Quote Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion View Post
I believe I've already addressed the idea of it being cruel to rodents, and the time involved would be several hours. So, how about not being overly worried about the rodents, which have a reasonably quick and humane death, and not being overly worried about the snakes, which rarely take any injury from their prey...with the bonus that time is saved. The snakes also get fresh, healthy food.
Well no, you didn't really address the fact that you're inducing terror to the animal and the pain it experiences from a snake killing it. Considering pre-killed is kinder to the animal in that respect, I don't think your cruelty argument has a leg to stand on. Especially considering the reference to people doing it because they like to see other things suffer. That in itself, is cruel.

TBH, I'm more worried about the mental state of people who do it for kicks.

By the way, I can't really buy the convenience excuse when f/t is not really that hard to do and arguably even easier because you have to supervise a live feeding whereas with pre-killed you drop it in with the snake and can use the time doing something else.

I think your argument against live feeding would be like forcing your dog to wear shoes all the time because he might get a scratch on his pad. That would be minimizing his risk of injury as much as possible, lol.
Not really. There have been many, many documented cases of mice or rats giving nasty injuries to snakes. Unless you allow a dog to step all over sharp, broken glass, then comparing the two is a pretty big stretch.

My rats are more cruel to each when the occasional fight breaks out, than the snakes are to them. You can't keep the rats apart because of it, because that would be cruel as well, and predicting such fights isn't possible.
Playfighting or showing dominance is more cruel? How so? If they're fighting to the death, then you'd have to separate them.

There's no end to the amount of discomfort in the world...but there is a limit to how much you need to be concerned about it.
So why should that stop me from being concerned about particular YT videos, or people simply feeding live simply because they enjoy it?

Your FT rodents came from a facility where rats occasionally killed each other messily. Just letting you know.
Which I have absolutely no way of knowing or preventing, thus it is not relevant.

I don't agree with the practice of posting videos of feeding live animals to pets on YouTube, but I wouldn't call the human reaction to watching predation 'sadism'.
Deriving pleasure from the pain of another is textboox sadism.

It's not sadism. Humans are predators, and when they watch these things happen, they identify with the predator--it excites their instincts, and there is nothing at all strange about that, or wrong with it. It is a natural reaction.
Natural to a child, maybe. But to an adult that can understand what context means? Right.

As human beings we have higher cognitive functions, know right from wrong, etc. We aren't wild animals, we're animals intelligent enough to recognise the suffering of others. Putting one animal into a situation where it will most likely suffer and chuckle about its pain and death is called "being sick in the head". It seems to me you're trying to justify this behaviour under the guise of it being "natural". Perhaps we're on the same level as all the other animals then? No, I don't think so. You know what else is natural? Rape. Happens all the time in the wild, animals can't control their urges and there you go.

Doesn't mean it isn't sadistic for the rapist to enjoy doing what they do. And it doesn't mean it isn't wrong either.

Tell me, if I threw a snake to a small space with a larger, carnivorous animal, filmed it and laughed as it was ripped to pieces... I suppose there's nothing wrong with that too? It's "natural", after all.

It's the reason why chase and kill scenes are included in documentaries about predators--people get a thrill from it.
It's not the suffering of the prey that creates this reaction, it's the empathy for the hunter.
Thrill of the hunt != thrill from seeing something cry out in pain. What empathy for the hunter? What are you talking about?

Making comparisons of thrilling predatory chases in the wild to intentionally creating a situation to make another animal suffer, and laughing about it is not even comparable. Not even in the slightest bit. You're using a naturalistic fallacy here, suggesting that just because something might be natural means it isn't wrong. Well, if you think causing animals pain and filming it for laughs isn't ethically objectionable in the least then I'm going to really have to question the premise of that.