#instead of arguing for better animal welfare

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

hi there! love your work! i recently had a prof say that all zoos (USA) are bad (so we shouldn't support them) and sanctuaries are better because using animals for entertainment is morally wrong, most zoo profits dont go to conservation, and conservation efforts are bandaid solutions to capitalism destroying animal habitats, so the real solution is to return the land to indigenous stewards to manage/rewild. i didn't disagree with the last bit, but the argument as a whole felt a little off to me for a reason i couldnt put my finger on. am i off base here? just feeling really unsure about the whole thing.

You're not wrong! There's a mix of reality and personal opinions in those statements, and it's definitely something worth critically examining. A quick fact-check of what they said for you:

All US zoos are bad

There's a massive range of quality of zoological facilities within the US (and around the world). Some are stellar and some are not, and it's really just not accurate to lump them all under the same umbrella for almost any purpose. Unless, of course, your issue isn't with animal welfare, and it's philosophical, which is what it sound like in #2...

2. Using animals for entertainment is morally wrong.

This is one of my favorite things to talk about w/r/t how we exhibit animals. Entertainment has become equated with exploitation and implicit low welfare in the last couple decades, and so you get a lot of people saying using animals for entertainment is wrong. But those same folk will say that they enjoy seeing animals in other contexts, and they think that's okay. Where's the line between enjoying something and being entertained by it? What makes something one and not the other? Also, we know that people learn better from from situations which are enjoyable/entertaining - even just a fun teacher who jokes around vs a dry lecture - so how can that only be a problem when it's used to make viewing animals more impactful? I wrote a whole piece on this a while back (linked here) if you want to dig into this more. Some zoos (and accrediting groups) are shying away from "entertainment" type branding - shows are demos now, for instance - and others are leaning into "edutainment" that's done with good welfare and communicates actual education messaging. In short, this is a personal philosophical belief, and you're right to question if you agree. (Even if you decide you do think that too! It's always good to question why someone is arguing what they believe about animal use, and how they came to believe it).

3. Sanctuaries are better than zoos.

There's two reasons I think he's misinformed here. First, almost all exotic animal sanctuaries in the US are licensed exhibitors - just like zoos! I only know of a couple that don't exhibit to the public at all. It's an important part of their revenue stream, because gate take helps support paying for animal care. Also anything you see from a sanctuary on Youtube, Facebook, or TikTok? Also exhibition! They just message about it differently, and often have a different ethos about how they exhibit (e.g. tours to reduce stress instead of letting people wander, doing conservation or rescue messaging instead of just display). Second... look, most people assume that the word "sanctuary" means a facility is intrinsically more ethical than a zoo, and therefore they must be a good place. In reality, many sanctuaries get much less public and regulatory scrutiny (at the state level) than most zoos. There are good sanctuaries out there, but there are also sanctuaries where stuff goes on that would absolutely be unacceptable at zoos, and it slides because of the assumption that sanctuaries are inherently more moral and ethical and care for their animals better.

4. Most zoo profits don't go to conservation

This is correct! Direct conservation funding is often a small part of the money a zoo makes. However, that's because money goes to things like facility maintenance, new construction, paying salaries, etc. If zoos put all the money they made back into conservation programs, practically, they wouldn't have the funding to continue to operate. The question that I'd suggest asking instead is "where are they putting money into conservation" and "are they doing conservation work or just throwing money at something to display the logo of the program." Also, it's worth keeping in mind that a lot of what zoos do to support conservation isn't necessarily financial. Many facilities contribute "in-kind", by doing things like sending staff to assist with programs or teach specific skills, or by donating things like vehicles and equipment. Research zoos do also seriously contributes to in-situ programs, and breeding programs for re-introduction like the scimitar-horned oryx and the black-footed ferret are also conservation. Could many of the big urban facilities with huge budgets do more? Yes. But looking just at dollars spent on conservation programs is disingenuous and inaccurate.

5. Conservation efforts are band-aid solutions to capitalism destroying habitats / Returning the land to indigenous peoples to manage/rewild is the real solution to conservation issues

This is a little outside my scope so I'm going to only address the part that I know. First off, like, there's no One True Answer to conservation issues. That's reductionist and inaccurate. Conservation really is a human issue, though, and it often has to involve solving human problems that lead to negative results for animals. There's definitely an issue with what some people call "parachute conservation" where Westerners swoop in and try to tell people living in range countries how to best manage their animals and natural resources without recognizing their perspectives, needs, or what drives their behavior towards those animals. That's not just a zoo issue - that's an issue with a ton of traditional Western conservation work. And there is progress towards fixing it! In the zoo world, I've been very impressed with the work out of The Living Desert, where their conservation people spend a lot of time overseas teaching people in range countries to evaluate and improve their own conservation programs, so they can assess efficacy and also have data to apply for grants, etc. They provide support when asked, rather than trying to tell people who live with these animals regularly what to do. One of my favorite programs that TLD collaborates with (they don't try to run it!) is a group called the Black Mambas that reduces poaching by supporting entire communities to reduce the desperation for food/income, educating kids about animals, and running all-female patrols staffed by community members.

Overall, it sounds like your professor's view of zoos is really informed by their personal moral perspective, and possibly reinforced by a lot of the misinformation / misleading messaging that exists about the industry and about conservation work. They do have some specifics right, but not necessarily the context to inform why things are like that. It was a good catch to question the mix of information and approach it critically.

[dairy-farmer]

Jason/Red Hood rescues Hybrid Tim from a breeding ring. Unknown to him, Tim was already pregnant at the time of the rescue and due to his hybrid nature, starts showing a few days later with a huge litter. Jason takes care of him as best as he can but as soon Tim has whelped, he’s inconsolable, wanting and needing to be bred again. Jason can’t do it. Won’t do it. Resolves to ask Bruce for help, regretfully giving Tim to his dad but knowing Bruce will find a good place for Tim and let him live a good life where he won’t be forced to be bred again and again and again. Instead Bruce takes Tim in. And breeds him. Again and again. Jason find outs a few months later when visiting Bruce and a tearful yet happy Tim thanks him for bringing him to Bruce. Jason feels sick.

👀👀👀👀👀YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! jason doesn't normally break up hybrid breeding rings- that's more damian and selina's territory. so the breeding ring he came across was more accidental but jason doesn't take it any less seriously than a human trafficking ring when he sees the state some of the bitches are in.

they're dirty, bruised, there's welts on their skin from kneeling on wire cage floors and many look like they're battling infections. worse is that many look dead in their cages. it's definitely a shitty operation. sloppy and dirty. which are the worst kinds of breeding rings.

but the worst part- the worst part of it is how many of them have healed or infected scars running horizontal on their throats, all barely an inch long. the goddamn ring runners had sliced their vocal cords.

of all the bitches he frees jason finds one in a not-so-bad state. the bitch is heavily pregnant which might explain his better treatment but he also seems like a new addition given that his knees and injuries aren't as bad. he's the healthiest of the bunch. but that's not saying much.

out of the nine hybrids in the facility jason uncovers, four succumb to their infections. two more are put down as a mercy. and the last two are stuck fighting for their lives in a state run hybrid shelter. if they're not adopted out in a year they'lll likely be put down to make room in the already overflowing shelters. it's a shitty fucking existence. jason is pretty iffy about the ethics of owning a hybrid, he knows a lot of activists argue about how hybrids and their close resemblance, their ability to speak to humans should earn them the same liberties, but just as many activists argue against it, insisting they're still pets and deserve humane treatment but they're hardly people, at most they're just glorified parrots.

jason isn't like damian or selina. he doesn't have the in depth knowledge or the contacts to non profits or charities to best help the little bundle of hybrids he uncovers. he's also not on very good terms with either of them and has no way of getting in touch with them. by the time he manages to get one of them on the phone six of the nine hybrids are already dead.

and jason...god. he's not some bleeding heart animal lover but even his stomach churns at the inhumanity of it all.

so jason sticks around, watching as the police assists the humane society, sticking his nose in the operation and beating few names out of some of the ring runners.

in the end only one hybrid has the highest chance of being fully rehabilitated and adopted. the others have wounds that will likely scar which will lower the likelihood of anyone wanting them. after all most people only wanted a hybrid because of their beauty. healthiest hybrid is named tim and jason....grows attached.

the state is only willing to offer so many resources for rescues and tim is pregnant which will make the cost of caring for him and his pups even higher. jason hears that and...he doesn't want to see another poor hybrid from that shitty operation die so he makes a decision. the animal welfare group that assisted in the rescue are more than grateful to hand tim over to jason and allow him to pay for the care and rehabilitation. that on top of a heft donation lets jason get tim and the pups in his belly looked over by a vet within hours of his rescue.

tim is a sweet hybrid despite what he's gone through. he's young and cute. he must be having his first litter because his tits are still tiny.

he warms up to jason quickly, often rubbing against jason in affection when he returns home because all the shelters were full and also because jason didn't feel....comfortable letting tim out of his sight so soon. tim's a sweet hybrid. he's obedient and good-tempered, and affectionate. the vet had even noted there were no great problems with tim's teeth or other extremities. which was great news. a healthy hybrid meant a higher chance of getting adopted even though jason wasn't too sure about why the thought made him uneasy.

jason often had the tv running in the background while he worked and cleaned. one time the annual hybrid shows had been on. all pretty, skinny, and perfectly polished hybrids and their equally as polished owners had shown off their lithe and athletic bodies and finely groomed manes. tim would've made a killing at those shows with his long, dark hair, bright blue eyes, cute triangle ears, and long sleek tail. he's really a gorgeous hybrid.

