Suspect yourself.

Liberating the animals. Without the help of plants.

I'm starting to realize that I don't necessarily get along with other ambitious animal activists.

It's tragically funny. The great speciesist world around me has its irrational idiocies, and apparently, the little anti-speciesist world has its irrational idiocies, too. Makes you feel sort of special, y'know.

I came across this vegan blog on tumblr. I clicked on the FAQ, and I noticed the following question:

Anonymous: "why are you so shortsighted? you oppose to lab-grown meat because it requires some animal testing. so, basically, you just casually decided that the few hundred/thousand lives needed for the testing is far more valuable than the hundreds of billions of deaths that could be avoided in the future if lab meat would come to existence? if deaths cannot be avoided, I would sure as hell pick 100 needless deaths to avoid 100 billion other ones."

pukexskywalker's response: "lol no. i oppose lab grown meat because it’s fucking stupid.

eating lab grown meat to save lives is vegetarian-logic. if you actually cared for the lives obliterated by the industries of death you’d be vegan instead of arguing for a new industrialized, anthropocentric “alternative” to conventional, industrialized murder that doesn’t change or improve anything at all.

that’s welfarism at best, and as usual, leaves the root of the problem namely speciesism, the unjust otherisation and subjugation of nonhumans, completely untouched.

all of these deaths are needless. they can be avoided with an alternative thats been available to western world for years if not decades and doesn’t require testing of any kind, it’s called a vegan diet. i hear it’s great.

now, define “shortsighted” or go bother someone else with your half assed utilitarian insolence, like the actual author of that post you obviously got the mads from."

Personally, I see this ^ attitude as ultimately one of the most destructive things that could happen to the animal rights movement, so I sent this message:

Me: "There is absolutely no reason to be against lab-grown animal products. As far as I know, veganism is not about eating plants, but about boycotting violence towards animals. Here's a fact: the world is never going to go vegan (in the 'traditional' way). There are too many cultural, religion-like ideas linked to the act of eating meat. Even if that happened, it would take centuries and centuries, and I don't see any point waiting for so long if there's a much quicker alternative.

Most people already care about animals. When they see animals abused, most of them react strongly as fuck. Meat simply has too much cultural importance. The reason for speciesism is the fact that most people are economically involved in industries that abuse animals. -> In order to be able to keep using animals for food, people have to come up with psychological justifications. One of the most important effects of in vitro technology will be the psychological one:

When people will be able to keep eating animal products without eating ANIMALS, they’ll lose the psychological need to come up with bullshit to understate other animals’ cognition and their need for rights. -> It will be possible to be strongly for animal rights and keep eating meat (etc.) at the same time. -> The fight for animal rights will become 5000 times easier, in terms of everything.

In vitro technology is the only realistic way to create a world that doesn’t abuse animals. If that revolution is going to happen in the first place, this is the only way. Eventually, we’ll live in a world where people don’t even associate ‘meat’ and other (synthetic) animal products with animals. The idea of eating ‘murdered animals’ will be considered sick and weird. Virtually, people _will_ be vegan, without having to eat plant-based diets.

One of the things that made abolishing slavery possible was that people developed technology to replace slaves. Technological development makes moral development easier. The animals need us; it would be fucking crazy if activists opposed lab-grown animal products, as they could actually help to make animal rights reality before this century reaches its end. Instead of just letting the animal industry run its scare campaigns against in vitro products, we should be awake and seize the opportunity."

pukexskywalker: "yeah no, there are plenty of reasons to oppose in-vitro meat.

your whole 5 part message reeks of carnist logic and human entitlement.

lab meat is, by definition (and execution) not vegan. eating it will not make the fight for animal rights ANY easier (i would argue that this is the wrong fight anyway but that’s another story) because it challenges NONE of the layered mechanisms that enable animal oppression in the first place and, again, harms animals directly.

animals don’t need us.

what they need is emancipation, liberation. and your lab meat gimmick does jack shit to destroy the animal-human dichotomy, human privilege, anthropocentrism, carnism, speciesism or the othering of animals at all.

the people who care about animals and react “strongly as fuck” to animal abuse are already vegan. everybody else you put in that category is just easing their own conscience with deliberate cognitive dissonance by artificially separating their actions, and their consequences for others, from their perception of self, which is royally fucked up.

the umbrella terms “culture” and “tradition” can not be used to shield oppression, otherwise you could defend just about every atrocity “man” has ever committed.

the reason for speciesism, as well as every other form of oppression, is hierarchy. 

now, let me just take out the trash real quick:

"It will be possible to be strongly for animal rights and keep eating meat (etc.)" (finally, THE ULTIMATE VALIDATION of the non-vegan welfarist!!!)

“Virtually, people _will_ be vegan, without having to eat plant-based diets.” (yay, another way to label yourself as something you wish to be, without the commitment! from the brilliant minds that also brought you “ethical omnivorism”, “locavorism”, “pescetarianism”, “flexitarianism” and “part-time vegan” diets)

“When people will be able to keep eating animal products without eating ANIMALS(…)” (caught in a loop there buddy?)

“One of the things that made abolishing slavery possible was that people developed technology to replace slaves.” (there is ABSOLUTELY no way you aren’t white. also that “technology” you’re talking about was mostly just plain old animal exploitation.)

lab meat remains carnist window dressing. and that’s that.

all in all 2/10. you got me to respond.

i will now excercise part of my personal freedom by ignoring the implications of this absolutely outstanding amalgamation of ridiculous bullshit and resume being fully indifferent to your uneducated, vapid opinions and existence in general.

thusly."

So.

I'm not a true vegan and I don't genuinely believe in animal rights, because I see in vitro technology as a valuable opportunity. Apparently, I'm also kind of racist.

All I can say is: I stand behind everything I wrote. The arguments in the response don't invalidate anything I said. What's valid is the point that initially, in vitro technology will require some animal use. Initially, it won't be vegan. However, I don't see this as a significant problem because 1) "if deaths cannot be avoided, I would sure as hell pick 100 needless deaths to avoid 100 billion other ones", 2) eventually, we should be able to get to a point where in vitro technology will require virtually no animal use at all.

