Science, Technology & the Future | Asher Soryl - The Myth of Bambi: The Idyllic View of Nature and Wild Animal Suffering @scfu | Uploaded June 2024 | Updated October 2024, 50 minutes ago.
When we think about the lives of free-living wild animals, it is easy to imagine that they have acceptable levels of welfare when left alone in nature. But if we consider the population dynamics and most common life history strategies of free-living wild animals, we find that many – perhaps most – individuals who come into existence lead very short lives, and the manner of their deaths plausibly involves considerable suffering. This suggests that their welfare might be very poor, which has serious implications on how we conceive of our ethical attitudes toward helping wildlife. This talk will explore some of the reasons for why suffering might be so prevalent in nature, and aims to show that the commonly held belief about wild animals being 'happy' when left alone is unsubstantiated.
Bio: Asher Soryl is an independent researcher at More Lucid, a PhD candidate at the University of Otago, and a part-time orangutan at 'Arataki.me'. His current projects concern directed panspermia, valence, phenomenology, and alternative ontologies for studying brain aging and consciousness.
ashersoryl.com
arataki.me
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- Science, Technology & the Future - #SciFuture - scifuture.org
When we think about the lives of free-living wild animals, it is easy to imagine that they have acceptable levels of welfare when left alone in nature. But if we consider the population dynamics and most common life history strategies of free-living wild animals, we find that many – perhaps most – individuals who come into existence lead very short lives, and the manner of their deaths plausibly involves considerable suffering. This suggests that their welfare might be very poor, which has serious implications on how we conceive of our ethical attitudes toward helping wildlife. This talk will explore some of the reasons for why suffering might be so prevalent in nature, and aims to show that the commonly held belief about wild animals being 'happy' when left alone is unsubstantiated.
Bio: Asher Soryl is an independent researcher at More Lucid, a PhD candidate at the University of Otago, and a part-time orangutan at 'Arataki.me'. His current projects concern directed panspermia, valence, phenomenology, and alternative ontologies for studying brain aging and consciousness.
ashersoryl.com
arataki.me
Many thanks for tuning in!
Please support SciFuture by subscribing and sharing!
Have any ideas about people to interview? Want to be notified about future events? Any comments about the STF series?
Please fill out this form: docs.google.com/forms/d/1mr9PIfq2ZYlQsXRIn5BcLH2onbiSI7g79mOH_AFCdIk
Kind regards,
Adam Ford
- Science, Technology & the Future - #SciFuture - scifuture.org
