Yackity-Yack

[ChainsawDooM]

... You know... I just had something along the lines of an epiphany.

You know how animal rights activists and ... like... vegetarians or something sometimes make the claim that no other animals other than humans go around killing things for no reason like humans do? Well... despite the fact that chimpanzees do. Chimps are a rather bloodthirsty lot; they go to war, kill baboons for the fun of it, etc. Anyway, my argument is that humans go around killing things for no reason. I just thought of an a**-load of reasons why killing animals for a purpose other than food can help a humans chance for survival.

Let's go with poaching first. Not for food, right? But they sell the stuff for money. Money can be used to buy things necessary to increase a person's chance of survival. What about the people who buy these poached things though? Buying rare and expensive goods is a symbol of status. Status, among other things, generally improves attractiveness to prospective mates, increasing the opportunity of said person to distribute their genetic material, one of the ultimate goals of all forms of life (and possibly the ultimate and most important one, as far as life as we know it is concerned). The same arguments can be used to support pretty much any case of exploiting or killing animals for profit, or using them as status symbols... and since game hunting or trophy hunting is a big argument, I should explain it too, even though it fits into the same category.

Hunting, when not used in order to procure food, is another method to gain status. It's a matter of pride, and a way of showing off your manliness, to tell the tale of how you brought down that lion with your bare hands and mounted his head over your mantle-piece. Sure, it may seem a little barbaric nowadays, but it's still an attempt to impress and attract prospective mates, although an appeal to physical stature, instead of cultural or economic... although it can serve as one or more of these as well.

And what do you know... I've come up with viable reasons that completely dispute some of the most popular claims that we kill animals for no reason.

Oh, let me go over some other stuff... namely non-direct killing of animals.

Deforestation/global warming/etc - profit, wealth.... turns that into increased survival chance. wealth is fluid, and can turn into almost any instrument designed to help survival.

What about zoos and stuff? Well, simply put, it's profit. Before all this stuff about protecting environments and helping animals, it was pure profit. Now, it's profit with a bit of good intentions mixed in. Zoos are, after all, businesses... and it just so happens (intents sincere or not) displaying the image of loving and wanting to save animals boosts their business. After all... we (most of us...) wouldn't want to go to a place that flaunts that it likes to hurt animals, now would we?

Adding that (most of us) makes me have to address another point, random animal cruelty. This probably stems from a more basic instinct of wanting to be dominant, a fairly common animal instinct. I'm sure that somehow it connects in the deep, primal recesses of the brain as a way to prove an attractiveness to a mate by showing prowess in dominance (and possibly physical prowess, in the case of very large, strong, or dangerous animals). However, do to today's societal and ethical codes, it happens to (largely) create the opposite effect.

...
I can't really think of anything else right now, but if any of you do, feel free to shout it out and I'll take a crack at it. I find finding loopholes in arguments and statements fun... almost like a game or a puzzle. Maybe I should be a lawyer.  

[ChainsawDooM]

Now, I'm not saying I'm for animal cruelty or the slaughtering of animals, or that I'm anti-vegan or anti-vegetarian. Believe whatever you want.

However, if I was to be brutally honest, I will say I think humans are better designed for an omnivorous diet than a diet without meat. We have evolved to be omnivorous because it better helped us survive to spread out genetic material. Most direct evidence would be to look at our teeth and intestinal tracts. Our front teeth, all the way up to the canines, is full carnivorous specialty. It would be strange it we weren't supposed to use those teeth. Plus, you can look at most primate species, and see that they often include meet into their diet. In addition, you could also go back and look at the fossil records and see that s far back as you can go you see evidence of humans eating meet. markings on bones indicating the chipping of meet off of them with stone tools and such.

I also believe that the theoretical value of a human life will always outweigh the life of any animal (that we have yet discovered). As such, to make comparisons between atrocities towards animals and atrocities towards mankind is not only grossly inaccurate, but wholly inappropriate and often just flat out wrong. I stand by this belief so much that, if you forced me to pick between shooting my best pet or some random guy, I'd shoot the pet (assume something so horrible would happen if I didn't pick one that it ensures I pick one or the other.). Any person has the potential to be the next Einstein or find the cure for cancer. What the hell great achievement is my dog or a cow going to do? Not anywhere near as much of the potential as any person... in the absolute extreme case, maybe save a small group of people somehow... that's it. That being said, if by letting the person live I would be introducing a direct threat to my survival, dur dur, I'd shoot the guy.

A big part of that inequality believe leads me to believe that animal testing is a necessary evil (but cosmetic testing is f***ing stupid and unnecessary) and the overall benefit for humanity is indispensable. Animal testing can help a lot of people, animals, and the environment. Without it, a lot of progress (save most technological) would slow to a crawl.

I also don't think that the animal slaughtering stuff is that big of a deal. Do I think it could be better, yeah. Stuff can always be better. But if someone used that "If all slaughter houses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian" s**t on me, I'd say "Like hell I would. I know where my food comes from. I don't care. I buy it, and I eat it. It's not getting killed for nothing. If I did walk by a glass walled slaughterhouse, I'm so desensitized to violence, I'd probably say some s**t like "Oh, so that's how it works. Wow, cow's have a lot of blood. Holy crap, did you see what happened to those entrails? Well, that was an enlightening experience" and continue walking, not having lost 30 seconds of my day, and probably not remembering much of the experience the next day after I had a nice long nap after eating a big meal of that same f***ing cow. Just because some people are disgusted by the treatment of animals, everyone who isn't is not ignorant of what's going on. Some of us understand the "why," and thus, the "how" is not as important, especially when the "why" is survival..for me anyway. Sure, the "why" for the owner is profit... which is in turn survival... but the only "why" I really care about is the one that concerns me.

