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Why an animal life is more valuable than a human

In junior school I was taught that there were 5 billion people on earth. 3 billion of them living in poverty, simply because the planet had resources to feed no more than two billion humans. Today, we are 7.6 billion on that same planet: an increase of 52 percent in only half a lifetime. And counting.

By the end if this century, the world population will be over 11 billion humans, according to UN-calculations. Most of this growth will come from Africa, the continent that is already suffering more than any other from a lack of natural resources today. It takes no rocket science to understand that this is a most dramatic perspective.

It gets even worse, though. Not only the number of human beings is raising dramatically, so does the consumption level per individual. Although we are all aware of the fact that we managed to burn most of the fossile resources that took the planet many millions of years to build up, we consume what is left of them with unknown eager. The bottom is visible, but we hop on a plane to our favourite winter resort or summer holiday and we take our children, our personal contribution tot that catastrofic 11 billion, to their schools around the corner by car. Even those who once lived on the wrong side of the line between wealth and poverty, posess full HD flatscreen tv’s and cars nowadays. Refugees fleeing to Europe over the Mediterranean Sea are streaming their crossing live on social media, using the latest iPhones.

The bottom is near and we are rushing to get there. That doesn’t only sound insane, it is insane. But still, we do it. Grasshoppers tend to ruin a whole area in little time. That are organisms that do as they were programmed, unaware of what they cause. Man though knows exactly what the consequences of their behaviour will be, for ourselves, for other life forms and for our own offspring. Nevertheless we keep on doing so, and that makes us more stupid than a grasshopper.

Although we know that this planet can only feed two billion of us, we keep on breeding. Sure, we think about solutions. Genetical manipulation can offer some relief. Taking down tropical rain forest does, too. That leaves many species without their lifespace, but it does give us more agricultural headroom. To grow food? Eh, not really. Make that sugar cane, for the production of bio-ethanol to mix with E95-gasoline to produce E10. All to enable us driving to school and flying in holiday with a so called greener conscience. We wolf our insatiable bodies to cheap meat from pigs that lived their miserable lives, packed by tenths of thousands in dark stables, under circumstances no better than those in the nazi concentration camps. But hey, they’re only animals..

Well, that is exactly where we go wrong. We consider human life superiour to that of animals. Logical; each species prevails its own kind over others. We call that natural survival. The difference though is that we took god’s chair. We are arrogant enough to believe ourselves being entitled to decide which species may stay and which must be exterminated. We kill geese, buffalos and rabbits because of their overpopulation.
Well, that’s interesting: overpopulation. In that context, 7,6 billion humans would be the perfect licence to kill. Some disgusting German from the first half of the last century would have killed to get such a license.
If you really aspire god’s throne, you ought to be big enough not to prevail yourself over other species. Just like the referee can only be referee if he is impartial. As long as we prevail a human life over others, we are utterly unfit to rule the planet.

If some highly intellectual extraterrestrial being would visit our planet and hang around for a week or so to scrutinise it, what, being asked what life form world can do without, would be his answer?

Exactly. That is why an animal life is more valuable than a human.

Autobahn hypocrisy

Today, the german senate rejected speed limits on their motorways. As a former speed ambassador, I am hardly in the position to critisize that decision, but I still do. Many german cities are no go areas for old petrol and diesel cars, and that number will rise. As annoying as it is for the owners of those cars, there’s a good reason for those restrictions. But it is completely unexplainable that the motorways connecting those cities often have no speed limits whatsoever.

Whether Euro 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9-square, pedal to the metal any car will emit far more than the legal limits. Let alone the traffic safety issue. With some doing 200 km/h or beyond, others at 130 km/h and heavily loaded lorries considerably slower, the speed differences are huge, increasing the odds of accidents, and increasing the impact of those accidents. A crash at 130 km/h might end up with some broken legs and a concussion, at 200 km/h the same accident will leave the police to remove your remains from the wreckage of your car in bits, identifying you only by DNA.

But hey, that’s collateral damage. This hypocricy is simple enough to explain. German car manufacturers make good money by building fast and luxury cars. Cars that wouldn’t be of much use when Germany would adapt their speed limits to the rest of the world. No matter how strong the anti-speed lobby in Germany, the car manufacturers are stronger.

Money over human lives and the planet: business as usual. So don’t worry, no speed limits on german motorways for yet another many years. Fine, but please cut the bullshit of old cars in cities. That’s as hypocit as it gets. But wait, those old cars will need replacement. And who will make good money on that?

Right.

