[thechat] Fish do feel pain

[Erika Meyer]

>>What surprised me was the title - the leap from responsiveness to damaging
>>physical stimuli, to subjective experience of pain is a huge one.
>
>yeah, if you're being all objectively scientific.  good point.

y'know, one would think that fish's ability to feel pain could be 
inferred from the fact that they have a central nervous system.  I 
mean, wtf?

It's like that argument that male babies couldn't feel pain when 
being circumcised.  Even though they scream...  nerve endings?  hello?

I think these "fish can't feel pain, worms can't feel pain, babies 
can't feel pain" arguments are made so that homo so-called sapiens 
can feel better about inflicting pain on others.  It's a little thing 
called "denial."

It is easy to make these claims (they can't feel pain, the don't have 
a soul, they don't have feelings) about any creature that cannot 
articulate in a human tongue: "ouch, that hurts."

In fact, I think the biggest problem animals (and babies) have is 
that they can't speak.  When you don't have a voice, you are 
completely f*cked.

Cause most humans aren't really all that smart.   And denial is an 
art we do exceptionally well.  we do it so it feels real.  we do it 
so it feels like hell.

Not that anyone's feelings can be objectively proven... or disproven...

anyway.

E
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