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Chinese Circus Ties Down Tiger For Visitors To Sit On And Have Photos Taken


Fweethawt

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I fucking hate people...

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-circus-ties-down-tiger-visitors-photos-hunan-province-siberian-a7520271.html

 

Animal trainers have been caught on camera tying down an endangered Siberian tiger for visitors to sit on and have their photos taken.

 

The footage is believed to have been taken at a circus in Hunan province, southern China.

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Yeah, well...whatever. People treat animals like dirt all the time, everywhere, what else is new?

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Hopefully an ancient environmentalist alien species doesn't happen along - they'd probably conclude we are a danger to the planet and 'remove' us.

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Meh. I don't approve of this, but it's hard to get sensitive about it when everyone around me is already eating meat. You guys really have a problem with annoying a tiger, but not with cutting open a pig and frying strips of it's stomach in a skillet? Someone's going to have to explain that one to me. Preferably without any manufactured moral outrage.

 

I'm not a conscience-based vegetarian, so seeing all my friends eat bacon for breakfast doesn't bother me. But a consequence of that tolerance is that sitting on the tiger also doesn't bother me.

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People have to eat. They don't have to sit on a tiger.

 

If the tiger was put down, butchered and eaten, it's an entirely different situation.

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People have to eat. They don't have to sit on a tiger.

 

If the tiger was put down, butchered and eaten, it's an entirely different situation.

 

Yeah, but people don't have to eat meat. I promise that I live quite a fulfilled life as far as cuisine is concerned. Eating meat is a luxury, and I'm not sure I can buy the argument that humanely killing an animal is better than sitting on it. From what I can tell in the video, the level of suffering the tiger is enduring is something I would prefer to being eaten.

 

Mind you, this is all for argument's sake. Personally I think that animals are fair game (so to speak), and I don't really care whether you poke them, prod them, experiment on them, or eat them. All I'm saying is that the argument from the standpoint of survival seems very weak from where I stand.

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I'm with Bhim on this one. It's hypocritical to be upset about stuff like this while at the same time not thinking twice about stuffing one's face with more meat than is needed.

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I'm with Bhim on this one. It's hypocritical to be upset about stuff like this while at the same time not thinking twice about stuffing one's face with more meat than is needed.

 

Its a pretty weak comparison. Domesticated animals like pigs are bred for eating, and killing them for food =/= making them suffer for amusement. Tigers are wild animals and should not be used for entertainment. 

 

I was at a circus that did something similar to this and even as a kid I knew it was horrifying. 

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I'm with Bhim on this one. It's hypocritical to be upset about stuff like this while at the same time not thinking twice about stuffing one's face with more meat than is needed.

 

Its a pretty weak comparison. Domesticated animals like pigs are bred for eating, and killing them for food =/= making them suffer for amusement. Tigers are wild animals and should not be used for entertainment. 

 

I was at a circus that did something similar to this and even as a kid I knew it was horrifying. 

 

 

No, it's not. It only goes to show that you haven't thought twice about how the food industry works. Why is the tiger worth more consideration? Because it's cute? Endangered? In principal, there's no difference as far as I can see.

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I'm with Bhim on this one. It's hypocritical to be upset about stuff like this while at the same time not thinking twice about stuffing one's face with more meat than is needed.

 

Its a pretty weak comparison. Domesticated animals like pigs are bred for eating, and killing them for food =/= making them suffer for amusement. Tigers are wild animals and should not be used for entertainment. 

 

I was at a circus that did something similar to this and even as a kid I knew it was horrifying. 

 

 

No, it's not. It only goes to show that you haven't thought twice about how the food industry works. Why is the tiger worth more consideration? Because it's cute? Endangered? In principal, there's no difference as far as I can see.

 

 

Actually I know a lot about the food industry practices and have taken issue with it in the past. Tigers are, like I said, wild, not eaten, and ENDANGERED. Its really not that hard to figure out. Not sure why you're having difficulties with it.

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Its a pretty weak comparison. Domesticated animals like pigs are bred for eating, and killing them for food =/= making them suffer for amusement. Tigers are wild animals and should not be used for entertainment. 

 

I was at a circus that did something similar to this and even as a kid I knew it was horrifying.

