need to seriously rethink their beliefs.interestingly,the whole basis of the satinist bible is that if you feel like doing something you should do it.why do we as people feel the need to repress any feelings we have?no,i'm not calling anyone a satinist.but as an atheist nobody should be offended at this due to the fact if you don't believe in ultimate good,you cannot believe in ultimate evil.they cease to exist.but,we all know that is a bunch of bolderdash.we know good when we see it and we know evil when we see it.this whole idea of going out and getting what you want is all over american schools,nobody says anything about it,then we complain when our children commit unspeakable acts or don't know how to behave.something is wrong.

[Dani]

There is plenty of water. This is a fact. There is technology (sorry Dani, I cannot bring myself to put it in quotes and spell it the way you do) that makes desalination and filtration possible. In fact, technology made this ( hxxp://www.gizmag.com/go/4418/ ) item a reality and will reduce the amount of people suffering from lack of water. The problem is the 3rd world warlords and governments that deny their own citizens water either because they are simply too poor to afford such technology or because they simply do not care. Maybe people should stop sending money to PETA and start sending it to fight 3rd world genocides, etc.

When you boil it down, each species only has one thing they must do to survive: reproduce. Not look after the cuddly puppies, not say that the vicious man-eating tiger is "misunderstood" but reproduce. It is the only thing that a species, as a whole, must do to continue existence. To say otherwise is to go against science and against the very nature that you swear by.

I think it's foolish to say that the world needs fewer people and then turn and argue that a lack of clean water is a bad thing. If you want fewer people in the world, then you should be hoping for less clean water as this will reduce our populations to a level that you consider more "manageable."

You have target one thing i say i see.Ok lets go.

Your level of understanding the strategic location of water,rivers and such is poor so i cant see why i shoud even try to educate you on this as i see it as a waste of my time..I leave you whit your head in the sand..

Cheers

[Shundi]

"Strategic location of water, rivers and such"

Part of the issue is indeed the location of water but if you do your homework (http://www.unicef.org/wes/index_war_water.html , for example) you'll notice that many times, there is an abundant water supply, it's just not clean due to poor hygiene and sanitation practices / waste. This is how diseases like cholera and parasites can infect and kill small children who drink from infected bodies of water.

Obviously not everyone is near a source of water but if the governments in some of these third world countries actually provided capital to create a water delivery infrastructure, many would avoid the dehydration and infection that harm millions. By educating people as to the proper way to handle water and dispose of waste, as well as tools like the one in my previous post, a large percentage of the deaths and medical conditions due to dehydration and infection could be prevented.

As to you "educating" me, I would love for you to show me a sample population that receives no water at all per year. No rainfall, no rivers/runoff, no oceans, etc. (By the way, there are places like this) Find me that population and then correlate it with the other 800 million people (according to the WHO http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releas.../en/index1.html ) who are facing dehydration. You cannot do it. You cannot tell me that 800 million people do not have clean water because they are not located near water/rivers. A large percentage of these people ARE near water/rivers, they're just not clean. In fact, the article even mentions those in desert regions, stating that "Sub-Saharan Africa, meanwhile, has the lowest percentage of people with access to basic sanitation facilities - 36 per cent, an increase of just four per cent since 1990. In the developing world as a whole, only 49% of people had access to adequate sanitation facilities, while in the world's developed regions, 98% of people did." Again, this has nothing to do with the physical location of water per se, it has to do with sanitation facilities...facilities which need government support and, most of all, money to be built (again, money that I think shouldn't be spent on a war on Marijuana or sent to People Eating Tasty Animals ) .

QED Dani, and I typed that whole thing "whit [sic] [my] head in the sand..."

Edit to add: Oh and by the way Dani, when there's no clean water, the cute and fuzzy animals get sick/die too...

[TeeJay]

That would assume all the pharmaceutical companies (you know, the ones with fierce rivalries and industrial espionage) would have to agree to it. The first to make a cure would put their competition out of the treatments market. It'd be a license to print money at the expense of your rivals.

In other words, not a chance.

A bit like fuel companies keeping environmentally fuel sources down... Which definitely doesn't happen

[Pugwash]

A bit like fuel companies keeping environmentally fuel sources down... Which definitely doesn't happen

No single company can play that for a win.

[Pugwash]

pugwash, i wasn't implying you are anything.please don't pick a part of my statement and respond,respond to the whole thing.

Please break up your text so as to make that possible.

non-belief in god doesn't make you a rapist, but if you were,it would make it excusible.after all,human nature is the same as animal nature,correct?or am i missing something in regards to my understanding of nature/evolution?

