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Thread: Animal self-violence or suicide?

  1. #51

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    Default Re: Happiness, unhappiness, suicide ..

    Quote Johnstuff View Post
    She stopped breathing. Ric said that for Dolphins breathing isn't automatic like it is for humans. Each breath is a conscious effort.
    I once read in a book on whales and dolphins that a female dolphin in captivity performed suicide by repeatedly swimming full speed and ramming her head into the concrete wall of her basin after her mate died.

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  2. #52
    CATWOMAN sandra's Avatar
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    Quote leedsveg View Post
    I really don't see that this can be the right response from a vegan perspective. Whatever the circumstances, I never want any living creature to die a slow agonising death.

    Leedsveg
    Although if there is such a thing as reincarnation it might benefit a human who has no empathy to other living beings to experience what they have inflicted on those beings. With a bit of luck when they come back they will be all the better for it.
    I like Sandra, she keeps making me giggle. Daft little lady - Frosty

  3. #53
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    Quote leedsveg View Post
    I really don't see that this can be the right response from a vegan perspective. Whatever the circumstances, I never want any living creature to die a slow agonising death.

    Leedsveg
    I would wish the same fate for myself if I did what they do. Driving a mother to kill her own child. It makes me so sad. I'm sorry but I struggle to find compassion for those who have no compassion. It makes no practical difference what I hope for anyway.

  4. #54
    leedsveg
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    Quote Johnstuff View Post
    It makes no practical difference what I hope for anyway.
    When we articulate our hopes, we send out a message. Up to us individually what that message is but as far as I'm concerned, veganism always aims for the moral high ground. Just cannot see that promoting or copying the worst behaviours of omnivorism can help achieve that aim?

    Leedsveg

  5. #55
    baffled harpy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    I know it's just a manner of speaking, but I'm with LV, I can't wish for extra suffering in the world, there is far too much already.

    I hope the people concerned find enlightenment and share it with other people who are in the same business. It might actually happen sometime - there are pro-animal campaigning organisations in China who can probably do more good than European ones. A friend of mine who used to live there is keen on this one http://www.animalsasia.org/ so instead of giving each other birthday presents etc we donate money to them.

  6. #56
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    Aye you're both probably right, but sympathy for the abusers is not something I have the energy to muster right now.

    Animalsasia is a good group and I have donated to them before too. In practice that's far better than any philosophical discussion about the rights and wrongs of wishing others to suffer for their crimes.

  7. #57
    CATWOMAN sandra's Avatar
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    I don't wish anyone to have to suffer...............but if by 'suffering' it makes them more empathetic, then that is a good thing.
    How sad would it be if in the end (as some people believe) there is nothing.........no afterlife.............how sad would it be that 'humans' who have inflicted pain and suffering on other living beings never get to realise just what they were responsible for?
    If there is 'nothing' after this life then at the very least............those who have contributed to the suffering of others should, at the very least, be made aware of that suffering.
    I like Sandra, she keeps making me giggle. Daft little lady - Frosty

  8. #58
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    Quote sandra View Post
    How sad would it be if in the end (as some people believe) there is nothing.........no afterlife.............how sad would it be that 'humans' who have inflicted pain and suffering on other living beings never get to realise just what they were responsible for?
    That's the reality that I believe, Sandra. People can have all kinds of reasons for wanting there to be heaven, hell and/or karma but I don't personally believe that the act of wanting there to be 'something' creates its existence.

    Leedsveg

  9. #59
    CATWOMAN sandra's Avatar
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    I'm not intending this to be a discusion about the existence of God or an afterlife................what I'm saying is.............humans should be made aware of the harm they have done to other living beings. If that means they suffer themselves at the end of their lives then so be it. I would not inflict that suffering but I would point out to them that THIS is what the animals they made suffer had to go through.
    At least then, when they die they will either go into an eternity of nothingness or onto another existence where hopefully they will be better people for having suffered and learned how to be empathetic to others.
    I like Sandra, she keeps making me giggle. Daft little lady - Frosty

  10. #60
    leedsveg
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    Quote sandra View Post
    ...humans should be made aware of the harm they have done to other living beings. If that means they suffer themselves at the end of their lives then so be it. I would not inflict that suffering but I would point out to them that THIS is what the animals they made suffer had to go through.
    [my emphasis]

    I totally agree Sandra that in a perfect universe, injustice would and should, sooner or later be invariably met by justice. But in the absence of evidence that this is the way things work, then I have to deal with my life as things are, and not how they should be. Perhaps this is the kind of idea that spurred on Donald Watson to promote veganism because he was unable to accept, that sooner or later following the suffering of an animal, there would at least be some kind of karmic or divine justice.

