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Dolphin found dead on beach riddled with bullets, NOAA offers $20k reward to find killer
(www.usatoday.com)
this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2024
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When a cute and innocent individual get brutally murdered, people get sad. When it's some guy in sub-Saharan Africa, that you hear similar reports of every day, it's just not evoking much of a response. Probably that is what is going on.
Also, there are fewer dolphins than there are humans. From that perspective, it is even sadder.
I don't agree that humans are special in any way, btw.
I agree this is probably caused by reports of human murder being so common. Eventually you get desensitized to tragedy when you see it enough. Maybe this was just different enough from the norm that it got that emotional response.
I don't understand how you can think humans aren't special in any way. They are the most special animal I can think of. I can understand if you value animal lives more than I do. That's pretty subjective, although I think most people value human lives much more than animal lives.
There is this concept of 'Us and them', a in group and out group. In conflict it is often utilized to make your guys hate the other group and 'dehumanize' them so that you can prevent your guys directing sympathy towards the enemy. The other guys may have different language and culture and whatnot. Language is one of the best barriers for sympathy and is well recognized by the ones that use this to their advantage.
To a large extent, I think it is the same principles that prevent people from recognizing the suffering of individuals of other species.
We apply importance to the recognition of suffering so we can prevent it. I say we apply it to everyone.
Now, of course we can nit-pick and try to separate out who or what we apply sympathy to. You could designate some things as just automatons; such as ants, bacteria or even viruses. But I'm not gonna do that now.
I think the individual tragedy of every death that happens hitting you would be a tornado that ripped you from your sanity and sent your soaring. Some say that's what happened to God. But we're not gods, we're small people with small lives, and it's easy to connect the death of a dolphin by gunfire to the death of the world by overconsumption, even if only metaphorically. It's a tragedy because of everything that it is, not because of the one cute dolphin. Although that is also sad.
I believe emotion is the basis for morality, and there is no objective morality. I have little emotional reaction to an ant dying. I have some emotional reaction to a dolphin dying. I have a great emotional reaction to a human dying. Your emotional reactions to these things are different from mine. That's where the conversation ends for me.
I could make up an explanation like yours to explain why I feel this way, but the truth is that I just feel this way. I believe that's also the real explanation for why you feel the way you do. I doubt you really logic and reasoned your way into caring for humans and animals equally.
I've never met a dolphin I didn't like, not that I really got to know them. people on the other hand.…
I think that's what this is.