I'm having real trouble understanding the reasoning of the animal rights people who oppose lab-grown meat. It doesn't seem to serve animal liberation at all. The arguments seem abstract and dogmatic. It's like fighting for an ideology for the ideology's sake – and forgetting the animals in the process.

If ideological perfection is leading to more animal suffering, then that ideological perfection is not serving the movement. The animals must come before the ideology. The animals don't give a shit about the ideology. They just want the pain to stop. Let's make it stop.

6 things that I'd like to point out:

1. PEOPLE CARE.

"The people who care about animals and react 'strongly as fuck' to animal abuse are already vegan." This is simply not true. Vegans are the ones reacting consistently, but it's just erroneous to say that other people don't care about animals. They do. Most do. Quite a lot. When a giraffe gets killed in a Danish zoo, or somebody kicks a dog in the face, or Chinese vendors sell live fish and turtles as keychains, people react very, very strongly. The fact that the behaviour of most people is morally inconsistent does not change the fact that the great majority of people have an instinctive tendency to care about animals and condemn animal cruelty when they see it take place.

Refusing to believe that most people care about animals is only harmful to the cause. If you start thinking that people won't care, you're throwing away an important tool for change.

So, what are the tools for change?


2. CHANGING MINDS.

I think that all animal activism should be based on calculations of which action will be as effective as possible in terms of social change and eliminating suffering. It's not about being right; it's about the animals.

Therefore, the most powerful tool an animal activist can have is a realistic understanding of how the human psyche works. How it reacts and responds. How people change their minds. Because when people change their minds, things change for the animals.

Here's the second problem that I have with some activists. I believe that too often, one of the biggest obstacles to animal liberation are the animal activists themselves. You must have the psychological eye, and from a psychological perspective, people such as PETA and the radical side of the movement seem to be doing a lot of things wrong.

Activism shouldn't be autistic. By this I mean the types who attack instead of informing and encouraging. The people who talk about carnists as "rapists" and "murderers". (Or, alternatively: dance around naked with a sign that informatively announces that "Veganism is sexy!")

In these cases, I'd just like to say:

Seriously, what the hell is going through your head when you behave like this? Remember the animals? Do you think that coming across as an aggressive fanatic will change the way people behave? In reality, you may not be an aggressive fanatic, but if you seem like one, you are keeping the animal-abusing culture alive.

Factually, you may be right, but practically, you are generating negative images of veganism and activism. Therefore you are one of the reasons why we're not moving forward. Instead of showing the public why they should hate the animal industry, you are making the public hate you. You are one of the things keeping the animal industry in existence.

Always remember the psychological aspects. In terms of progress, they are the key.

So, back to the subject of in vitro meat.

A more or less relevant picture.

3. ACCEPTING THE IMPERFECT REALITY.

The main argument here seems to be that lab-grown meat is, well, fucking stupid. Of course it's fucking stupid. After all, it is ridiculous to start producing synthetic 'animal' products, when we could just simply and immediately stop eating animal products altogether.

But: like I said, this is probably not going to happen. We have to accept the way people function, and work within this reality.

If you don't live surrounded by a vegan community, and even if you do, it is pretty damn clear how culturally important meat is. Meat is everywhere. People project great meanings into it. Even if a seitan product tasted and looked exactly like meat, it would still lack the social/cultural meanings of meat. When you're eating meat, it is psychologically important to know that you are Eating Meat. It is irrational, but an important part of being psychologically effective is understanding and accepting the fact that humans are irrational and lazy animals but with a genuine urge to be good. This is the reality and we'll never be able to change it; let's work with what we've got.

People are eating animal products because it is considered healthy, manly, necessary, important and the social norm. For most people, vegetarianism, let alone veganism, is "impossible" for social reasons: when you refuse to eat animal products, you are considered more or less weird and "different" and often attacked, and therefore the percentage of plant-eaters among the general population remains low. It will probably remain low. Most people want to be like their friends, and this is not going to change any time soon.

Conducting a vegan revolution is significantly more difficult than conducting, say, an LGBT revolution, because unlike the LGBT revolution, the vegan revolution requires fundamental change in action, instead of just change in thought.

The current reality: the world is probably never going to stop eating meat. It's just not going to happen.

Okay; of course it could happen, but the cultural change would take centuries. For the animals, that would suck. At the moment, the developing world is quickly adopting the Western meat-loving culture, while here in the West, information about the ethical, environmental and health-related reasons to go veg*n has become widely available. Still, the percentage of veg*ns remains low as hell, maybe 5% at best, usually less. Now that we see that all this information isn't really increasing the number of plant-eaters, it starts to seem pretty clear that nothing is going to. Eating meat is culturally too important.

So please, let's accept this. People are not going to adopt plant-based diets. And this is okay. They don't have to. It's not something that's going to stop animal liberation from happening. Let's accept the reality and do what we can with it.

So: is there a second best solution? Any other way to liberate the animals?

In vitro technology.

A tomato.

4. LAB-GROWN WILL BE VEGAN.

As far as I know, the point of ethical veganism is not the Act of Eating Plants, but boycotting violence towards animals. The reason that ethical vegans eat plants instead of sausages is not the plants themselves, but the fact that in 2014, sausages inevitably mean violence towards animals.

In vitro meat and other potential in vitro products will not be animals. Eating in vitro 'animal' products will not mean that you're eating animals. Eventually, they won't have anything to do with animals any more than tomatoes do. If they become the norm, people won't even associate them with animals. To eat meat, you won't need to objectify animals. 'Meat' won't mean animals.

"Veganism is a way of living that seeks to exclude, as far as possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing and any other purpose."

If this is the definition of veganism, then ideally, a lab-grown burger will be vegan; it won't require any violence, practical or ideological, towards any animal. It will be like a tomato.

This could be vegan.

5. HOW EMANCIPATION HAPPENS.

What pukexskywalker's calling for is emancipation. Here's the thing: so am I. The difference is that I see in vitro technology as the thing that will actually make the emancipation possible.