    I think I'd better finish now because I know that I'm going very much off-thread.

    Leedsveg

  11. #61
    CATWOMAN sandra's Avatar
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    I think you are mis-understanding me Leedsveg. I am not talking about Karma here, I'm saying that anyone who inflicts pain and suffering intentionally on another living being should be made aware of that BEFORE they die.
    I like Sandra, she keeps making me giggle. Daft little lady - Frosty

  12. #62
    leedsveg
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    Sorry for my misunderstanding Sandra.

    lv

  13. #63
    CATWOMAN sandra's Avatar
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    xxx
    I like Sandra, she keeps making me giggle. Daft little lady - Frosty

  14. #64
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    Quote sandra View Post
    I don't wish anyone to have to suffer...............but if by 'suffering' it makes them more empathetic, then that is a good thing.
    How sad would it be if in the end (as some people believe) there is nothing.........no afterlife.............how sad would it be that 'humans' who have inflicted pain and suffering on other living beings never get to realise just what they were responsible for?
    ...
    If anguish and suffering are the result of the recognition of the pain and misery which animal abuse causes, then surely that anguish and suffering should be wished fully on the perpetrators of that abuse.

    You can seek to protect the body of the perpetrators, and praise compassion as your god, but destroying the false egos of cruel abusing humans is a worthwhile pass time. Crush nonanimate material expressions of evil domination.

    I think I heard the "Flipper" training man [above] describing when Cathy stopped breathing. Did she do that in his arms? I think I heard him talking about "The Cove " film. There was something about dolphins drowning themselves in captivity due to the noises from the water treatment equipment...they are very sensitive to sonic stuff.
    Problematic is waking someone whom pretends to sleep.

  15. #65
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    ^ very well put Whalespace!

    You should watch "The Cove" if you get the chance, I have a lot of respect for Ric O'Barry although he will be the first to admit he is quite responsible for starting the whole dolphin industry. Since then he's spent his life trying to stop it.

  16. #66
    leedsveg
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    Quote whalespace View Post
    If anguish and suffering are the result of the recognition of the pain and misery which animal abuse causes, then surely that anguish and suffering should be wished fully on the perpetrators of that abuse.

    You can seek to protect the body of the perpetrators, and praise compassion as your god, but destroying the false egos of cruel abusing humans is a worthwhile pass time. Crush nonanimate material expressions of evil domination.
    I suspect that many veg*an "converts" don't really experience "anguish and suffering". They probably realise that "what's done is done" and are more interested in spreading the veg*an message than wallowing in guilt.

    I also prefer to use compassion rather than deeds and words of violence. It seems to fit in better with the vegan ethos that Donald Watson was espousing when he set up the Vegan Society in 1944. It also makes it easier for others to differentiate between omnis and we vegans.

    Leedsveg

  17. #67
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    Quote leedsveg View Post
    I suspect that many veg*an "converts" don't really experience "anguish and suffering". They probably realise that "what's done is done" and are more interested in spreading the veg*an message than wallowing in guilt.
    Suspect all you like. I'm suspecting that many vegans do suffer with the knowledge that animals are being abused right now, and such abuse is not necessary; it is wrong. I doubt that many vegans would be happy to smile on torture and carnage each day and console the victims with "what's done is done". More to the point guilt is about being the perpetrator. Not to be confused with sorrow and regret. Obviously someone whom insists that they avoid causing, encouraging, and benefiting from animal suffering can not be guilty.

    Quote leedsveg View Post
    I also prefer to use compassion rather than deeds and words of violence. It seems to fit in better with the vegan ethos that Donald Watson was espousing when he set up the Vegan Society in 1944. It also makes it easier for others to differentiate between omnis and we vegans.
    Leedsveg
    As far as I understand compassion, it is about understanding why things happen, and not 'blaming' 'people' for understanding things differently to the way I understand them. Interestingly I just read a definition [wikipedia again] which includes the idea of "co-suffering".
    I suppose I could be maximum compassionate about the reasons for my friend evacuating his bowels and bladder in his pants, and that he is not to blame for his inability to change his keks. Nonfortunately, no amount of compassion will alleviate his skin situation.
    In the same way, no amount of compassion in myself will alter the actions of another human in a fully contained, independent system of abuse; Nor will that compassion prevent ongoing cruelty to that mutilated mother bear and her offspring.

