do you think animals have a higher priority than humans?

Question

I know there are trusts and funds for people in poverty, but they're not able to do enough, do you think the money donated to saving animals such as the rhino, panda etc. would be better utilized if donated to a fund for human lives. I mean, are animals more important than humans? would the world end if the panda or the rhino went extinct?

Arent we the most important species on the planet. Its not like we eat all the animals we save, so its not that we're trying to repopulate the food source so we wont starve.

doesnt this saying ring true

'save yourself or you wont be able to save others'

WHAT SHOULD COME FIRST, COMPASSION FOR HUMANS OR ANIMALS???

you seem to be focused on the USA. i agree tht most ppl there have screwed up their own lives. but in other countries (mainly in asia) people are born poor and have never had a chance. im talking about helping them, not some alcoholic who lost his money gambling. thats not poverty, thats a disgrace.

so Kassidee, is your way of decreasing the human population (which i agree is over the limit) letting people die. I also agree with your nature balance theory, and i think the only way to keep it is to control the human population cuz humans are eating so many species to extinction. but i dont think the only way is to neglect the human race, but i think we should control it with laws such as no illegitamite kids or no more than 2 kids (like in china).

Kristin: njow that we're not the most important species, lets worship dogs and eat our own crap till we die. WE DOMINATE, WE CONTROL THE LIFE AND DEATH OF NEARLY EVERY MAJOR SPECIES. as long as that holds tru, we are the most important.

choosing what to help and what to neglect is our choice. we cant do it all. so we should do a certain amount of research on a certain animal, and then if no special cure for a disease is found within it, lets let its species go.

or do you propose to wait another 100 years in case we might have slightly better technology which MIGHT find a cure.

everything done, government, funding poor people, its all arisk. but we still take the risk. life is built upon risks. how mny political risks have been taken, and later regretted?

but they still take risks, because they have to. no choice can be made without a risk, and you just have to face the concequences later.

everyone, please emphasize why we should consider animals.

as long as we exist, we are the most imporatant to OURSELVES. or should we kill off our species to save some other?

stephenmhunt: that view about bacteria depends if you're a religious or scientific follower. I'm religious.

Answer 1

Preventing species from going extinct is pretty easy to defend for even purely selfish reasons. Dig this:

Some of our best stuff comes from nature. Penicillin, velcro, aspirin, etc, etc, etc. Think how different our world would be without any of these things. And we still have a lot to learn!

So here's the rub: any species is probably uniquely adapted to its environment. It can often do stuff that nothing else can. Without a doubt some of that stuff can be useful to us, but we'll never know whether the species is around to investigate.

We could let everything die off, sure. But what if rhinos had an enzyme that could cure cancer and we didn't know it (I've never HEARD of a rhino with a tumor...)? Sure, we might have save a few lives if the money spent saving rhinos was spent elsewhere, but it's not inconcievable that saving rhinos might save MILLIONS of lives (or save more money than they cost!).

Or not. Are you willing to take that chance?

Answer 2

I would like to respond to your last question first , to which I answer Yes, some of us have definitely our priorities disturbingly wrong. Now responding to your first question, I imagine there are more than a few reasons as to why some people love animals over other humans but in the interest of keeping this post somewhat short and to the point I will offer only one. Animals are pure, and by that I mean, each has it's place in it's own environment, each serves a purpose that is sometimes beyond our knowledge, each possessing the strength, cunning, and durability to exist in their respective worlds. Responding last to your second question, what could be wrong with giving money to animal charities. Especially when the causes they champion are due almost exclusively to the actions of someone other than animals, namely human beings. I am fully aware people the world over are suffering, and not to be heartless, but our problems are of our own devising and as such we should have to bare the responsibility for them. In summation I am not by any means a die hard wacko vegan PETA loving nut job but neither am I an if it don't walk on two legs and and wear shoes, then **** it kind of guy. If animals are not protected, and kept an important issue then there will come a time, perhaps not so far away, that this arguement will be a moot point and we will be alone

Answer 3

Well, seeing as those animals are becoming extinct due to poaching, destruction of habitat, and other things that make the animal's life difficult... Yeah, I'd say we have a responsibility to protect what's left of them.

Of course, we'll show compassion for humans before animals, because we ARE humans. Individuals within species tend to care for others of the same species before a different one.

However, humans are not the most important species on the planet, we've f*cked things up here more than any other species. We'd be naive to think we were more important than anything else. What's so hard about not screwing up the world any further? Do we really have to be so greedy that we jeopardize the lives of billions of animals and their habitats just for our immediate gain?

Besides, the world is too overpopulated as it is. Which is why I'm not having kids, and if I decide that I do want to raise a child, I'll adopt. Our ecosystem is already struggling to accomodate us all, and it's stupid to just keep adding people.


EDIT: Uh, bigforrap, what does respecting other species have to do with worshiping dogs and eating our own crap? Those things are completely irrelevent. As someone else pointed out, all species on this earth are interdependent. We rely on each other for survival. As such, we should be smart enough to respect other species. If you can't see past the fact that we all need each other, then maybe I can appeal to your selfishness by pointing out that without other species, YOU and all humans would die.

Answer 4

Education is priority.

Pain is pain where ever we find it. These are the many challenges we must find answers to and ways to overcome the gaps in understanding and compassion,
both for our species and those we share the planet with.

Human beings tend to be arrogant and full of self importance. There is no law, rule or edict that tells us that we are superior to animals.

In fact there are perfectly good arguments to confirm the opposite.

The strong and smart are obligated to protect the weak and deficient. That may be why we arrived from our mothers womb the way we did. Weak and helpless. Born to experience what it is like when someone like a parent takes over and keeps us alive. Not so we can be great or do great things just so we can be.

