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[Avis-Mergulus]

Not a very good one, though. We care about consent from animals in regards to pretty much nothing, up to killing them, eating them, inciting them to get maimed (not even talking fighting, just hunting dogs, ferex, get badly hurt quite often), using them for medical experimentation, etc., etc., etc. Doesn't make much sense in the face of that to believe consent in one specific area actually matters.

Consent in an area not necessary for our survival does actually matter. You will notice that animal fights are outlawed pretty much everywhere,  and unnecessary cruelty to animals gets you jailtime. The fact that we eat them to feed our increasingly large population doesn't mean that we do whatever the hell we want to them. The consent argument is more than sufficient.
It takes a lot of very special arguments to equate having sex with an adult human being that happens to be the same sex as you to having sex with animals. I think it implies less a respect toward the rights of animals and more a lack of respect toward the rights of humans. (I'm talking about the article here, not about Frumple).
The bit about the horse is also shaky. I mean, if a twelve-year old offered you a bj, you wouldn't say that qualifies as consent, right? Because to give consent, you have to be a functional adult human (Mind you, the exact location of the threshold of adulthood is questionable, but still). Same with animals.

[IcyTea31]

-snip-

Aaaaaand now I'm not going to get any sleep tonight, trying to resolve this double standard it turns out I have. For now I see at least three solutions to it that check out with logic, but not with emotion and/or intuition. I hate it when my brain disagrees with itself.

[JoshuaFH]

For the last couple weeks, I've been experiencing extremely frequent belching and I can't explain it. Like, several times an hour, and I don't recall ever changing my diet in any significant way or other changes to my lifestyle. What the fuck stomach, what's creating so much gas that you're having to expel it at all hours of the day? I can't seem to find a conclusive answer on any medical website...

[Amperzand]

Pretty clearly heard my stepdad tell my mom to tell me to stop doing something that very clearly falls under the category "Basic Hygiene" because he thinks it's disgusting. The fact that he considers basic cleanliness to be disgusting actually does explain a whole lot, really.

...That would, indeed, explain a few things.

[Frumple]

snip

We also regularly maim them for aesthetic purposes (tail, ear snipping, arguably declawing, definitely some of the things that get done to birds, plenty of other things -- to be fair, we do this to human kids, too), do many things that aren't survival related that do great harm (sport hunting, again, ferex), and just kinda' so on and so forth. The argument that we care about consent from or unnecessary harm to animals outside of strictly survival related things is still pretty spurious -- we tend to object to outright torture or really horrible conditions, but everything short of that has a lot of give. We as a species are legally entailed in most countries to do some pretty horrible shit to them, heh. The best part is it's even normalized so much in many areas that people don't even blink, or recognize it as notable harm.

Plus they're a terrible source of food per acreage and whatnot :V

[Kot]

Zoophilia can almost always be interpreted as animal abuse.
I'm quite sure sex with dogs or cats can't be consensual... but then again i think i saw an image with a male horse having his way with some guy back when i still browsed chans... so i guess this shit indeed happens from both sides.

The misguided sexual drives of some people are pretty damn creepy.

NSFW... I guess. Nothing really bad except horse dick.
Yeah, apparently aroused stallions will try to fuck anything that moves, so... uh...

[Avis-Mergulus]

snip

We also regularly maim them for aesthetic purposes (tail, ear snipping, arguably declawing, definitely some of the things that get done to birds, plenty of other things -- to be fair, we do this to human kids, too), do many things that aren't survival related that do great harm (sport hunting, again, ferex), and just kinda' so on and so forth. The argument that we care about consent from or unnecessary harm to animals outside of strictly survival related things is still pretty spurious -- we tend to object to outright torture or really horrible conditions, but everything short of that has a lot of give. We as a species are legally entailed in most countries to do some pretty horrible shit to them, heh. The best part is it's even normalized so much in many areas that people don't even blink, or recognize it as notable harm.

Plus they're a terrible source of food per acreage and whatnot :V

I'm pretty sure buggering them is better compared to torture than to ear snipping. Also, I believe they're pretty much a necessary part of the human diet, to the point where if you don't eat them, you get vitamin deficiency. I'm not sure if one can provide the whole human population with vitamin supplements,  and franky I'm a little too tired to look it up.
You're right that we do more harm to animals than strictly necessary, but that's more of an argument toward decreasing the amount of harm we do them instead of increasing it on the basis of 'Eh, we're fucking these guys anyway, let's also literally fuck them'.
Of course, they're lower on my priority list than actual humans, but still, I can neither condone unnecessary violence toward them or consider zoophilia to be on the same level as anything two consenting adult humans do to each other. It's like, not as bad as forcing yourself on another human, but still highly questionable. That's just my subjective opinion, of course, but I think I have adequate grounding for it.

[GiglameshDespair]

Ear cropping was a) originally done for health reason and b) is illegal in many places. Similiar with tail docking.
Declawing is illegal in most of Europe as cruelty to animals.

So... not really helping your case there in my view.

[IronyOwl]

The more effective point might be that we don't actually care about consent for anything. Like, a lot of stuff is illegal because it's cruel or gross, but at no point does anyone ever say whoa, whoa, you can't take your dog to the vet against its will, or it's alright to brutally maim your cattle if they say you can.

Or, for that matter, that you can't allow or prevent critters from having sex with other critters, which by the "they lack an adult human mind, therefore sex = abuse automatically" line of reasoning would be equivalent to pit fighting.

[Avis-Mergulus]

Or, for that matter, that you can't allow or prevent critters from having sex with other critters, which by the "they lack an adult human mind, therefore sex = abuse automatically" line of reasoning would be equivalent to pit fighting.

