Distancing in the Pandemic on the Global Village

[Sy Borg]

Too easy to dismiss people's comments as if they are just "haters". I am not from the US, and resent them nearly as much as I resent China. Two gigantic, fat parasites on the world that have created much misery and strife.

The Chinese must stop their wet markets. It would reduce the chances of another SARS type epidemic from striking the world again in the near future (China's wet markets have already "gifted" the world two SARS epidemics in the last ten years). Also the atrocities perpetrated on wild and endangered animals should not be tolerated in a nation that wishes to be seen as "civilised".

The good news is that China might finally do the right thing here, although the CP says is about as trustworthy as Trump, so we'll have to wait and see: https://www.newscientist.com/article/22 ... in-months/

[Jklint]

To be fair, many of the younger generation of Chinese "get it", and try to swim against the traditional stream of animal abuse. They are not only decent, but smart.

No doubt that’s true to an extent but not enough to stop or curtail the abuse.

It's the old guard of the CP who are utterly ruthless. To be fair, when you have that many people, it's hard to imagine avoiding chaos without being ruthless.

Ruthless can have many connotations and applications. Even justice may require episodes of ruthlessness to maintain itself and may default to injustice when it can’t or simply refuses to. It all amounts to being ruthless for the right reasons. The CPC has reasons of its own for being so which has nothing to do with controlling large numbers as a necessary policy.

Also, the pressures of trying to survive amidst such intense competition for resources always ends up with animals getting the rough end of the pineapple.

Much too glib! I’m surprised you’d say something like that! What does intense competition have to do with torturing animals to death to tenderize their meat prior to consumption? What about rhino horns as an aphrodisiac nearly exterminating them in spite of proof of its inefficacy! But that is of no concern since huge profits can be made by a bogus incentive to create more of themselves as if the world needed more Chinese! What about shark fin soup so common among all Chinese generally? Cutting the fins from live sharks and throwing then back in the water to drown...and the list goes on! Five thousand years of history and their main legacy to the world is The Great Wall of China, also known as the one of the biggest graveyards on the planet.

Simply too many people, not just in China, but everywhere. It's unsustainable, and a nightmare for other species.

Yes, all very nice but it doesn’t have to be made worse by the type of mentality the Chinese clearly possess and the disgusting fukers in the West who collude with them.

There are far too many assholes in the world, East or West, who are destroying the planet for those who would like to keep it a going concern. It can be managed that its infrastructures, which we are not in any position to recreate, be maintained. But if one is aware of just a little bit of human history and not just science, it seems a wish not likely to be consummated.

[Jklint]

Hatred for China is only a reaction to US media hysteria, as they fall over themselves to support Trump's appalling neglect of American lives.

For stupid Americans which looks to be 50% of the population, that may be true who, in spite of “Trump’s appalling neglect”, are ready to give him a second term. It may come as a surprise but not everything is judged as either action or reaction to one of the world’s most corrupt idiots.

It does no good. CoViD19 could have emerged anywhere.

...but it didn’t along with other undesired incubations due to the filthy habits of the Chinese.

And all countries practice behaviour that is far from ideal, in many different ways. Any of these behaviours could lead to problems for these countries, and maybe for their global neighbours too. Blame is pointless. Learning from our mistakes is not.

It’s rare we learn from our mistakes and when we do we try to cover it up and try to make others responsible for it. There will come a time when we learn that we have learned too late!

Viruses are not the problem; our collapsing ecosystem is the problem. Perhaps this corona virus is part of that collapse?

That is certainly a fact and who’s to say that a collapsing ecosystem won’t create far more potent viruses and even bacteria in its wake which may resist all our endeavors to control or control soon enough before it ravages the planet? Destroying ecosystems has unforeseen consequences which we’re probably in the midst of now in not realizing we may, in the process, be destroying some of the most potent pharmacological substances not yet discovered.

It was mentioned in the past re the Amazon it may be worth trillions and of inestimable worth to humans by way of the substances it may contain, but eradicating for billions never to come back!

[Sy Borg]

Also, the pressures of trying to survive amidst such intense competition for resources always ends up with animals getting the rough end of the pineapple.

Much too glib! I’m surprised you’d say something like that! What does intense competition have to do with torturing animals to death to tenderize their meat prior to consumption? What about rhino horns as an aphrodisiac nearly exterminating them in spite of proof of its inefficacy! But that is of no concern since huge profits can be made by a bogus incentive to create more of themselves as if the world needed more Chinese! What about shark fin soup so common among all Chinese generally? Cutting the fins from live sharks and throwing then back in the water to drown...and the list goes on! Five thousand years of history and their main legacy to the world is The Great Wall of China, also known as the one of the biggest graveyards on the planet.

