SuperVegan posted this, like forever ago, and somehow it got lost in my abyss-like desktop of posts-in-training. There is no one to blame but blame itself.
A squirrel has been banned from riding a roller coaster. I’m not sure what’s more newsworthy, that such a species-ist ban exists or that there’s a squirrel who enjoys roller coasters. The second part, maybe not so much. I mean, if I was a squirrel, I’d want to enjoy everything I had coming to me.
As for the ban, well, that’s just safety:
Oh, I know what you’re thinking… Clearly, the vegan shoe industry needs to step in and supply some lifts to get the squirrel into qualification range, right? WRONG, bzzz, sorry: the same theme park already thought of that loophole.
What’s not clear to me is if the ban is just this guy, or if it’s for all squirrels. Is this so called height-based “safety restriction” the real reason for the ban, or does someone have it in for this little guy? We need activists in squirrel suits to take immediate action and see if a squirrel meeting the height requirements could make it through.
Yeah, squirrel suits. There are, I’m sure, because the grant application field is vast, multiple scientists proposing genetic studies to breed armies of genetically enhanced megasquirrels. The trouble with genetic testing on live animals is…
(we interrupt this pornpost to verify that yes, we did just take a story about a squirrel on a rollercoaster and attempt to turn it into an exploration of the ethics of gene science. Because we will use this in all future discussions with omnivores, and we welcome you to start any similar explanation with “well, for me it all started with a squirrel on a roller coaster…”)
OK, the problem with genetic testing on live animals is that it’s s sucky (and very brief) way to live. Not every experiment works out, and that means stillbirths and horrible mutations. No, not the super power kind of mutation, we’re just talking horrible birth defects. Animals that are tortured by their very existence prior to being killed for further study (or simple disposal.) As a society we focus too much on the end result and forget about what it took to get there.
I don’t have a simple solution to this, because I’m not a geneticist, and frankly, there may not be an alternative path to where we as a society want to go. It’s most likely that each and every one of us have already benefitted personally from one or more series of animal tests that were necessary to get us from A to B. And you know what? That doesn’t make us hypocrites. Knowledge is out there, and to not use it to its fullest would be the real waste. That said, now that we’ve mastered A to B, let’s have a little more conscious thought about how we get from C, to D, and onwards.
(Insert witty closer about the path to enlightenment being very much like a rollercoaster that we might not be tall enough for yet… Ba-ding.)
