[dsacco]

> If humans pretend to be more intelligent than animals

Sorry, what?

Humans are only capable of conceiving of religion and destroying the planet because they are more intelligent than other animals. I'm not a religious person, but it's a bit offensive to imply humans that believe in religion are less intelligent than canines, don't you think? And animals don't destroy the planet because, for the most part, they're incapable of it - many species frequently do things that destroy their ecosystem, they are simply limited in their ability to do it rapidly. It's not as though lions have a righteous crusade against depleting all the gazelle, or beavers against destroying forests to build dens. If they could amplify their activity by leveraging the intelligence we have they would oversaturate their environments too.

Your definition of intelligence seems to be moralistic, not empirical. Moreover it's inconsistent - I'm inferring that you don't eat animals now because you believe they're intelligent, and it's cruel. What's your opinion on animals consuming other animals if they're so intelligent?

Circling back to your opening claim: dogs do not think "better" than humans for any definition of "think" that primarily involves executive reasoning skills. Our prefrontal cortex development directly contributes to our superlative intellectual ability.

[zpghjll]

Cruelty depends on knowing what is moral and choosing to do something immoral. In this case, humans are cruel for knowing animals are sentient yet still subjecting them to horrible conditions and painful lives just to satisfy our pallette. The lion is not cruel for eating the zebra because it is necessary for its survival.

[strictnein]

The cattle on farms wouldn't be off roaming the countryside if we didn't eat them. They just simply wouldn't exist at all.

[bijection]

Is unpleasant existence always better than nonexistence?

Put another way, would you make the same argument if the creatures in question were people?

[baddox]

Might it be moral to destroy all life on Earth, thus ending all pain?

[strictnein]

This is always what I assumed a genie would do if you wished for world peace.

[zpghjll]

Yeah, that's the plan. Animals aren't ours, and we should not interfere with their natural selection.

[booleandilemma]

Humans are the animal that have the best shot at getting off this rock and spreading the DNA we all share to other rocks.

[dharma1]

Two counterarguments:

1) self-sustaining space travel is more likely to be achieved by AI/robots, DNA or biological beings in general aren't well suited to space travel

2) Humans are the animal that have the highest risk of making the Earth uninhabitable before anything that can be self-sustaining leaves this planet

[pvaldes]

... and chicken. We'll need lots of chicken.