What do you mean by "right"?

Huh. You have a 'neither' option but not 'both'. What is this madness? D: And why no robots? ><

Do remember that 'rights' are a man-made concept--if our existence on the planet were nullified, leaving only our lower sentient brethren, the concept of rights would not exist for them. They'd just 'be'.

I think a better question would be whether the Earth should be preserved beyond an extent that does not merely relate to our survival as a species. It is generally a consensus that sustainable development is the only long-term chance for our our survival (which is still relatively puny on cosmic scale)

But as we move towards the future when other planets or even life in space becomes a possibility, 'Earth' would be a metaphorical garden amongst the millions of available worlds there are. In our modern culture, one is not compelled to till or weed their garden--if one wishes to leave it unplanted, then we give them the freedom to do as they please. Earth will not be much different then--at that point, once it is only one of many.

No organism has a right to the ball of rock we're sitting on. You earn your place. The organism most successful at surviving to pass on it's genes to the next generation is the one that will have place on the planet. In that regard, we're doing pretty good but I'd say insects and bacterium are winning at the moment.

If I catch your underlying message here, you're trying to get people to say "everything has a right to be here and we should stop killing animals with our nasty humanness". I'm of the mind that if an organism cannot adapt to a change in it's environment, be that climate, habitat or invasive species (including us), then it doesn't get to live. That's how the world has worked for 3.5 billion years.


--Rant deleted--

Everything has a right to exist, including parasites such as humans. Though there may not be a specific point to living other than to live, one still should not have that option taken away from them. All should be allowed to live freely and without inhibition. This is mostly why I'm vegan; I don't agree with the mass harvesting of animals products, or the methods of which they do so. For instance, dairy cows are used solely for dairy, whilst the meat and skin go generally unused after they have outlived their "use", and vice-versa for meat and leather cows. [The only other reason I'm a vegan is because plants can't run away from you, and I don't like having to chase my food. :D I'm so funny.]

Anywho, I don't feel that humans have any more right to "rule the earth" as any other living creature does; we are simply the only ones with the ability to do so. And so, we abuse this power, and thoroughly.

Instead of saying 'animals or humans: who has the right...', why not say 'humans or non-human animals'? Just to remind people that humans are animals too.

As to who has the right to inherit the earth, that depends on what system of ethics a person subscribes to. I'm of the view that we should strive to preserve as much of the beauty of nature as we can while our species is around.

Ahh, this is true, Regurgam.

P.S. Is there another name that you would prefer I refer to you by?

You assume "human reasoning" is the best reasoning there is. What about... say "Alien reasoning"? Perhaps they have a better mind to make such an analysis? By your own admission, we are biased towards ourselves and our own survival and that in no way means that "everyone" has their interests looked after. In any case, to deserve something implies intrinsic ownership, which doesn't exist. An object doesn't have an attribute of being owned by something unless some being assigns it that attribute. Remove all beings from the equation and the object is no longer "owned" by anything and cannot be deserved.

Like I said earlier. No one deserves the planet. It is earned.

Let me get a concept straight... What would you define as not having the right?

We don't have a superior we need to answer to (unless you want to bring a religion debate in here, but for the love of; don't) In fact during our lives the only ones we have to answer to are... Mostly our own species. Unless you're a pet dog, in which case I doubt you're interested in reading this. So who could have given you that right in the first place? You claimed it? That's not a right at all, now is it? Nobody 'deserves' to live on Earth because we couldn't have done anything before our lives to actually deserve it. So in that sense nobody has a right to live on Earth; we just do.

What gives the right to decide over Earth? Well given that we're the only species with the ability to intellectually decide what we do to it, it is impossible for animals to even use that right. Does it make it right for us to do w/e the fuck we want to their lives and habitats? I don't think it does, but given how swarms don't need the right to tear through agriculture within moments, not contemplating the farmers, I cannot see how it would be wrong, aside being a major douche-move; but so are insects. But we kill animals to eat and that is actually a lot nastier than burning rainforests to farm when you consider that we're perfectly capable of surviving without meat.

Everything kills each other in nature and the Earth is literally set to die off altogether at some point in the future, with or without human interference (if we still live by then, for that matter)

I think the tl;dr version of my post really is; I don't understand the question.