jason does his best to care for tim as his womb swells with a litter of pups. he spends a lot of time of the computer looking up the care of hybrids and calling and emailing various sanctuaries to take tim. but days pass doing that, then weeks. and jason is still trying and doing his best to care for tim.

then, early one saturday, jason walks into his living room to the sight of cushions, blankets, pillows, kitchen towels, and just about every other linen in the apartment that wasn't nailed down piled behind the couch where tim had decided to nest and have his pups.

the pups are tiny- barely handfuls of mewling baby with tiny ears and tails, blindly searching for their mama and his little tits full of milk. they make indignant squeaking noises when jason picks one up and lays them on their cooing mother's belly. the sight has jason....fuck alright he blinks back a few tears at how proudly tim purrs under his palm as he strokes a hand through his sweaty hair and murmurs comforts.

jason takes them all to the vet to be checked over and cares for them all for another two months before a spot opens in one of the sanctuaries damian has a contact with. it's relieving. a godsend. jason is already woefully under prepared for caring for a hybrid. he's gone too much in the day, he's had to limit the times he leaves gotham. he'll admit...he'll miss tim. the company was nice and tim has a way of melting away all of jason's tension and anger at the world.

but then he reads the fine print of the sanctuary.

they don't take breeding mothers. they're not going to take tim.

but they'll accept the pups. pups adopt easier than sexually matured hybrids like tim and the sanctuary just does not have the facilities, space, or manpower for a pupped hybrid.

tim cries when the sanctuary sends people to pick up his litter. the gloved and masked volunteers coo over tim, comforting him, offering him treats as they remove his mewling babies one by one.

jason knows it was the right decision but he can't help but feel like an asshole when tim whines and whimpers for days afterwards, searching for his pups, nosing through his nest and making a heartbreaking noise when he can't find hide nor hair of his babies.

a week later tim seems to be back to himself and jason breathes a sigh of relief.

but then tim tries presenting to him. jason had read about it before. about how sometimes hybrids bonded to their owner and started seeing them as members of their species by attempting to groom and mate with them. jason had known that but he just hadn't thought tim would have also developed those affections.

jason is met with tim bending over and revealing a puffy, pink slit that's glistening with wetness to him. tim whimpers and whines for jason's attention, rocking his hips, scenting jason aggressively on the couch, pawing for his crotch. jason wakes up to tim on top of him, wetly grinding his pink pussy over jason's mound and asking to be bred, telling jason he needs another litter in him- he needs it jason!

there's a reason that hybrids rescued from breeding rings are hard to adopt out and rehabilitate. once a hybrid is successfully bred the hormones from each successive breeding remains in their system. it's why many owners opt to neuter before their hybrid reaches sexual maturity and why many show hybrids have twin scars on their bellies or on their testicles showing where their tubes have been tied.

tim is no exception. the desire to be bred again and again and again that his original captors had locked him into a cage to do is still there and jason is sickened at the thought of sweet tim being made into...into a broodmare.

neither selina nor damian know any sanctuaries with open spots for bred bitches and without a certificate of ownership jason can't take tim to get fixed and even if he did jason has heard...things about what fixing a bred hybrid will do. they become moody, aggressive, depressed, they become shells of their former selves.

jason can't keep tim.

not only because he can feel his control slipping because tim really is a beautiful hybrid and that horrifies jason- but also because jason's cramped apartment is no place for a hybrid like tim. one of those sanctuary workers had mentioned it when they came to take tim's pups, asking about how he managed to get tim enough exercise in an apartment. after that it didn't escape jason's notice how tim was often glued to the windows, staring out at the streets below, the cars and the people all going by.

tim had already spent enough time in a cage.

and jason....jason just wants what's best for tim.

so...with few other options....jason drives tim over to the manor.

the manor sits on acres of woodland and open gardens. there are streams that jason used to hunt for frogs cutting through the property. it's open and isolated enough that tim doesn't have to worry about being hit by a car.

bruce has the money and connections to ensure tim can have an incredible life. one that isn't wrought with being bred every waking moment of the day or stuck in a tiny apartment in the city.

bruce is surprised when jason brings tim along with tim's toys, bed, and various half empty bags of treats. he tells bruce the situation and how he found tim, he tells bruce about how tim has nowhere else to go and deserves better and that jason is asking for his help.

because jason leaves tim alone in that apartment for hours at a time, sometimes he needs to leave gotham for months and he can't do that with tim and tim...tim has become more than he can handle (jason decides not to mention his...feelings about tim presenting and attempting to breed with him.)

bruce is hesitant. he's never had a hybrid before though he knows his father had owned a beautiful one in his youth that was buried in the family plot with the inscription of 'daffodil-beloved pet of thomas wayne'.

tim does not take long to convince him. he's affectionate and eager to know this new person, he makes curious sounds and asks bruce what his name is while climbing around him and tugging at bruce's clothes.

bruce is besotted by the end of the visit and jason feels a little more secure about having to leave gotham soon to follow up on some tips for other rings connected to the one he'd rescued tim from.

jason is secure in his decision to give tim to bruce who will either find a suitable home or give tim the life he deserves.

sometimes bruce sends him pictures of tim rolling in alfred's begonias and others of him napping in the sunbeam of one of the reading rooms.

tim looks full cheeked and pudgier in the photos, his body showing all the signs of indulgence a hybrid like him deserves.

its a few months later that jason gets a chance to visit the manor. he's eager to see tim and how he's doing.

he doesn't tell bruce he's coming.

that's probably why he's able to catch bruce in an unbuttoned shirt and loose-fitting slacks, pushed down to his thighs, eyes closed and brow furrowed in concentration while deeply fucking his cock into tim while out in the garden on a picnic blanket.

jason literally catches bruce with his pants down when he presses a gun to his cheek and demands an explanation to know what the fuck bruce thinks he's doing fucking a hybrid that had been rescued from a fucking breeding ring.

bruce is annoyingly calm and its only tim's whimpering that gets him to put the strap away.

inside the manor tim is rolling on the couch and trying to get comfortable on bruce's lap. jason can see that tim's a little pudgy but there's a familiar firmness on his abdomen that lets jason know tim is pregnant. at least a month.

bruce explains. slowly. about how bred hybrids like tim can't just...stop being bred. tim was so well-adjusted and his attempts at initiating breeding seemed to indicate that whatever experiences he may have had- they didn't appear to form firm objections in his mind.

so....bruce did what any good owner did. he bred a sweet little hybrid that begged their master for pups and a womb full of a new litter.

tim is throughly scenting bruce and pressing close, every inch of his body indicating affection.

but jason...jason can't help but feel....disgusted.

he'd trusted bruce. trusted bruce to not put tim into a life where he'd be bred again and again and again. bruce hadn't been there when tim lost his first litter! he hadn't seen how depressed tim got!!!

was he really ready to put tim through that kind of pain again and again?

bruce frowned at that, saying of course he wouldn't! that's why he was going to be keeping all the litters he fathered with tim.

bruce was taking tim's needs into account- like he promised jason.

bruce wanted to give tim a good life in wayne manor.

jason isn't placated.

this isn't what he'd meant. it isn't what he'd wanted.

the only thing that makes it worse is tim piping up. he's speaking lowly and purring and thanking jason for bringing him to his new master, for giving him a home with a kind master that kept his womb full and let him keep all his little pups.

tim thanks jason for giving him to bruce with so much tearful adoration and thanks that jason can't even form an argument to bruce about it.

bruce has bred the hybrid jason gave him. bruce is planning to continue to breed the hybrid. and there's nothing jason can do about it.

[orcinus-veterinarius]

i actually used to be a very "WATCH BLACKFISH!1!111" "eMpTy tHe tAnkS" seaworld = bad sort of person. It wasn't until I actually started listening to people who considered themselves "pro-seaworld" or "pro-animal welfare" until I really realized something.

People base their hatred against seaworld against exaggerated or straight up false information. Sources like PETA/SeaWorldofHurt or the dolphin project are the most common ones that I've seen. PETA in itself is obviously not a good source whatsoever (the claim that Corky killed Amaya still astounds me) and I lost all respect for The Dolphin Project when they criticized Winter's trainers after her passing and suggested that they were immoral for rescuing her and letting her have a permanent home with her caretakers instead of just... letting her die.

No, SeaWorld's orcas aren't forced to perform. I visited SWSA this summer and Tuar just straight up decided to not do the splash segment. Kyuquot soloed the entire segment and Tuar still got his fish. Simple as that. Dorsal collapse isn't caused by depression, there are perfectly healthy killer whales in the wild with collapsed dorsal fins. A lot of the claims like "they separate orca mothers and calves!!11" are outdated too. The last mother/calf separation that was not for medical reasons was Takara and Trua in 2009.

Is SeaWorld a perfect angel? No, of course not. There are plenty of valid criticisms against SeaWorld such as their cancellation of The Blue World Project or investing more into coasters than renovating their animal exhibits. Just if you're going to argue against SeaWorld, use valid arguments.

Also obviously don't go after the trainers. It's honestly disgusting when I see comments like "I HOPE THE WHALE EATS THE TRAINER". Those trainers know that animal much better than you, Beth.

Support your AZA accredited facilities.

Yes to all of this. The Dolphin Project is every bit as bad as PETA. They're probably worse in some ways... to my knowledge, PETA hasn't illegally released captive dolphins into the open ocean. It's infuriating that their pages are what pops up whenever someone googles any topic related to killer whales or SeaWorld, and it's why I don't trust most people who say "I did my own research." A Google search isn't research.

