McFrosticles

So, I was workin out over at my friend Dude #1's house...and we get a call from our friend Dude #2.

"dude, we are gonna race goldfish and see who wins"

"cool, in water?"

"no, on the floor!"

"..."

"don't worry, we will keep em alive"

"ok...I guess"

So, I finish my workout, go home, eat, etc etc. I then start talkin to Dude #2 on MSN about the fish.

"so, what happened"

"we flushed em all down the toilet"

"...wow"

"since when did you get morales?"

Alright, I'm not a PETA person or anything, but I still say that is still a very disturbing thing to do, and I'm pissed at Dude #2 for it. I think killing innocent things is wrong, and I usually always stand by it. "It's just a fish!" they say. I dunno, am I over-reacting? I think it's awful what they did, and I really saw no point in them racing fish for amusement and then killin em.

Thoughts?

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Carno

Yeah, I don't really see the point in unnecessary cruelty to animals, but some people like it I guess. Whatever.

I don't feel sad at the thought of animals in pain, and I have no problem with hunting, but unnecessary cruelty? Nah.. Don't like it at all.

maleficent

If they were children and did that, they would hopefully be on their way to a therapists office, it's been proven time and again that children who torture and kill animals often end up as sociopaths or even serial killers...

Dude 2 is old enough to know better, and is old enough to know what behavior is acceptable. Killing an animal, I don't care if it's a goldfish, or even a daddy long leg spider, for amusement is wrong.

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ratbastid

There's not a lot in this world I'll look at and say, "that's wrong". Generally speaking, I've got a lot of room for people to live life their way and to get their own kicks.

But that's wrong.

monkeysugar

That's pretty messed up. As someone who likes to fish, I do not have a problem with killing a fish if I am going to eat it. It's a quick, humane process. Since I don't particularly like the taste of fish, it doesn't happen often. When I used to have aquariums, I would occasionally have to "put down" a fish because of injury or something, and that was ok with me. I did it humanely and quickly.

Flushing a live fish down the toilet though....I've got a problem with that. Give it to a friend who has aquariums, donate it to a local grade school or high school science class, etc. Take it back to the damn pet store for that matter, but killing it slowly and inhumanely without purpose...not a fan of that idea.

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stevie667

Thats evil from where i'm standing.

From someone who works with fish and lives keeping fish, i find a - taking them out of water unnessecarily b - flushing them down the toilet disgusting.

Flushing a LIVE fish down the toilet is dispicable behaviour. That fish is going to live a fair while, in which time it will have every part of it's body burnt by chlorine and god knows what other chemicals, subjected to immense thermal shock, and other extreme trauma.

It may 'only be a fish', but people don't seem to realise that these animals do have personalities, they can be great pets, and are living creatures at the end of the day. Being a goldfish doesn't automatically make something have the intellect of a stamp, nor does it justify killing it without reason.

Would you race your cat in a pond, then bury it because you got bored? No!



Sorry, bit of a rant there, but whenever i hear things like that it really pisses me off...

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McFrosticles

Thanks...I thought I was the only one who thought it was extremely messed up. Maybe he's not a friend after all, cause he still doesn't care what he did.

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JustJess

Nope, you're clearly not the only one. That was definitely messed up.. and I'd have to agree - who wants to be friends with that kind of person???

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Carno

Well, I wouldn't give a shit about flushing them down the toilet, but that's probably because I would not have to watch them die. Out of sight, out of mind.

Redlemon

So, we all agree that Dude #2 is messed up? Good.

I wonder how long a flushed goldfish would survive. It seemed to be no problem in the movie Finding Nemo, but I'm pretty sure that no goldfish would survive secondary treatment at a wastewater treatment plant. But, could it survive in the sewer system before it reached the treatment plant? Or would it be killed by (a) reduced oxygen levels, (b) toxics in the sewage, (c) physical trauma caused by the flushing operation, or (d) other?

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stevie667

A bog standard goldfish, probably a good few hours in the sewer system, maybe more. As you said, it wouldn't survive treatment.

The most likely cause of death would be stress, caused by sewage toxins. Goldfish are hardy little guys, it does take a lot to kill them relative to other fish, and because they already live in a cold (relative) water enviroment, thermal shock generally wouldn't really kill them the same way it would a tropical fish.

Sewage toxins, such as ammonia, nitrite, chemicals e.t.c would cause an immense amount of physilogical, and psycological stress on the poor citter, which is where death would most likely occur. In a cleaner sewage system, i'd imagine physical damage from fast currents may do the damage.

Then theres always the possibilty it could drown.