    Let us not confuse destruction with violence either, not if you consider violence to mean damage to animals. Let us not even conflate violence with annoying activity, or things moving about. Let us not be deluded by compassion into refusing to alter our confinement through fear of upsetting someone's abusive ego.

    I respect Donald Watson for thinking about 'veganism', though he was not the first. Quote chapter and verse if you want to mess about with words for a while. I'm not about to identify myself into an appendix; we know that the meaning is more important than the media.

    Playful context:
    Dolphzilla recites her tail mantra, redecorating the sea wall of the cetacean zoo. All the zoo staff suffer for weeks because they need new jobs.

    Generally speaking, the zoo staff will be treated more compassionately [and suffer less] by the mainstream if their aquarium was transformed into a sea rockery, than if they had all become vegan. So which is the best manifestation of the tail mantra? Shine that light, Skywalkers.
    Problematic is waking someone whom pretends to sleep.

  18. #68
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    I know I felt very guilty right after becoming vegan, it maybe lasted for 2 months or so where I thought about it all the time. I still get very upset when I see or read information about animal suffering, and sometimes when I'm around other people eating meat (especially if it's a whole bird or a roast, then it's much more difficult to put it out of my mind), but I no longer feel personal guilt. I do have intrusive thoughts about animal suffering, and nightmares either from the animals point of view, where I'm in a cage or in line to be slaughtered, or where I'm watching some type of abuse and I can't speak or move in order to stop it. I agree that people who are involved in abusing animals, whether it's directly or indirectly, should be made aware of the harm they are causing, and I imagine that if it is going to lead them to action then part of that requires feeling some amount of guilt, shame, etc.

    Quote leedsveg View Post
    I suspect that many veg*an "converts" don't really experience "anguish and suffering". They probably realise that "what's done is done" and are more interested in spreading the veg*an message than wallowing in guilt.
    I hope this is how most vegan are, because it isn't healthy to carry around so much stress and guilt. I'm a very sensitive person and I think I've been sort of 'scarred' by the images I've seen, so now I'm careful about how much time I spend looking at upsetting information. I originally forced myself to watch all of the documentaries and horrible footage I could find because I made a deal with myself that if I was going to continue eating animal products I had to see the harm I was causing. That is what turned me into a vegan though so it worked.

    Back to the topic at hand, I was poking around youtube and found a nice documentary about Animals Asia and their bile bear sanctuary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGzg8...eature=related
    It talks a bit about self-harm by the bears with examples of specific bears, and has lots of footage of the sanctuary and the rehabilitated bears.
    It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions ~ Mark Twain

  19. #69
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    Quote BunkyVegan View Post
    I'm a very sensitive person and I think I've been sort of 'scarred' by the images I've seen, so now I'm careful about how much time I spend looking at upsetting information.
    Seems very sensible BunkyV.

    Leedsveg

  20. #70

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    Default Re: Happiness, unhappiness, suicide ..

    Quote Johnstuff View Post
    Cathy, one of the dolphins used to make the TV series 'Flipper' did commit suicide after becoming depressed according to Ric O'Barry. That's why he became an activist.
    This one's awful, I found out about it watching The Cove. I hate that movie, but it's what got me to look into veganism, so I've always kept a copy of it to watch when it seems a little futile. Think there wasn't a single person when I was watching it that finding out about that didn't seem to shake a bit.

  21. #71
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    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    I've asked myself the same question on animal suicide whenever I saw a cat or a dog trying to 'cross' a busy 10-lane highway here in Istanbul. There was nothing on the other side of the highway so why would they want to cross it while they could just as well stay on the safe side. Knowing those animals would never make it across alive was one of the most disturbing things I've seen in my life.

  22. #72

    Default Re: Animal self-violence or suicide?

    This is an interesting article: http://www.tonmo.com/articles/octosuicide.php which looks at the question of if octopi (octopuses?) commit suicide (which I had been told about before) however, I agree with what is said at the end: "Animals do not commit suicide. It only appears to us that certain animal deaths are a form of suicide. Their deaths are actually due to other causes."

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