"[In vitro meat] challenges NONE of the layered mechanisms that enable animal oppression in the first place."

Perhaps. Perhaps in vitro technology in itself isn't challenging layered mechanisms. But aren't these the fundamental mechanisms of speciesism:

Why are we oppressing animals?
Because we think that it's ok.

--> Why do we think that it's ok?
Because: "They're just animals", "Animals are stupid", "It's natural", "Plants feel pain too!", "What about lions?"

---> Why do we like to think that they're just animals, that animals are stupid, that abusing them is natural, that plants feel pain too, or that we should imitate the behaviour of lions?
Because we have the psychological need for justifications.

---> Why do we have the psychological need for justifications?
Because most of us are economically involved in industries that abuse animals.

So, at this point, to admit that animals are sentient individuals that need rights – that in fact, they are cognitively and morally pretty much the same thing as human children – would mean that we'd be forced to stop abusing and eating them. And we don't want to do that, simply because we don't want to give up animal products. So we won't admit that animals are sentient individuals that need rights.

To be able to abuse someone, you always have to belittle them.

These psychological justifications are mainly linked to the existence of the meat industry; however, they're not only making the meat industry possible, but also enabling all other forms of animal exploitation.

The combination of believing in animal rights and, at the same time, continuing to support industries that hurt them would be too difficult for the psyches of most non-psychopathic people. Unfortunately, instead of ditching our cherished habits, most of us choose the excuses. Because it's easier.

This is how speciesism is born. Speciesism is the excuses.

So, what if these 'animal products' didn't come from animals at all? What if buying and eating a sausage didn't require coming up with a psychological justification for animal exploitation? What if we could look at a factory farm and call it barbaric torture without trying to justify it in any way? What if most of us could condemn even the mere act of killing animals without having to give up anything in the process? What if the need for excuses disappeared?

Without the animal industry, there's no need for excuses. Without the excuses, there's no animal industry.

Normally liberation has to start happening ideologically before it can start happening in reality. Before women can have rights, people have to start thinking that they need rights. But in this case, liberation will start happening in reality before it can start happening ideologically. Practical liberation creates the space where ideological liberation can happen:

First, we won't 'need' to keep animals in nightmarish cages, farms and enclosures anymore.

So, no more need for this:

Or this:

Or this:

Isn't that fucking great in itself? Even without ideological liberation, simply getting rid of these nightmares would be one of the greatest things that's happened in the history of this planet.

Now, even better:

In a world where meat doesn't come from animals, eating meat won't mean eating animals; in a world where this is the norm, the idea of hurting and killing actual animals for food will begin to seem unnecessary, cruel and perverse. If we lose the need to justify these nightmares, we'll lose the need to belittle the moral value of other animals. If we lose the justifications for abuse, we'll lose the abuse. And this is the key to animal rights. The only realistic way to culturally destroy speciesism.

Tl;dr:

What is not going to happen: people realize that animal exploitation is wrong, and therefore stop eating animals.

What could very well happen: people stop eating animals, and therefore realize that animal exploitation is wrong.

6. IF THE ANIMAL RIGHTS MOVEMENT PARTICIPATES, WE CAN MAKE THE IN VITRO REVOLUTION OURS.

In vitro technology is not ideal.

Yet, it seems to be the only real opportunity that our generation will get to turn things around. If we don't seize the only opportunity, we will lose, because, well, it is the only opportunity.

The fact is: the cultural change I've described here is not inevitable. It probably won't happen without the participation of people who believe in animal rights.

For now, this is a fact:

• "Lab-grown meat has been and continues to be developed through animal testing and animal use: 'Although the number of animals affected would be greatly reduced, laboratory-grown meat would still require the use of animals. When scientists created the first laboratory-grown meat, they started with muscle cells from a live pig. However, cell cultures and tissue cultures typically do not live and reproduce forever. To mass-produce laboratory-grown meat on an ongoing basis, scientists would need a constant supply of live pigs, cows, chickens and other animals from which to take cells.'”

There are several other problems, too. For example:

• So far, we've been talking about lab-grown steaks, nuggets and burgers and mentioned lab-grown fish meat. But as everybody knows, the industries producing flesh are virtually the same industries that produce egg and dairy products (etc.). So, in order for these industries to disappear, synthetic meat is not enough. We'll have to learn to create synthetic 'egg', 'dairy' and 'leather' products, and so on. I don't see why this wouldn't be possible. (These products don't necessarily have to be 'in vitro'; in these cases, healthy and convincing plant-based products might be good enough, as there's not as much cultural importance given to the act of eating dairy and eggs as there is to the act of eating meat.)
• We have to create a culture where synthetic meat isn't psychologically associated with animals. If people continue thinking that they're eating animals when they're eating meat, they'll continue coming up with psychological justifications. --> The ideological basis of speciesism will remain. Therefore, eventually, we may have to stop referring to these products as "animal products". (This shouldn't be too difficult, in case people are already starting to find the idea of eating actual animals weird.)
  
  
• The scare campaigns. The meat/dairy/fishing industries are naturally not going to like this sort of cultural change. Firstly because this is where their money comes from, and secondly because nobody wants to begin to be seen as the Villain on the wrong side of history. There will be huge industries trying to keep animals in cages and stop in vitro from happening. There'll be campaigns, lobbying and propaganda, and it may be powerful.

And this is why we need the activists to be there. The good guys need to open their mouths: there has to be voices talking about the ethical (as well as the ecological and humanitarian) side. We need to create a society that wants things to change for the animals. We have to create a society where people know how animals are treated in these industries; a society where there's political pressure to replace animal exploitation with in vitro technology.

With in vitro technology, there may be situations where 'slight' animal exploitation could be easier and more profitable than the more ethical option. Without us, the companies adopting the technology might take the easier road. Somebody needs to be there to make people call for total liberation.

If the animal rights movement refuses to participate in this change, and instead decides to irrationally sulk over the fact that people didn't adopt plant-based diets, we're throwing away what is possibly the most valuable chance for animal liberation, ever.

