Ugh. I can just see where that would go: species A suddenly becomes capable of attacking people and attempts to reclaim its old territory. The attack is carried out, there are dozens of casualties, several fatalities, the terror alert is raised to tangerine, and then there's a call for action. So, a committe is formed to decide what to do. Liberal pansy tree-hugging stoners with a lot of free time on their hands protest and make signs, using the opportunity to say that any attack committed against species A is just the government wielding its power in a not-so-benevolent fashion. They then claim that the attack is a way to line the pockets of corporate fat cats, and then have a protest where half the people in the crowd don't even know jack about the situation. Meanwhile, species A, which may be dumb as a sack full of door knobs, is lounging about its former territory when humans come swooping in, submachine guns at the ready, and cut them down. The situation is ended, protests continue to ensue, the people return to their newly reconquered territory, and species A is not only repulsed, but a campaign is instigated to brutally wipe them out so as to prevent this happening again. Someone says that's not right, and the area species A came out of is designated under government control as an endangered species area; a species which they made endangered in the first place. The hippies are happy, and life quickly returns to normal, because people don't give a crap.
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Originally Posted by dj_venom What Aztar just said made me think of something.
Over here in Aus, being an island, we have plenty of beaches. Being an island in oceans, we have plenty of sharks. Sharks + Beaches = Chaos. For some insane reason, when a shark comes into beach, or is off the coast, and it kills or badly hurts someone, it is hunted down. If it is not found, they simply kill some other sharks. I think that humanity wouldn't batter an eyelid if it was considered genocide as the best option to save our own skins. |
JAWS syndrome. It's not the official term, as far as I know, but it's what happens when an animal attacks a person. What sucks, too, is that sharks generally attack people by accident, or are doing it just to figure out what the heck we are. It's an innocent probe, and that's justification for mass genocide. And yet we're the ones invading their territory, and then we freak out when we get attacked. The irrationality of people just doesn't surprise me anymore.
As for Masa's post, I see why Magrus was insulted. Greatest race ever my eye. I don't see wildebeast killing each other over some crazy notion that their wildebeast god is better than another wildebeast's god, or because they happen to have a better kind of grass to eat, or because they have more grass than another does. You don't see oppossums fighting over imaginary lines. You don't see Siberian Huskeys attacking Dalmations simply because they're Dalmations, or Rottweilers attacking Labrador Retrievers for simply being Labrador Retrievers. And animals are not here for us to experiment on or exploit however we see fit; the Nazis exploited and experimented on the Jews and other undesireables because they saw them as "not human," which "animals" are not (animals may not be human, but humans are animals, I don't know why I needed to add that but there it is). And pets are loyal to their masters because that's all they know; a human slave could be loyal to their human master because that's all they know, but if the slave (or pet) were mistreated, then yes they might try and run away (and we cut off the male parts of our dogs to keep them from doing that). Just because we feed them doesn't make them any less a slave, and pets are not for amusement. They're companions; I've always thought--and I know my mom does, too--of my dogs as part of the family, not as pets. [The more I write on this, the more I feel like one of those hypocritical idiots in PETA, so I need to stop before I feel the compulsion to spraypaint on someone's fur coat].
Cow Tse Tongue That's hilarious.
I love animals, too, but I'm also not blind. We do need animals to survive; we wouldn't have gotten where we are today without them. And as Darzog said, two wrongs don't make a right (actually, in my world, they do, but I come from a much more interesting place
).
We're a selfish species, we always have been, we always will be. That's why it sucks to be anything else on this planet. I have this weird feeling we're on opposite ends on this debate even though I'm kind of in-between in my feelings, but frankly, I think that line I put in bold is pretty much pure genious. It's true, it's frank, it's life.