Re: Extropians and animal rights

Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Fri, 15 Jan 1999 10:15:59 -0500

Ian Goddard wrote:

> IAN: If mice are in low-crowed environments but
> get violent in high crowding, but each condition
> is under laboratory conditions where the mice are
> not hunting for food in either scenario, they are
> deprived of hunting situations equally in both
> low and high crowing scenarios. This would tend
> to suggest that hunting depravation is Not the
> cause of increasing violence upon crowding,
> since the crowding is not associated with
> any increase in non-hunting activities,
> but is assocaited with increased aggression.
>
> So hunting change is zero and yet aggression
> change is nonzero, which speaks against the
> theory you raise that country folk are less
> criminal because they kill more animals.

However, you are talking about mice and I am talking about men. They are distinct species with different behaviors. However, using lab mice is kinda like looking for the behavior in a herd of cows. They are very domesticated. Try a natural environment with wild mice, with and without prey. I'll try to find out if Jackson Labs produces a strain of lab mice which is naturally sociopathic/psychotic. A lab experiment could be run with such a strain, providing non mouse prey and no non mouse prey on such a strain would work.

> >> IAN: What's the deal? That's 100% consistent
> >> with what I said and know.? We've probably
> >> also seen the same nature shows.
> >
> >Chimps and baboons are also members of the 'great apes' (the baboons may
> just be
> >considered a monkey, I can't remember) and are not strict vegetarians.
> These are
> >also only ape species that exist TODAY. Look at the fossil record....
>
> IAN: OK, good point, my error. By
> "great apes" I meant the gorillas,
> which I understand are strict vegis.
> I guess of all the primates, they
> seem to be the greatest...

Yes, very. However notice how much they've evolved into a niche that cannot tolerate violence, and is probably what will cause them to become extinct, even if not by the hands of man. Same with the orangutan.

Mike Lorrey