Animals have just as much right to be as we do.
We can help them be and at the same time help ourselves. We may have to manage populations as we should be doing on our own front but over all animals can teach us about ourselves if we are open to the lessons..

Answer 5

Saving certain types of animals isn't just about the importance of the being. That animal probably eats other animals, or plants, Insects, the world would go out of balance if over time we had no spiders, *example* because spiders kill mesquitos and thats pretty vital, seeing that they suck humans * the more important*'s blood, and they spread disease, THEREFORE without animals, over time, we would become extinct.

I can see trying to help people in africa, that didn't get the chance to live a heathy good life. BUT people who choose to put themselves in the whole, or choose to have sex regularly, with different people, dont deserve compassion when they get aids or loose themselves.

I think we are doing a good job now, trying to save them both. Humans need to thin out, I think it might be natures way/gods whatever you believe in to kill off some of the human race because we are using up resources, and we are WAY over populated.

if i were in a situation where my sister had scraped her knee, and i saw a dog with a broken leg, of course i would help my crying sister, FIRST.

who says we cant have both?

Answer 6

I think that people do have a higher priority but at the same time since you place this on a global perspective a lot of poverty as in India is the result of a cast system and religion that have a people content to live in their poverty and not effect revolution against the real threat which is the government and rich of their countries. A lot of people need to take action for them selves, every once in a while it happens.
Animals on the other hand are powerless to control the things that we do to them, a Gorilla can't protect himself from some prick that wants to turn his hand into an ash tray, Personally if it is not being hunted for food than that is just BS. Just like bull fighting is a pussy sport and I Cheer for the bull every once in a while he gores one of those asses.

Answer 7

(dude. you are so not 13. you are too smart.)
anyways, i'd just like to throw my 2-cents into this mess of an argument.... do you realize that it has been part of the evolution of MAN for us to begin think that we are "the most important species"...it is something I think about now and then, and it’s kind of wild.
we are still just animals. …just like the rhinos and pandas and the little kitty cats. but we just have better reasoning skills and brain power... and all of those things.
i mean, yes. it is correct to say that we are the SMARTEST species (...that we KNOW of, at least…) but i don't think it is correct to say that we are the most important. i don't think it's up to us to crown ourselves most important out of all animals.... because when it comes down to it... we are actually the same as our fellow animals.
Anyways, I’m not for animals OVER humans or anything but…life is life, whether it is a human life or an animal life.
...that's all : )

Answer 8

I think that we have notions and some peoples notions is that animals substitute for or are the same as or are in some ways even better then human beings now, that is not so, but we believe it so we make laws that conform to it and forget that human beings are important and they become less so, the only thing that can do is eventually make human beings despise animals or be afraid to care for them or keep them and then there will be a need for the industries that have been built to protect and care for and foster and adopt them out it is the same thing as with the human industry of greed and not real need and misthoughts rather then forethoughts

Added: This is certainly a horrible thought about this:

"Too much is spent on lazy azz people who do not want to work or have several children and stay on welfare. Do not care enough to finish highschool, and we the taxpayer end up taking care of them. If this atrocity was stopped, we would have plenty to take care of those who need it."

You maybe need to read John Gatto's book the History of Underground Education to see where your thoughts are at, how about stepping out of the box or your own personal comfort zone for a minute and seeing all the conflicting messages and themes that are made up for false mind and social control in this country? You seem to have no idea of what you are talking about and the rich prosper off of saying this kind of stuff about the poor and if you are poor you don't ever dare to look at what the wealthy do in order to keep this propaganda going it is not safe for you.

"Can you have compassion for someone who has willfully screwed up their own life? Compassion is about helping someone help themselves. How can animals help themselves? Sympathy is about joining them. "

I am pretty sure that no one goes out to willfully destroy their life that is a misperception for the most part, and it is easier to classify when it is not you. Compassion what is that, you don't help someone help themself your way, you do it by giving the help that they ask for when they ask for it nothing more and nothing less, you do it by seeing humanity as humanity and all men make mistakes. Who says that their way of being and living in being poor is not a better way for them, I think you have to ask that question, many of them will eat when others won't and all the people in their countries are not poor some of them are really greedy and will just not share the wealth. Should they not be responsible for fixing the problems in their own countries first? Animals that have been or become wild animals have taken care of themselves for centuries now, they know what they need to do to survive in fact they survive or they don't that is called evolution and has been going on forever. Humans may not like the way that they do it so therefor try to control them for it and that leads to other issues. Bush in fact has willfully destroyed more then over 3,000 American lives by sending them into a war based on lies and last I heard Al quiada is stronger then ever now, but that might just be some more war propaganda to scare us all into keeping the war going? So there is a relativeness to all things in life.

"i dont think the only way is to neglect the human race, but i think we should control it with laws such as no illegitamite kids or no more than 2 kids (like in china)."

I think you will fight with pro-life people over this, and then what are you going to do make every boy or man that gets a girl / woman pregnant marry her? If you have 2 kids are you going to kill the next ones after that? I am not sure that this should become a popular theory in our society with the way things are, but if you have never stuck it in or let it be stuck in without being married I suppose you have every right to say this if you want to? Didn't we find out just recently that the good senator that promoted the marriage propaganda used the service of call girls while in office? So how are you going to deal with that?

Answer 9

You also ask: Aren't we the most important species on the planet?

Well, did you know the first Earthly life forms were bacteria? Where would any life form be without the first?

You could also say, with respect to destroying the planet, no other life form is as important as us.

How about explaining why we're entitled to think of ourselves as the most important species?

Answer 10

You really know how to hook an audience.
What a homo centric question.
And such a chauvinistic premise.
Can't wait to see the results.
As for me, I know you know the answer.
I don't stay up late playing with the devil's advocate.
Ciao.