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Comment and Life

Why we need to be honest with children about the brutality of nature

It can be hard to explain the realities of the natural world to children, but we need to acknowledge the suffering of wild things, says Richard Smyth

By Richard Smyth

12 April 2023

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Michelle D’urbano

“We believe all species should be herbivorous” seems an ambitious mission statement. It doesn’t seem any less ambitious when it is followed by the declaration that “currently we use donations for… online promotion, and equipment needed for podcasting. In the future we would like to have enough to hire researchers.”

But this is where the “herbivorisation” project, an idea taking shape on the fringe of the fringe, is at. Headed by philosopher David Pearce, futurist Adam James Davis and ethicist Stijn Bruers, Herbivorize Predators aims to develop a way “to safely transform carnivorous species into herbivorous ones”, thereby minimising the sum total of suffering in the world. …

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