Ok Llamavore - you are correct that consent is at the heart of it, but I think it is amateurish to assign a human mental age to an animal all across the board. You assume they can't give legal consent because of their mental age, but they might be far ahead of us in less measurable aspects like imagination, responsibility...etc. What I mean is that a dolphin that can fend for itself in the ocean, against predators, work in a team with other dolphins to get to food, have kids...etc, demonstrates a maturity and level of adult responsibility that just can't be measured by a PHD, a hoop, and a bell.
Of course any successful species of animal has skills a human doesn't; every species has something another doesn't. If these skills were as valued by natural selection as the skills and abilities we possess, they'd have already advanced to our level of success. The results speak for themselves. As we've evolved and dominated the planet we've created a nearly entirely different natural order than, as far as we can tell, has ever existed. It is not inherently perverse that we change the world, all creatures have done this to the extent they were capable, unless you believe in some mystical animal spirituality that tries to 'keep things in balance' and therefore stops evolving, which unfortunately many people believe on a conscious or subconscious level. But in any case, the world we live in is far more complex than any other species' natural environment and animals only survive on the fringes; they are intellectually successful only when they find a niche of simplicity which mankind hasn't penetrated. If it were possible to inject into the mind of a dolphin the sort of fucked up shit that often happens in a single human life, and thereby force them to confront the complex world that creates those problems, that dolphin would exhibit the same signs of mental instability or intellectual incapacity you'd expect from a traumatized individual. More so, really, since they've had far less exercise dealing with it and exist in a society of dolphins that wouldn't be sharing their experience. Likely their brains would just shut down to a huge degree and they'd swim in right hand circles until they fell twitching to the ocean floor. The point is that their apparent intellectual success, their ability to make good decisions and mentally adapt, is real; but it exists because their intellects develop in a secluded section of reality where human society doesn't apply (fish tanks and the ocean). You might similarly admire the elegant simplicity of a primitive tribal human society, but once they come in contact with the larger world, with greater technical understanding and tools, greater social mobility, greater power to change tradition, greater personal freedom, greater luxury and life expectancy, etc, they are assimilated and the bulk of their ideas perish (and hippies who pretend they are espousing primitive ideals rarely understand them, so what they do to them is probably just as insulting as anything else).
tldr; animals with some intelligence, have stable intellects only for as long as they can remain blissfully ignorant of the complexity of the world beyond their territory.
implied by your suggestions about animal intellect is that humans don't act on the same motivations that motivates an animal to "fend for itself in the ocean, against predators, work in a team with other (animals) to get to food, have kids," but all human animals act on the same motivations, just in a different context. we don't live in an ocean, but in a jungle of cultural and social superstructures and competing ideologies, which changes much more rapidly and in exponentially more ways than a water ocean. And there's no reason to assume that, given as much power as quickly as we have acquired it, animals wouldn't make the same mistakes the average human makes. People who see animals as somehow more morally benevolent than humans are suffering from the break with reality I mentioned earlier and are projecting. For instance they think their dog is a transcendent interspecies peacemaker because it does not perceive itself as non-human, but the same dog probably thinks all creatures, dog and human, outside of its 'pack' are sub-human at best (racism originates in pack behavior).
You might only be able to have sex with an animal in captivity, but I am pretty persuasive, charming, and romantic - I think the act would be more enjoyable anyway if I didn't have to wrestle a flippping 400lb dolphin while trying to pin it with my Johnson. Humans are not the only creatures on this earth capable of giving consent, and I'm sure I can find a few of the more open-minded species who would consent to giving me a blowholejob (or equivalent).
Consent is not a binary value but a gradient of 'how much do I understand the action and the consequences and accept them.' Just as many women would not consent to sex if they knew what the guy was really thinking, or if they knew they'd develop feelings the guy didn't share, or if they knew they'd be pregnant and single, animals are capable of making ignorant decisions and if they ever had enough understanding to connect the dots, would also have enough intellect to feel regret. It's permissible for us to fuck women of lower intelligence because we start with the assumption that women are equal to men, and if they can't evolve the intelligence in their lifetimes to understand a man, they can't be considered equally human. Laws based on that sentiment wouldn't go over well, so society continues to subject vagina-havers to this gradient of consent in hopes that they will climb it. If you think my tone is sexist, many men wouldn't consent to committed relationships
for the exact same reasons I stated above and are unwittingly trapped by superior female emotional intellect. In both cases, there are greater rewards for sex with someone of equal intellect; even when it's legal, predatory sex is dumb. And that is what your argument is, the rationalization of your intellect preying on lesser intellects, by subjecting them to a behavior they do not understand, because it involves intimacy with a creature they cannot possibly understand. Do I think you actually do this; no. But that guy kenny posted about probably does.
BTW the science says the girl was right - I haven't yet found an animal that will have sex with me, but never had much trouble with women. Maybe that's because most animals don't speak english and those that do are apparently frigid.
it's great that this discussion occurs in a thread titled 'definition of a nerd.' Maybe you're right, maybe for some people who represent an evolutionary step backwards, sex with animals is truly consensual, and sex with humans is unfair to them. You should take it as a compliment if I think in your case it's just base calloused internet perversion.
Topic: The definition of a nerd (Read 2729 times)
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