cuteness factor

Nicolas Sarkozy embrasse la cause de B.B.

for those who can't read French

« French president Nicolas Sakorzy promised to accelerated procedures so that the EU will ban any product coming from seals. He therefore responded to Brigitte Bardot, who fought to ban seal hunting for over 30 years. »

Have you noticed that most animal « rights » fighters only defend cute animals? So far, I haven't seen (ok, let's say only a handful of) a militant defending pigs, cows, fish...

This all because of the cuteness factor. Australia has given us a dramatic example. Because they are cute, koalas have been overprotected. As a result, eucalyptus (you know, the only thing they eat) forests have depleted dramatically. And yet, and an AUstralian friend told me the policy still exists, the gouvernment refuses to let people hunt koalas. Meanwhile, wombats are also menaced, but they are, apparently, uglier so they receive less sympathy from the people.

For those who didn't know: baby seal hunting has been banned (or at least, severely restricted) for over 30 years now. Yes, slaughtering an animal over an immaculate snow field looks barbaric, but don't tell me that cows and pigs receive a more « human » treatment. If the EU and the bitch... euh, Ms Bardot, want to show constance, then they should militate for the banning of ALL animal killings by humans

edit: here is an English link http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...hub=TopStories

Association for the Preservation of the Coelacanth

The domesticated farm animal examples are obviously trash, because animals such as the pig and cow have been bred and kept and slaughtered for years for the sole purpose of human consumption. These are not animals found in the wild through means of hunting. They live and die for us.

That aside, yes, of course the so-called "cute" animals are the ones most viciously defended, in part I think because the marketability for said cause is much higher than it would be otherwise. People have sensibilities inclining them to feel for cute, seemingly helpless animals and children - it's a mechanism that does us well in proliferating our DNA. Defending the young and helpless keeps our species going.

I really have no idea what your intended topic of discussion was here. It seems like you're just sounding off against perceived inconsistencies in policy, which is all well and good, but that doesn't leave much room for deliberation.

In short:

What you refer to as "cuteness" is a biological feature known as neotony, in which an adult animal retains a strong resemblance to their appearance as a juvenile (or, more simply, the grownups look kind of like babies). Human beings are neurochemically wired to feel protective toward creatures that display neotony as part of our instinctive protection of our own infants.

So you're basically raging against a million-year-old machine.

Originally Posted by Pangalin

So you're basically raging against a million-year-old machine.

Uh, don't you mean six thousand?

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters

And God said, That's so adorable, and it was adorable

This thread, in addition to being a general waste of space, sounds like it was made for the purpose of being a rant about those damn Europeans poking their noses in on Canada's annual seal-clubbing shindig; discussion of the subject (which will be limited to "Shut up, stupid" anyway) is purely secondary. In the thread stickied at the top of the thread, there is a Political Palace rule concerning rant threads.

Quote:

5. Don't rant
If you want to make a thread about how something sucks and expound on that point, a simple guideline: don't. It is for things like that that you have a Chocojournal, and can use it to express your feelings about the current situation without cluttering up the forum page with it.

I'll close this now. More threads like this from you in the future may make your continued Political Palace participation unnecessary.