Glowing pigs

To me a glowing pig is pig abuse. You might think that's going a bit far especially if you're from the medical profession. You may tell me that this pig is well looked after that it hasn't suffered. I know that a lot of animals have and do suffer all over the world because of medical experiments, besides you say the pig is a GM pig. Like that makes it OK. People think because animals don't present intelligence like a human that its OK to cause them suffering, especially if it's to preserve human life. In the natural world the pig and the jellyfish would never meet let alone cross. I take umbridge that science thinks that in the name of medicine this is OK. I don't object to advances in medicine, I object to the proposition that its OK for pig and jellyfish to be crossed in the name of medicine. I don't care whether it helps you look up a donkeys arse - find ANOTHER way.

Take longer if you have to, people might die, yes, but at least there wouldn't be glowing pigs and you never know I expect there is ANOTHER way.

Another experiment where there was this issue was the mice growing human ears where they had the ear attached to them while it grew. If scientists want to grow ears perhaps they should attach them to themselves, and if they want things to glow they should inject themselves with jelly fish which is the aim eventually isn't it to use the jellyfish glow in medicine?

I see all living things as sentient. Pigs are very intelligent, dogs are very intelligent. Many animals present an advanced set of emotions, empathy, protectiveness, cognition - all sorts of human qualities. However they don't have choice, we have choice, they don't. In my opinion we should not cause suffering to any living being. Even if our modus operandi is to find away to reduce suffering of any sort, it should not be done through the means of suffering or genetic manipulation that would never happen in nature beyond what happens when you cross roses in your garden. That's the same species. Why it strikes me that that is OK and it isn't Ok for interspecies crossing and yet this seems to have been completely overlooked by science, I don't know. Interspecies breeding = BAD. Same species breeding = GOOD. Does it make it OK if the characteristics have been genetically isolated = NO. Why? because it has taken millions of jellyfish years to get that jellyfish glow. Glowing pigs were another billion years away and more than likely NEVER a possibility. So when I accuse science of playing God, that is why. I don't think we are wise or capable enough to take such decisions. That we do this on so many levels for progress is quite frankly frightening. Things like this include:-

• GM foods like Glucose Fructose sanctified by the scientific community, the FDA and WHO which are now causing diabetes, obesity and terrible allergies. People are dying because they drink soda with this stuff in
• Nuclear power whose consequences have the potential of just one incident; just one human error could make the entire planet uninhabitable. Also we are leaving a lethal legacy for hundreds of generations to be equally threatened by.
• Petrochemicals, nitrates, dioxins, radiation, asbestos - all these scary words are products of science they have said its OK to have in our world. That we previously didn't have that kill people, cause water on the brain in babies, make two headed babies, children with terrible deformities, cause asthma and eczema, leukaemia and cancer
• Medicines; antibiotics, radiation therapy, thalidomide, vaccines - all ostensibly OK'd by the scientific community - who it is apparent DON'T KNOW

We can choose not to. We can create new guidelines that protect us and future generations from all of these scientific breakthroughs. To me a scientific breakthrough should have its consequences considered when it is created and these should be fully considered before it is allowed into the mainstream. If the consequence is 100000 year old lethal substance, then it should NOT be allowed. If the consequences are NOT known, then it should not be allowed.

Science carried out without causing suffering, without manipulating the natural rules that already exist is OK. It could be amazing. Imagine a Buddhist and a Scientist being one and the same things; experimenting with wisdom and awareness, not causing suffering in any way- understanding the natural laws that govern. We have lost much of our respect and our roles as guardians, we don't know how to live in nature so we make misguided decisions that we consider OK. They're not OK

To me creating a glowing pig is pig abuse. I would not like it if I was made to glow in the dark or if my dog was; what are the consequences of such an action? A jellyfish and a pig who'd of thought they'd get it on?

Will we all one day glow in the dark because of a genetic accident?

To me all existence is sentient; my awareness doesn't stop at my skin. I sense some places to be lovely, beautiful, scary, horrible, calming, unsettling; places not just people. Take a rock from Auschwitz and rock from where the Buddha sat beneath the Bodhi tree; the Auschwitz rock is a sad rock, the buddha's rock is a healing rock.

And yet we cast about assignations that imply humans are hierarchically above everything else. This subtle perception permits us to blow vast holes in the earth, scar swathes of it with open cast mining, drill in it, spray DDT on it, irradiate it, destroy it. We have no comprehension of balance. A long time ago we lost our connection, our understanding and ability to live in balance with the earth. Even those of us that do care are locked in an inbalanced way of life. We are reliant on fossil fuels, or nuclear power that generates tons of toxic waste so lethal it could kill all of us. We accept this because we are not given other options when there are other options. We are yoked to a chain of paying for our basic needs, of expecting a certain level of service in return for which we pay and pay and pay and so does everything and everyone else.

I do not want to pay any more. I want to honour the rock around me. I want to have a healthy respect for the glowing pigs of this earth that symbolise such an erroneous assumption on our parts it is astounding. It is the emperor in his new clothes. It is madness argued as sanity walking amongst us. I want to honour the plants around me. We manipulate them, we package them, we sell them as if all the sacredness had been drained out.
I want to honour the people around me. They walk around as if divinity and freedom were myths told in fairy tales. I bow to the spirit within all things. You can find it, it begins with the recognition that you don't know. The question is - after all these scientific advances can Pandora's box be closed? I think that depends on us coming to our senses. How can we fight against the invisible, against the illogical when it is presented to us as truth, as the gospel of science, engineering, chemistry and economics? When it is dressed in the anonymity of a corporate brand and 'licenced to kill'. They have been killing with negligence, with human error, with arrogance, with disdain, with accountability, without accountability. They have been killing for years and years and years in the name of this new deity Science and his consort the Economy. I think its time to choose your religion and choose it wih care and consideration, to recognise your ignorance wherever it is.

I live in a country where 80% of its electricity is from nuclear fuel. Even though when Chernobyl exploded it spread a plume of deadly ash all over it, all over Europe. Even though the highest rate of breast cancer is here, even though they have to bury waste that is lethal for 100,000 years in a repository that will cost billions and only function for a century; with capacity for 20years waste. It will take twenty years to complete. It is illogical when a methane digester fuelled by waste, by rotten vegative matter, by the renewable resource that is poo, can equally capably provide for our energy needs, especially when accompanied by other harmless renewable resources.
We can grow organically instead of using pollutive nitrates, ferilisers, pesticides and GM.

I don't know why we are doing this. Why are we acting so insanely. I know most people have no idea about living in nature, they are clueless, a business man from the city who goes camping, who earns a fortune and is qualified up to the hilt, will take a dump outside his tent because he doesn't know. It is these same people deciding the fate of the earth, of nature, of ecological systems they know nothing about. How can they decide when they don't know the effect they have when they turn the light switch on or flush the toilet?

We are trusting animals. We believe what they tell us. We listen to them with our eyes closed. In the light of the lamp I am writing by and by the hum of this computer, my quota of nuclear waste has been produced by those atoms splitting and my legacy will be something that is hazardous for one hundred thousand years. When I could wait until daylight, when I could use a candle, when I could plug into a solar panel or a generator fuelled by vegetable oil, by methane gas, or by hydrogen.

I don't understand their plans but I'm going the other way. I expect they will catch up shortly at least I hope so. I guess they won't get lost in the dark as they have glowing pigs to see by.

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