Influencers: clowns of the internet

The hospitality lounge opens its doors. A dozen girls enter the room. Most of them wearing a Picasso-cap or some rediculous, but probably trendy hat over their duckfaces. Some are wearing fur coats, they all look like they are desperate to defecate. Or else, they might think of themselves as extremely important. The lady by my side pokes me, nodding at this circus: “A fortune on handbags is entering”, she grins. Here are the social influencers.

We’re at the press launch of a new car, meet the social influencers. We, the conventional press, are paid by our audience for our professional review on the new car. These clowns get paid by the manufacturer to attend the event. I must admid, their graft is well hidden: whilst their host is proudly explaining his latest product, all they care about is their product placed smartphones. Decency is more expensive.

Instagram and YouTube

I have been in this business for almost a quarter of a century. It strikes me that a branche that used to be as pregressive as whitchhunters, completely turns around. Recently I went to the press launch of a new model of a brand that is mainly bought by elderies. In our company, there was a girl with an Instagram-account, but without a drivers licence. Her boyfriend was on the same trip, since he had a YouTube-account. In the end, ther lady posted ten photographs on het Instagram-account. Nine of them showing the hotel and one showing the car. Hashtag the brand. Unfortunately spelled wrong. That’s what you payed two plane tickets, a hotel room and catering for.

Pathetic

Social influencers. It rather pathetic that so many young people seem to need them to tell what tot like. An entire generation, unable to decide for themselves. Every generation has its losers, but if it comes to the number of followers these influencers claim, this generation is completely retarded.

Duckfaced girls

I understand that selling lipgloss or sanitary pads can be helped by social influencers. Their audience just had their first menstrual flow and are dying to appear on Tinder like a russian callgirl. But they are years away from buying their first car. Car brand seem not to realise that. Just like they don’t know that followers are for sale. A dutch importer of a main stream branche is told by its manufacturer to spend 80 percent of its PR-budget on duckfaced girls. A premium brand considers to stop delivering test cars to motoring magazines because they are too critical. They prefer vloggers and social influencers to review their cars. They don’t have a clue, but say exactly as they are told, to a price.

Pay peanuts, get monkeys

In the end, it is all about market mechanism. Readers refuse to pay for content, but those who make content, still have a mortgage and shoppings to pay for. Thus, producers start paying for their content and audience have to cope with journalists telling them what the manufacturers tell them what to tell.

You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Or girls with duckfaces. I truly hope that their advice will help you to decide on which new car you will spend your next 40 grand.

Influencers: like me or shut up

Internet is a great stage for anyone to climb on. The new democracy is a blessing, but it has a dark side. Self-announced stars are begging for comments, but are incapable of dealing with it.

It’s business as usual on YouTube: teenage girls in their parential bedroom, dressed up like russian prostitutes, begging for likes. Occasionally one breaks through and turns into exactly the kind of person that pushes the weak underdogs into sorrow by influencing them: fill your lips, botox your eyelids; be like me. And buy my sponsor’s mascara. Like me like I love myself.

It has become business as usual on YouTube: young girls dressed up like russian prostitutes in their parantial bedroom, begging for likes. Ocasionally one of them breaks through and turns out to be just like all those bags of bones from the catwalk, influencing weak teenagers to do like they do: fill your lips, botox your eyebrows, be like me. Buy my advertiser’s mascara. And like me like I love myself.

The fine art of writing is suffering from devaluation, too. As a fanatical reader and professional journalist, I am convinced there have to be quite some undiscovered authors out there. I started to visit some facebookgroups where these people are supposed to hang around and support each other, only to discover that writing talent and self reflection are qualities that usually leave the room hand in hand.

‘You are obviously not here to make new friends’

Every now and then I bump into something with potential quality, but those texts disappear quickly under new postings by people who are on the edge of publishing their first bestseller, previewing bits of it, asking the others how they like what they read. Some time ago, I started answering some of them, avoiding the very worst. I drafted some of these fragments by removing the spelling mistakes and reconstructing the worst sentences.

You won’t believe the amount of abuse that came over me. ‘You are obviously not here to make new friends’, someone wrote back (absolutely true, by the way). ‘If you don’t like it, why read it?’. ‘Who is that arrogant motherf*cker?’ In shock, I scrolled through the reactions. After a while, it occurred to me that amongst all these self called bestseller-writers I was the only one to ever react. No reactions, no likes whatsoever.

Neither of these about to break through bestseller-writers are open for constructive critisism or advice, I learned. No way they can deal with that. They ask for comments, but they wish for confirmation. Confirmation of exactly what they bear so badly: writing talent. Read me and like me, or else close your mouth.

Like me or shut up.

Blackface: how a nation goes nuts

I don’t care about Blackface. That’s odd, since I usually have a rather clear opinion about anything. Still, although everyone goes wild on Blackface, I can’t be bothered. Yet, I do have an opinion on people who have an opinion on Blackface.

