Israeli soldiers shot three-year-old Rayyan Abu al-Ajeen in his father’s arms and mocked his father’s pleas as he cried for his dying son. The father says they were in the part of Gaza designated as “safe” for civilians during the “ceasefire.”
Animals run on instinct and are not capable of anything close to this kind of stuff. This level of cruelty is only possible with humans and any attempt to equate the perpetrators with animals in Western discourse is an attempt by humans not doing shit about the horrors our fellow humans are committing to feel better about themselves by insinuating that the people committing atrocities are somehow “not” human like us.
Don’t get me wrong, animals are fucking brutal to each other, but they are not cruel for the sake of being cruel. Unduely cruel animals are selected out of the gene pool. A predator that constantly hunts for sport will wipe out their prey and go extinct. Individuals that waste energy torturing their prey for their own enjoyment will be out competed by members of their own species that simply do what they need to survive. Animals actually have mechanisms to prevent excessive cruelty in an overwhelmingly cruel existence, meanwhile we actively encourage and send resources to support cruelty and allow it to expand. This is a choice, not nature. We have the unique ability to build a safe, thrivable world for every member of our species through our technology. We choose not to.
Animals run on instinct and are not capable of anything close to this kind of stuff. This level of cruelty is only possible with humans and any attempt to equate the perpetrators with animals in Western discourse is an attempt by humans not doing shit about the horrors our fellow humans are committing to feel better about themselves by insinuating that the people committing atrocities are somehow “not” human like us.
Don’t get me wrong, animals are fucking brutal to each other, but they are not cruel for the sake of being cruel. Unduely cruel animals are selected out of the gene pool. A predator that constantly hunts for sport will wipe out their prey and go extinct. Individuals that waste energy torturing their prey for their own enjoyment will be out competed by members of their own species that simply do what they need to survive. Animals actually have mechanisms to prevent excessive cruelty in an overwhelmingly cruel existence, meanwhile we actively encourage and send resources to support cruelty and allow it to expand. This is a choice, not nature. We have the unique ability to build a safe, thrivable world for every member of our species through our technology. We choose not to.