How do you react to these scenarios: 1. A fully occupied, 40 story apartment building is blown up and everyone inside dies. 2. There is a huge forest fire that kills every animal living there. What do you think is a worse event? I'm sorry, but I care more about the people who lost their lives.
Both of them are sad for me. I feel bad when I hear about living beings dying like that be it human or an animal.
I think ALL life is important and would be upset be either the unnecessary death of a human OR an animal. That said, given the choice I suppose human deaths are slightly worse just because of the awareness of what's happening. I do feel like animals are more "innocent" though. And let me tell you... Want to get me riled up? Abuse your pets. I swear to god, I've fantasized about having a torture chamber in my house for people who abuse animals. I don't think there's anything that gets to me quite like animal abuse.
The first one, by far. As much as I care for animals, the loss of a person is always greater in my eyes. With that said, I'd be more upset if my dog died, than if a random person died.
Depends on the day. Usually #1 with 2 being a close second, but some days I just lose faith in humanity and don't care how many people die. #2 on those days.
I think #1 is worse. I do put humans above other animals, although I don't think that's an excuse for us to treat them so badly.
I think they're equally bad. Animals are so cute! It's terrible when they die! :tears: But obviously I feel bad for the people too.
I feel that a human is far more worth than an animal.. but I don't know why I think that and couldn't explain why. Maybe because the most common (in biomass, numbers and species) animals are insects.. and I absolutely hate, hate, hate quite a lot of insect species and happily see them go extinct even if it'd upset the food chain. I don't like it when animals die (even insects, apart from those species I hate) or suffer though and I'm the kind of person who traps spiders to carry them outside.. However I'd be capable to kill an animal to eat it (I think that having moral objections towards killing an animal while still eating meat is a bit hypocritical) although I don't really eat much meat, perhaps once a month.
One. I can't communicate with animals. I love them, I respect them, and I honor them, but I can't communicate with them. Those people in the apartment - how many friendships were lost? A lot of more factors play in, though. Was it a forest full of endangered species, or common species - possibly invasive? If it was the latter, then the "with 7 billion people, an apartment full is hardly a loss at all" argument is invalid. By the way, the first scenario seems more viable to happen. The second scenario seems almost impossible. A forest is big. An apartment is not. And since most animals have traits that humans don't have (faster running, ability to fly, ability to breathe underwater, etc) their survival rate is higher as well.