[strangebiology]

I’m applying for a fellowship to research the environment as a science journalist

And I have to say, my biggest struggle with environmental studies is knowing what is actually effective, rather than theoretically, and feel good

I took a class at Harvard called, I think, sustainable economies of developing nations, or something. We had to write an essay about an industry that has environmental issues and how we could mitigate those issues

Every project, including mine, had the same format. We ID’d an issue, and our solution was neither necessarily practical or possible, or necessarily more sustainable.

I suggested replacing elephant ivory with mammoth ivory. From an animal welfare perspective, which is NOT the same as an environmental one, it makes sense: no mammoths could possibly be killed for the modern ivory trade.

However, mammoth mining does involve messing up the landscape and a lot of transportation. Some argue that by keeping mammoth ivory legal, people are easily selling their poached elephant ivory under the guise of legal mammoth.

Another presentation suggested that, instead of keeping civets/luwaks captive to make coffee from the beans in their poop, civet coffee companies should just let them free and collect their poop from the wild. I don’t know if captivity was a significantly environmental issue; it sounds more like it was about animal welfare. And...can people find enough civet poop to keep that industry alive, sustaining their own welfare? Should we just not do that? I mean, the coffe-philes I know say it's kinda just a gimmick and it doesn't taste better than cheap coffee anyway. But if we do away with that business, people have to make an income somehow, and are they going to do something worse instead?

The thing I worry about when covering environmental solutions is, are we promoting something that is possible? Probable? Effective? Worth it? Is it going to be worse? Is this just the idea of some person who doesn’t know what they’re doing, and it will never happen? Or it will only happen because they’re rich?

[roakkaliha]

i think something ppl dont get is that animal rights vs animal welfare isnt a question of ‘are or should animals be equal to humans?’, its abt what equality means in the case of animals in the first place. animals dont have the same needs across the whole kingdom, but to say animals should have the same rights as humans ignores that and assumes they have the same needs as humans. that isnt equality, since some species would do better than others under that system, but none of them would be thriving like humans do.

equality is to give them the same chances to thrive by the animals own individual needs and what their ecosystem requires. like, you could argue that its not equal to hunt overpopulated deer species, but if left unchecked those deer will die regardless due to starvation and disease. is it not equality to offer them a chance of a quick, painless death, instead of a prolonged suffering? is it not equality to stabilize their populations and heal their ecosystems so they can thrive as nature intended?

[fortressofserenity]

Two sides of the same coin

When it comes to Orientalism as it’s currently being defined, it tends to be an understanding of how westerners construe eastern cultures to be. As if the latter exists in opposition to the former, rather than being its own entity and one that has humanity as well. Sort of like how those in animal welfare and the like have a habit of begrudging the east for its misdeeds towards dogs, regardless of how Germans and the Dutch are practically no different when it comes to frequent dog poisonings on their lands. Sometimes the east is fetishised, sometimes the east is demonised. But it’s not always humanised when under a western lens because it’s often going to be othered in some way or another anyways.

Let’s turn to two major geek franchises to understand how Orientalist perspectives work in action: Avatar the Last Airbender and Mortal Kombat, both of them have happened fairly recently and despite whatever sincere fascination their own authors and creators have for eastern cultures, it’s still done with a western lens and mindset. Avatar the Last Airbender is a more explicit example of this phenomenon where on one hand, a number of characters appear to dress in traditional Han Chinese clothing and write in traditional Chinese characters. But on the other hand, the creators of this programme felt that the Chinese five agents system was unrelatable and not universal, so they went with the four element system instead.

The five agents system would certainly not be unrelatable to countries and cultures that are/were heavily influenced by China at various points, I have a hunch that a number of the power-based categories in Pokemon correspond to it (Fire to Fire, Water to Water and Ice, Earth to Rock and Ground, Metal to Steel). This shows you the debt Japan owes to China, which is the same for Korea and Vietnam. Such a system would not have been unrelatable to them in any way. Then we get to Mortal Kombat, an older example of such. I have a nagging feeling that Mortal Kombat would’ve turned out differently had it been created in Hong Kong instead.

Not only would characters like Kitana be actual Asians and more specifically, Hong Kong Chinese but also how Mileena’s similarity to her owes more to being an impersonator. Shang Tsung might still be a sorcerer, but Mileena would be his fox familiar this time. Also both Mileena and Kitana would practise real Chinese martial arts in-game, characters like Scorpion, Reptile and Sub-Zero would correspond to the Five Agents system themselves. Even if a Hong Kong based Mortal Kombat would retain the original’s martial carnage and characters, it’d still turn out differently due to the differing cultural contexts and sensibilities. It would be a Mortal Kombat that’s not Orientalist in any way.

That goes to show you how one’s cultural sensibility and upbringing influences something they make, sometimes in ways they don’t realise despite their fascination with a foreign culture. If it’s not something they constantly grew up with or surrounded by in their formative years, it’s going to shape the stories and products they produce and create. That’s why both Mortal Kombat and Avatar turned out the way they did, despite their creators’ sincere fascination with Asian cultures it’s also something they were not constantly brought up in and as a result, remain outsiders to the things they’re enamoured with. This wouldn’t happen if these two media franchises were created by actual Asians at the helm.

Though it could be argued that anime might not be any better when it comes to similar things, but for most of the part show an actual Japanese sensibility in action. As anime are made by usually Japanese authors, they’re going to be Japanese in a way Samurai Jack isn’t. This may not always be the case, but it’s telling how somebody brought up outside of the culture they’re fascinated with will usually remain outsiders to it, especially if they’re not constantly surrounded by it in any way.

[antianimaltesting]

Academic Perspectives

"The replacement of animal testing: ethical issues and practical realities," International Journal of Cosmetic Science

This peer reviewed article discusses the controversy on the use of animal testing in the cosmetic industry, and the pressure to "reduce, refine, and replace laboratory animals". To do so, the article discusses that we must work towards the development, increase funding, implementation, and acceptance of non animal tested experiments and cosmetics. Therefore we must create replacements that better the welfare of all animals, and testing that betters our welfare as well. Current trends that are encouraging the use of non animal testing include the collaboration between the industry and academic labs that work towards innovative experiments and procedures that pertain to human problems more efficiently. Furthermore, the EC is working on their responsibility for human and animal welfare through funding non animal research programs, with international collaborations such as international workshops on in vitro toxicology. Organizations such as ERGATT (European Research for Alternative Toxicity Testing) and FRAME have also collaborated with industries and continue to work towards the implementation of alternatives, and have worked in helping establish trans-Atlantic initiatives with organizations such as John Hopkins University. FRAME believes "resolving the paradox represented by these conflicting demands, was to reduce the dependence of biomedical research and testing on animal procedures." They work towards this mission promoting what the "Three R's," reduction, refinement, and replacement. The article also expresses the causes for concern, such as companies labeling products as "cruelty free" or "not tested on animals" yet it is not clear on what exactly is cruelty free or non tested - is it the finished product that isn't tested while raw ingredients are? or is it the retailer or manufacturer who isn't testing. Another area of concern is the opposing belief that humans must be offered "greater protection than hitherto." Replacement alternatives discussed in the article include the improved exchange and storage of information so that unnecessary repetitive testing on animals is avoided, as well as mathematical modeling of processes such as physiological, pharmacological, and toxicological systems. Furthermore, the alternative use of in vitro methods such as sub cellular fractions, tissue slices, and tissue culture can be used instead of animal testing. The end of the article, gives a concluding positioning statement that these researchers are 100 percent convinced that "given greater financial resources, time and patience, and the good science and effective collaborations which have developed in recent years, the goal of total replacement of animal tests is undoubtedly achievable."

"Section V. Policy Issues in the Use of Animals in Research, Testing, and Education," The Hastings Center Report

This peer reviewed article discuses that the United States public policy acknowledges that animal experimentation is needed as a part of science, yet the article also points out that on the other hand, inefficient acknowledgment and attention is given towards the existing policy of ethical justification of research protocols, standards and experiments regarding animals. Therefore, the article exclaims how the degree of public concern over these unjustified and controversial experiments, goes to show that this policy must be examined and have in depth addressed attention to the justification standards. The article mentions that testing is used to assess effectiveness, potency, or the toxicity of substances for ongoing or potential medical and scientific purposes. The justification for these tests is merely based on assumption of the potential effects caused by chemical substances being forced into animals. The article mentions how activists and critics have argues that some experiments, and procedures are unnecessary and cruel, and should be replaced by non animal testing alternatives. The article explains how revising the federal policy to include classification systems of procedures based on the pain of the animal could help address problems such as ethical cost benefit assessments, and can help rule out unacceptable procedures. Alternatives in the article include the "Three R's" in which have worked towards and achieved the fostering of humane concepts and practices. The article notes however that there is a distorted perception on the concept of alternatives that only focus on the replacement of animal testing, rather than the refinement and reduction as well. The article ends with the importance of improving the humane standards for laboratory animals, and refine the public policy regarding animal research in science and education. Immediate attention is needed for the implementation and creation of these policies and "would help establish humane standards that are in keeping with the public's ethical concerns."

In both articles, they both provide a set of alternatives and address the ethical dilemma regarding animal testing. They both also discuss the alternative regarding the "Three R's," refinement, reduction, and replacement and how this approach has been remarkably useful. The first article however, shows a bigger opinion on ending the use of animal testing all together and working towards a non animal testing world, while the second article focuses on addressing unacceptable procedures and revising the policies at hand, to be more ethical and create humane standards around animal testing in science and education.