To be honest, theres just so many ways death could occur i don't really want to think about it, or list them, but surfice to say, it would be slow and painfull.

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Carno

Ahhhh, but do fish feel pain?

Master_Shake

I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with this. Granted, it’s not how I like to spend my free time, but it seems that the reasons people object to the treatment of the fish are two-fold, neither of which is really a moral viewpoint.

First, humans view the fish anthropomorphically. It’s become common to impose our morality on unhuman things which have no morality, and to identify with these things. I think this is partially instinctual, but also the by-product of those terrible Disney movies with talking animals. If the animals can talk, then they must have feelings, thoughts, dimensions, and can even be equal to a human, right? I think that is incorrect. While intelligence and sentience may be more of a sliding scale than previously imagined (humans, dolphins all the way down to amoebas and algae) I don’t think anyone can realistically argue that the lives of goldfish are important in their own right. The previous posts bear this out.

We like them because of their relationship to us, not because we respect the fish.

But so are bugs, germs and possibly viruses. Being a living creature clearly is not the threshold upon which respect of rights must be based. We would do well to examine the goldfish qua goldfish instead of seeing it as a younger brother.

Again, see the application of human ideas of proper behaviour with those of fish. Should we really be concerned about giving a goldfish a “quick, humane process”?

Perhaps we should offer it a goldfish process? What is the goldfish process? Well, one need only watch the Discovery channel to see the ruthless and amoral world that is underwater life. It is doubtful that the goldfish would have passed more peacefully were it allowed to experience a proper goldfishian death.

Second, humans view the effect the killing has on the person, rather than on the fish.

(I don't think that's quite accurate. A better way to say it might have been that torturing animals as a child may be one of many indicators of sociopathic tendencies. Let's not throw some drunken frat boys under the bus so quickly.)

However, this illustrates my second point, that we respond not to the death of the goldfish itself, but rather to what we view as the immoral actions of the person involved. This is closely connected with the first point. We wouldn’t approve of a person cruelly flushing another person down the drain (well, probably not) so we shouldn’t approve of a person cruelly flushing a goldfish down the drain.

The insinuation being that anyone who would behave in such a manner with a goldfish would behave just as abominably with humans. It is the person's actions which are the concern, not the life of the goldfish.

Even assuming that one can assign a goldfish rights, does that mean we have to respect those rights? At what cost? Granted, the guy here was only killing out of enjoyment, but if you object to that then what would be a legitimate reasons for killing unhuman animals? If there are no such reasons, then are we under an affirmative duty to provide all animals with medical care? And what about animal on animal crime, are we under an obligation to end that as well?

By erasing the distinctions between humans and animals one can behave more humanely toward the animals, and they do receive the benefit of such actions. But the actions are not without an equal reaction, and the elevation of animalia proportionally reduces the value of humanity.

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frogza

Deliberately causing harm to a living animal in the name of entertainment demonstrates a frightening psychosis in the person who engages in such behavior. Being entertained by torturing and killing is sick.

Grasshopper Green

I agree with the majority of the above posters...finding amusement in torturing another living thing is wrong.

I never really thought much about fish as pets until my mother in law gave my son a goldfish as a pet. Oscar definitely has his own personality; he gets excited and rapidly swims about when we come in the room. He's not just some dumb animal, and the thought of someone doing that to him makes me ill.

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stevie667

Yes, it's been proven many many times.


Master shake: you seem to be suggesting that killing the goldfish is ok, because we as humans are somehow better, or our morals allow us to, i really didn't see a point to what you were saying beyond that, could you give me a brief run-down?

I'm not sure how everyone else feels, but i do respect my fish, i spend thousands upon thousands of pounds to make them feel happy, to make their standard of living better and better, because they fascinate me. I've kept fish who hate me because i loved watching how their interacted with other fish, and i've kept ones who i've been very close to. Yes, i may be slightly more into fish than most, but it gives me a greater understanding of what they are.

Would you allow someone to kill a hamster or a cat for fun? Where do you draw the lines?

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Master_Shake

Clearly, in fact it's been proven so many times that you couldn't help but cite to such proofs.

In fact, there are still differing viewpoints. While nearly all animals respond to stimuli, that doesn't mean that they are experiencing pain, or that they experience pain the same way humans do.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/...?oneclick=true

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2983045.stm

But again, you are assigning human ideas to fish. The life of the fish is a difficult one. Fish spare each other no mercy. While humanity has occasionally been able to accept the idea that the pain of other humans is a negative thing to cause, fish have shown no such signs of accepting a similar idea.

Why should we be required to treat fish as humans considering they don't treat themselves as anything other than fish?