So, this is my plan. If you disagree with it, I'd like to see some damn good arguments. I'm open for useful criticism. We share the same dream, after all.

So far, I've heard thousands of people talk about liberation, but nobody has given me a concrete plan for how this liberation is actually going to be conducted. At the moment, the animal liberation movement is intelligent people moaning and theorizing, when in fact, what we need, what the animals need, is a solid, realistic, viable plan.

This is my plan.

What's yours?

Humanity... at its best.

Sometimes the most powerful words are silence.

Morality in a nutshell:

Those who hurt should not be hurt.

Girl's not grey

I remember being about 12 or 13 and accidentally seeing the music video for AFI's 'Miss Murder' and thinking that it was the coolest and sexiest thing ever. Same thing happened with 'God Save the Queen' by Sex Pistols. In both cases, I was extremely disturbed and embarrassed. Like there was something forbidden about liking the things that I liked.

My existence was very conflicted and difficult at the time. It still is, but in a different kind of way.

I don't really have anything in common with Jeremy Witt, but if there's something, it's that we are two people that don't really have a name.

The biggest mistake of the modern a(nti)theist movement is the idea that faith and religion automatically lead to bad things. That they poison everything. Usually, religion doesn't lead to bad things, it only serves as an excuse for bad things. When you're about to do the wrong thing, you have to find a justification. That justification can be religion, but it can be science just as well. It can be anything; if we need an excuse, we can always find one. Religion, science, nature, money, tradition, all these things can be used to make it psychologically easier to hurt someone else.

Being vegan in 2014 is like being gay some decades ago. The culture around you thinks that you care too much, love too much; you love someone who should not be loved, at least not by you, and the reaction is fear and hate.

Of course, there's a difference between being brave enough to be yourself and refusing to be oppressed, and being brave enough to stand up for others and refusing to oppress them; either way, these things definitely take some balls.

If you look at the history of humanity, few things have been feared as much as love. Fairly stupid, don't you think.

Jesus was a genuinely good person.

Today, I slept in a church and jacked off in a clothing store. Either a) none of these things happened, b) only one of these things happened, or c) both of these things happened. However, one thing's for certain: I danced like a maniac in the sunlight.

I'm not insane. I know that people who behave the way I do usually are. But I'm not. I'm pretty sure I'm sane. I'm just frustrated, and I've questioned everything to the point where social norms and behaving like a normal person just seem so very pointless. It's all gonna end anyway, why not dance?

The sky's falling

So I'm in Tampere again. The official reason is that this is one of the places in my ghost book and there's stuff I have to check, and the actual reason is that I just felt an intense urge to leave Helsinki and spend the small hours after midnight sitting on a bus on a road to somewhere. Dark roads, dark roads, dark roads

I arrived last night. So this is the second night. About 28 hours ago I was walking on an unknown side of Helsinki, looking for a bus to take me to the bus station, listening to a song by Justin Bieber ft. Chris Brown: Ooone day, wheen the sky is faaa-lling, I'll by staaan-ding riiight neext to you...

Well, I can promise you that. When the sky is falling, I'll be standing right next to you. Walking, swimming, flying. You can count on me.

A couple of hours ago I was walking on an unknown side of this city, looking like teenage Kevin Spacey, looking up at the huge dark universe above me filled with stars, and I could have thrown up. I've noticed that I look good only when I look indecent and filthy. My mother claims that I don't shower anymore, which is not true, as I do shower early in the morning when the world's asleep.

So apparently, people around you have cool secrets.

So anyway, last night when I arrived and entered this hotel (motel) room, I saw my face in the mirror and realized that I look like Kevin Spacey. Finally I actually look like somebody. I spent an hour staring at my face. The question is: if I really look like Kevin Spacey, then why on Earth was this the first time I noticed it? Probably because I had been unaware of Kevin Spacey's existence up until about, I don't know, 1 month ago.

Today I don't really see it anymore. Last night I was somehow insane anyway.

There are girls who make me think, "Oh my fucking goodness, I love girls." Then there are girls who make me think, "Oh my fucking goodness, I hate girls." Then there are people who make me think, "Oh my fucking goodness, I hate people." Then there are people who make me think, "Oh my fucking goodness, I love people, there's hope in us, hope, hope, hope"

I may be becoming an asshole. It's alright I guess, as long as you don't hurt others.

Hypomania.

Erratic behaviour.

I have Oscar Wilde's sexual orientation.

No I don't. Anyway, Oscar Wilde's boyfriend creeps me out:

Simply because all these pictures were taken in the 19th century. That's just sort of horrible. Disgusting. 19th century. Eerie. Horrible.

Why don't Lorde's official pictures look like the actual Lorde? What's wrong with looking unusual? Unusual is orgasticly wonderful.

Very soon, Lorde has been dead for 114 years. Obviously, I'm still going to be around.

I guess I'm a pretty unusual 19-year-old. I've written 3 books, and I've never had sex with anyone, kissed anyone, partied with anyone, and the last time I actually hung out with someone was about 5 years ago.

What if somebody knocked on the door of this motel room? Would I open it? Would it kill me? Would they kill me?

The world always has the potential to be a wonderful place, never forget that, my young friend.

diamonds

The best revenge is to live. And I have no plans to die before I've said all these things.

The minority will become the majority.

For now, we have hope. Other than that, we have absolutely nothing.

For now, the idiots are winning, and you and me, we may be diamonds in shit, but there'll be the last word and it will be ours.

Forward

There's something sacred about Red Hot Chili Peppers.

I'm going to take a healthy little break from vomiting out all this very political and important stuff. I seriously have to concentrate on writing about dead movie stars and insane beautiful teenage sluts. The fact is that I have to move forward: there's this door in front of me, and the only key is getting this weird little book out there. Then I'll take the other steps. I've made my decisions, there's no turning back, now just write you miserable motherfucker.

James D. Rose.

