This thread is almost swaying me to take sides with PETA! But hey, the selfish part of me is also saying, feck PETA!
Happy fish keeping!
Happy fish keeping!
The Ethics of Aquariums
- Thread starter Kelly_Aquatics
- Start date
Ah, yes...People Eating Tasty Animals is an organization that somehow got both my mailing and email addresses many years ago, and has been sending me informative and helpful mail ever since.
I let them continue; I like the fact that they are wasting time and money corresponding with me, and I think it's a useful way to keep tabs on what direction their special brand of stupidity is taking them at any given time.
I let them continue; I like the fact that they are wasting time and money corresponding with me, and I think it's a useful way to keep tabs on what direction their special brand of stupidity is taking them at any given time.
My mom always tells me there are three types of people: those cruel enough to kill anything and everything just for fun using the most brutal ways, those who wouldn't even hurt a fly, and those who have the guts to kill only when it's necessary. According to her, the third type are the best of them.
Actually, there's a fourth type which today is likely the most common. It consists of those who profess that killing is a sin and fur is cruel, but who will happily go to McDonald's or KFC or a steak house and scarf down their favourite meat, snug in the sanctimonious luxury of knowing that they didn't have to kill the critter personally. Death by proxy.
There's nothing morally wrong about fish keeping, if you do it right.( Not overcrowding or putting the fish in a tank too small) I've been trying to make all my tanks simulate the natural environment of the fish that are in the tanks. Only about three I'm still working on re-setting up.
This same argument could be used with all pet keeping. For example with dogs. I don't believe it is morally right to have a dog, if you won't provide the dog the life style it needs. Dogs need walks, runs... they need lots of exercise... they need rules, they need to learn to respect you as a pack leader. But if you chose to do none of those things, you'll have a dog that's out of control, because he is not living the life similar to what he would if he was in the wild.. If you own a German Shepherd, it will need a job to do, as opposed to sitting on the couch eating potato chips, and getting fat... like you might like to.
Everything can be used for either good or bad. It's your choice on how to use it.
This same argument could be used with all pet keeping. For example with dogs. I don't believe it is morally right to have a dog, if you won't provide the dog the life style it needs. Dogs need walks, runs... they need lots of exercise... they need rules, they need to learn to respect you as a pack leader. But if you chose to do none of those things, you'll have a dog that's out of control, because he is not living the life similar to what he would if he was in the wild.. If you own a German Shepherd, it will need a job to do, as opposed to sitting on the couch eating potato chips, and getting fat... like you might like to.
Everything can be used for either good or bad. It's your choice on how to use it.
Well my point kinda was that in one bowl of mussels or one dish of garlic prawns we are killing more aquatic life than the aquarium life we have killed in a life time. Humans have also bred and contorted so many species by domesticating them they no longer function in the wild.
These are symbiotic relationships ultimately as the most populous species on the planet are our food.
Those species we keep are out of the natural gene pool now anyway, and it is sad that every fish keeper is a mass murderer before they are a good fish keeper.
Same could be said of all our consumer products, cobalt from Africa for our smartphones, cheap clothes made by almost slave labour in Bangladesh…. the list goes on and on and on yadda yadda.
Maybe what’s not ethical is the amount of extra resources we consume (electricity, water and space). As those things sky rocket over time cost will become its own limiting factor as it always does to an over exploitative industry.
These are symbiotic relationships ultimately as the most populous species on the planet are our food.
Those species we keep are out of the natural gene pool now anyway, and it is sad that every fish keeper is a mass murderer before they are a good fish keeper.
Same could be said of all our consumer products, cobalt from Africa for our smartphones, cheap clothes made by almost slave labour in Bangladesh…. the list goes on and on and on yadda yadda.
Maybe what’s not ethical is the amount of extra resources we consume (electricity, water and space). As those things sky rocket over time cost will become its own limiting factor as it always does to an over exploitative industry.
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Do you have the same protective instinct (feeling) about insects? Worms? What about plants? Molds? Bacteria?
The underlying issues may be multiple, but include empathy. The closer species, where we can imagine their feelings, engender more empathy, but objectively that might be hard to justify.
It’s a hard fact that everyone and everything suffers and dies. We don’t care perfectly for other humans either, and realistically it’s impossible to. Besides, if excellent care is provided, they reproduce, and you simply get more “obligations”.
I’m not suggesting a completely uncaring attitude, but try to mix some rationality in with your instincts. (This is a frequent issue for us all , having a thinking brain added to the older instinctive part).
I had a single serving of yogurt with breakfast this morning; gee, I wonder how many millions or billions of live bacteria were consigned to the brutality of being eaten alive, to be gradually digested? Do bacteria feel pain? I hope not; I've gotta think that would hurt.
But of course, my own personally-drawn lines separating the ethical from the unethical, or perhaps the unethical from the silly, makes it easy for me not to worry about this at all. In fact, I'll probably do it again tomorrow!
But of course, my own personally-drawn lines separating the ethical from the unethical, or perhaps the unethical from the silly, makes it easy for me not to worry about this at all. In fact, I'll probably do it again tomorrow!
I wouldn't ask it for advice. It can provide ideas to help me think through an issue, though.
Seems completely irrelevant to asking for some ideas to help me think, or feel. Again, not asking AI for advice, just ideas. What it provided was a pretty decent overview of things that I should consider--I'd say it's far more useful than the sum total of responses in a typical thread on this same topic, and I'd be impressed if someone can cite a counterexample of a thread that provided such a wealth of points and counterpoints to help people make up their own minds.
Yep, I'm not at all a cheerleader for AI tools across the board. There are some tasks they can do really well, others where I'd have no trust at all. Just like most tools. When a topic has been discussed repeatedly online, I have a lot of confidence that something like ChatGPT can distill the ideas into a brief overview quite nicely. This is a task for which it's very well suited.
Yep, not asking AI for ethical advice, just ideas to consider. Lots of types of AI, sometimes it's the right tool for a job and sometimes it's not. A well-worn internet forum topic is almost certainly going to be addressed pretty well even by a nonspecialized AI such as ChatGPT.
Absolutely agree, no place in ethics. Not sure what it would mean for AI to make decisions, but I think under many circumstances it can be extremely useful to help people make decisions. Can provide points of view or courses of action we might not think of on our own. I wouldn't blindly trust or follow an AI for anything important, but yes, they can already collate and summarize data on many topics very well. Whether a ChatGPT response or an internet forum thread ends up having more depth is an empirical question, I wouldn't place bets in advance, could go either way depending on which people choose to participate on a particular thread and how it unfolds from there.
Hello; You missed a main point I was making. That being the AI (ChatGPT I suppose) was flat out wrong. If you opened the link provided and looked at the images such would be clear. Wrong at more than one level.
One was the recent fad bias concerning whatever thinking (programing) the AI was doing when it generated the clearly incorrect images. I do not which it was, equity, inclusion or some other altered theme in vogue now. Some person fed the AI whatever bias it was that resulted in the fake historically incorrect images.
Another was the AI apparently could not present the images as they ought to be. Leaving the other bias out it was just plain mistaken. Making a possibly incorrect assumption I figure the AI ought to have access to history books & films. Ought to be able to see the error if there was an intelligence at work.
For several years now a movement has been afoot to fundamentally change the lifestyles of the human species. The "evidence" comes from computer programs (models) about future climate. These go beyond some ethical question.