People are always surprised and disappointed with each other on philosophy forums. As a mod, the disappointment I bring to others here is frequent and profound, so my care factor there is very low :)

Still, I'm right with you as a sworn enemy of "hard anthropocentrism"! It repulses me too - the sheer psychopathy in the mistreatment of other species and the complete inability to empathise. This attitude is common in the west too, just less so. Consider the cruelties of factory farming and the apathy of the vast majority of westerners about the "concentration camp" torture being perpetrated in factory farms, supported by their patronage. What percentage of people insist on free range pork? Very few, yet the horrors of their lives in cramped, filthy cages is famous. Yet these are amongst the most intelligent and sensitive of animals. It's a nightmare that never seems to end.

All social species greatly value their own over other species, and those of us who care about other species are in the minority. How often do you see in discussions where a person will express concern for animal welfare and then be shouted down for caring about "mere animals" when there are so many humans "so much more deserving" of our sympathy (approx paraphrasing). You will recognise the dynamic.

So, if a vaguely edible animal passes a group of humans who are struggling to feed their families, how do you like that animal's chances? That is what I am talking about. As for other atrocities, based on superstition and barbaric customs, one can only hope that younger Chinese can take control of the nation sooner rather than later. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news ... rotection/

[Jklint]

Consider the cruelties of factory farming and the apathy of the vast majority of westerners about the "concentration camp" torture being perpetrated in factory farms, supported by their patronage. What percentage of people insist on free range pork? Very few, yet the horrors of their lives in cramped, filthy cages is famous. Yet these are amongst the most intelligent and sensitive of animals. It's a nightmare that never seems to end.

It's true that we haven't yet managed to sufficiently "flatten the curve" when it comes to our own lack of empathy. But also consider how in the West all the research that goes into studies of animal behavior purposely point to similarities between us and them diminishing the gap between the two or at least specifying how important they are to the ecology. This doesn't happen in China or in most of the East. In those places there is no such thing as a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. If half of what happens in China on a daily basis happened in most regions of the West there would be a hailstorm of death threats against the perpetrators. Here at least abuse of animals when discovered gets to be reported; there, as a daily common event, it doesn't even get acknowledged.

As for the younger generation of educated Chinese, they may strive for a more western approach to government while still enjoying their shark-fin soup in the process. I also noticed that in the link you supplied it was the young ones who hovered over the dog carcasses. These disgusting bastards aren't even remotely worth what they're eating or selling.

[Sy Borg]

What would it be like to be raised as a child in a subculture where dogs were just a routine meal?

[Pattern-chaser]

“Distancing”, a key word in tackling the present pandemic, is a common requirement by Mother Nature in both the Animal and the Plant Kingdom. Territorial Distancing would define the zone to flourish and survive. Social Distancing, usually taken to define the comfort zone, has now been extended by this pandemic to cover security, occasionally all the way up to survival. If you look closely at Nature, this should not be a surprise. Members of a predatory herd can be seen to exhibit similar concern.

When the area of the Earth is divided by the present world population, clearly humans have never been more densely packed. Some would yell: Too close for comfort, but it is more complicated than that. Being close to your loved ones must be different from being close to strangers, even though in principle there should be equality. This raises the question: Should the globe be a village, or should it be composed organically of multiple villages, with each being a coherent and voluntarily-associated community, mimicking galaxies in the universe?

It is my understanding that distancing is not a way of avoiding the virus, which is perhaps too widespread now to 'contain'. It is a way to preserve lives by avoiding overloading our healthcare systems. The virus emerged in China, but without global air travel, its advance would have been 1000 (?) times slower. Alongside that simple concrete fact, there is the political act of spreading the virus by repatriating citizens to their home countries, instead of them staying where they were/are until the worst had/has passed. Without air travel, of any sort, would the virus even have left the Hubei province yet (or at all)?

So the spread of CoViD19 has been directly impacted by our "global village" approach to global travel. If our world was "composed organically of multiple villages", its spread would have been slower, at the least. In the specific context of the current pandemic, it would seem that the global village scenario has been a prominent contributor to the seriousness of the pandemic. So, in this sense, the ecological disaster currently unfolding has influenced (i.e. worsened) the spread and the effects of CoViD19.

[Pattern-chaser]

What would it be like to be raised as a child in a subculture where dogs were just a routine meal?

