Blackfish documentary on CNN - anyone else watch it?

[Taem]

After watching that video, I've lost all hope in humanity as a "good" race of any sorts. That and now I always think twice before eating beef.

This is a sweeping generalization. Humans can be both good and bad, but by nature, we are generally more of the former. When you put them in a hierarchal social organization of society though, one that is based on exploitation and commodity production for profits, then yes, you are going to bring out the worst in them. Humanity isn't the problem, and if it were, then we may as well just call it quits and kill ourselves now. The existence of a privileged, elite few that hold a cynical view of human nature and use it as justification for exploiting and oppressing the masses is the problem.

Also, not eating beef hardly makes one a "good" person.

I was being overly dramatic. Of course I have hope we as a species can do acts perceived as good, however so long as money can be made from these wild beasts Deebee mentioned, I believe nothing will change until the $right$ political parties are motivated to do something about it.

I mention the perception of good because I believe your views of society as a right/wrong based ideology are overly simplistic and completely jaded by your beliefs of altruism. Because I don't believe in altruism at all, I feel we as a race do things for self preservation above all else, and greed is just a part of that. Now as it comes to "caring" and even "loving", rather for animals or one-another, I'm not saying people can't care or love, no not at all. I'm saying that these emotions I just mentioned have evolved inside us simply for the express interest of keeping our genes alive and expanding through our offspring. If we didn't feel the way we felt about our offspring, we might leave them to die, nary a care in the world what happens to them. In the case of these captured animals, I don't see a "right" or "wrong"; I see someone trying to preserve his/her way of life through profits on one side, and I see another comparing the way animals feel with the way humans feel as a way to try and understand what the animal might be going through (rather it's true or not) to justify a cause. Is one belief "right" and the other "wrong"? I don't believe there is any such thing, only the compelling urge to do what we feel is "correct" for our own lives. I try not to confuse morality with self preservation because, as I said, there is no true altruism; when you look at the world through my eyes, people stop looking so selfish, and you begin to understand exactly why people do what they do. I should mention that as it so happens, a majority of us do agree on some "correct" concepts and establish the rules and laws we currently live by.

On a personal note, I do feel personally offended by what I saw in that video I mentioned and it sickens me to think we, as a human race, are capable of such cruelty. It sickens me and saddens me, despite my knowledge that these emotions are only a byproduct of over-protectionism in my head from something I perceive as "sick". On a personal level, I
feel all life is sacred and should be treated as such, and I think there's been enough scientific studies done within the past 15-years that prove animals are much smarter than previously thought that, it could be argued they "feel" and "care" the same as us, so should have the same rights of freedom we have, not stuck performing circus tricks in a tiny tank, or held in a trough unable to move their entire lives only to be slaughtered in six months. That is my personal belief on animals, however this does not change my reflections of what I know about altruism, and "why" people do what it is they do.