I believe that people who bother about Blackface are lacking something in their lives. Some real problems to worry about, like they have in Raqqa, for instance. Perhaps people who bother about Blackface should go to Syria and do some reconstruction labour. And have a decent reconciliation shag.

People who believe that Blackface means racism, are troubled. People who believe being traumatized by slavery, 154 years after its abolition, are nuts. I might as well hate the Germans for demolishing my village in WW2, only 77 years ago.

Yet, people who are pro-Blackface can be as pathetic. A picture of Saint Nicholas with a swastika on his hat is all around the internet. Some pro-Blackface activist got a sheet of paper, stole his child’s pencils and made a drawing of a children’s hero with Hitler’s face.

Is that pathetic? It sure is. Is it bad? Well, drawing can have this therapeutic effect: not bad. A fool making an ugly drawing is hardly worse than a fool making himself a cup of tea. In the old days, his drawing would never have left the kitchen table of this miserable creature.

It did get bad though through all these angry people on social media, tweeting and retweeting that poor drawing from the kitchen table into the entire world. Burning oil should never be extinguished with water, since water spreads the fire. The lonesome pro-Blackface activist is a drop of oil. All these angry twitter-people are water. Thanks to their tweets and retweets, the miserable hatred of a frustrated loner gets a huge stage. Through their social platforms, racial polarization reaches the next level. Our right populist politicians are most grateful.

Burning oil should not be extinguished with water, but covered with sand. Or else, let it burn until it stops.

Blackface? Bury the discussion.

A Day at the Beach

At some 18 kilometers out, there’s a group of wind turbines. Visual pollution, according to some, mostly beachclub owners and hotelkeepers. But spending a summer’s day at the Katwijk beach will teach you that the real pollution is a lot closer by than those hardly visible turbines.

“Do you serve fresh orange juice?”
“Certainly, sir,” the waiter nods. He enters my order in his smartphone and walks to the bar. I lean backward and start observing the smoking and sweating crowd. Although it’s fairly AM, all seats of Beachclub 14 are taken. It’s Sunday and the weather report promised temeratures well beyond 30 degrees Celsius for this afternoon. Next to me, I notice a group of mid-aged men. Hard to tell what brought them together; I don’t believe they’re heart surgeons. But they do have something in common: they all, all ten, now I count them, a large collection of tattoos on their massive bodies. I try to read the pictures and words. Runic and gothic letters, chinese characters: cultural reconciliation starts on the bodies of simple minds. One of them has a massive stetson-wearing scull covering his back. Between his mates shoulder blades I perceive some creature even Tolkien and J.K. Rowling could not have invented after a night on booze and drugs.

“Fresh juice, sir.” The waiter puts a glass on my table. I say thanks, take out the straw and take a sup. Is this what they call fresh juice? If you would put this in a spectrometer, the screen would show a Minute Maid commercial. Or rather, some budget brand. I check the menu once more: it really says ‘fresh’ orange juice. Besides, at this price (4,75 euros) you’d expect the club’s owner to squeeze the oranges at your table, his wife rubbing your shoulders with coconut oil and the local bigband playing your favourite music live at your table.

But I don’t believe the boss is in today. He must be attending some kind of workshop, learning what music is appropriate at beachclubs. The boom-boom-crap from the outside speakers is hardly standable. Is this their way to empty tables for new customers as quickly as possible? One thing is for sure: it doesn’t help getting rid of the heart surgeons. They swing their sweaty bodies to the music, waving their beer bottles and cigarettes in the air. Only then I realise the music is not from the beachclub’s speakers, but from their gettoblaster. Beachclub 14 is tough enough to charge me 4.75 for a tiny glass of Minute Maid, but for a bunch of tattooed drunk, they switch off their own music.

I decide that I’ve seen enough. I pay for my Minute Maid and even tip the child that served it, since I know that from all beachclubs around, the wages here are by far the lowest. I down what’s left of my juice and head for the beach. Like at the beachclub, the people here are kind enough to share their tobacco and music with me. But at least, it’s not as loud as the gettoblaster of the cardiologists.

After a while, I hardly perceive it any more, because a massive speedboat starts running in circles just in front of me. The skipper, who looks like a perfect match with the cardiologists, misses some swimming kids only by meters. The life guard looks away, though. Only 75 years ago, brave men used this very beach as a starting point for their 150 km crossing to England in small canoes, risking being shot by german patrol boats. This guy takes himself for a hero revving around in a floating moped.

I grab my things and go home. Perhaps I’ll come back tonight for a walk on the beach, when only their empty beer cans, filled nappies and cigarette butts are left.
I can’t wait for autumn to come.