Err...no? This is similar to two underage persons having sex: while they are incapable of consenting, they're also incapable of bearing punishment for their acts. And as with underage people, they can be legally prevented from going at it, even against their will.

E: doesn't cruelty imply violation of consent? Like, if your cow clearly communicated to you that it wanted you to, I dunno, remove its leg or something, it would be questionable but not cruel to comply. But it is unable to communicate this, therefore we assume it does not consent.

[Frumple]

not all places have romeo an' juliet laws, av They can be separated, true, but punishment is also nailed to 'em often enough.

Ear cropping was a) originally done for health reason and b) is illegal in many places. Similiar with tail docking.
Declawing is illegal in most of Europe as cruelty to animals.

So... not really helping your case there in my view.

Good for europe, they're somewhat more consistent about animal treatment than the states... and other chunks of the world. Case I'm making is that most folks just aren't particularly consistent about what sort of animal abuses they give two damns about, or what they consider abuse. Parts of europe offsets some of it, but they're still hella' outnumbered :V

[Avis-Mergulus]

not all places have romeo an' juliet laws, av They can be separated, true, but punishment is also nailed to 'em often enough.

Ear cropping was a) originally done for health reason and b) is illegal in many places. Similiar with tail docking.
Declawing is illegal in most of Europe as cruelty to animals.

So... not really helping your case there in my view.

Good for europe, they're somewhat more consistent about animal treatment than the states... and other chunks of the world. Case I'm making is that most folks just aren't particularly consistent about what sort of animal abuses they give two damns about, or what they consider abuse. Parts of europe offsets some of it, but they're still hella' outnumbered :V

I know, I know. I am just making an assumption that underage persons bear very limited legal responsibility in most places.
Anyway, I am not really arguing that my views are to be enforced as law. My case here is more that I do have a more or less clear idea of what kind of harm I would consider acceptable for myself to bring to an animal, and what kind I would not. I claim no consistency except internal (with regards to the homosexuality thing). Humanity as a whole is rather inconsistent with this, as with most other things, I agree.

[IronyOwl]

Or, for that matter, that you can't allow or prevent critters from having sex with other critters, which by the "they lack an adult human mind, therefore sex = abuse automatically" line of reasoning would be equivalent to pit fighting.

Err...no? This is similar to two underage persons having sex: while they are incapable of consenting, they're also incapable of bearing punishment for their acts. And as with underage people, they can be legally prevented from going at it, even against their will.

That's not actually the case, though; as mentioned, most laws make no distinction between an of age and underage perpetrator, and have to be augmented with exceptions where they exist, which isn't anywhere near universally.

The reasoning for it is also not "they're unable to be punished for this heinous act," as far as I'm aware, unless you mean "incapable" as "well that's messed up we shouldn't do that." Else, again, minors would be incapable of being charged for any sex-related offenses, which isn't the case, and possibly be exempt from being charged with any offenses, which certainly isn't the case.

You'd also expect there to be some kind of prevention mechanism in that case, since even though neither party can be punished they're still causing each other harm. But I'm unaware of anything like that outside of normal parental authority; as far as I've heard, sex is legal or illegal and parental or stranger intervention is legal or illegal, with no connection to each other at all. That is, you can't abduct or assault a minor to prevent them from having sex with another minor in the same way you could to prevent them from assaulting said minor or going to a party with said minor, unless them having sex with each other is illegal or preventing them from having sex with each other is legal in the same way that assaulting each other or going to a party together would be.

E: doesn't cruelty imply violation of consent? Like, if your cow clearly communicated to you that it wanted you to, I dunno, remove its leg or something, it would be questionable but not cruel to comply. But it is unable to communicate this, therefore we assume it does not consent.

That reasoning doesn't work for a lot of things that we allow and does work for sex under a lot of circumstances. Pets can't communicate that they want to go to the vet, but we don't assume that means they're not consenting; indeed, I'm pretty sure we don't care if they consent, because in that case we just shrug and assume the human has authority to make important decisions in their pet's stead. When we're talking about docking ears, things split off a bit more, with some people all of a sudden deciding they don't have the pet's best interests at heart and others figuring they can do what they want to their property and so on.

Conversely, if an animal communicating that it wants something is consent, I imagine quite a lot of bestiality is no longer cruel.

I know, I know. I am just making an assumption that underage persons bear very limited legal responsibility in most places.

Not the case as far as I'm aware. You Europeans and your weird civility.

Anyway, I am not really arguing that my views are to be enforced as law. My case here is more that I do have a more or less clear idea of what kind of harm I would consider acceptable for myself to bring to an animal, and what kind I would not. I claim no consistency except internal (with regards to the homosexuality thing). Humanity as a whole is rather inconsistent with this, as with most other things, I agree.

If you're just speaking for yourself then a lot of this stuff is extraneous, but oh well.

[Rolan7]

It is suddenly very weird to me that Siri, Google, etc. don't respond to you saying "Thank you" after it completes a voice command.

I know that Google's voice recognition is done over the Internet so it'd be wasteful to spend it on such an obscure feature, but I hope that digital assistants start expecting some gratitude once in a while. It'd make them seem more human, and thus make me personally more inclined to use them.

I wish Google's voice recognition thing had a name.  It's something we talk to, and talks back.  We name pets...  even simple ones.

But for what it's worth, Google (do they want us to just call it that?  Unsettling) Google does respond to "thank you" with "you're welcome".  It really made my day, once or twice.

(It also made me sad once when it didn't work, but I think there must have been some brief technical issue.)

[Descan]

Just call it Plex.

As in, Googolplex.