Are you missing something? Sure. You're missing the part that you're part of nature/evolution. Religion was invented by man as a means of defining right and wrong. It evolved. We no longer need it to project what's right or wrong, however.

[...]hitler[...]but they are POSITIVELY excused under natural law,due to the fact those men were just doing what any TRUE evolutionist should do if he/she wants to be king of the species.if you want something you absolutely have to take it or get out of the way of someone stronger and more motivated so humans can continue to advance.according to an evolutionist hitler should be a genius.if someone doesn't believe that statement and CLAIMS to be an athiest/evolution believer ,then that person may need to seriously rethink their beliefs.

Strawman, Godwins, etc.

You're missing one huge point. Humanity.

We're human, we have feelings of right and wrong. We feel compassion. We want to be good. More killings have been done in the name of religion than under any other cause, and I feel strongly enough about the lives of people I've never met that this annoys me.

On the flip side, using your argument, Religious people shouldn't care about the environment because God gave us this oil and put these trees here for us to use. We'll never run out because God will make sure of it. Global warming isn't a problem because God regulates the temperature, not the consumption of rotted dinosaurs (that never existed anyway) or our presence. Let's kill whales, endangered species and heathens as God put them there for us to use as we see fit.

See how easy it is to completely miss the point?

Atheists still care. We still hate cruelty to animals and people. The sooner you stop seeing us as Darwin-worshipers and stop treating Atheism as a religion, the sooner you'll understand us.

[TeeJay]

I don't buy into this theory.

The three of my four grandparents I mention having died of cancer did so because they were 3-pack-a-dayers. None of their parents died of cancer. My point is, we may have seen a burgeoning of cancer because of lack of information as to what causes it, in their generation (not their case, as 2 of the 3 were physicians).

That is not the case now.

If someone doesn't know that smoking stimulates the proto-oncogenes inside all of us, they're fools.

So if the pharmaceuticals are banking on an increase or steadiness in cancer any time soon, which will keep them rolling it in like Midas, they're idiots. There's much more money to be made in cures, than not.

Else men with limp willies would never have gotten Viagra.

I disagree. If we have high occurences of cancer now, because of no knowledge as to what causes it, why were older generations (such as your great grandparents) not dying of cancer? When they had even less knowledge about it, and when many people had a standard of living which, by modern terms, would be considered poverty... Malnutrition (people often not even eating 3 square meals a day) people drinking like fish and smoking like chimneys... People working hellish hours and dangerous conditions, yet, they weren't (as a generation) as affected by cancer as the modern world is. That rather shows that knowledge of causes is irrelevent to incidences of it. It doesn't matter if someone knows about an illness, if they're going to develop it (for whatever reason) it's going to happen. Personally, I'm of the opinion that cancer is somehow related to our 'modern lifestyles', and the amount of radiation being thrown about by our everyday gadgets, but that's just a theory...

[KB]

Ok first up this is going very off topic but worse than that if it turns into a religious debate...

[6] - Anything discussions regarding politics and/or religion in anyway will be closed or deleted unless determined to be pertinent by admins/mods.

I'll close it down

Ken

[Victoria]

Guys, this was a perfectly good thread until God was brought up (I think in passing by me!). But people just couldn't stay away from it. We've discussed that and politics upteen number of times.

PLEASE DO NOT MENTION RELIGION in these OT threads. It's not too much to ask, is it? Now look -- it's going to be closed.

[Victoria]

I disagree. If we have high occurences of cancer now, because of no knowledge as to what causes it, why were older generations (such as your great grandparents) not dying of cancer?

No, no. I am making the opposite argument. That cancer is on the decline because the number one carcinogen is not as potent a daily force anymore.

But since this is being closed, one last word.

Dani wanted us to remember that violence against animals, specifically dogs, is inhumane. He proposed sending moneys to a charity which combats dog cruelty in China.

Whether you do or not, it's important to remember his original motives as worthy of anyone's attention. Even in rep watch fora.

[jnagy]

threads don't get good UNTIL god shows up.pugwash misses my point.i totally agree that without god ,man is just part of nature.no better ,no worse than anything else.therefore ,any behavior is excused as animal.and therfore natural.pugwash,you are using christian ideas of right and wrong to try and defend the point we don't need religion anymore.again your arguement fails.close down the discussion.why don't people like to talk about religion?most people on the planet have some type of faith,evolutionists have more faith than anyone.but nobody likes to talk about it.strange.