References:

Balls, M. (1991). The replacement of animal testing: ethical issues and practical realities. International Journal of Cosmetic Science, 13(1), 23–28. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-2494.1991.tb00544.x

Orlans, F. B. (1990). Animals, science, and ethics -- Section V. Policy issues in the use of animals in research, testing, and education. The Hastings Center Report, 20(3), S25-.

[jynxeddraca]

Weaners

So I have had an interesting debate for the last 24 hours with some people.  Facebook, there’s my problem.  Someone I know commented on a video of a calf wearing a calf weaner and seemed distressed by it so I put her fears to rest by telling her that it is entirely harmless for both calf and heifer.  Oddly enough I happen to have some knowledge of cattle - both the college I went to school at and the big college where I live now both have big agricultural departments and I have an uncle who raised black angus cows until he got too old to do so.  I am also more than aware of the oodles of misinformation about the industry and that some people in the cattle/dairy cow industry are in fact garbage people which doesn’t help with the oodles of misinformation about keeping cows.

But that’s neither here nor there.  And for anyone who is still vague on what exactly a calf weaner is - it’s a plastic tag that clips onto a calf’s septum (literally, it’s a fake nose ring) that keeps the calf from being able to suckle on an udder.  They’re normally used when the person in charge of the cows can’t justify separating the calf from it’s mom for the month it takes to fully wean the calf (because most people do separate them out but cows are social and also might drop a calf at any given time).

Still with me?  Good.

So I pointed out that this was what it was, that it wasn’t hurting the animals at all, the calf is fine because it’s still able to eat - it’s just having to eat grown up food even though it wants to suckle, and that this is common because calves have been known to really hurt a heifer’s udders trying to suckle when she’s trying to wean them (hell they’re born with teeth).  The heifer is standing very calmly and is more or less ignoring the calf.  I looked up dairy cows and apparently dairy cows are well known to a lot of times not really have maternal instincts and have much more tender, more easily injured udders than beef cows.  And cows kick when they’re in pain.  You see where I’m going with this right? 

I got compared to a white slave owner justifying splitting families apart for pointing this out.  I keep seeing the same arguments that ‘the animal knows best when to wean’, ‘we don’t need the milk anyways’, ‘this is cruel’, ‘we don’t do this to human babies’, and my favorite: ‘the people involved should get their mouths sewn shut and arms tied behind their backs and see how they like it’ (I am not even joking about that last one.  Someone legit said that).

I don’t know how more clear I can be that it’s to keep the heifer from getting bit by a too-old calf with teeth that she’s most likely already trying to wean so she’s not injured and therefore not attempting to kick a calf to get it off her tits.  I don’t know how more clear I can be that the calf is fine.  The heifer is fine.  No one is distressed in the video.

Then they keep talking about other videos where supposedly the calves are ripped away from the heifers, hit repeatedly in the head, pissed on, abused, etc and I know exactly what videos they’re talking about - because PETA loves to makes these videos.  PETA has come under fire because of faking those kinds of videos.  While I am aware that some are not faked (see above where I mention human garbage) I am also aware of three things: 1) That’s not what we were discussing, the video we were discussing is a calf wearing a weaner.  2) I know how to do fucking research and buy from companies that don’t abuse their animals and 3) That the majority of cow owning people make their living off these animals and a healthy, happy animal will fetch a better price than one that has been abused and ended in a violent, traumatic way.

And now they’re bringing up pitbulls into the equation.  That’s it’s bad to kill a pitbull but stealing milk from a cow and eating steak is ‘okay’ and they find this contradicting.  NO ONE HAS SAID A FUCKING WORD ABOUT PITBULLS!  And yes, I find killing an animal who was originally bred as a companion animal that has a bad rap but has not hurt anyone wrong - while I also recognize that some pitbulls are in fact violent either due to breeding or training and have to eventually be put down to ensure safety of others.  I do find it tragic that those animals are put down over something that is not technically their fault but I understand the necessity. 

I also understand that humans and cows have spent the last 10,000 years shaping each other.  Cows today, especially dairy cows, are not capable of surviving in the wild anymore - thanks largely in part to humans.  I also am able to recognize that human are opportunistic omnivores and our entire society as we know it is largely in part because we were able to domesticate cows and plants for food.  That our society was built on eating animal based foods and much of the food people eat in low-income households include: milk, eggs, and ground meats because these things are 1) cheap, 2) filling, 3) and include most of the nutrients that we need to survive.  Also that, as with any lactating species, a cow will continue to produce milk long after a calf has grown past the need for it so long as it is milked on a regular basis - this is not harmful to cows and humans do the same damn thing (buying and selling human breast milk is a thing btw).

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

Like also the argument that sheep need to be sheared, that it's just a little inconvenience & stress & then they go back to their grazing, and it would be much crueler not to do it -

Yes this is very true, and important to understand. But the vegans are not wrong when they retort that it's only that way bc we bred the sheep to be like that, and if we weren't keeping them for agriculture then it wouldn't be necessary*. Either bc only wild, shedding sheep exist or bc, in this "ideal" scenario, we let all the wool sheep die out. Or slaughter them all at once to save them from exploitation, whatever. The vegan ideal is not just to improve existing animals' lives - generally they're not that into animal welfare, actually, just a perfect ideal of liberation/rights - but to replace this system with a wholly different one. Not just "instead of shearing, don't" but "instead of animal agriculture, [fill in the blank]".

When we say "this is necessary for welfare" we're not refuting their whole argument, because it's necessary for welfare in this system. We need to also big-picture address that this system, or a higher-welfare & sustainable/regenerative version of it, is actually a good thing to have, and better & more ethical & more environmentally friendly than the alternative. I strongly believe that to be true: a world where we use animals on the landscape and to feed & clothe ourselves is better for us AND the animals AND the planet than one where we don't. And in these conversations we need to, at least sometimes, argue for that in addition to refuting PETA-esque nonsense & lies.

[acti-veg]

Animal Rights vs Welfare

Gaining some knowledge of these animal rights issues is only the start, our next step has to be deciding how we respond to them. Most unbiased people who have made a conscious effort to learn about animal agriculture will recognise that much of what we do to animals is cruel and cannot be justified. We all agree that animals should not suffer unnecessarily, that chickens being crammed into cages and pigs lying in their own faeces is wrong, but not everyone agrees on what we should be advocating as a solution to these problems.

There are essentially two schools of thought on this, the animal rights view, also known as ‘abolitionism’ and animal welfare, as advocated by welfarists.  The differences between these two philosophies are profound, and understanding them can shed light on where a lot of the disagreements between animal advocates come from.

The theory of animal welfarism essentially holds that it is okay to exploit and kill animals, so long as they are treated humanely. An animal’s welfare is the primary concern, not their rights, and so advocates of this philosophy generally support animal welfare reforms such as bigger cages, cleaner conditions, CCTV in slaughterhouses and better stunning procedures. Most people who aren’t vegan are welfarists, or at least pay lip-service to the ideals of welfarism. A good example of an animal welfare organisation is the RSPCA or the ASPCA - they support inspections of slaughterhouses, stricter slaughter standards and better conditions, but they are not opposed to killing animals for food and even host barbecues as fundraising events.

By contrast, advocates of animal rights, or ‘abolitionists,’ believe that the central problem isn’t how we use animals, the problem is the fact that we use them at all. Abolitionists don’t generally support welfare reforms, since their ultimate goal is a vegan society and for all animal agriculture to be abolished, hence the name. For abolitionists there is no such thing as humane slaughter, and the act of killing an animal is intrinsically wrong, regardless of how it is conducted or which welfare measures are in place before and during slaughter. Abolitionists will often dismiss campaigns for larger cages or cleaning conditions on the grounds that they do not address the real issue, and instead see advocating veganism and for a legal change to the property status of animals to be their primary concern.

There is a widespread lack of understanding of this distinction. This is what leads non-vegans to so often ask why we aren’t ‘doing something useful’, like petitioning animal agriculture corporations to improve on how animals are treated, or supporting local farming instead of large corporations. It is also the reason people are confused when we tell them that we don’t support eating eggs from backyard hens, or why we won’t join protests which other people view to be in the best interests of animals. For many of these people, the concept of abolitionism is almost unthinkable, so they assume that when we say we are advocating for animal rights, we are advocating for their right to good living conditions and a quick death, not for their right to life and bodily autonomy.

Mainstream dialogue about animal ethics is still driven by welfarism, and all of the larger animal rights charities have campaigned for welfare reforms, even if their mission statement is to advocate for animal rights. The reason for this is primarily budgetary. In order to gain supporters and financial backers animal rights groups need to have wins, so they can inform supporters of where their money is going and advertise the good work they do. 

For example, animal rights groups will pressure a corporation to stop using veal crates, the corporation will co-operate and just keep the calves in slightly larger enclosures so that they’re not called veal crates anymore. The animal rights group sends out a press release claiming victory and praising the supplier for co-operating, which nets them more support. In turn, the corporation gets rid of the negative press attention and can boast that their veal is humane - it must be because even the animal rights groups support it. They get to increase their sales by easing the conscience of their consumer, then a short time later conditions usually return to normal with little to no fuss - only rarely are these reforms permanent.