In terms of ethical advancement, James D. Rose (the obscure professor who keeps claiming that animals can't feel pain if their brain is different from that of humans) is one of the most dangerous people on the planet at the moment. Every time scientists make progress and give empirical proof for the fact that fish are sentient and cognitively complex vertebrates, this guy appears out of somewhere and distorts the conversation with his braindead claim that "No! They are not humans! Only humans feel true pain!" It's just so ridiculous and dark and unscientific.

The worst thing is that so far, people have actually been buying this. To general public, Rose's 'contribution' makes it seem like there's some great disagreement within the scientists who've actually studied fish. When Rose writes yet another article (really, it's always the same article) about the fact that fish are not humans, newspapers run headlines like "Do Fish Feel Pain? Finally, Science Says No!" as if he'd actually somehow invalidated scientific research.

The problem is that Rose is trying to justify animal abuse by proving that fish are different from mammals. Of course they are different from mammals. Their cognitive reality is undoubtedly different from that of ours. Yet, it seems to be complex and compelling on its own. Fish intelligence is fish intelligence, and it matters. Fish suffering is fish suffering, and it matters.

The empirical facts are very strong, and then there's this one guy with opinions. Opinions. Opinions. Are. Not. Science.

It's amazing how much damage one person can cause. I'd like to stand on rooftops and tell the whole fucking world: "If it has something to do with the name James D. Rose, do not take it seriously. This is not science. This is opinions. If you look at the man's arguments, they don't make much sense. This is shaky bullshit from a person with extremely questionable motives."

Why can't people go near water and not hurt animals?
(Well, they do. The other day I saw an old woman standing on the riverside with a small boy. They were smiling and feeding seagulls. Feeding seagulls. It was quite beautiful.)
Why do people fish or hunt in modern society where these activities are no longer necessary? I may know the answer. After all, I think that it has quite little to do with fishing or hunting. When you ask people who fish or hunt why they love fishing or hunting, they usually come up with things like this: the beauty of nature, and the peace and quiet, and how exciting it is to be in the wilderness, and physical exercise. And more than anything else: friendship; hanging out with people that you care about.
The interesting thing is that you could erase the animals from the picture. People do this stuff because they want to experience the things listed above. But in modern society doing something without a proper 'task' or 'meaning' is considered strange and lazy; it would feel odd and sort of embarrassing to ask your friends if they'd like to come and join you and just hang out in the forest and drink beer and enjoy the peace, the friendship and the beauty. And this is why the animals must suffer. The animals must suffer so that we can have a legitimate reason for enjoying nature and hanging out with our friends. Sad. There are things that must change.
Can I suggest something? No? I'll do it anyway:
Go canoeing. Simply go canoeing. Or find a nice place and go skateboarding there. Give it a try.

Why would somebody want to spend their life trying to keep the darkness in, and the light out?

Something must be done. I think that I may know some great ways. It would be nice to get to a situation where the mere name of 'James D. Rose' in an article would serve as a scientific trigger warning: do not bother; there's more to it than this.

Then, we could actually continue moving forward.

Good night.

Man, I look so sexy when I'm mortally tired.

I wonder: could Flesh actually sell millions? Flesh? I mean, that would be huge for me as a young writer, but it would also be a huge fucking thing in terms of the animal rights movement and just generally ethical conversation. That would be a funny little revolution.

I guess I could do that. But first I'll finish this tale of dead movie stars. Then I'll go back to Flesh, and... I can't be sure, but I have a feeling that it may really fucking truly have whatever the stuff is that it takes.

On fish III (The future of fish rights.)

I've been writing about fish quite a lot recently. I guess it's because I had to admit that I'd been irrational spending all my energy fighting for the rights of prettier animals, while ignoring the uglier ones.

I stumbled upon the music video of Clean Bandit - Rather Be ft. Jess Glynne and shit, it depressed me for a moment.

The video includes several images of some sort of marketplace where people are virtually torturing living fish. The protagonist is this Japanese hipster girl who's apparently some kind of chef. The video has millions of views and thousands and thousands of likes. There are dislikes; I wonder how many of them have anything to do with the cruelty to the animals.

It's distressing as fuck to realize that so many (or most - depends on the country, etc.) people are able to look at a fish in distress and not see anything wrong going on at all. If the same distress was inflicted on a puppy, people would be extremely upset. And the only, only relevant difference is that fish are not cute and do not communicate the way mammals do.

Notice how the actress (Haruka Abe) treats her cuddly cat so nicely, but smiles blank-eyedly when fish are treated like crap?

It's weird. For me, it's not difficult at all to see fish as the quite highly developed animals that they are. Fish are not stupid. Fish are not simple. According to science, they are a lot smarter than what the people hurting them would usually like to think. They have excellent memories and beat even non-human primates in some cognitive areas. To me, this is all very obvious, as I've actually hung out with them.

The fact is: so far, the only 'moral difference' between a puppy and a fish is that a puppy is cute and a fish is not. That deludes us into thinking that hurting a fish is not as bad a crime as hurting a puppy. That's it. From a scientific perspective, we've yet to find out any morally meaningful biological/cognitive difference.

Shit. People are irrational. It seems that maybe 1-2% of people base their reactions on information and logic. Be it about fellow humans or other animals, for most people moral decisions are really all about who's cute and who's not.

In terms of inflicted suffering, commercial fishing (including fish farming) is definitely one of the greatest ethical problems on the planet at the moment. Objectively, it's hard to find anything else that would cause as much unnecessary distress. Not even the modern meat industry. (Although, I'd like to see the fishing industry as a part of the modern meat industry.) I'm afraid that as a species, humans are biologically incapable of fishing without causing significant distress to the animal.

Once again, in vitro technology has the potential to fix this problem. Nothing else will fix it. I want to believe that some day, sooner or later, we'll live in a world where harming fish (and non-human animals in general) is illegal, and the overwhelming majority of fish that people eat is lab-grown. There's a long way to go and I'll most likely die before that day becomes reality, but I'd like to see the world strongly starting to move in the right direction.

