Decaying Dam: Science of Racism, Change and More

Premieres on Youtube on 15 June 2020

User project of FG School Australia
Based on books of Dr Jenia Meng
The pond cartoon is based on photo of user Dasha on Flickr.com, CC BY 2.0

Dialog
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Caterpillar: What is your view of discrimination, slavery, racism and sexism?
Caterpillar: The letter in the background is
Caterpillar: Sydney Office of Railway Commissioners requesting a shelter for the Tramway timekeeper at the foot in 1897
Caterpillar: I will be a timekeeper for you in this episode
Caterpillar: Please donate to support me
Caterpillar: A decaying dam
Caterpillar: can no longer hold free moving water.
Caterpillar: May 25 2020
Caterpillar: The story of George Floyd released pressure
Caterpillar: of systematic discrimination worldwide
Caterpillar: Some are angry
Caterpillar: Some are in fear
Caterpillar: What will happen?
Caterpillar: I will share insights
Caterpillar: from a scientific perspective
Caterpillar: You may think a creature like me
Caterpillar: is insignificant
Caterpillar: but we have much longer history than humans
Caterpillar: If you study evolution and geology
Caterpillar: You will see Earth is
Caterpillar: in an interglacial period
Caterpillar: It means, it has climate cycles,
Caterpillar: moving between warm to cold constantly
Caterpillar: There were many iceages
Caterpillar: It is just one of the natural cycle
Caterpillar: like day and night, summer and winter
Caterpillar: No one can change the big picture
Caterpillar: Current interglacial period
Caterpillar: started about 10 thousand years ago
Caterpillar: The full cycle is typically 40 thousand years.
Caterpillar: So we are about half way of the full cycle
Caterpillar: moving towards
Caterpillar: the hotest period
Caterpillar: People called it climate change
Caterpillar: Different temperatures create
Caterpillar: different landscape and cultures
Caterpillar: global warming is
Caterpillar: melting hard structure and dogmas
Caterpillar: in human societies
Caterpillar: Everything is becoming more fluid
Caterpillar: The old system is like a decaying dam
Caterpillar: which can no longer hold melting ice
Caterpillar: Boundaries of social classes are disappearing
Caterpillar: The most notable one right now
Caterpillar: Is racism
Caterpillar: But it is not the only issue
Caterpillar: Dr Jenia Meng and her team conducted
Caterpillar: Global surveys of major world issues since 2007
Caterpillar: She investigated following issues:
Caterpillar: reducing poverty,
Caterpillar: racial equality,
Caterpillar: woman's right,
Caterpillar: peace and security,
Caterpillar: professional ethics,
Caterpillar: environmental protection,
Caterpillar: sustainable development,
Caterpillar: animal protection,
Caterpillar: equality for LGBT,
Caterpillar: human euthanasia,
Caterpillar: capital punishment,
Caterpillar: genetic engineering,
Caterpillar: human cloning.
Caterpillar: She discovered attitudes to many world issues are correlated
Caterpillar: There are more fundamental issues
Caterpillar: than racism or sexism
Caterpillar: It is the capacity of empathy
Caterpillar: 'femininity'
Caterpillar: An empathetic 'feminine' person
Caterpillar: are more likely to oppose
Caterpillar: different types of discrimination
Caterpillar: and is more open-minded, imaginative
Caterpillar: holistic
Caterpillar: Dr Jenia Meng also created many indexes
Caterpillar: to numerically measure the capacity of empathy
Caterpillar: For example her animal protection indexes
Caterpillar: can be used to measure your level of
Caterpillar: support to animal rights
Caterpillar: And the result can offer insight about
Caterpillar: compassion to humans
Caterpillar: It means you can have educated guess about
Caterpillar: many aspects of a person
Caterpillar: simply from the index
Caterpillar: You can test the indexes free
Caterpillar: on the website of Earth April International
Caterpillar: The simplest test only have 13 rating questions
Caterpillar: Details of the initial surveys of Dr Jenia Meng
Caterpillar: can be found in her book
Caterpillar: Origins of Attitudes towards Animals (2019)
Caterpillar: You can also buy the raw dataset online
Caterpillar: following is abstract of the book
Caterpillar: The present study is a unity of
Caterpillar: science and philosophy.
Caterpillar: Previous studies of the attitudes
Caterpillar: towards animals suggest they are
Caterpillar: far from universal. The majority of
Caterpillar: existing studies are largely based on
Caterpillar: animal welfare in the Western world,
Caterpillar: which represents approximately 12% of
Caterpillar: the world human population. Little attention
Caterpillar: has been given to people in other parts of
Caterpillar: the world. People sometimes assume that
Caterpillar: animal welfare is the equivalent of
Caterpillar: animal protection, or positive attitudes
Caterpillar: towards animals, though the difference
Caterpillar: between animal welfare and animal rights
Caterpillar: has gained some attention.
Caterpillar: The present study was placed
Caterpillar: in a global context; it not only
Caterpillar: investigated the attitudes of
Caterpillar: people from vastly different backgrounds,
Caterpillar: but also investigated the relationship between
Caterpillar: attitudes towards animal issues
Caterpillar: and world issues. Three distinct types of
Caterpillar: animal protection, Animal Welfare,
Caterpillar: Reverence for Animals, and New Welfarism
Caterpillar: were identified by scientific methods.
Caterpillar: The major research method was an
Caterpillar: international survey of university students
Caterpillar: distributed online during 2007 – 2008.
Caterpillar: The survey was presented in the
