Hey!

There was some discussion in the "Most of the world's animal suffering occurs in the wild" fb group as regards whether or not it might be worth donating to "speciesism: the movie" as they're currently looking for donations on their kickstarter (links below).

I was on their fb page when I noticed a comment asking that Oscar Horta be interviewed for the movie. This would be really great because one of the things Oscar Horta is concerned about is wild animal suffering (as well as other anti-speciesist stuff!)
It seems quite likely (to me anyway) that they wouldn't be interested in having anything about wild animal suffering in the movie, but maybe they would, and that would be great! But even if they wouldn't it would get Oscar's name out a little more and this would lead to more interviews with him, people reading papers by him, etc, which will lead to more awareness and hopefully concern about wild animal suffering.

Heres a great interview with him holly posted on the fb group http://www.christiankoeder.com/2010/09/ ... glish.html

and this is a piece of it concerning wild animal suffering.

9) What do you think is the topic that has been neglected the most in the animal rights movement?


As I have already suggested above, the most neglected problem facing nonhuman animals is the type of suffering they face that is not caused by their use as resources. In the following I will explain what I mean by this.

Normally we talk about the exploitation that is caused when they are directly exploited by human beings. What is assumed when saying this is that animals who do not suffer this fate live wonderfully. In a particular way, we assume that animals that live in their natural environments have happy lives and that we should simply leave them in peace. However, this is far from being the case. The lives of animals in the wild are filled with tragedies, which would be devastating for ourselves if we had to endure them. In fact, we rarely realize that the vast majority of animals that are born (above all in the case of invertebrates) die before they become adults (from starvation, disease, getting eaten, etc.). They live lives in which there is a lot more suffering than enjoyment (or where there is no enjoyment whatsoever).

Nowadays, there is very little we can do about this. But it is critical to start questioning the idea that we should not do anything... This is crucial so that in the future, some day, the problem can be addressed. If a community of human beings is stricken by a flood, a famine, violence, or is stricken by an epidemic, we think that if there is something we can do to help them, we should do it. Why not in the case of nonhuman animals? Normally we think that this is the way life in the wild. However, few of us who state this would be willing to let other humans die of disease, starvation or cannibalism. What is the reason for this different consideration of humans and other animals? Many reasons can be given, but all of them are merely excuses. The real motive of this dissimilar attitude is speciesism. Moreover, none of us would like to be left to die suffering in conditions such as the ones described above. In this way, if we are neither egotistical nor speciesist, and we therefore assume that we are willing to treat other animals as we would like to be treated, then we must conclude two things: not only should we care about the animals that are exploited by human beings, but we also must care about the animals that live in freedom. We must reflect on what we can do for them.

EDIT: so basically were gonna email them and ask them to interview him:)!

Heres the movie's contact form http://speciesismthemovie.com/contact/

It wont take long to send them an email and it might be the most high impact activity you do all day! Holly has posted an example message in the fb group if you want to take a look, although it probably wouldn't be a good idea to copy and paste this or anything cause we might look strange:/ also its probably better to say things about anti-speciesism and not talk about wild animal suffering in your email, due to the movie being about speciesism!(see Holly's example email). And often ideas about wild animal suffering scare people too.

If you could leave a message here when you email or on the fb group or something that would be great so we can try to space our emails out and not seem overly planned or cult-ish! Don't leave it too long either though, their kickstarter ends in around a month and we were considering offering them a donation on condition they put Oscar in the moive.

What do people think about posting something like this on lesswrong, the 80k google group, any other relevant places? I'm not a member of lesswrong so if people think it would be appropriate maybe someone could volunteer to post there? Maybe we should see how many people email from here and the fb group first, perhaps it could be bad if we send them too many emails? Is this a possibility?

EDIT: btw if you get a reply please say so here or on the fb group or something please!

thanks!:D!


http://www.facebook.com/groups/114027198627087/ - fb group

http://speciesismthemovie.com/ - their website

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/741 ... -the-movie - their kickstarter

This is Mark Devries, the director of "Speciesism: The Movie." Thank you very much for your interest in the film. I appreciate this tremendously.

The production was completed a while back, so we are not doing additional interviews. I will, however, certainly keep Dr. Horta in mind for future projects.

Please keep in touch with us via our official page, as well as our Facebook page, and our Twitter feed.

Mark

Thanks, Mark! It isn't every day a film creator stops by Felicifia to talk with us.

Great job on the film, and let's hope it takes off. BTW, when I searched for {Mark Devries speciesism}, I found this article of yours, which I liked a lot. Feel free to mention if you have any other writings that inhabit the web.