Xan wrote:
What about flies, mosquitos, scorpions, spiders, roaches, ants? What about Myxozoa, aquatic parasitic animals smaller than 20 micrometers? (Turns out those have the same rights as people!)
I don't like killing spiders preferring relocation (unless they're those creepy HUGE black widows), but the rest seem to be fair game. There's an invisible fuzzy logic line that separates animals worth killing from not worth killing. Pests? OK! Pest eaters? Not OK! To eat as food? OK! Not to eat as food? Not OK!
Nature sure has decided that life is pretty cheap.
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes
Disclaimer: I am not a broker, dealer, investment advisor, physician, theologian or prophet. I should not be considered as legally permitted to render such advice!
jafs wrote:
The source I found was the very first one with the search - one a few down puts the number higher, at 150 billion. I'm not sure if the numbers include vivisection lab killings or not.
I perceived it as wild, distinct animal species. If you literally count each CAFO chicken, cow, pig, fish separately killed each week as an "animals" rather than one aggregate animal per species, then yeah, I guess 56 billion a year is not that preposterous. Just hyperbolic. We don't refer to each individual human being as a pluralistic "humans".
I don't get that.
If I kill 5 people, then we'd say I killed 5 people, not 1 person, right?