/

Edited March 21, 2008 by jnagy

[TeeJay]

No, no. I am making the opposite argument. That cancer is on the decline because the number one carcinogen is not as potent a daily force anymore.

I think it's safer to say that cancer mortality rates are on the decline (which is good) I remember reading somewhere that everyone knows 'someone' who has either had cancer, or known someone else who had...

I was simply meaning that 200-1000 years ago, people weren't dying from cancer, it appears to be something of a 'new thing' (relatively speaking, of course )

Dani wanted us to remember that violence against animals, specifically dogs, is inhumane. He proposed sending moneys to a charity which combats dog cruelty in China.

Indeed, a fantastic idea. I'm hoping Silix made that donation to an animal welfare charity on my behalf. I recal there was some schepticism at the time as to if it would happen/do any good...

Whether you do or not, it's important to remember his original motives as worthy of anyone's attention. Even in rep watch fora.

Absolutely

Happy Easter, folks

[perry563]

I have been to China several times on business. Each trip was quite a few weeks long. In the major cities I never came across any signs of offering dog/cat in restaurants. However as you make your way out of the major cities into small towns where most live in poverty you will see signs (usually crude handpainted) above restaurants (and you must understand everything I saw outside the major cities and towns were horrible poverty stricken dumps) offering dog as well as cat. I was actually in a restaurant in central china where in the room next to the one I was in with customers they were carving up a whole dog. Just so you all understand...the "restaurant" had no front door, no hot water or soap to wash your hands and the bathroom was large and unlit with a wooden trough on one side for a urinal and holes in the ground without stalls for privacy. Of course as typical in China no toilet paper. The sink had no faucet but instead constantly running cold water. And of course there are the flies.......... If you ever have the oppertunity to visit China try to stay in the major cities. The great wall is a drive from Bejing and that would be the only place I would think of that would lure me away from the city. India is on a totally different and far lower level than even China. Its the only place I have ever been that I have no desire whatsoever to return.

[Pugwash]

threads don't get good UNTIL god shows up.

I'm done in the religious aspects of this thread. Go ahead, you can pretend you won.

In France, they eat Horse. In the UK, they think this is an abomination. In Yakutsk, they wear fur and would die without it. In several countries this is considered an abomination. Nobody is right all the time.

[Dani]

I'm done in the religious aspects of this thread. Go ahead, you can pretend you won.

In France, they eat Horse. In the UK, they think this is an abomination. In Yakutsk, they wear fur and would die without it. In several countries this is considered an abomination. Nobody is right all the time.

This tread was never about if its wrong to eat dogs or cats.

It was about the way they get killed, have people even looked at the clip on page 1?

Dogs,horses,monkeys,pigs,lizards,ants,birds,sharks,alligators,frogs,even human flesh humans eat everything that is why i consider us to be the worst of the worst.

[Pugwash]

This tread was never about if its wrong to eat dogs or cats.

It was about the way they get killed, have people even looked at the clip on page 1?

Once you decided to eat something, it's going to die. Sometimes this is brutal. It's precisely the point.

[Dani]

"Strategic location of water, rivers and such"

Part of the issue is indeed the location of water but if you do your homework (http://www.unicef.org/wes/index_war_water.html , for example) you'll notice that many times, there is an abundant water supply, it's just not clean due to poor hygiene and sanitation practices / waste. This is how diseases like cholera and parasites can infect and kill small children who drink from infected bodies of water.

Obviously not everyone is near a source of water but if the governments in some of these third world countries actually provided capital to create a water delivery infrastructure, many would avoid the dehydration and infection that harm millions. By educating people as to the proper way to handle water and dispose of waste, as well as tools like the one in my previous post, a large percentage of the deaths and medical conditions due to dehydration and infection could be prevented.

As to you "educating" me, I would love for you to show me a sample population that receives no water at all per year. No rainfall, no rivers/runoff, no oceans, etc. (By the way, there are places like this) Find me that population and then correlate it with the other 800 million people (according to the WHO http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releas.../en/index1.html ) who are facing dehydration. You cannot do it. You cannot tell me that 800 million people do not have clean water because they are not located near water/rivers. A large percentage of these people ARE near water/rivers, they're just not clean. In fact, the article even mentions those in desert regions, stating that "Sub-Saharan Africa, meanwhile, has the lowest percentage of people with access to basic sanitation facilities - 36 per cent, an increase of just four per cent since 1990. In the developing world as a whole, only 49% of people had access to adequate sanitation facilities, while in the world's developed regions, 98% of people did." Again, this has nothing to do with the physical location of water per se, it has to do with sanitation facilities...facilities which need government support and, most of all, money to be built (again, money that I think shouldn't be spent on a war on Marijuana or sent to People Eating Tasty Animals ) .