In terms of the future of fish rights, there are several things to point out:

1:

One of the most important effects of lab-grown animal products is the psychological one. Once we reach a situtation where we can eat meat/fish/other animal products without actually harming and eating animals, we'll lose the psychological need to downplay the cognitive abilities and moral importance of the animals we're now eating. So, when it becomes possible to eat fish products without harming actual fish, the idea of fish rights will be a lot easier to grasp. You can be strongly for animal rights and at the same time, keep eating animal products. The Average Jonathan won't have to give up anything.

2:

Buying and eating commercial animal products is not the only thing that can create the psychological need to belittle other animals' cognition. There are a lot of people who fish. If a person is an angler, they usually want to see fish as as numb and dumb as possible. Hurting someone almost always requires denying the pain of the victim.

So, even if more and more people stop eating animals and start eating lab-grown animal products instead, and therefore start looking at animals (including fish) differently, there'll still be people who want to see animals as toys. But, at least in the Western world, the reality is: most people do not fish. It's a relatively popular pastime, but most people never do it themselves, and the people who do fish are clearly a minority.

So, if the majority of people start taking the welfare of fish seriously, there'll begin to be more and more social and cultural pressure on the minority that's still fishing. It'll be a lot more difficult to get away with poor excuses and claims that fish are nothing but swimming plants. The minority will start to lose. There'll be laws, there'll be change, and some day angling will generally be considered a Wrong Thing to do. -> There'll be virtually nobody angling, and the need to understate the cognition of fish will disappear for good.

(Of course, private angling itself is a very minor ethical problem compared to the commercial fishing industry. The greatest problem with private angling is the psychological impact it has: making it acceptable to hurt fish and therefore making the commercial fishing industry possible.)

According to a chart I saw somewhere, right now about 20% of (British?) people agree with the statement "Angling is a cruel pastime" (5 % strongly agree), whereas a little over 25% don't know, and a little over 50% disagree. (These percentages must vary a lot depending on the country.) My prediction is that before this century reaches its end, the first percentage will be clearly over 50%.

3:

There is a danger that the animal rights movement will concentrate on the rights of animals that look cute and relatively human-like – instead of focusing on the ones that need the most help. At the moment, this is the reality. Animal activism in general is based on rational arguments, but it's a fact that we tend to fight harder for those with expressive faces and human-like characteristics.

This is not only bad. It seems clear that in order to get to a point where fish welfare becomes an ok thing to talk about, we must start with easier questions. When the rights of the cuter animals – mammals and birds – become a cultural no-brainer, the fight for fish rights will finally get all the space it needs.

And whenever the campaigning for fish rights truly begins, the campaings need to concentrate on educating people powerfully as fuck about 1) the cognitive abilities of fish, 2) the way commercial fishing and fish farming actually happen. This must happen in an informative and psychologically smart kind of way. Get rid of ignorance. -> Get rid of violence.

Besides: in 2014 (1914), even the cute animals like cows and pigs get tortured in completely unbearable ways. A lot of people are full of irrational justifications for this, too; therefore it's not very surprising that their reaction to the idea of fish rights is highly reluctant. If pigs don't have rights, how could fish have rights?

A world that treats the cute animals with respect is going to be very different from the world of today. Such a world will most likely be psychologically very different from the one I see today when I look out the bus window: the animal rights people will generally be considered The Good Guys that were right; more and more people will see the mere act of killing an animal for food as unnecessary; funny slogans like Meat is Murder will be something that many average meat-eaters actually believe in; and so on.

I can't wait.

4:

Ultimately, the question is: if I care, why wouldn't other people care?

Here's a fun fact: once a human animal decides to care about x or y, it cares about x or y. It's a psychological mechanism: when a human decides to start identifying as someone who cares about children/cats/slaves/fish, they truly and genuinely start caring about children/cats/slaves/fish.

All you have to do is to make the decision to start giving a shit. All that comes then is so very easy. And if you are born into a society that sees Giving a Shit as a matter of course, you won't even have to make a conscious decision to start caring.

It starts happening in our brain, slowly, intuitively, steadily – and then, when we see an old Clean Bandit video from the beginning of the century, about a girl laughing at suffocating fish, we'll see it very, very differently than people did back in 2013-2014.

Fun.

To care about human rights is a collective choice. Now, after thousands of years, we've finally made that (strange and deeply unnatural) choice. Similarly, to start caring about animal rights will be a collective choice. I've made that (strange and deeply unnatural) choice, and if humanity is going to behave and progress in a way I expect it to, it will follow. Some people always have to be the first ones to take the essential steps.

At the moment, many people who end up going vegan start with the concern about factory-farmed mammals. Then birds. Later, they start caring about fish. Mark my words: this is also how it's going to happen for us as societies.

_____________________


Btw... I think that people already do care about fish; they only have to stop and really look at what's happening to them:

Look at the comments below the video!:

So, once again I end a sad piece of writing with this statement:

I guess the future will be significantly brighter. (Bring on the in vitro fish.)

If you really don't know.

Comment by 'Birdyboy' in the comment section of The Guardian. ^ What's tragically funny is that whenever somebody is asked to tell the morally important difference between hurting a cow and hurting a human, the answer is always (ALWAYS) that the person asking the question "needs help."

The first refuge of the irrational.

Come on, if you have no arguments, simply admit it.




These are pretty much the only people that are capable of processing thoughts, ethics and information as rationally as I am:

 We should be bros.

Continuing where Houdini left off

Today I spent hours sitting on buses and staring at the rooftops of all the buildings, the buildings moved really fast and I almost lost my sanity, but luckily I didn't.

Things need to start happening very soon or I'll simply explode.

I just want to be sold. I want to shout, "Oh boy, now I'm sold!" (One of my dreams to become the real life Mickey Mouse.) Then I want to be sold in millions.

I'm getting pretty tired with all these living people. I don't know where I should go, who I should know, what I should do to get in contact with, say, James Dean or Oscar Wilde. Yes, lately I've been thinking about Oscar Wilde. There's no explanation for this, he's just randomly entered my mind. There was something More Than Human about him, and then he ended up so miserably. How sexy.

Almost like a selfie

I'm not sure if I even like James Dean or Oscar Wilde, but they sure as hell seem a lot more interesting than all these... all these... all these...