...Well, I just said my opinions. I'd like to say my opinions are not set in stone, so if you disagree with me, go ahead and tell me why. I'd actually encourage you to do so, because the more points of view you have, the better the overall decision you can make.  

[ChainsawDooM]

I'd like to point out that this is not a rant... although the slaughterhouse thing almost got there. That was a simple stating of, first, an observation regarding the imperfection of a position often taken in debate, and then a simple stating of my opinions... not a rant.  

[ChainsawDooM]

Oh, my GOD! That song won't go away! Why does Don't Stop Believin' have to be so awesome!? Damn you Journey! Damn you for being so awesome! An d Damn you, song for making me want to watch Bill & Ted over and over... must... resist.... If I over-watch it... It'll never be funny again... It'll go the way of Monty Python and the Holy Grail... I'll memorize the entire dialogue (pretty much...).  

[ChainsawDooM]

... You know... I just realized it was stupid of me to bring these polarized 3D glasses home... I can't use them for anything 3D. Only anaglyph (the two-colored ones) 3D stuff is really viable at home, because the way polarized 3D works is by showing 2 different pictures, one with the wavelength polarized horizontally and one vertically, and I'm not likely to be able to have anything here at home that is capable of emitting polarized light...

Damn specialized equipment...  

[ChainsawDooM]

Someone else should really start saying stuff, because it's kind of getting lonely with just me here talking to myself...  

[PieMonster2000]

rofl Wow.. seems like you had a lot on your mind. xd  

[Hazumu-san]

Wow! He sure did! You really are very philosophical, Chain!  

[ChainsawDooM]

Hurray! More peoples!!!  

[Hazumu-san]

Peoples make life fun!  

[ChainsawDooM]

... Sometimes they do... Sometimes...
...
Other times they make it SUCK!!!

...
But in this case, they make it fun!  

[Hazumu-san]

Thats is true! I try to ignore that as much as humanly possible smile  

[Gweener]

ChainsawDooM

If we are suggesting streamlining, I'd say we should take a vote on a sub-forum by sub-forum basis... excluding personal sub-forums if we don't have the owners express nomination, of course...

However... there is the question of what to do with the empty sub-forums... I don't know if we could simply discard them, and it seems that it sure would be a waste to do so.

... We could probably hold some kind of meeting about this, if it was deemed necessary. We haven't had one of those in quite a long time.

...When I update in a subforum, I tend to tell people about it in Yackity-Yack...

That's true. It would be better if we could re-assign sub-forums instead of deleting them. The next time someone has an idea for a new one, maybe we can discuss which one to rename.
A meeting is not a bad idea. Maybe someone will have a better idea of how to simplify the Guild to make it more user-friendly. What's a good day of the week and time for each person? I guess anyone that doesn't make the meeting, forfeits their right to influence any decisions made during the meeting concerning the sub-forums/guild layout.  

[Gweener]

ChainsawDooM

Right... so, I talked to the Batman nerd again, and the reason there is no official back story for the Joker is because, in the comics, no records for the Joker exist before he became the Joker. In addition, all the backstory stuff comes from the Joker's memory, and the Joker is so insane that he doesn't even remember the truth about what really happened anymore.

The Batman nerds I know like this telling of the series the most, so far.

As for Harvey Dent, the most accurate telling of his backstory was in the movie Batman Forever. "That was pretty much how it happened." As far as the movie goes, he said "Batman Forever was a kinda OK version. I mean, Tommy Lee Jones played a great two-face. Jim Carrey played a crappy Riddler -- well, Jim Carrey was good, I mean he was funny and made you laugh, but he played a crappy Riddler."


...
The original "Batman" movie is non-canon in every respect. Pretty much nothing in it is true to the comics. Batman nerds hate Tim Burton.

That's really interesting about the Joker! I loved Jack Nicholson as the Joker! Dark Knight really painted a darker, more grim reality for everyone in Gotham. I still like the first Batman movie better. Their shared history makes an interesting story. I also liked the silliness/light-heartedness of the characters as portrayed back when Batman was a tv series, when the Joker and the Penguin paled around. Danny Devito was pretty cool as the penguin, too! Jim Carey? Well, Jim Carey seems to be Jim Carey no matter what role he is playing. That's probably why it came of so sucky. But what of the female roles, such as Halley Berry as Cat Woman and Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy? I loved them both, but Cat Woman the most. Really, I enjoy any version of any of the characters in which both good and bad exist in each character. No one is purely good, or I hope, purely evil. (That's probably why I like Harvey) It would be nice if they stayed true to the original characters, but I guess it doesn't really matter to me if they stay true to the original comics, as long as the characters are developed with their own motivations and there's an interesting story. That reminds me of your DooM's!  

[Gweener]

ChainsawDooM

I'd like to point out that this is not a rant... although the slaughterhouse thing almost got there. That was a simple stating of, first, an observation regarding the imperfection of a position often taken in debate, and then a simple stating of my opinions... not a rant.

Oh, ChainsawDooM.
*sighs*
I don't know where to start. I haven't been here in a few days, which hasn't happened in a while, but it does happen, and then when I did log on today, I was hardly done reading the first two post, when the thunderstorm outside got worse and the electricity went out.
You've brought up, what I think, is an interesting topic. Therefore, I guess it's my turn to add to the conversation.