Khan's troops may have killed 10% of the world's population, making him by far the biggest murderer in history as far as humans are concerned. If animals had their equivalent, who would it be? Animal cruelty has skyrocketed since the United States became the world's superpower. You'd have to consider the United States government as an option.
The Genghis Khan of the animal world
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FortyTwo
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I was thinking more of governments rather than companies. United States:
Factory farms:some of the worst in the world. Government could stop it if they wanted to.
Fish farms:some of the worst in the world. Government could stop it if they wanted to.
Feeding fish to livestock:another problem we have in the United States. Government could stop it if they wanted to.
Animal research, fur farms, and other problems related to this:some of the worst in the world. Government could stop it if they wanted to.
It's hard to find a lot of information on other countries, but it can't get much worse than the United States as far as animal rights goes.
FortyTwo
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I'm not sure if this is really true. Governments have to watch out for their people on some sort of level, and I am 100% positive that most people in the U.S. want cheap, quick meat, which means deplorable factory farms. In a country where it's hard these days to even pass basic civil rights bills, I doubt it'd go over well if we were just like, "can you stop with the meat thing now? Yeah, the whole meat thing. Thanks."
Who do you think heavily influences if not outright runs the government and it's regulations? It ain't "the people".
http://www.gallup.com/poll/8461/public-lukewarm-animal-rights.aspx
A poll like this one shows otherwise. The biggest question is why we even reached this point. At least family farms historically have shown some respect for animals. As fast food companies became more popular, they decided to go to factory farms, and the government went along with it. This was not a necessity. It's the little things that we could be doing (like talking about the issue) to try to help animals. The media and government ignore the issue. All I ask is that they try to do something to show they care, but even with this small demand they fail.
You'd just have to change the elections to where businesses would have little ability to influence elections with their money. Not too hard IMO.
Then why hasn't it been done? I suspect the majority of "the people" would be for this. Not that hard... pft. It's not only money and influence in the elections that is a problem though, it's the revolving door in and out of government into key agencies and not just those who regulate the meat industry... anybody remember the banking crisis?
FortyTwo
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This would all be great if we could go back in time and sway public opinion before mass culture became a thing. We have hindsight, that's what makes our situation different. It's all fine and dandy to say "well, we could've done this better" or "wouldn't it be great if this wasn't like it is?" but the truth is we are at the point we are at and right now the government and big companies have their say and that's that. It's easy to say "it wouldn't be too hard" because that scenario assumes that these people would just do a 180 and forget the past 70 years or so of development. That's not how it's going to be. If we focus on the favored outcome only and not the methods then we're never going to get anything done. We don't live in a world where we can just get these companies and governments to turn around with a minority vote...
cornsail
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Calliegirl
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I was originally going to say the companies that own the factory farms, but after reading everyone's comments the answer is clear...it's the consumers.
cornsail
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How are the companies not to blame? I put blame on both, but more blame on the companies.
It's the consumers. People want cheap meat, dairy and eggs, and they don't really care how they get them. The same thing with products of all kinds - it's why we import so much stuff from countries where labor conditions are abysmal.
Calliegirl
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I do think that the companies and people who work for them are the vilest, unconscionable, unethical, greediest pieces of trash ever and would love to see them all die horrible slow painful deaths, but in the end it's the consumers who create a market for it. I know and have met so many people who do know what happens in factory farms and don't care. They want what they want, they don't care how it gets to them. The companies are simply taking advantage of this sense of self entitlement for their own gain, capitalism at its finest.
Blobbenstein
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another vote for the consumer.
The consumer creates the conditions for people who don't have much regard for ethics to rise to the top in companies, who then control the media and politics. The buck really does stop with every individual....but when you accept that buck for real, that might mean that you end up in prison or dead, so I think most of us pass the buck a little.
The consumer creates the conditions for people who don't have much regard for ethics to rise to the top in companies, who then control the media and politics. The buck really does stop with every individual....but when you accept that buck for real, that might mean that you end up in prison or dead, so I think most of us pass the buck a little.
FortyTwo
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People sometimes tend to forget that what we're experiencing right now is the culmination of literally a century of unbridled advancement, where technology has been pushed to its absolute limit. We've expanded more in the last 200 years than we had in the previous nine thousand, and we weren't quite sure what to do with it all at first. So we played into the already existing concepts of entitlement and luxury and just applied new things to them.
We're not only up against the products of the age we live in, but also the pre-existing conditions. Unfortunately, getting things right is going to take a long time. And hey, we might not do it! Extinction is not an impossibility. There is (most likely, with no assumptions or personal beliefs included) no one watching out for us and we're just the product of the same physical constraints that bind every aspect of the Universe. We are fragile, infantile, and overall meaningless. At least, we don't have any greater meaning or significance than what applies to us, right here, right now. So we can either turn this around or we can not start ranting about the general state of things when we're tired in a thread that was largely just posing a hypothetical question about the abuse of non-humans.
We're not only up against the products of the age we live in, but also the pre-existing conditions. Unfortunately, getting things right is going to take a long time. And hey, we might not do it! Extinction is not an impossibility. There is (most likely, with no assumptions or personal beliefs included) no one watching out for us and we're just the product of the same physical constraints that bind every aspect of the Universe. We are fragile, infantile, and overall meaningless. At least, we don't have any greater meaning or significance than what applies to us, right here, right now. So we can either turn this around or we can not start ranting about the general state of things when we're tired in a thread that was largely just posing a hypothetical question about the abuse of non-humans.
Blobbenstein
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Barefoot in the City
The Genghis Khan of the animal kingdom:
Gah! Looking at that picture is making me feel all twitchy.
That's probably true, though. I wonder what the statistics are on how many animals those blood-suckers pick off.
das_nut
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