Perhaps not unlike being raised in a subculture where chickens and cows are the products of factories?

[Jklint]

What would it be like to be raised as a child in a subculture where dogs were just a routine meal?

I suppose not unlike normal, everyday, mundane reality. Most people accept as normal what they get exposed to especially from earliest childhood and as adults don't find it necessary to question any of it. During our own Middle Ages it wasn't uncommon for parents to bring children to watch gruesome executions as if they were entertainment or having bears tied to posts to be torn apart by dogs, etc.

Children don't have much to do with conscience being not yet sufficiently trained for it especially if grown-ups themselves don't have it from whom one would expect more discrimination. It's generations of adults who create culture which children easily absorb as they do their native language; usually little or nothing changes after that as they become adults.

[Sy Borg]

What would it be like to be raised as a child in a subculture where dogs were just a routine meal?

Perhaps not unlike being raised in a subculture where chickens and cows are the products of factories? 🤔

Here's another. What is it like being raised in a culture where sophisticates are known to scoop the brains out of living, drugged monkeys at the dinner table as a delicacy?

[Jklint]

Nothing would give me greater pleasure than knowing that each of these sophisticates die in agony through the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease!

[Sy Borg]

Nothing would give me greater pleasure than seeing humanity as a whole adopting clean energy and determinedly working to remove waste from the oceans and skies. It would also be a fine thing to see a winged porcine figure gracefully wheeling across the heavens.

None of it will happen. The Earth's surface is undergoing another radical change, with humans being the change agents. A billion years, cyanobacteria wiped out most life on Earth. Now it's our turn.

[Jklint]

Nothing would give me greater pleasure than seeing humanity as a whole adopting clean energy and determinedly working to remove waste from the oceans and skies. It would also be a fine thing to see a winged porcine figure gracefully wheeling across the heavens.

None of it will happen. The Earth's surface is undergoing another radical change, with humans being the change agents. A billion years, cyanobacteria wiped out most life on Earth. Now it's our turn.

Seems so! Man is a creature that can rationalize itself into oblivion. For every other creature it would require an act of god. Overall it can be said the poor bastard has really made things miserable for himself on planet earth and for anything he gets close to. Instead of creating gods we need to create artificial intelligence.

[Sy Borg]

Nothing would give me greater pleasure than seeing humanity as a whole adopting clean energy and determinedly working to remove waste from the oceans and skies. It would also be a fine thing to see a winged porcine figure gracefully wheeling across the heavens.

None of it will happen. The Earth's surface is undergoing another radical change, with humans being the change agents. A billion years, cyanobacteria wiped out most life on Earth. Now it's our turn.

Seems so! Man is a creature that can rationalize itself into oblivion. For every other creature it would require an act of god. Overall it can be said the poor bastard has really made things miserable for himself on planet earth and for anything he gets close to. Instead of creating gods we need to create artificial intelligence.

We humans have been lead by the nose all along. When people dream of the ideal life, not too many imagine being crammed up with millions of others, competing fiercely even for the basics - shelter, work and supplies - in queues, traffic jams, bathed in pollution, surrounded by the clatter of machines as all of the most beautiful species of animals become endangered or worse.

Yet any society that strives for the good life will be destroyed and swallowed up by cramped and bustling societies.

We like to think we are in control but we never have been, right from the start. We are as much meat puppets as any other species.

[Pattern-chaser]

What is it like being raised in a culture where sophisticates are known to scoop the brains out of living, drugged monkeys at the dinner table as a delicacy?

Wikipedia is, at best, dubious about this so-called practice. Other articles describe how this happens, but always in some far-away country that someone wishes to portray as being barbaric. It's against the law in China, and in many other places too. Wildlife is now fairly well protected across the world, with only animals long-established as food animals being bred in captivity for consumption. And the latter, when we get right down to the mechanics of raising animals for meat, is about as horrific as it gets.

China was civilised when the rest of us were still living in caves and hitting each other with clubs. Since then, they have behaved as well as most other national populations of humans do. I.e. badly, many would say with barbarism. Armadillos have been eaten in Central America, and also in the US following the Great Depression. What you consider normal food, I might be appalled at. And vice versa, of course.

CoViD19 could have emerged in an American intensive chicken-factory, or accidentally from a biological weapons centre, if such things existed, which of course they don't, as my government assures me they don't.... Pigs are also a possibility, especially when raised in intensive factories. Remember "bird flu" (chickens) and "swine flu"? Anti-Chinese hate-speech does harm, but no good that I can see.