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BigBen

A buddy of mine asked if I could take his fish, because "He wasn't doing well with others..."

I had to ask, "What do you mean? Is he not letting the other fish join in the fucking Reindeer games? Is he ridiculing the size of their genitalia? Help me out here..."

"No, dude, he is EATING THE OTHER FISH. I have some very expensive fish here, and the fact that he is having a sushi platter every day is killing me. Help me out here. You have an aquarium, do you want it, or should I flush it?"

I thought about the FLUSHING thing that has been referred to in the other posts here, and so my heart melted for the little guy and I took him (her? Who cares) in. He made a home under a rock that I had, and made himself comfortable. I was flattered that he settled in so quickly. My other fish could care less.

Then I counted, and one of the original fish was missing.

Then another.

THEN 1 PER DAY UNTIL THIS PSYCHOPATH HAS EATEN ALL MY FISH FRIENDS. I ask you, my fellow pacifists, what would you have me do? Do I kill the killer? He is only eating, after all, the whole cycle of life thing. He is doing what comes naturally. I guess the other fish are also doing what comes naturally, which is DYING!! The perpetrator will not eat any of the special food I have bought him, and instead he is sitting in the tank, alone, in his cool home he made himself, waiting for me to go buy more fish for him to MURDER.

I have since refused to buy more fish for him to kill, and instead I have bought different types of special food. He still has not eaten. I cannot tell if he is starving, but I also don't want to turn this into a FEEDING TUBE issue. The politicians have muddied those waters enough, without me asking my friendly local ethicist if fish are included in the court decision.

I AM BEGGING YOU FELLOW TFP'ERS FOR GUIDANCE. WHAT SHOULD I DO?!?

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Master_Shake

I absolutely don't think humans are better than fish. But we are different. All I suggest is that we treat similar things similarly, but that we don't assign human values to unhuman things.

EDIT:

I'm not sure it's up to me to allow people to do anything, but probably yes. I don't see myself as being so closely related to hamsters or cats that I fear the person will suddenly turn on me because he/she can't differentiate between species. I also recognize that many hamsters and many cats die every day, often as a result of the actions of other unhuman animals, and I have no more desire to stop these actions than of the human.

Were the person to attempt to kill another person, then yes I would like to see him/her prevented from doing so.

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Master_Shake

Which do you value more, the new fish, or your old ones? Were I in your situation, I might side with the older fish because they were fish I had intentionally chosen, and I might have formed more of an emotional bond with them. But perhaps the new fish is more entertaining, or fufills more of my fish desires than the others. In which case I would keep the new one.

You clearly have a difficult decision on your hands.

EDIT:

I wouldn't worry about the fish eating other fish, that's what fish do. And even the special food you bought is probably organic material of some kind, so it was alive at one point and has been killed for this fish. Can you afford to continue feeding the fish live fish? And if so, do you want to? Does the fish provide you with some sense of enjoyment, fufillment or other such feeling that instills good feelings in you? If not, I say dump the sucker.

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You know something, I don't think the sun even... exists... in this place. 'Cause I've been up for hours, and hours, and hours, and the night never ends here.

stevie667

Thats fair enough, i'm not saying we should treat fish better than humans (although some humans don't deserve to be treated as well as fish, but thats another debate altogether).

Do you keep pets yourself?

The reason i didn't list any examples was because it's late in the evening, and i can't be arsed to go trapsing around the net for examples. I've worked with fish, i keep fish, i live fish, they can feel pain.

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*Nikki*

Um...keep him in a tank by himself?

stevie667

Check your PM's.

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Willravel

^hit the nail on the head^
As a psychologist (shrinker of heads), this is one of the warning signs for sociopathic tendencies. Is your friend a pathological liar? Does he have a lack of empathy? Does he skirt responsibility? Is he superficially charming?

McFrosticles

Wow...

YOU hit the nail right on the head

YES, all of these things...which is scary

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McFrosticles

I hate to double post...but get this

So, me and my friends all run a website. Well I posted I was quitting the site (because of this issue...i'm still freaked out) and I didn't give reasons for quitting....but I gave small clues.

Let's just say Dude #2 and his friend who was involved are really really scared right now.

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MSD

I heard a sewage treatment expert talking bout this on CNN (thanks to Finding Nemo) and he basically said that the fish would probably die within minutes inthe sewer, but i he did make it to the sewage plant, he would be shredded by the first stage of treatment, which is a huge spinning stack of blades, named (for unknown reasons) the "muffin grinder," that breaks solid waste into dust-sized particles.