Humans. :)

Sorry to burst your bubbles, people, but humans are animals. Just because we have those amazing thumbs doesn't mean that we're any different from a dog. Sure, we don't sniff each other's butts to say hello, but we've got the same genes. So, overall, this is like asking "Which came first? The tiger or the tiger?" You know...? Yeah.

But in a social aspect, animals probably have more rights than we do. Hell, if we keep going at this rate, it'll be 'which animals don't we take with us when we flee to another planet because we've screwed this one up past the point of no return with out global warming'. (Now, maybe cows aren't worthy of the Earth, as we warehouse them... Thus, their farts are one of the top forms of global warming contributions, but that's a totally different thing.) Back on topic, think about what we've done for the environment. You can't? Let's make a list...

• *Chernobyl
• BP
• War
• Pollution
• Overpopulation
• Environmental destruction
• Fukushima
• Hiroshima
• Mindless wasting of nonrenewable energy
• Leeching the Earth of its resources
• Deforestization
• You want me to keep going? Because I can.

So in those aspects, yes, we're probably one of the most destructive and self-absorbed species on this planet. Overall, we're just a tiny speck in the world. Since I know I'm already being depressing, I'll leave you with this link to put you in your place. Listen and realize that there probably are places outside of our galaxy that are inhabited by intelligent life wondering the exact same thing you are.

[*NOTE: Chernobyl is one of the only things on this list that might have, overall, helped the environment. Most recently, it has become a national place of refuge for rare animals and fauna. They've since determined that the exotic animals (most of which haven't been seen in the area for centuries) are unaffected by the amounts of radiation in the area. However, there are still areas uninhabitable to even the most resilient of animals. The Red Forest is a perfect example of this. Yes, I'm a fanatic about Chernobyl and its exact impacts and overall effects, as well as the disaster itself. I've researched this. Deeply.]

I think you're creating a conflict of opinions where there is no such thing, Draconic. The fact that humans are animals has been acknowledged several times in this thread already, so your riled up first sentence is a little redundant.

But that aside, I'm of the line of view that while no creature has a 'right' to life, as an intelligent species it really would be in our best interests to stop killing everything. If we cause our own deaths by the way we're acting? Then that can be seen as natural selection. But, you know. Seeing as we know about that, the logical step would be to make sure we aren't naturally selected out.

The planet will survive us, but if we ruin everything then it's very unlikely we'll survive it. As far as eating animals, farming them, wearing them - humans are omnivores, so I think vegetarians are silly, and animals kill each other for materials they use in 'nests' and stuff. I disagree with factory farming, and things like that, that cause unnecessary suffering, but hey. We're feeding and clothing ourselves. They ought to run faster, or realise that they need to run, before they can start complaining. Kinda mean, but eh. :P

Script wrote:as an intelligent species it really would be in our best interests to stop killing everything.

How do you think Humanity got to where it is today? By killing every animal bigger and strong than ourselves that got in our way. Within a couple hundred years of developing tools, almost all large animals living on the continent of Africa died out. That was just with rocks and sticks! If there's one thing we're good at it's killing things. Why deny our natural talent?

Besides, if something isn't directly aiding us, it's probably competing for the same things we need or want. So why not remove them from the equation?

As for the warehousing cows bit, we've already figured out how to grow artificial meat. Just a matter of time before we're all eating a mass of muscle goo that's been toughened by passing current through it all day. So soon enough we wont even need livestock. I think it's perfectly in our best interests to kill every competing organism we come across to ensure our own survival.

Because if we don't deny our natural talent, we'll run out of things to kill. I'm not saying we should stop killing animals. I'm saying we should start killing animals in a way that means that there will be animals left for us to kill later down the line. And, you know, the obvious stopping killing ourselves by wrecking the ecosystem and the climate. But that's a whole other debate that we don't need to have here.

I think we'll survive as a species. Not all of us personally, but humanity will endure somehow. We're a very big reactionary species. We don't do anything about anything until it's already done something bad to us. So in say fifty years we kill the ecosystem and 99% of humanity is killed off, there will still be that 1% that finds a way to make it work and it will make us a stronger species.

I'd say humans are animals too, and a part of nature, so whatever animal is the most dominant and able to survive (in this case, humans)

I look forward to asking you whether you are so blasé about the death of 99% of humanity when you are inevitably part of that 99% :P

Which, thinking about it, would be quite difficult. But the sentiment stands.