Moments with realitybites

It's strange to have debates with people who know a lot about the history of philosophy. Their arguments are usually less rational than mine. I often make more sense. It's tiring to have conversations with people when you're better at thinking than they are.

I've never really studied philosophy, but every time I do, I end up thinking: Yes, I already came to this conclusion when I was 16. This and that philosopher in the 19th century came up with this and that revolutionary idea, and I already thought of it when I was 16 and sitting on the bus.

I don't know what my IQ is. However, a few months ago psychologists did some tests on me and found out that I scored high in every cognitive category. (It wasn't a proper IQ test, but) I am very intelligent. It's mainly horrible.

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[updated:]

I sometimes discuss animal rights on MorrisseySolo. Usually with a person named realitybites.

For some reason I like her a lot. (Probably because she's intelligent and I don't have to dumb down when I talk to her.) But I also find her slightly infuriating. Sometimes she's clever and rational, then suddenly she's justifying the foie gras industry with "but wolves eat meat too." Come on.

Recently, I wrote this:

The thing is: we’ve decided that it’s okay to treat certain animals (or most animals) like crap. It’s okay to produce pigs and chickens on factory farms, it’s okay to keep them in little shitty crates and dismember them in slaughterhouses. At the same time, we’ve come up with this very cool and ‘unnatural’ concept of ‘human rights’. All of this is vague as Satan. I could get hit by a car tomorrow and become less than an average pig in terms of mental abilities. And my moral value wouldn’t decrease at all. Why? Because my ability to suffer remains. It’s not okay to hurt me, because if you hurt me, I suffer. And this applies to other vertebrates just as well, so isn’t it true that we have some stuff to re-evaluate?

After all, scenarios like “Which individual would you save from a burning building…” are irrelevant, because in real life situations we very rarely need to make decisions like that. If we choose to start believing in animal rights, we won’t stop believing in human rights. We’ll simply believe that everybody matters. I think that would be nice.

According to realitybites, I'm 'parroting' the animal rights ideology, 'almost verbatim'. No I'm not. I'm just being logical. I'm trying to make sense. This is stuff I think about. Here's a shocker: I haven't read a single book on the animal rights ideology. Maybe I should. Maybe Peter Singer would impress me. But really, I don't want to adopt difficult words. I want to continue making sense so that even my 12-year-old cousin would understand.

But why do I even bother? Why does realitybites bother?

Maybe it's because I have a need to feel that I'm making a difference, at least somewhere, at least on MorrisseySolo, and she enjoys intellectual stimulation. Or maybe it's because we just need somebody to talk to.