The issue with this thinking is that despite almost seventy years of legislative welfare reform, things are perhaps worse for animals now than they have ever been. When welfare reforms are won in courts or agreed in boardrooms, like the CCTV in slaughterhouses campaign in the UK, the impact on the animals themselves are small. The real impact is on consumers, since it makes people feel better about consuming animals, which in turn increases demand. 

Consumers will respond to anyone asking them to give up meat that the animals are treated really well, how could they not be, since CCTV will be in all slaughterhouses in the UK? They won’t know that these CCTV videos aren’t made public. They won’t know that the footage will be reviewed by a small number of vets who will not have anywhere near enough time to watch even a tiny percentage of the animals being processed, and many have a direct financial incentive not to challenge what they see. Consumers will not know that almost all the cruelty inflicted on animals in slaughterhouses is perfectly legal, and so a vet seeing it won’t make any practical difference to the procedures themselves, or what animals are forced to endure. All they will know is that their meat was produced ‘humanely’, so why should they ever give it up?

This is why animal agriculture corporations who fairly obviously don’t care about animal welfare will nevertheless still negotiate with animal rights groups, because they know that these reforms will make people buy their products. The result is that more animal products are bought, which increases demand, which in turn increases the number of animals being consumed.

This really took off in the 1970′s in the boom of ‘ethical meat,’ with a growing awareness of the evils of animal agriculture people were becoming more concerned about where their animal products were coming from. Producers realised that they could capitalise on this concern for animals rather than losing profit from it, and so marketed their products as ‘humane,’ free range, cage free or humane approved, despite the fact that these labels legally mean very little. This is how consumers can see RSPCA approved sausages and humane certified veal, and never question why a group supposedly devoted to protecting animals would support products which literally cannot be acquired without their exploitation and slaughter.

Animal welfarism plays into this toxic idea that it is somehow possible to clean up the slaughterhouses and to make the industrialised slaughter of trillions of animals humane. Many argue that it is unrealistic to suppose that we will ever stop animals from being slaughtered, but the same could be argued of many other cruelties inflicted upon humans and animals. We don’t advocate for people to treat prisoners of conscience more ‘humanely’, we argue for them to be released. 

Similarly, Westerners don’t generally advocate for dogs to be treated more humanely when they are eaten elsewhere, or when they are used in dog fights, they recognise that a change in living conditions alone would not be enough. In no other context would the idea of reforming exploitation, violence and death be taken seriously, and it seems that the only reason it is advocated in the case of animal agriculture is because its victims aren’t human.

None of this is to say that animal welfare isn’t important; animals must always be treated well wherever they are kept. Yet so long as an animal is viewed as property, as commodities to be bought, sold and killed, their welfare will never be taken seriously. No matter how ‘kind’ the farmer, the needs and preferences of farmed animals will always come second to profit. If animals are to have any rights, surely the most fundamental of these should be the right to life, not just the right to have their life ended in a slightly less horrific way, or to live in a better cage before they have their throat slit. Those of us who claim to advocate for animals must surely defend their right to life as a bare minimum.

-An extract from my free eBook: The Green Road - A Practical Guide to Veganism

[nargisfirdous]

Halal-   Religion vs Science

 Millions of animals are being slaughtered inhumanely for halal meat, which requires draining blood in the name of religion. However, many would argue that animals have no rights at all, but there is a strong interest in protecting and respecting life and recognising the rights of animals in society.

UK Government guidance states with few exceptions (halal and kosher), all animals must be stunned before "sticking" (neck cutting using a very sharp knife), ensuring rapid blood loss and, therefore, death. Halal means lawful or permitted unless prohibited by Quran or Sunnah in Arabic. However, in the UK slaughterhouses, the Quran is engraved on the blade, and no one is standing there reciting Shahada (Quranic verse). I wonder if anyone would be able to tell the difference if presented with a meat dish from stunned and non-stunned animals? Would it taste different? Not. How many shops sell non-halal as halal by putting the poster of halal in the window. So why cause so much anxiety and stress for the animal. Religious freedom gives you the option to choose, so why not choose stunning.

 There is criticism about Islamic ritual slaughter, but Muslim authorities say the method is humane. In Islam, animals are home reared, sacrificing something you love, as  Prophet Ibrahim did, but now people buy from the cattle market. How can this method be humane when adults restrain the animal before slaughter, causing anxiety, stress and fear? 

 Science and the latest development in technology humanely promote slaughter. Why not make use of resources available for the welfare of the animals? Halal Monitoring Committee supports the traditional slaughter, and any use of machinery is against halal criteria. Although some Muslim scholars have sanctioned stunning as permissible for halal, on the other hand, the HFA health food authority approves the use of machines and stunning electrically before slaughter. There is a risk of bleeding; blood retention instead of complete drainage can alter the chemical structure and release of the hormone in tissues. This process of slaughter makes the meat haram.

I can't entirely agree with stunning methods because no one can tell the level of discomfort or pain felt with voltage. However, there has been development in technology to minimise pain and anxiety. Would not the most effective method be one that renders the animal into a state of unconsciousness first? Some argue that stunning only paralyses the animal making it impossible to know the pain threshold. I agree with this. The RSPCA is pressing for the law changes for animal welfare at slaughter, requesting Jewish and Muslim communities to review their slaughter practices. It is difficult for a state to intervene as there is a substantial economic loss if banned and better to accommodate religious belief. The slaughterhouses can achieve Religious obligations humanely with the help of science and technology. 

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

The Democrats need a new national symbol.  The Republicans have the elephant, a majestic and wise and noble creature.  Democrats have a donkey, which was originally meant as an insult; political opponents of Andrew Jackson (American Hitler) called him Andrew Jackass, and he turned it around on them by adopting a jackass as the symbol of his party.  Oh sure, in the 1800s you could argue that a jackass was stubborn and strong willed, but then as now you will eventually come to the conclusion that donkeys are just not bright animals.  Being called an Elephant is great!  Being called a Donkey is not so great.

There are so many better animals attributed to the United States; I say we adopt one of them.  I think the bald eagle is off limits for parties, so maybe something like an American bison, or a mountain lion, or an alligator (if you’re from down south).  The American black bear, or the Grizzly if we can get some support from Alaska or Montana (not exactly Democratic strongholds).  Raccoons are cute, but I think a party mascot needs to be a bit intimidating.  So that’s why I propose we bring back the Bull Moose!

Bull Moose Party, the Progressives, formed in 1912 when former President Teddy Roosevelt (1901 - 1909) decided to run for a third term.  It was a left-wing party, dedicated to the protection of human welfare first and foremost. It fought for 8-hour work days, workers compensation, and minimum wage laws.  It fought for women’s suffrage, the direct election of senators (who until 1913, were appointed by their state legislatures instead).  It sought to bust trusts and break up monopolies; it was reformist, it sought to modernize the state, regulating big corporations and PACs to fight corruption.  Conservationism, environmentalism, social justice, healthcare and wall street reforms; all the quote-unquote “pie-in-the-sky” dreams that Republicans and Moderates pretend we can’t have!

I’m not saying we go back to 1912; they had eugenics and shit.  I’m just saying we adopt the symbolism because of how strongly it is tied to Teddy Roosevelt.  Yeah, he was a Republican, but back in the day that was the northern liberal party.  He created the National Monuments and National Parks people know and love, he’s a manly man, he’s got machismo, he’s the kind of guy voters could just sit down and have a beer with, shoot the shit.  He could play to the salt of the Earth like he’s one of them, regardless of his affluent family.  That’s the energy we need, the confidence, the big personality that everyone loves.  Never meet your heroes, they’ll always disappoint; look long enough and you’ll find skeletons hidden in every politician’s closet. Teddy by no means had a clean track record, but the average American doesn’t know that.  They just know him as a war hero and a diplomat; he led the rough riders up San Juan Hill, he spoke softly and carried a big stick, his face has been carved onto a honking mountain!  We need to use this to our advantage,

Adopt the Bull Moose as the symbol of the Democratic Party, and integrate some (but not all) of Roosevelt’s progressive talking points into the modern party platform.  Let Republicans squeal about how we can’t have him because he’s their’s, who gives a shit? We’ll trade them Andrew Jackson, they like him, they can have him, but we’re taking Teddy Roosevelt.  For that matter, we could take Abraham Lincoln; the Party of Lincoln is NOT the same as the Party of Reagan, they are mutually exclusive, they had none of the same ideologies, they just used the same name for their political cool kids club is all.  We don’t have any cool Democrats.  Wilson is boring, FDR comes close, beloved by pretty much everyone, but he’s not as bombastic as his fifth cousin once removed Teddy (yes, that’s how they’re related).  Truman was boring.  Kennedy was cool, but got shot halfway through his first term, so we have no idea what he would actually be like.  Johnson was a drunken warmonger from the south.  Carter was an ineffective peanut farmer from the south.  Clinton was a pervert from the south.  I think it’s clear the south doesn’t give us good presidents. Obama, you either love him or you hate him.  I’m on the fence because I WANT to love him, but I know how the sausage gets made, I know he’s just as guilty as any other president that’s sat in that office, so it doesn’t make sense to idolize these very flawed people.  My point is, the Roosevelts sell. If we pitch Franklin and Teddy together, we get the good cop/bad cop dynamic, fire and ice, two of the most beloved presidents in American history united under one common banner to our advantage.