You know, if the world wasn't such a fucked up place at the moment and I didn't have the responsibility to therefore seem like a consistent, rational, sane person, I'd be a lot more fun. I'm naturally good at insanity and inconsistency. I make it seem fun and easy! Consistency truly is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

I feel lonely in a community that should be mine. The people in it are just as shallow and tiring as the rest of humanity. But perhaps they'll learn sooner and faster than the normal people.

Beautiful, intelligent, talented people that lack all ambition are depressing.

Lonely. I'm starting to feel lonely being this brilliant, this young and this ambitious. If I really do make it as a writer, it would suck to be the only literary star of my generation. I'd like some healthy competition.

So, if you are out there, here's my message to you: please stop sucking and then write and write and write. Writing amazing stories is a lot easier than writing bad ones. When you write badly, it's usually because you're trying to seem older and smarter than you actually are. Use your youth, it explodes minds.

When you write about things that you genuinely want to write about, you're amazing.

And: always have something to say. There are so many important things to be said. Say them, and you're holding the fire.

Yes. I am a shiba inu. Thank you for asking.

Humans are stupid

...but some day I will be okay with them.

Some day the love inside me will beat the hate, some day the light will overpower the dark.

I saw two girls in love on the bus today. They were leaning against each other. They were in love.

There are two types of not caring:

the bad one: not caring about injustice and the pain of others.

then, the good one: not caring about the pressure of social norms and the looks in the eyes of idiots.

If I had a boyfriend, I'd make sure to never hide the fact that we are lovers. (I'll probably never have a boyfriend, though.) I think that many lgbt people underestimate the world around them. I think that we've come to the point where there really is no need to hide.

In the West, homophobia is dead. This battle is won. There's no turning back. In 2014, western homophobes are mainly sad, old and uneducated. We could simply ignore them and move on, because there are so many other problems to be fixed and we don't have time for clinging to harmless morons.

I don't understand girls who keep shouting that they are not feminists. Okay, why are you proud of it?

viva las vegas

"You are dead."

"So what? Most people are."

Spring!

Thinking rationally isn't stopping me from acting irrationally. At all.

I'm lost. Just like you are, baby.

I never say a commonplace thing.

You should fall in love with me.

Sometimes I look at my head's reflection in the bus window and feel like there's a cancer inside it: above average intelligence.

I want beer. I love beer.

I don't understand how Frasier Crane goes on living. Nearly every episode is about him humiliating himself in ways that would be unbearably traumatic for most people. His life is endless failure and humiliation, and he just remains pompous and self-assured as hell. Pretty honourable, really. I wish I had his ability to move on from shit.

The Amazing Atheist and the extinction of piggies

I've decided to start focusing on the brighter sides of life, so let's get this out of the way; there's something I've wanted to comment on for a while:

I was a pretty radical antitheist when I was about 14 or 15. One of the reasons why I distanced myself from the movement were the jerks that come with it.

'The Amazing Atheist' is a good example of this. A very loud (often the loudest) minority of Internet atheists are the people who simply have a lot of spontaneous opinions and "Religion sucks!" just happens to be one of them. These guys are highly unpleasant, attention-seeking turds of insults, rape jokes and loud voices. Their opinions are not based on facts or ethics, but on emotional ideas of which group of people is 'annoying' and which is not.

This is tiring, because it gives the impression that committed atheists in general are disrespectful simpletons. This is not the case.

If you are rational in terms of some things and come up with irrational crap, excuses and myths in terms of other things, you are not rational. You are religious, in the worst sense of the word.

Vegetarianism is one thing that divides the atheist movement (and yes, there is a movement). I've noticed that the more educated, more intellectual group (as far as I know, this seems to be the majority) sees animal rights as something pretty obvious. Being against the modern meat industry or at least acknowledging its problems goes well along with secular, ethically conscious worldview.

It's something that many of the leading figures agree on: for example, Richard Dawkins believes that in the future, vegetarianism will be the norm; Sam Harris seems to believe in the same thing, but seems to see lab-grown meat as the more realistic option. Both naturally condemn factory farming.

Ok. Then the video I linked above. The Amazing Atheist believes that if we start boycotting factory farms and the meat industry disappears, the factory farmed animals will go extinct, boohoo.

There are several problems with his argument:

1) He clearly doesn't understand how evolution works. Animals don't care about their species. They care about themselves (and their relatives). 'Extinction' only means something to humans. It is naive to think that animals tortured on factory farms spend their shitty days thinking, "Phew! At least there are 60 billion of us! We are not extinct!" The only thing the animals are aware of is the reality around them, and the reality on factory farms is virtually hell.

2) Factory farmed animals are not part of any natural system that should be protected. They are modified freaks; practically inviable. If we didn't pump them full of antibiotics, most of them would die before reaching puberty.

These species didn't exist before we created them. Oh no: how will the eco systems cope without the animals that were never a part of them?

The only purpose of these species is to suffer. They should go extinct. That would be wonderful for the planet; the fact that we're producing factory-farmed cows and chickens means that we're driving thousands and thousands of natural species to extinction.

3) When the meat industry disappears (probably due to the production of lab-grown animal products) it is unlikely as fuck that there'd be zero pigs left on the planet. Many people keep them as pets, for example. So, on a rainy, nostalgia-filled day The Amazing Atheist would certainly be able to go somewhere and find a pig to pat.

You can always come up with excuses, but everybody with a moral backbone should boycott the modern meat industry, or at least have the honesty to admit their lack of backbone. It's pretty easy, after all.

.......................................

So, now that the facts are out there, I can euphorically forget the existence of The Amazing Atheist for good and concentrate on the more interesting sides of the world.

Like YouTube comments making sense:

Cheers! I guess the future of Internet atheism is pretty bright, after all.

If you have to live in a world full of darkness, make sure to not only keep living, but to keep the light on.

By the way, what makes you think that the individual writing this blog is a human at all? Pretty naive of you. Seriously, you have no proof of my species whatsoever. I could be a cat and you just wouldn't know it.

