this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2026
885 points (97.0% liked)
Microblog Memes
12215 readers
3287 users here now
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
RULES:
- Your post must be a screen capture of a microblog-type post that includes the UI of the site it came from, preferably also including the avatar and username of the original poster. Including relevant comments made to the original post is encouraged.
- Your post, included comments, or your title/comment should include some kind of commentary or remark on the subject of the screen capture. Your title must include at least one word relevant to your post.
- You are encouraged to provide a link back to the source of your screen capture in the body of your post.
- Current politics and news are allowed, but discouraged. There MUST be some kind of human commentary/reaction included (either by the original poster or you). Just news articles or headlines will be deleted.
- Doctored posts/images and AI are allowed, but discouraged. You MUST indicate this in your post (even if you didn't originally know). If an image is found to be fabricated or edited in any way and it is not properly labeled, it will be deleted.
- Absolutely no NSFL content.
- Be nice. Don't take anything personally. Take political debates to the appropriate communities. Take personal disagreements & arguments to private messages.
- No advertising, brand promotion, or guerrilla marketing.
RELATED COMMUNITIES:
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I would even argue, that nature as a whole, cannot be ethical, since the ecosystem is essentially build on organisms eating each other. And nothing outside human experience can, really, if we get to technical nitpicking. Ethics are things created out of human mind, they do not exist outside us... Anyway, that does not mean you cannot aim for being as ethical as possible. Since ethics are real to us, if we want to be Good, we should all strive towards that.
Extending human ethics toward non-humans is a questionable endeavor at best. That being said, I personally don't like extra unnecessary suffering, which is why I prefer eating humanely raised and killed animals.
Taking the minimization of suffering to its logical conclusion, however, animals suffer in the wild without human intervention, so the most humane thing to do would be to exterminate them all. This would prevent any future suffering entirely.
Surely you see a problem with such a utilitarian approach?
The thing is, minimization of suffering is not the only thing to consider in ethics, it is a very complicated matter. For example freedom, the individual's right to decide themselves, is often considered at least on par with it; deciding to kill something, because you think it is best for them, is not often seen as very ethical.
Personally I think there just is no single solid ethical Truth, that decides what the Good is (since ethics are human things, and humans are far from infallible or all-knowing), it is more of an ongoing discussion, about what that means. But we should still strive towards that Good, even if we are not quite sure what it is, or change our minds about what it is. In fact, a person thinking they are absolutely sure something is Right, is a sign, that they should not slam that door shut. Only a sith deals in absolutes, essentially lmao.
My argument is that from a utilitarian viewpoint it's not just best for them, but it prevents future suffering for all their offspring. Not just the suffering of one, but of untold millions.
Obviously I don't think a utilitarian approach like this is the right way to proceed.
And my point is just, that valuing that utilitarian viewpoint over other things, is not a stance a lot of people consider ethical. It is a choice, to end up with that being the "end result" of ethical thinking - there is no single right answer. Someone might think that the suffering caused to an individual, by them being killed without consent, weights more than potential suffering that might happen in the future. Then we get to how we define suffering. And then... ethics are always a mess, with only increasing amount of difficult questions, and no "absolutely correct" answers to any of them.
WILL happen in the future. Is guaranteed to happen in the future.
Not even sun rising tomorrow is guaranteed, in philosophy.
Practically speaking.