That’s how we can sell the Green New Deal; talk about the Great Depression, World War II, FDR’s policies pulling us back from the brink and onwards and upwards to the most prosperous and dynamic economy the US has ever had, before or since.  We can do good business without having to shit on the environment and the little people.  A Bull Moose Progressive coalition in 2020, 2022, 2024, I think could do wonders for this country.  It could be like a left-wing Tea Party.  We need to toughen up, we need to stop acting like failures and start acting like winners!  Ditch the Donkey.  Moose mean business, they’ll fuck you up.  A moose is big enough that it could actually go toe-to-toe with an African bush elephant; with those antlers, it could do some serious damage.  Give us a symbol that can hold its own; political cartoonists would have a field day with that one!

[in-tua-deep]

 Masterlist of AUs

okay i’m never putting anything under a read more ever again bc i deleted this whole ass thing and now i’m redoing it so forget me worrying about it being long af it’s what it is my friends

me, scrolling back through my blog: where tf are all my aus smh

(this is why i need them all in one place)

so without further ago, here we go (the title brings you to the tag on my blog, the numbers bring you the posts for that au): 

short stay au - Five jumps forward into the apocalypse and gets stuck, but not for forty-five years. No, in fact, Five is only stuck for one year before he figures out how to get home. Which means the Hargreeves get a lap full of traumatized teenage boy with no idea who the Commission agents trying to kill them are (one)

dolores is the universe au - Dolores isn’t just a mannequin, she’s actually the concept of the universe. The only reason Five can hear her is because overuse of his powers has given him enough exposure to the rift between world that she can reach him. But how to explain this to the siblings who think he’s just traumatized? (one, two, three)

immortal au - The first time Five died, he didn’t know it. The second time was harder to explain. The third and the fourth... well. In the apocalypse, Five figures out that he can’t die, which would be fine except every time he dies he resets himself to thirteen. Puberty? Again? Everyone is more than a little concerned about Five’s lack of concern over his welfare, but hey he’ll start caring again when he’s got further to fall okay? (one)

imaginary friend au - When Five was little, he had an imaginary friend named Dolores. He had that imaginary friend for far longer than he should have, to the point where Reginald intervened. And so they all remember this when Five pops back up toting around a mannequin and calling her Dolores, the only difference is Five has stopped giving a single fuck what old Reggie had to say and he isn’t giving up his friend again so easily (one)

instant arrival au - When Five jumps forward, he doesn’t jump into the apocalypse. Instead, he jumps straight into his father’s funeral. He sort of treats it as a weird vacation until he finds out Ben is dead and tries to return, and finds out he can’t. Now his siblings have to deal with a thirteen-year-old brother who saves the day by just being himself (one, two, three)

barking mad au - Vanya’s apocalypse was more targeted and only killed the humans. Five jumps into the apocalypse and instead of being alone, he’s adopted by the feral packs and colonies that have cropped up. He learns to bark and purr and growl and hiss to communicate, finding friends and family where humanity is gone. Of course, this makes returning to said humanity more than a little bit tricky. It’s not his fault his siblings are dense and don’t understand body language, ugh. (one, two, three)

pushed au - Instead of forbidding time travel, Reginald encourages it. He pushes Five to try it, and so when Five vanishes it’s Reginald’s fault. Written off as no great loss, the siblings realize how disposable they are. Who of them will be the next Five? Trust broken, they don’t stick around to find out and run away. When Five returns, it’s to a very different family who has learned how to depend on one another and protect each other. Together, they figure out how to stop the apocalypse (one)

memory mishap au - The siblings take Five’s hands and jump back in time, and it works! They’re thirteen again! Except for the fact that Five had managed to forget everything that happened since the day he decided to jump forward in time the first time. It’s the others turn to protect him as they run away. Five tries to get his memories back, but is that really what’s best? (one, two)

ghost five au - Five doesn’t leave. He stays, and when that one fateful day happens where one of them is slated to die, Five decides to bite the bullet and take Ben’s place. Even knowing Klaus’s powers, he wasn’t really expecting to wake up as a ghost. He somehow unites the family through the power of being irritating and getting Klaus involved. (one) 

broken five au - Reginald puts his foot down once and for all about time travel, by threatening Vanya’s life if Five puts another toe out of line. Five, fully believing his father capable of getting rid of the ‘useless’ child, shuts down. When his siblings find out what broke Five, they all decide to run away for their own safety as much as Vanya’s. They end up adopted by a woman happily living in the woods in her cabin who wasn’t expecting to adopt seven children but here she is and she certainly isn’t returning them to Reginald so. Seven kids it is. (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven)

run nanny run au - Look the nannies aren’t blind. They know Reginald doesn’t care about the kids and is looking at them like they’re weapons and not people, so it really shouldn’t be as surprising as it is that they decide to just take the kids and run one day. They are going to give these seven toddlers normal childhoods if it kills them, even if they have to dodge Reginald and the law as they do so. And no one forces Vanya to eat oatmeal like damn (one)

travel forward au - Instead of taking them back, Five miscalculates. It shouldn’t be unexpected, seeing as Five has never taken passengers before. But he manages to slingshot them directly into the future - into the apocalypse. The family gets a first hand look at how Five lived for forty years and gain a better understanding of their brother as he frantically works to get them all out again before they starve to death. (one, two)

daemon au - a crossover with the His Dark Materials universe by Philip Pullman, the Umbrella Academy live in a world where their souls walk beside them in the form of animals made of a material called dust. Of course, with these guys it can never be that simple. Ben’s daemon didn’t vanish upon his death and hangs out with Klaus, Luther and Diego’s daemons are always fighting, Allison’s is lazy and disagrees with her constantly, there’s something off about Vanya’s, and Five’s hasn’t settled yet. It’s certainly a bit of a mad house. (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, art)

plush companion au - Dolores wasn’t the only friend Five made in the apocalypse. A terrified and grieving child, he built himself a city out of statues and mannequins and stuffed animals. He built himself an entire world in his own imagination to keep himself from crumbling to insanity. Of course, his siblings have a few question after their brother turns back up and suddenly there’s toys turning up in the manor? (one)

atla au - a crossover with Avatar: The Last Airbender, aka all the kids are benders. In a universe where the Xth avatar is foretold to bring about the end of the world, Reginald manages to get his hands on seven children born whose mother’s hadn’t been pregnant when the day began. Apparently he’s training them to defeat this eventual evil avatar, but little do they know that said avatar is among them and tricked into believing she’s a nonbender (one, two)

suppression au - Reginald doesn’t just use his power suppression drugs on Vanya, he uses them as punishment on the others. They learn that their powers can be taken away on a whim and as punishment, and they’re forced to adapt. Five teaches Vanya the skills he learns to cope without powers, because without them they’re on the same level of competency. Vanya realizes just because she’s ordinary she isn’t useless. A more confident and competent Vanya results, and it changes the future for the better (one)

pianist five au - Vanya isn’t the only child who picks up an instrument. Five learns how to play the decorative piano in the mansion so that he can accompany Vanya’s practice. It becomes more than a hobby. In the end, when words can’t get through to the White Violin, it’s perhaps only music that can soothe the savage beast. (one)

artist klaus au - Klaus was a good artist as a child before Reginald deemed art as being ‘childish’ and forbid it. He forgets until he does some art therapy in rehab, and reignites his passion. He steals notebooks and art supplies and does drawings and caricatures for a quick buck on the streets. When the apocalypse is stopped, he also introduces art therapy to his siblings. It’s just soft tbh (one, two)

out of time au - Five doesn’t jump to eight days before the apocalypse, he jumps to the day of. He has to figure things out and figure them FAST. As such, he’s much more open to delegation and includes Vanya in this because lord knows he’s aware she’s more sensible than half his siblings. And if Vanya and Leonard argue when she wants to look after her brother that she only just got back well, if the apocalypse was prevented by this rift then it’s probably for the best (one) 

how i met your mother au - The Hargreeves jump back in time, but way back to before they were even born. They find their birth mothers, and get to learn exactly who they were, and it’s a little alarming to find out that they’re all people. The kids built them up in their heads as the monsters who gave them up, but they’re just people with hopes and dreams and fears, capable of mistakes and who had to make a choice on the worst day of their lives. (one)

responsible luther au - Five only spends a year in the apocalypse before jumping back and is relieved to find he has four years to stop the apocalypse. Except, Reginald decides that Five isn’t getting out of his hands again and restrains him. The last child left in the house, Luther, has a choice to make. And he makes it. He chooses Five, and absconds with him from the house. Luther tries to help a deeply traumatized Five recover, while also dealing with his reunited family and Reginald teaming up with the Commission to kidnap Five back. To be honest he should have only expected a mess when all the Hargreeves come together (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve)

in the trenches au - Just because Vanya is ‘powerless’ doesn’t mean useless. After all, Klaus doesn’t exactly have a combat based power. So Vanya was included, she was part of the Umbrella Academy, she went on the missions and killed and got hurt and risked her life alongside everyone else. Which means that she isn’t dismissed, she isn’t excluded. She’s as much a part of this as they all are, and that changes everything (one)

post apocalypse au - Just things I think the Hagreeves should get up to in a world where they have to deal with the fact that the world isn’t going to end and they actually have to inhabit it. They decide to try and live instead of whatever they’ve been doing for twenty-nine years, figuring out what they like and don’t like as they go where they were never really allowed to before (one)

late addition au - on one fateful day, forty-three women gave birth despite not beginning the day pregnant. Forty-three women produced forty-four children, and that one extra wasn’t exactly supposed to be there. Indeed, unhappy with the apocalypse plans, the Universe slipped her own child next to another as an almost sleeper agent of sorts. Five grew up with his mother’s voice in his ear, the knowledge that he wasn’t like the others, and a mission to take out the true cause of the apocalypse: the Commission. (one, two)

