To be confused as to why we’re not all sociopaths?

[User854]

This thought was triggered by the other thread where a child accidentally kills a hamster but seems to show no remorse; the child is widely being labelled a sociopath on that thread.

Are we not all then sociopathic when we gleefully tuck into our lamb chops that someone has killed for us? What’s the difference really?

I live in a town where meat works (as they are called here) have been the life-blood of the town over many decades. Some of my friends have worked in them. None of them have mental health issues. You must have really barbaric slaughterhouses in the UK is all I can say.

Thinking about the harm and suffering that is caused just by being a human at times, drives me nuts tbh.

So by that logic your friends are sociopaths??
Or do they cuddle the lambs to death in your country?

Seems weird to argue with a post which actually defends the humanity of people with such a horrendous line of work, especially if that’s what your town is based on and your friends do?

But is eating meat a good reason when we can live perfectly well without it?
It’s not like we are all starving and killing wild animals to survive. It’s not a necessity to have a lamb chop, it’s a pleasure.

so what is the difference between the pleasure of eating a mouthful of meat and the pleasure of seeing a hamster hit a wall? Would it have been ok if he ate the hamster because he was hungry?

So you don’t eat for pleasure? Ever?!

How about hunting as a sport?

Vegetarians don't eat fish ,Pesctarian,s do
But yes I don't really understand it either if you are not going to eat meat on ethical grounds ,why is fish ok?

I imagine it's a similar reason some meat eaters wouldn't eat horse or dogs. I know some that won't eat lamb.

Most people have a line when it comes to what they'd happily kill and eat. I can see why someone might be ok killing a fish, but not a lamb.

Please feel free to elaborate! I cannot feel a stun gun that shoots through the head of a calf anymore than i can feel a pet dogs broken leg, but I would rather neither would happen.

The crucial abbreviation is "imo"

I disagree. You'll label me a psychopath no doubt. I'm happy that I'm not.💁

People hunt for fun I think that's pretty sick. Does it make them a sociopath though?

Omg. An exercise in calling meat eaters sociopaths. What the hell next? 🙄

FGS.

Can you really not understand the difference between eating meat to live or because you enjoy eating meat and killing because you enjoy the act of killing for and of itself?

I like meat. I enjoy eating it. The only reason why I don't kill my own meat source I

1. I don't need to. I'll happily pay someone else to do that skilled job
2. If I had to I would. I'd infinitely prefer to be able to do it (the kill) with as little pain and suffering as possible

3.its absolutely delicious. And has made us the most successful species on our planet.

To be fair, paying someone to kill a sentient being for you is quite sociopathic, no?

The animals raised and killed for consumption are not Sentient.

That's why Cannibalism is not acceptable.

Are lions Sociopaths? Tigers? Chimpanzees? Leopards?

I hate to break it to you but yup, they are very much sentient beings. They have emotions and feelings in much the same way as humans (who are also mammals).

Also, you might find this difficult to believe as well, but you're not a lion or a tiger - both carnivorous. You don't 'need' meat. In fact you'd be far healthier without it.

@thereisaplacewhereIcango

Your posts show that you are ignorant on the point of how a diagnosis of ASPD is made, so here you go. HTH.

www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/#:~:text=Diagnosing%20antisocial%20personality%20disorder&text=A%20diagnosis%20can%20only%20be,or%20incapable%20of%20planning%20ahead

Cognitive dissonance, the ability to compartmentalise, the distance we have created between food and life, the justifications we apply..

I used to raise mice, to feed to my snakes, I couldn't justify keeping snakes and then feeding them on commercially farmed mice that life a short horrid life and a pretty brutal and not very quick death.

My mice had a lovely life, for as long as it lasted - space to run around, toys, food, the ability to socialise or not, as necessary...

I had to have a criteria, beyond 'which size do my snakes need', to cull out the feeders and keep breeders.

So I started with temperament - easy to handle mice stayed, bitey mice went.

I ended up very quickly with a lot of very easy, friendly mice. So now I needed a new criteria... pretty colours/coats.

From three trios of fairly boring short coated brown/white/gingery mice, I ended up with hundreds of coat and colour combinations.

My snakes also grew up and stopped needing pinkies and fuzzies who are not yet old enough to have developed full colours/temperaments, so selecting became even harder.

Eventually I was having to cull mice that were friendly, attractive, handleable, and that I had known a (relatively!) long time.

I couldn't do it any more, I stopped keeping snakes!

I started out able to compartmentalise 'these mice are snake food' and 'these mice are breeders'. But because I had to do the killing myself (C02 chamber), I soon found it increasingly difficult to do that.

People are a long way removed from the killing of animals in most cases, and it is easy to not think about it when thats the case. If we all had to kill what we ate, far fewer meals would contain meat, and we'd make much better use of what we did kill.

Moving away from animals - we make a BIG deal about celebrating soldiers, the military are in some cases a step away from sainthood - but these are people we legitimately send out to kill other people, for the simple reason that 'they're on the other side', and we do not typically refer to them as sociopaths or psychopaths - not if they're on 'our team' anyway!

Some places still kill people as a punishment and deterrant for crime - we live in a world where offing Grandma who is begging to be released from a slow torturous death is a crime, but giving that same overdose to a Death Row inmate is A-Ok...

Because we've built rules and structures and justifications for it.

I think this is really what makes us human, the ability to say 'you', you're a pet, a family member, you live and the other being over there is tasty so they die' or 'you are a murderer, you killed someone, but you, you're a hero, you killed loads of people'...

Well you've certainly nailed 'being irritable and aggressive'.

I can see AT LEAST three of those behaviours demonstrated by pps justifying killing animals. So thank you for highlighting it. Cognitive dissonance in action. 🐄💚

If you think I'm irritable or aggressive then you must be incapable of understanding that you don't live in an echo chamber and that people have different ways of looking at the world without being sociopathic. You also assume that I must be a meat eater for disagreeing with you(!)

You can reasonably argue that meat eating and hunting is unnecessary and / or unethical but you cannot argue that meat eaters are sociopaths because it does not make sense.

The sentiment here is the kind of thing I used to go around saying to others when I was about 7. I was a PITA! It is the Easter holidays I suppose.

Are you also of the opinion that farmers are sociopaths? Everyone in the royal family is a sociopath? Hunting is a part of their culture. People who marry into the royal family are expected to learn to shoot.

I think this explains it really well.

So what happened to you when you were about 7? Were you told by adults that your very reasonable, natural reactions and thoughts were wrong? How did that make you feel?

Honestly I've no idea about the percentage of actual sociopaths and their professions.

I just think we know better these days. We know that the animals we eat suffer, whether that's through their entire lives or at the slaughter house. All those baby animals terrified. Just think of all the stress hormones in their flesh that people willingly consume.

And we don't need to do it. So if you needlessly and knowingly do something that is cruel then what does that make you?

That does put a different spin on that story. Op, you're right, if the boy then offered to eat the hamster then his apparent lack of remorse is fine.

I live just down the road from an intensive dairy farm and run past it several times a week. The cows are under open shelters in closed pens. It's questioning my morals more and more. I'm already vegetarian and starting to switch to more and more vegan when I can. I can't escape what I see and when the wind changes direction and we can smell the farm it's hideous. There's a very distinctive smell that you don't get with normal farms.

It’s entirely different to kill to satisfy hunger than it is to kill for fun. People that go hunting because they want to kill things for fun are sociopaths. People that hunt only to feed themselves are killing for survival. The fact that so many people don’t understand the difference between those two makes me realise just how stupid they are.