An enemy that tortures millions of creatures per year

An enemy that might prevent ending all the torture

The former post was dedicated to activists passively wishing an asteroid would wipe out the earth, while doing nothing active so that their wishes might come true.
Of course we don’t mean it in a literal sense, as in actively directing asteroids towards earth, but metaphorically, as in actively looking for viable ways to stop the suffering. Ideas like these for example.
But there is an active aspect even in the case of asteroids.

As we wrote in the former post, unfortunately the chances for an asteroid hit of the sort to have annihilation potential, are very low according to current data. For this reason we haven’t written about this option in our practical documents. But before we get to the operative angle, some basic background is required.

A methodical sky mapping for possible near earth objects was started in 1998, but since it is not done yet (currently it is estimated that about 90% of over one kilometer in diameter asteroids, which is considered by scientists as the minimum size for a potential global effect, are mapped) there is a chance that out of the unmapped asteroids out there (currently some of the 10% left are not observable because of areas blinded by the sun) some are relevant for annihilation and might at some point collide with earth’s orbit. And although none of the currently mapped over kilometer asteroids seem to be on earth’s course in the visible future, asteroids’ orbits can change, mainly by random collisions or planet gravity, and even heat from the sun that can knock them into a different course.
Still, asteroids’ orbits are relatively stable and easier to monitor, but apart from them there are comets, which are much more unexpected. They origin from farther regions of the solar system, and are harder to detect and predict, since they don’t become bright enough to observe, until they are about six months away from hitting earth. Also, just as in asteroids, factors like collisions, planetary gravity and the sun’s energy play a role (the sun role is even stronger in their case since they contain a lot of ice which is released as steam that can change their orbit), all of these factors make comets even less expected and give less time for humanity to respond.
Comets are also potentially more dangerous than asteroids of the same mass because typically they are twice as fast and the collision effect goes up as the square of the velocity. In other words a comet smaller than 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) across holds the potential for a sufficient energy burst to initiate a global climate disaster.

The odds of an asteroid or a comet strike causing the desired effect are very small, but the potential consequences of such an event are so great that it makes sense to take the chance seriously. Like in the case of volcanoes (and even the climatic options we have briefly covered), it is not the initial strike but its potential consequences that interest us. Besides the immediate impact zone, a powerful enough strike, would set off a chain of events such as shockwaves, huge tsunamis, earthquakes and the most significant one – an impact winter caused by the billions of tons of debris that would loft into the sky and would block the entire atmosphere with a thick optic layer.
The combination of the initial impact and its expected global outcomes would make this planet a totally different place after the hit. Hopefully without any sentient life.

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On March 27^th 2015 an asteroid didn’t wipe out the earth.

When the sudden news broke (and by news we mean sensational false headlines without any scientific ground), there was a big fuss on the internet, including many animal liberation activists who shared their hopes for it to happen.
Clearly, after a brief check, the headline was found to be completely misleading, but even only for a minute, these activists were faced with the notion that there would be a hit and the human occupation of this planet would come to an end, and instantly, came along the wishful posts. For several days, even though everyone knew nothing was about to happen, still the buzz wouldn’t wear off. The annihilation aspiration is just that strong.

Then, they got back to their conventional activism. Shouting that they want animal rights now in another demo, leafleting in the usual street corner, flipping burgers for tomorrow’s Meatout, leafleting in the usual street corner, making another persuasive argument with another unpersuaded person, and other humanity alteration project activities.

How after all the wishing, pleas and prayers that the asteroid would wipe out the earth, could activists have gone back to their tiny spot of potential influence over a tiny spot of the global suffering? How can they approach another human, who just might consider stopping his own personal part of the greatest torture enterprise ever in history, after what they really wish for, that the suffering would stop for good, didn’t come true?

This hope is probably scientifically in vain too, as the chances for an asteroid or a comet with the relevant characteristics (size, composition and speed) are depressingly extremely tiny.
But it is also ideologically extremely depressing. Currently the most caring humans in the world, those that devote their lives fighting for the most helpless beings in the most oppressive systems, are passively waiting for something extraordinary to happen, an uncontrollable factor that would save the billions of victims per year. That is a sort of an ideological red alert.

Most activists are hoping for a planetary scale miracle while working on tiny changes in tiny scopes of action (obviously tiny compared with the global oppressive mechanism we all face).
The fact that the problem is so immensely huge that it’s almost impossible to really comprehend, leads too many activists to passively think big but actively work small. We want to change that so activists would think huge and act huge. Think global and act global.

Obviously animal activists wishing for the planet to be wiped out, is not new. Many activists say they would press the button when asked the hypothetical question, but very few are willing to dedicate their lives to create such a button.

Our goal in establishing the E.A.S movement is to turn this hypothetical abstract wish into an actual ideology and goal. Our vision is to form a conceptual, philosophical and substantial practical activistic agenda who doesn’t passively long for a “doomsday” event, but looks for ways to actively bring it.

In this blog we’ll try to further deepen our aim of turning this widespread wish within the AR movement into an argument, in the hope it too would become widespread. It intends to upgrade this amorphous popular hope into a popular and a solid ideology among many animal activists, switching from prayers for external factors to rescue everyone, to relying on ourselves and other animal activists to do it.

This is another platform to convince activists that your responsibility is not what you eat or what the tiny fraction of humans you might potentially affect eat, but what each and every one, in each and every place on this planet is doing in every single moment, since the suffering is everywhere all of the time. We will try to convince you to put the advocacy leaflets down and pick up a leaflet of a relevant science faculty. Buttons don’t fall out of the sky, we need to create them.