double trouble au - They stop the apocalypse, but that’s not the end of it because a few days after it all ends Five shows up. Except Five is already there. This is a younger Five who time traveled, except there’s no apocalypse to meet him now. Baby Five manages to convince his elder counterpart to see how long it takes the rest of the siblings to cotton onto the fact that there are two of them, and it’s downright alarming how long it actually takes (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight)

pride and prejudice au - The Hargreeves have returned to Netherfield to figure out the estate after their father’s death. Airheaded Klaus falls head over heels for local soldier Dave Katz, much to the chagrin of over-protective and pig-headed brother Diego. Fortunately, Dave has the fearsome and wonderful Eudora Patch at his side as his best friend. And his little sister, Dolores, is best friends with Five Hargreeves? And for reasons unknown, the Handler is back and sniffing around. (one, two, three, four, five, six)

poster child au - Klaus is a little bit more accurate with that fire extinguisher and Five drops through into the courtyard with a bloody nose and the beginning of a frankly impressive black eye. It’s looking like the poster child for child abuse that Five goes to griddy’s, and Agnes isn’t leaving this abused child alone out front, right? So she witnesses everything and ends up taking Five under her wing and rolling with the whole ‘stop the apocalypse’ train. Along the way she adopts six more children adults, falls in love with an assassin, and saves the world (one)

mechanical boy au - Five and Grace have always been close, in their own way. Away from prying eyes, with careful sentences and unsaid words. Allies in survival against a man who doesn’t care if they live or die. An exploration of a Five who takes more of an interest in his mother, and more in subterfuge. (one, two, three)

ben saves the day au - Instead of Ben dying, it was Klaus. Without his two favorite brothers, Ben drifts away from the family. He leaves when he hits 18 and doesn’t look back. He builds himself a life, gets a job, learns to live. And then of course he’s tossed back into drama central when Reggie kicks the bucket. On the bright side, Ben got one of his favorite brothers back. On the other hand, it appears that Ben got the entire family’s brain cells in the divorce. (one, two, three)

robot five au - Five is just like any of the other Hargreeves, except of course for the fact that he shares more in common with their mother than the other squishier members of the family. It’s a difficult existence, trying to be yourself when even just having free will is too much to ask. But a little trip to the apocalypse and back and Five is done with all this human bullshit and would like very much for people to stop trying to kill his family, thank you. If the others can accept Grace as their mother then on god they will accept Five as their brother. (one, two)

the commission boy au - The Boy was the only success in a series of failures regarding experiments with Number Five’s DNA, or at least the samples left behind after his rather explosive exit. Growing up trained to be the perfect assassin, the Boy eventually discovers the Commission’s dirty laundry. Mainly, the existence of Five. Assuming that Five is another successful experiment and his ‘brother’, the Boy betrays the Commission and embarks on a journey to discover who his family are, and more importantly, who he is. (one, two, three, four, five, six)

hogwarts au - When Five is ten, a woman comes to the house and talks about magic. Reginald tosses her out, but Five follows her and tells her with wide innocent eyes that their father bought them and is planning to expose their ‘powers’ to the world. The magical community can’t have that, and all seven children are bundled up and placed at Hogwarts. They still have their powers, which don’t seem to be linked to their magic in any way, but they’re not about to tell any of the adults that. (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven)

changeling au - When 43 children were born around the world, they became a curiosity that got the attention of a powerful member of the fae, The Handler. Changelings are traditional, so she sent off a minion to swap one of the children with her own - except something goes wrong. The switch isn’t made. One woman assumes she had twins, and gives both of them to Reginald Hargreeves. Five grows up with rules. Lies burn like coal on his tongue, he is bound to his word, and he knows the true power of names. The Handler isn’t willing to let sleeping dogs lie. (one, two, three)

timeboy au - When Five is young, he finds a blue box in an alley that feels like home. He finds a friend, the TARDIS finds family. She finds him again, over and over through the years. Five grows up with the TARDIS’s voice humming in his head, blue glowing on his hands. He asks her to teach him to time travel, and she does. But when he jumps - time screams. It’s wrong. It’s time for a team up between Five and Team TARDIS to fix the timeline, prevent the apocalypse, and learn some important life lessons along the way. (one, two, ao3)

supernatural au - In another world, 43 children appeared out of thin air. In this world, Reginald is a collector. Of what, you might ask? Well just look in his library. Reginald Hargreeves is one of the world’s foremost expects on supernatural and mythical creatures. Why, just look at his children. (one)

pokemon au - Blessed by legendaries, the Umbrella Academy aren’t entirely human. They look human enough, but humans can’t learn pokemon moves. Humans don’t have a type. Reginald wriggles through a loophole, and gets custody of seven legendary children, though of course there are only six on a traditional team. Sorry Vanya. (one)

gym leader au - the Hargreeves are certainly a power family since they were trained from infancy to be the best trainers they can be. Of course, being gym leaders means they’re in the middle of all the weird and wacky shit that happens. Don’t mention the celebi incident that resulted in the dragon gym leader looking like a teenager, for the love of god. (one)

unviable au - Time travel doesn’t work. It needs a conduit. Taking all of time into something as fallible as a human heart... Five gets to the apocalypse, and he doesn’t immediately realize that he can’t touch things any more. He can’t interact with the world. He figures he got stuck in a pocket dimension of some sort, and eventually manages to travel back in time - except the only people who can see him are Klaus and Ben. They tell him that he’s dead, a ghost, but that’s not going to stop him from saving his family and, maybe, the world. (one, two, three)

prophet five au - Five’s time powers are a little different than canon. When he dreams, he sees the future. A possible future. He spends most of his childhood tweaking and prodding at the world to make sure his family is safe, terrified of being discovered. And then he starts dreaming of the apocalypse, of a life he hasn’t lived, and he decides to change the world. But he needs a little help. That’s where Vanya comes in. (one)

delayed au - when forty-three children were born, one mother looked Reginald Hargreeves in the eyes and said, no thank you. She would raise her child herself, thanks. Except her son turns five-years-old, and he’s not safe. He teleports, and he gets lost, and - she turns to the academy in desperation. Five knows about the outside world. Knows that he was loved. Reginald is full of shit, and Five tries his best to save the world. (one)

tog/tua crossover - Five dies in the apocalypse and starts dreaming of other people. Andy has been confused about the immortal child she’s dreamed about on and off for eons. Nile joins the team and with the power of google search, they set off to find the mystery child immortal. Five, on the other hand, would just like to stop the apocalypse and maybe take down the commission thank-you-very-much. (one, two, three)

rebel vanya au - Vanya’s meds suppressed her powers, but her emotions were fine. Vanya grew up loud, grew up sneaking out and acting out because the only attention she could wrench from Reginald was negative attention. With anger in her heart, a friendship with her favorite two brothers based on bashing their father, and girlfriend Helen Cho that was maybe an enemies to lovers orchestra au. When Five pops back up, Vanya isn’t going to let anything get in the way or her and her girlfriend’s concert, so obviously they have to stop the apocalypse. Right? (one)

the red book au - Five finds several things in the apocalypse. He finds an eye, he finds Vanya’s book, and he finds Reginald’s notebook. Five finds out about his sister’s powers when he’s just a teenager, and grows up knowing about them. This... changes some things, when he hops back in time to save everyone. (one, two)

five meets susan au - Susan Pevensie is an old woman now, but that’s okay, because Five is old as well where it matters. They’ve both lived through loss and love and heartache, both know what it’s like to be too old to be so young and too young to be so old. They both know what it’s like to be lost in a world so different from the one they knew before. They both know what it’s like to be left alone. But that’s okay, because Five needed someone who understands him and Susan is the closest thing he’s got. (one, two, three)

oneshots - Just little oneshots, usually within the scope of vague canon or post-stopping the apocalypse times where I write about just family bonding and conversation I would like to see happen in canon. Usually about the siblings bonding and occur on a whim. (one)

[slushyseals]

why do we have to be careful with the spca?

There are a lot of organizations that claim to be charities that are just all around bad news. If you want to donate to a good cause here are couple tips to help you make sure it will go toward something good and not a scam.• Research before you donate. Put the charity’s name followed by “scam” and see what comes up in an internet search! • Donate to smaller charities. Big charities may be more well known- and that’s why your donation can mean a whole lot more to a smaller charity- for them it may be a bucket of water to help put out the fire, while that same donation is just a few drops in a much larger bucket to a larger charity.• Donate to local charities. You have a better chance of seeing the result of your donation this way- heck, if it’s a cause you care about you may even donate some of your time, and see first hand how funds are used (or misused). 

Unfortunately, a lot of well known charities are also not the best. Below is what I’ve found in my own research, but encourage everyone to do their own. Info I’ve found myself on why the ASPCA , SPCA International, Susan G Koman, PETA, and the Salvation Army aren’t ones I personally want to support and put it under the cut as the text is quite long. This just scrapes the surface for many of these well known organizations.

The ASPCA is not your local pet shelter. It is more concerned about profit- and funding commercials that guilt people into donating money to them.

Bob Baker, a former ASPCA investigator, told The New York Times, “show one picture of a mistreated dog and the funds would pour in… [I]t got to the point where animal welfare was not the priority, fund-raising was. It felt as though the animals were being used for fundraising, rather than using funds raised to help the animals.”