Willravel

1-4% of people are sociopathic. Most are able to control it within the limits of social tolerability, only being termed "socially obnoxious". I'd be willing to bet that your friend is only socially obnoxious. It is when the beehavior becomes criminal that they require professional assistance. For now, we'll just call him a dick.

Just a friendly word of warning: it is not a good idea to surround yourself with friends who have sociopathic tendencies. It is possible to learn behavioral traits from people in your normal environment even without meaning to. As the fish thing is clearly the tip of the iceburg, I'd omit him from your circle of mentally healthy friends. Also, (before I forget) people like your friend tend to attract followings, as the people mistakenly see the display of juvenile delinquency as leadership skills. Just something to keep your eyes out for.

ryborg

I don't think its funny either. I knew a guy that liked killing rats for his snake way too much. It was disturbing and I don't think it was amusing at all.

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ryborg

What a delightful visual.

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Willravel

Also, remember that sociopath is an actual psychological term. Psychopath is not. The closest thing to a psychopath is Antisocial Personality Disorder. There is no certian cure for Antisocial Personality Disorder, but I'd say your friend might benifit from about 20 years of therepy and possibly some medication.

omega2K4

Call your pet store or whatever, a friend of mine had the same problem. They actually took the fish for him. He just had to get a huge bag and fill it with water, and drive it to the store.

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Redlemon

Ah yes, I forgot about that step. It's been about 10 years since I toured a wastewater treatment plant. I don't recommend it.

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JustJess

If the fish were living in the wild, then so be it. Fight, die, live the normal cycle of a fish in its natural environment. But once we mess with that natural cycle of life and force the animal to exist on our terms, there is an implicit assignation of responsibility for that animal's wellbeing.
I.e. don't get the fish if you're just going to torture it - it's not right, not by the laws with which humans govern ourselves. This isn't about how the fish might normally live or die because we've taken the normal cycle out of the equation. We are responsible now. We should act like it.

My example is my brother - he had a cat that ended up, for whatever reason (tho I suspect it was the manner with which the cat was treated), peeing on his bed on a semi-regular basis. Rather than take responsibility to at least find the cat a home where he could go outside and have less of the stress that was causing the peeing, he said he didn't care what happened to the cat, it could be euthanized or shot for all he cared. That was wrong. Once he adopted the cat, it was HIS responsibility to make sure the cat was cared for properly, whether that cat would have died under different circumstances is irrelevant. He imposed the current circumstances on that cat.

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HAL3000

That's sort of what I was thinking.


I'm not saying it was a "GOOD" choice... but there were just goldfish.

tuner

I always kill insects that invade my space. Especially spiders, can't stand them. If I see a spider on the sidewalk and I know I can step on it, I will. If I see a fly I can swat, I will. I hate insects. And yes, I know, they are a huge part of the ecosystem, most biodiverse category, blah blah... I still don't like them and really don't care extinguishing them. Ecology aside, I wouldn't mind if I could just press a button and vanguish all spiders on the face of the earth (Am I the only one here who NEVER thinks that an insect can feel pain?)

About the goldfish, I don't know... It's fish, not some large animal. It's not like fish really react to people like dogs or cats, they rarely (if ever) show signs of any "intelligence", so it's kind of difficult for me to feel sorry for two goldfish flushed down the toilet. My experience tells me that goldfish don't live that long in an aquarium anyway... So I guess I don't really care, although I'd never do something like that.

Willravel

It's less about the amount of pain the organism has, and more about the intent of the torturer. Pulling a spiders legs off to see how long it can stay alive is much different than stepping on it. Likewise, when McFrosticles' friend simply allowed the fish to die in a game with no concern for the loss of life - and the enjoyment of their dying -, he crossed a very important line between unfortunate accedent and intent on causing harm to another living being.

stevie667

Goldfish can, and do, have a lifespan of 20 years +, we used to have a goldy at work that was 9.
Unfortunatly, because they arn't kept properly, the average life span of a golfish in an aquarium is 3 weeks, which is a damned shame.


The golfish has sucumbed to myth about it's intelect and lifespans. Granted, they're not generally the sharpest tool in the shed, but they still do have personalities, you just have to pay enough attention to see them. Also, because of their hardiness even under the most extreme of conditions, people seem to think that it's ok to keep them poorly. Would you keep a dog in a small kennel without cleaning it? The dog may survive, but it's not going to enjoy it's life. The same with fish.

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McFrosticles

I also have a pet goldfish (another reason I found their actions wrong). His name is Alvin and he's 2 years old!

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dX927

It sounds like the type of things idiots would do when they're bored, so yeah.