 

Regarding killing animals for food vs. amusement, as far as I can tell the only difference is in the effect it has on the person inflicting the suffering. It seems plausible that killing an animal for the express purpose of inflicting pain on it can desensitize the killer against doing the same to humans. But is that really your issue here? Or is it the suffering of the animal? If the latter, then the only appreciable difference here is analogous to the difference between killing a human by, say, lethal injection vs. a slow decapitation. On a larger scale, the killing of domesticated animals is worse. At least the tormenting of wild animals is rare. But livestock are raised for the express purpose of being killed. I'm sure you'd object to breeding humans with the specific goal of humanely killing them and extracting organs. So why do you not object to killing the livestock?

 

I'd remind everyone here that we're comparing killing livestock to annoying a tiger. As far as I know the tiger isn't dying. I'll reiterate my claim that I'd rather suffer the sort of annoyance endured by the tiger as opposed to being killed.

 

Actually I know a lot about the food industry practices and have taken issue with it in the past. Tigers are, like I said, wild, not eaten, and ENDANGERED. Its really not that hard to figure out. Not sure why you're having difficulties with it.

Did your issues with the practices of the food industry move you to stop eating meat? If not, then you're only trading suffering for quick deaths, and again I'll state that this would not be an acceptable compromise if these were humans. By way of reminder I'll also mention that it's very easy to not eat meat. I've done so my whole life and I don't have any malnourishment issues or a degraded quality of life; I quite enjoy what I'm eating. And since I ate meat for a short period of time while I was a Christian, I'm well aware of what I'm missing. Even if your issues with the food industry led you to eat only free range chickens, etc., the fact remains that you tolerate the deaths of animals for the sake of your own culinary enjoyment. This is a life and death issue for the animals you enjoy, but not for you.

 

I can only speak for myself here: it's not that I have trouble intellectually comprehending the distinction you draw between killing chickens for food and killing/annoying an endangered animal for sport. The problem here is that I don't see any moral difference between killing a chicken vs. killing a tiger. I can agree that making the animal suffer is worse than giving it a painless death. But would you really feel any better if the tiger were anesthetized before it were killed or sat upon?

 

I've brought issues like this up with meat eaters plenty of times. You'd be surprised how often I am accused of being a psychopath because of  a perceived inability to empathize with the hypothetical animal enduring whatever suffering I'm discussing. I'm not saying that this has been your response, SL. However I do think that people react to me in this emotionally charged way because a central component of their life - eating meat - is threatened. If you're going to express moral outrage over people sitting on a tiger, I think you owe it to yourself to consistently apply that morality to food animals. If you would be morally consistent, then either you must restrict your moral outrage to the torture of the animal in question (i.e. don't object to the fact that it's being killed), or you must stop eating meat. But eating a chicken sandwich while protesting the deaths of other animals is, as far as I can tell, an act of moral ambiguity.

 

Really, I think it will be very difficult for any of the non-vegetarians here to see this issue objectively. You guys have eaten meat your whole lives and enjoy it thoroughly.  No matter what I say, giving up meat isn't something anyone is seriously willing to consider. As such, the law of non-contradiction effectively does not apply to a logical treatment of this topic, which makes any debate moot. I offer my comments as a way of offering a different perspective on the issue of animal treatment; food for thought, so to speak. But peoples' love of meat makes it impossible for them to consistently apply their morality, in this case. Which is why I'm indifferent to the tiger in the video.

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Thank you Bhim. You nailed it, and I whole-heartedly agree.

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SilentLoner has issues with endangered, excuse me, ENDANGERED tigers in the circus but not with the issues of endangered babies in their mother's wombs.

 

I'm not sure what Bhim thinks about that, but other than that, I also agree with what he said.

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SilentLoner has issues with endangered, excuse me, ENDANGERED tigers in the circus but not with the issues of endangered babies in their mother's wombs.

 

I'm not sure what Bhim thinks about that, but other than that, I also agree with what he said.

Heh, well since you asked, here's what I think. I think that:

 

1. Fetuses don't have the right to not be aborted.

2. Fetal rights, like endangered animal rights, are widely contested to the point that constructing a general moral principle that people can assent to is difficult. Which is why I ask only for others to be consistent.

 

Your poiny about animal endangerment is not lost on me, and I want to avoid causing animal extinction as well. I see it a lot like extinction of plant life in that it harms the environment, but is not worthy of moral outrage on the level we see when people watch videos such as the one in the OP.

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