Despite having $115 million in contributions in 2013, the ASPCA only found homes for 3,400 dogs and cats, according to its annual report. That’s a cost of $34,000 per animal adopted.

Despite its name the ASPCA is not affiliated with local SPCAs and gives little of its money to them. In 2013, the ASPCA only gave $4.9 million to support animal shelters, a mere 4% of its $129 million budget.  In 2011, the State Humane Association of California (SHAC) filed a complaint with the California Attorney General about the ASPCA’s fundraising. SHAC argued that “ASPCA’s unfair and deceptive fundraising practices harm local humane societies and SPCAs by capitalizing on and reinforcing the widely-held mistaken belief that the ASPCA is a parent or umbrella organization to the thousands of humane societies and SPCAs across the country.” SPCA International misuses its funds- For example, $8 million dollars meant to save Hurricane Katrina pets stranded by the storm had no evidence of ANY animals being saved.

There are other SPCAs that are unrelated to this- research them! There’s a lot more than the scope of this post can encompass. If they’re local- check them out! Not all animal rescues are fraudsters.Susan G. Koman foundation (named after a woman who died of cancer, run by her sister Nancy Brinker)  SUES smaller charities that use “for the cure”. Susan Koman is for profit, not for helping people- rather than donating to help survivors, or screening, instead several hundred thousand a year just goes right in Nancy’s pocket. Taking the donations of people for a $411,000 salary for herself seems like a misuse of funds. It’s been reported that only 15% of donations go toward finding a cure.

I could write a whole post about how awful PETA is, how they misuse funds, and many of their shock videos they claim “expose” abuse they created themselves- sometimes with computer generated animals, sometimes bribing/forcing people into abusing the animals to record it. They also took healthy pets from vets who nursed the rescues back to health (puppies and kittens) and claimed they’d rehome them, but killed them and left them in dumpsters. They target low-income families and try to take their pets, saying any lie they think will make them give up the pet, believing it will go to a better home and richer family- only to have it killed immediately once it is in PETA’s possession. 

The Salvation Army, I’m not denying they’ve done good to help people, but they’ve also done a lot of bad things too. This organization is run by a church and having that dictate its beliefs- anti LGBT+ with a long history of abusing people who fall into this category, including leaving a woman (Jennifer Gale) to freeze to death outside one of their shelters. Abuse is not limited to LGBT+ in the Salvation Army’s shelters; occupants are regularly treated poorly by staff on power trips. Here’s some additional history on their anti LGBT+ stances (which they seem to deny?)

[sciencespies]

Vast majority of reptiles sold online have no protection under law, study finds

https://sciencespies.com/nature/vast-majority-of-reptiles-sold-online-have-no-protection-under-law-study-finds/

Vast majority of reptiles sold online have no protection under law, study finds

Rhinos, tigers, pangolins – we’re used to hearing about the mammals that are snatched from the wild so that their body parts can be sold. But did you know that you can buy and sell 36 percent of all known reptile species over the internet?

That’s more than one in three species, including the endangered speckled tortoise (the world’s smallest species of tortoise) and the Seychelles tiger chameleon.

Reptiles are consistently overlooked by trade regulations. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is the world’s mechanism for protecting wildlife in global markets.

This global agreement is supposed to regulate the trade of species to prevent them being overexploited, but a new study has revealed that more than 75 percent of reptiles traded online are species that are not covered by CITES. And as the online trade has grown, even reptiles protected by CITES are being taken from their natural habitats and sold to buyers around the world.

Reptiles are mostly traded for two reasons. In the fashion industry, their skins are made into leather. Reptile skins are what CITES mostly records, as this trade happens on a commercial scale. Thousands of skins of crocodiles, in particular, but lizards and snakes too, are shipped around the world to make boots, purses, and watch straps among other things.

Much less well documented, according to the new study, which I have also found in my own research, is the smaller scale trade in individual reptiles for “personal” use, like the pet trade.

Many are flown thousands of miles to be mistreated. (reggie35/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Scaling back the trade

At first, it may not seem that the sale of one reptile here and there presents a problem. But the wildlife trade is a global phenomenon.

The tens, if not hundreds of thousands of individual sales of reptiles taking place around the world every year add up. The result is that small populations of reptiles – some of which only live in one particular place – are threatened with extinction.

The demand for rare and unique companion animals helps fuel this.

Farming reptiles, or breeding them in captivity, is often touted as a solution, but this approach has its own problems.

Captive breeding has been a source of illegal activity in the past. Businesses that were supposedly breeding reptiles in large quantities to meet demand were found to likely have been taking them from the wild instead.

This kind of laundering is difficult to control unless there are robust practices in place to trace reptiles all the way from source to final purchase.

Captive breeding in the reptile trade also has horrible consequences for animal welfare. As colleagues and I have argued, the reptile leather industry is extraordinarily cruel. Animals are often kept in unhygienic conditions and slaughter is usually done while the reptile is conscious. That means many animals are skinned while still alive.

The pet industry is little better. Reptiles are crammed into small boxes and flown as cargo all over the world, enduring days without food and water and in fluctuating temperatures. There is no guarantee that they will be better kept once they arrive at their new home.

The biggest demand for pet reptiles is in Europe and North America. This is an important and often overlooked point: advertising the harm that the exotic pet trade causes could help reduce demand where it is greatest.

The new research illuminates some of the areas where our understanding is most limited. We known that many reptiles are sold as ingredients in medicines for example, but we know almost nothing about the scale of this trade.

This requires investigation, as does the role of social media – including Facebook and WhatsApp – in supporting the buying and selling of reptiles and other wildlife.

The new study also raises an alternative to the way the wildlife trade is currently regulated. What if no trade was the default starting point?

Trade would only take place if there was sufficient evidence to show that it would not harm the survival of the species. This precautionary approach would address the lack of data for many species and also potentially simplify customs checks.

It’s time to rethink how this trade is regulated, and our relationship to wildlife altogether.

Tanya Wyatt, Professor of Criminology, Northumbria University, Newcastle.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

#Nature

[thevividgreenmoss]

What is certain is that if the social movements of the present period do take hold as more permanent formations, they are unlikely to look like the labour movements of the past. Vast discontinuities separate our era from that time. The labour movements arose during a long period of industrialization, whereas we live in the post-industrial doldrums: ours will be a struggle over the consequences of industrialization’s end. This is not to deny the global economy’s continuing dependence on industrial production, or the existence of factory workers. But the declining share of manufacturing in total employment means that these workers no longer have the capacity to cast themselves as representatives of a more just and rational future order. Even countries like South Africa, South Korea and Brazil, which industrialized only recently and where manufacturing workers were pivotal in the struggles for democracy in the 1970s and 80s, have long become majority service-sector economies.

This change in the composition of the labour force will reshape social movements today in essential respects. Though automation discourse tends to over-emphasize this trend, it is true that direct human labour plays a much smaller role in the core industries than it did before; as Marx predicted, it has largely been displaced as the primary productive force by scientific and technical knowledge, embodied in vast infrastructures mobilizing both natural forces and machines. Many workers have been cast aside, forced to give up much of their waking lives to dead-end service jobs in which labour productivity rises slowly. The dynamic struggles that animated earlier generations of workers over who should benefit from continual productivity growth therefore fail to take place. For most workers today, capital’s compulsion to drive down production costs means only labour intensification without corresponding increases in pay.

Commentators have argued that however disaffected insecure workers become, they lack the power at the point of production necessary to press their demands. Yet, as it turns out, in a world of lean, just-in-time production, organizing to blockade circulation in and around major cities can prove an effective tactic. An early example was given in the piquetero movement in Argentina: unemployed workers blockaded highways around Buenos Aires to demand better benefits. Since 2011, this tactic has been sporadically adopted by workers in the us, France, Egypt and elsewhere.

In the autonomous spaces that can open up in the course of major struggles, questions of the nature and future of society are posed. Assemblies are generally open to all. Personal and intimate forms of coercion are not altogether absent, but there is a shared sense that everyone deserves a say in social affairs. Within occupations and on the frontlines of blockades, people do actually care for one another. They cook and clean and look after the children without expecting anything in return, although of course the materials they use to perform these tasks have generally been purchased within the normal course of the life they seek to disrupt by their actions. Such efforts do not merely indicate a cleaving towards a simpler life—whether in folk or völkish terms. Instead they point, however fitfully, towards a world of generalized human dignity, one with fewer borders and boundaries.

No matter how large they become, these protests have so far been unable to escape the limits of all struggles over the collective reproduction of the working class, whose deterioration, under the pressures of stagnating wages, employment insecurity and welfare-state retreat, has been extreme. These movements fail to rise from the level of reproduction to that of production, even when they call forth and combine with strikes in what remains of the industrial core. However much hope they inspire amidst the catastrophe of the present, mass, disruptive protests in our era have so far lacked a vision of a wholly different world—one in which the infrastructures of capitalist societies are brought under collective control, work is reorganized and redistributed, scarcity overcome through the free-giving of goods and services, and our human capacities correspondingly enlarged as new vistas of existential security and freedom are opened up.

Unless social struggles organize themselves around these historic tasks, they will not break through to a new synthesis of what it means to be a human being—in a world devoid of poverty and billionaires, of stateless refugees and detention camps, and of lives spent in drudgery that hardly offers a moment to rest, let alone dream. Movements without a vision are blind; but visionaries without movements are much more severely incapacitated. Without a massive social struggle to build a post-scarcity world, late-capitalist visionaries will remain mere techno-utopian mystics.

Aaron Benanav, Automation and the Future of Work - Part 2