QED Dani, and I typed that whole thing "whit [sic] [my] head in the sand..."

Edit to add: Oh and by the way Dani, when there's no clean water, the cute and fuzzy animals get sick/die too...

I started the water issue on why wars will be fought over it.

Its the location of clean water in some parts of the world that is hard for 4 countrys to share also its a energi question on top of that, if you cant understand that then.

They will have water to drink but water is also the biggest soruce of energi after oil and offcaurse the sun.

Cheers

[jnagy]

pugwash,i don't feel i won anything,just a friendly conversation.but if anyone is interested, on another topic in the off topic forum a gentleman discusses how he ruthlessly murdered a huge spider in thailand i think.i think i will start a save the spiders fund. ;)is that different than mistreating dogs?

Edited March 22, 2008 by jnagy

[DemonSlayer]

I was simply meaning that 200-1000 years ago, people weren't dying from cancer, it appears to be something of a 'new thing' (relatively speaking, of course )

The oldest description of human cancer was found in an Egyptian papyri written between 3000-1500 BC. It referred to tumors of the breast. The oldest specimen of a human cancer was found in the remains of a female skull dating back to the Bronze Age (1900-1600 BC).

One of the earliest human cancers found in the remains of mummies was a bone cancer suggestive of osteosarcoma. Louis Leakey found the oldest possible hominid malignant tumor in 1932 from the remains of either a Homo erectus or an Australopithecus. This tumor was suggestive of a Burkitt

[Pugwash]

on another topic in the off topic forum a gentleman discusses how he ruthlessly murdered a huge spider in thailand i think.i think i will start a save the spiders fund. ;)is that different than mistreating dogs?

Precisely. When society accepts one kind of animal as a pest or food, sometimes it is going to get brutally mistreated.

[DemonSlayer]

I have to agree to that ^^^ and I would also like to say this. Yes most of the Western world are partial to dogs and cats, as they have been domesticated and kept as pets for many years. They are eaten in other countries, namely China and Korea, and as Dani pointed out, some of them are 'brutally' killed.

What about all the other animals that are killed for food, such as cattle, pigs, chickens etc. Some of them are brutally murdered also, in fact I would say a lot more of them are brutally murdered than dogs or cats. I would imagine this is why a worker in a slaughterhouse is more likely to quit his job after all the slaughter he/she witnesses, they know deep down that these animals are hurting. In my opinion, only a person with a sick and twisted mind would enjoy working in a slaughter house, because they enjoy the killing.

Dogs and cats shouldn't have any more 'rights' than cattle, pigs, chickens and deer. If people say they should, I ask why? If people were to say 'Well, they're more intelligent' then I would like to point out, what about the apes and monkeys such as Chimps and Gorillas who are killed for illegal bushmeat. They are probably amongst the most intelligent animals on earth, I mean for [censored]s sake a gorilla called Coco learnt American Sign language!!

[perry563]

Dogs and cats shouldn't have any more 'rights' than cattle, pigs, chickens and deer. If people say they should, I ask why? If people were to say 'Well, they're more intelligent' then I would like to point out, what about the apes and monkeys such as Chimps and Gorillas who are killed for illegal bushmeat. They are probably amongst the most intelligent animals on earth, I mean for [censored]s sake a gorilla called Coco learnt American Sign language!!

The difference is that in China (others) dogs and cats are an acceptable food source wheras the killing of chimps/gorillas is an illegal activity. The outcry over the mistreatment/killing for food of dogs and cats is that they are so closely linked through the ages as pets for man. Not only pets but dogs are work partners standing alongside man not only in terms of activities like cattle and sheep herding but also fighting in battle in both WW I and WWII (others), law enforsement and trained to be the eyes of the blind.

[DemonSlayer]

Not all dogs are suited for those activities however, only the ones that were bred and trained for these purposes specifically. And what to say about cats?

[TeeJay]

I think cancer has been around for quite some time, its just that humans are now only beginning to understand it. For instance, if someone died of a brain tumour 200 years ago, the cause of death might have been written as 'natural causes'. However, I do believe that modern society does have an impact on our health, and may be increasing/accelerating the rate of cancer today.

That's really informative, thanks for the article