Richard Dawkins on factory farming

"I am not a vegetarian. I would like to be a vegetarian. I would like everybody to be a vegetarian... In 100 or 200 years time, we may look back on the way we treated animals today as something like we today look back on the way our forefathers treated slaves."

- Richard Dawkins.



Replace '100 or 200' with 60 or 100, and vegetarianism with lab-grown meat, and he is right.



Richard Dawkins was one of my first idols. I identified with him very strongly when I was about 14 or 15. I always liked how he was totally intelligent, completely rational, yet not a psychopath. I still like the same things about him. He has a good brain, but he also has a good heart.

Richard Dawkins still feels like a relative to me. Or like an old family friend or something. Like he's always been there.

The Harry Potter Alliance

Wow!

That is so fucking cool. Humanity at its best.

--- Emerson Spartz, founder of MuggleNet, has embraced the Harry Potter Alliance. "As readers we get very emotional when werewolves and house elves are being discriminated against," he describes. "The Harry Potter Alliance shows how those feelings can relate to real problems that we can solve. ---

Masturbating to The Order of the Phoenix

I remember reading a thread where passionate fishermen discussed the sentience of fish. One guy wrote something along the lines of this:

"Okay. Wouldn't it be a little too convenient for us if fish were the only animals on Earth that lack the basic ability to feel pain? Come on. Let's not fool ourselves. They are animals just like you and your dog. They feel pain when you hurt them. Have some intellectual honesty. You don't have to stop fishing to admit this. I admit it and I have no plans to stop fishing. These are living animals and it's my responsibility to try to hurt them as little as possible."

There was something strangely entertaining about how intimidated many of the other fishermen seemed to be. By honesty.

Every now and then, when I see people discussing the meat industry and/or vegetarianism, somebody eventually says something like this: "Am I the only meat-eater in the world who isn't coming up with excuses? The only reason I still eat meat is the fact that I'm a lazy piece of crap."

So beautiful.

That's what I'm always looking for in this world. I'm not looking for perfect people who always do the right thing, never eat meat, give all their money to charity and always help blind grannies across the street. I am looking for people who've got the balls to admit that they should do the right thing but don't always do it because they, just like everybody, suck.

I wish people like this were the rule, instead of an exception. I wish honesty was a normal thing. Then, it would be so easy to get rid of all the bad stuff.

Now, the mechanism is this:

There is something bad going on. (For example: factory farming.)

People take part in it.

-> People have to justify this in their heads.

So they blur their sense of reality and come up with lies, myths and delusions. They fool themselves. It's the survival mechanism of the human psyche: the human psyche thinks that if it doesn't fool itself, the ugliness of reality will break it down. That if the individual is forced to face his/her true imperfection, the individual will die.

But no. That doesn't happen. If you forget the "Plants have feelings too" bullshit and admit that you buy meat even though you shouldn't, you won't die. You'll be free. You'll breathe.

I want to eliminate the mandatory stage of self-deception, and replace it with raw honesty. You will face reality, you will face your own idiocy, and you won't fall apart.

Like this:

Hello. My name is Q. That's not my real name. I have so many names that I'm not sure which one is mine anymore.

I am an idiot and a hypocrite, and I have no intention to justify this. I support industries that I shouldn't, hurt individuals that I shouldn't, and say things that I shouldn't.

Sometimes I buy clothes made by child slaves. Sometimes I buy dairy products, even though I know very well where they come from. I remember being mean to my family members and enjoying it. Like most people, I lie almost daily.

I judge people based on their appearance. I am arrogant. I do believe that I am more intelligent than at least 98 % of other people, even though I have no real data to prove this.

I remember once taking part in bullying when I was 8 years old. I remember another time when I didn't have the guts to stand up for the bullied kid even though I truly wanted to.

I have peculiar sexual perversions. Ridiculous stuff interests me. Sometimes I muse on natural disasters and violent deaths of people that I hate. I remember being about 13 and masturbating to Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix (the book), which is definitely not a very okay thing to do.

Sometimes I can't stand the way I look. Sometimes I can spend 1-2 hours standing in front of the mirror half-naked and staring at my body and face. I think that my life would make an amazing movie.

I am flawed, lazy, cowardly, vain, ridiculous, embarrassing, a liar, and often unbearable. This is what it's like to be human, and I promise to do my best to become a little better. I promise to do my best to be a hero, even if a coward is always the easiest thing to be. I will fail and fail and fail, but maybe some day I'll make it. Give me another chance.

So easy. Feels so good.

Escaping artists

I guess I'm pretty good at this book writing thing.

One thing becomes clearer every day: I am not an artist. That's just not how my brain functions. I know artists (from a distance) and they have something that I lack (and I have something that they lack). My brain works more like the brain of a scientist or a mathematician. That's how it's always been. When I draw pictures, they make sense.

For some reason I'm good at telling stories; coming up with people that could exist and things that could happen, histories, traumas, connections. I'm not sure where this comes from as I've barely existed for two decades and spent the last several years masturbating in my room. (I had to replace 'sitting alone' with 'masturbating'.)

Anyway, I notice that the stories that I tell and the characters that I come up with are usually pretty traditional. Well, not traditional, but almost the same thing has usually been done before. My characters are like new, more orgastic adaptations of characters that I've already fell in love with somewhere else. I'm good at unconsciously adopting story-telling tricks from other people.

I guess you don't need to live when you have fictional characters to fall in love with.

The sexiest professions I know:

- teacher
- priest
- illusionist / escape artist.

There seems to be a pattern.

_____________________________


Btw, I don't understand how so many (most?) people in Finland seem to think that modern Russia cannot be protested. It's okay that the Russian gangsters throw environmental activists like Sini Saarela in jails and beat LGBT people to death. And if it's not okay, everybody should at least shut up about it, or otherwise Russia will apparently come and eat the people of Finland. (Or something else as stupid and unrealistic.)

People in Finland are behaving like they're on the side of the Russian gangsters; and if somebody refuses to join this play, he/she must be exterminated, because Putin could get mad!

Oh man. Such cowards. Such clowns. I'll never be one of you.