Childhood indoctrination

[The Grand Nudger]

Nope. Sounds like a good deal. We aren't being put at a disadvantage by walking around and doing plants a favour.

They're put at even less of a disadvantage by subbing us out as subsistence laborers. In fact - there is no disadvantage to them whatsoever. For us, the situation is much more uncertain. It's not even important to them that -you- or any human being, is the one doing the lifting. Anything with legs or wings will do.

Like you said, they even fulfill our desires. Power goes by many definitions but the one you're going for is probably the ability to influence other beings, in which case, depending on what one considers 'influence', everything has power over everything.

Au contrare...lets see you stop eating, they'll be just fine if we stop farming. Sure, the weakest among them will die - but isn't it amusing to realize that our national agricultural expenditures amounts to nothing less than a billion dollar tomato welfare plan?

When I was speaking of our power over other animals, I wasn't thinking to dive into semantics. I was using 'power' to describe our ability to exploit.

We are -ourselves- exploited by these organisms.

Now, lol, don't get me wrong, I like to put myself in front of the food as well - and that's understandable. But the next time you happen to see a field of corn growing, at least let your mind wander to what sinister plot those leaves have cooked up for you - you, powerless to resist them. This is why "power" or "might" not being a very good justification for rights anywhere..is even less so in this relationship.

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and this, btw, is how we circle round to childhood indoctrination. We are taught, at a very early age, to think of this relationship in the manner that we commonly do. When we go about trying to justify some part of this relationship later, we do so without realizing that we are merely rationalizing a position already held - built upon a deeply flawed assumption about that relationship.