Geek Speak — HabitableZone

Geek Speak » in reply to "I think there is a big difference between a stack of lumber and a tree."

"A stack of lumber is a house."
Robert — (archived)

Fine rejoined, Tom. That's a memorable turn of phrase.

When it comes to using the the living conditions of the original Native Americans as a lesson for today, I cringe a little. There's a difference between necessity and choice. With 20/20 hindsight we know it was ultimately foolish for the Native Americans to drive herds of buffalo off cliffs and into extinction to harvest a tiny percentage of the meat--they ultimately deprived themself of buffalo as a source of meat. But they can legitimately claim ignorance of the consequences as a mitigating factor as well as necessity. Were someone to drive a herd of buffalo off a cliff today, they'd be universally condemned for, at minimum, a criminal waste of perfectly good buffalo, not to mention consideration of their possible rights to a say in the matter.

I think that there's a moral doctrine behind all this, which asserts that absent necessity, and given competency to understand the distinction, that killing an animal gratuitously can be considered a form of murder.

To ease into it incrementally, consider that our close relatives the chimpanzees and nearly-as-close relatives the apes are threatened with extinction within a few short decades. Chimp populations in Africa are estimated around 100,000 and dropping. That's a dangerously tiny population for an entire species across a whole continent. Our kinship with these species is documented by measurement of our common DNA exceeding 98%. I assert that a strong case can be made that this documentable kinship makes them members of the extended human family and entitled to some degree of protection under human law. In other words, it should be considered perhaps some form of manslaughter to kill a chimpanzee or ape without the genuine necessity of self-defense (they are, after all, remarkably powerful little creatures and can rip a human limb from limb--we have to be realistic here).

And we've all heard the arguments for granting personhood to smart marine mammals, and some people point to the remarkable intelligence of some canines as evidence of personhood. The line between humans and animals is already blurred by convention and practice and perception. It's not the total absurdity some people portray to consider that animals might actually have some rights, and that it's a matter of enlightened self-interest to take that position. Now that we're Lords of Creation here on Earth, we should act like we take the responsibility seriously.

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