Caterpillar: official languages of participating nations,
Caterpillar: and over 90 variables were investigated.
Caterpillar: The participants were invited by local collaborators
Caterpillar: from different parts of the nation
Caterpillar: based on probability sampling. In total,
Caterpillar: 4,514 filled questionnaires were received
Caterpillar: from 12 nations by the middle of 2008.
Caterpillar: The 12 nations were: China (mainland),
Caterpillar: Czech Republic, Iran, Ireland, Macedonia,
Caterpillar: Norway, Portugal, Serbia, South Korea, Spain,
Caterpillar: Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
Caterpillar: The results were weighted by the gender ratio,
Caterpillar: level of education and area of study
Caterpillar: obtained from other sources; the results
Caterpillar: were also adjusted by tertiary
Caterpillar: enrolment rate of the nation.
Caterpillar: Factor analysis, one self-developed program
Caterpillar: and other types of statistical techniques
Caterpillar: were applied to the raw results. In total
Caterpillar: nine Attitudes to Animal Indices were established
Caterpillar: for different types of attitudes. Two indices
Caterpillar: were created to calculate people’s attitudes to
Caterpillar: animal welfare and animal rights. The origin of
Caterpillar: positive attitude to animals was discussed from
Caterpillar: an evolutionary perspective; the relationship
Caterpillar: between holism and reverence for animals was
Caterpillar: explored. Important conclusions of
Caterpillar: the present study are shown below:
Caterpillar: The definitions for animal protection and
Caterpillar: vegetarianism are different in different nations.
Caterpillar: Prevalent stereotypes of the attitudes of
Caterpillar: some societies are incomplete and unrepresentative.
Caterpillar: Animal Welfare and Reverence for Animals are
Caterpillar: two fundamentally different attitudes towards animals.
Caterpillar: A holistic world view is tied to high
Caterpillar: Reverence for Animals.
Caterpillar: Animal Rights is a product of animal welfare
Caterpillar: and Reverence for Animals. Societies can have
Caterpillar: low levels of animal welfare but high levels of
Caterpillar: animal rights when Animal Welfare is low but the
Caterpillar: Reverence for Animals is high.
Caterpillar: ‘New Welfarism’, is identified scientifically.
Caterpillar: This type of animal protection does not challenge
Caterpillar: the property status of animals and is different
Caterpillar: from Animal Rights; Integrity of animals and
Caterpillar: zoo issues are important aspects of Animal Rights
Caterpillar: but have been given limited attention
Caterpillar: in New Welfarism.
Caterpillar: In total the four types of animal protection
Caterpillar: explain 32.8% of the variation in the overall
Caterpillar: attitudes to animals. The degree of the different
Caterpillar: types of animal protection are:
Caterpillar: The UK ranks may be subject to considerable random error.
Caterpillar: Animal Welfare – Spain, Iran, Norway, Serbia
Caterpillar: >China, Czech, Ireland, South Korea, Macedonia, Sweden;
Caterpillar: New Welfarism – Serbia>Macedonia>Spain
Caterpillar: >China, Czech, Ireland, Norway>Iran, Sweden>South Korea;
Caterpillar: Reverence for Animals – Macedonia>China, Serbia
Caterpillar: >Spain>Czech, Ireland, South Korea, Norway, Sweden>Iran;
Caterpillar: Animal Rights – Serbia>Macedonia, Spain
Caterpillar: >China, Czech, Ireland, Iran, South Korea,Norway, Sweden;
Caterpillar: Other types of attitudes analysed were:
Caterpillar: naturalness (Genetic changes) of animals,
Caterpillar: autonomy of animals, animal experimentation,
Caterpillar: wildlife protection, spiritual power of animals.
Caterpillar: Respect for the autonomy of identified
Caterpillar: as a positive attitude towards animals.
Caterpillar: This attitude is sometimes mistaken for
Caterpillar: the avoidance of animals.
Caterpillar: The attitude to animal welfare is a more
Caterpillar: consistent predictor of the attitudes to
Caterpillar: world issues among different types of animal protection
Caterpillar: at the present time.
Caterpillar: Females on average have more
Caterpillar: positive attitudes to animals than males.
Caterpillar: Overall ranking of perceived sentience is:
Caterpillar: Human Infant> apes>other mammals>
Caterpillar: birds> cold-blooded animals.
Caterpillar: Far East tradition, Greek tradition and
Caterpillar: many indigenous traditions have higher levels of
Caterpillar: reverence for animals than do Abrahamic religions.
Caterpillar: There is some evidence to suggest that
Caterpillar: people in higher levels of the social hierarchy
Caterpillar: tend to have lower reverence for animals.
Caterpillar: Students from nations sharing similar
Caterpillar: political ideologies, in particular those sharing
Caterpillar: communist influences, share similar overall attitudes
Caterpillar: to animals and world issues, but this association
Caterpillar: can also be explained by the similar human welfare
Caterpillar: levels in these nations.
Caterpillar: The present author concluded that though
Caterpillar: many factors are associated with
Caterpillar: the attitudes towards animals, memes
Caterpillar: tradition, religion, political ideology, education, etc.
Caterpillar: and genes
Caterpillar: empathy, position in social hierarchy,
Caterpillar: genetic similarity to the animals, etc.
Caterpillar: are two fundamental origins of
Caterpillar: attitudes towards animals, and the two
Caterpillar: can be further unified by
Caterpillar: the information they carry
Caterpillar: Let me going back to our current affair
Caterpillar: Science has demonstrated
Caterpillar: evolution aka change
Caterpillar: is the only constant
Caterpillar: We can always choose adaptation
Caterpillar: No Dam? No problem