121–130 of 157 posts
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Idaho is like the Alaska of the south.
Are you trying to suggest that Idaho is part of the "south"? Or are you suggesting that Idaho is sufficiently-far north for southerners to be equivalent to Alaska?
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Couple good points in your comment, some not so good. But trust me, I appreciate your comments. On milk factories and breeding, yes. That is part of the current game. But I would argue that selective breeding has been done for centuries, we've just gotten better at it. Capitalism has basically forced dairymen to become more efficient -- which is good and bad. My grandfather's cows gave 40-50 lbs of milk per day, my f…
You don't seem to directly reject any of my points, you haven't heard of rape racks, yet artificial insemination (AI) accounts for 75% of all animal agriculture pregnancies[1]. And sure, government subsidies specifically for the dairy industry may be floors as you say, but farm subsidies help ensure milk stays at close to half the cost it would be otherwise somehow[2]. As for selective breeding, I sure am impressed b…
The cows that exist now are essentially useless without farmers. If you are ethically bound with them, how do you come to terms with the terror they will live through until they die?
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> rape racks Is consent possible within the scope of bestiality?
Yes, nonverbal consent is definitely possible, although it is considered a weaker standard than verbal consent, which is why humans often advocate for that. There is a difference between leaving a creature in open space with a herd around them, teeth and hooves available for "speech", and locking a creature to a rack where they are alone and powerless to dissuade penetration.
If a cow doesn't struggle in a 'rape rack', how is that not consent then?
>There is a difference between leaving a creature in open space with a herd around them, teeth and hooves available for "speech"
If that argument were valid, anyone that didn't resist during a gang rape because of fear of repercussion would be 'consenting'.
Also, there are plenty of species where sex is straight up violent. Projecting human sexual standards onto other animals is idiotic at best.
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"he has +300 employees, you can't personally monitor everyone all of the time" This is complete and utter bullshit. The whole animal cruelty issue has been in the news for years and to say you did nothing to investigate your own operations or do anything to monitor the activity is negligence. I saw the video too! I have a friend in the Dairy business with around 150 employees. His entire operation is video monitored…
My operations? I'm not a dairyman, those weren't my cows. I supposed I could stick a camera on my chicken coop.
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You don't seem to directly reject any of my points, you haven't heard of rape racks, yet artificial insemination (AI) accounts for 75% of all animal agriculture pregnancies[1]. And sure, government subsidies specifically for the dairy industry may be floors as you say, but farm subsidies help ensure milk stays at close to half the cost it would be otherwise somehow[2]. As for selective breeding, I sure am impressed b…
...where is a workable solution in a capitalist system where the only thing we value out of these animals is the quantity of flesh and milk we get out of them? The whole debate will be moot as soon as synthetic meat and dairy tech comes online. People will say it's a revolting idea at first, but it will rapidly become socially unacceptable to harvest live animals once there's a viable alternative. I actually expect t…
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You don't seem to directly reject any of my points, you haven't heard of rape racks, yet artificial insemination (AI) accounts for 75% of all animal agriculture pregnancies[1]. And sure, government subsidies specifically for the dairy industry may be floors as you say, but farm subsidies help ensure milk stays at close to half the cost it would be otherwise somehow[2]. As for selective breeding, I sure am impressed b…
What is your idealistic outcome? All of these cows are released into the wild and are killed within one to two generations by wolves or mountain lions? The cows that exist now are essentially useless without farmers. If you are ethically bound with them, how do you come to terms with the terror they will live through until they die?
My ideal solution would be a steep decline in dairy production with a coinciding decrease in the breeding of dairy cows until they are gone and hopefully many moved to farm sanctuaries. Each life born into that industry is a short life of suffering.
This would help save many wild species as animal agriculture is the leading cause of species extinction and ocean dead zones[2].
Veganism isn't some simple "every life must live no matter what" it's that if we don't have to harm an animal we shouldn't. If we're ethically bound with them, how do we deal with the terror they CURRENTLY live through until they die?
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"he has +300 employees, you can't personally monitor everyone all of the time" This is complete and utter bullshit. The whole animal cruelty issue has been in the news for years and to say you did nothing to investigate your own operations or do anything to monitor the activity is negligence. I saw the video too! I have a friend in the Dairy business with around 150 employees. His entire operation is video monitored…
Affordable, efficient, reliable and effective video surveillance tech hasn't really been around for very long, and argiculture isn't exactly silicon valley, the people in charge aren't always very enthusiastic about embracing new technologies. I find it quite easy to believe that an owner of a dairy business might do periodic in-person audits of employees and feel that that's sufficient. Additionally, Idaho is known…
Animal rights activists are happy to supply it and operate it.
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What is your idealistic outcome? All of these cows are released into the wild and are killed within one to two generations by wolves or mountain lions? The cows that exist now are essentially useless without farmers. If you are ethically bound with them, how do you come to terms with the terror they will live through until they die?
What do you think cows are, mindless? There is are wild populations of cows that do just fine, here's one[1]. Sure we helped guide their evolution a bit so they are kinder to us and have more desirable traits from our perspective, but they still have all the instincts and intelligence to do alright in the wild, not that I think they should be. My ideal solution would be a steep decline in dairy production with a coin…
Your assertion that their life in a farm is worse than a life in fear of predators is largely unfounded and seems to be based on "no humans = humane" doublethink.
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...where is a workable solution in a capitalist system where the only thing we value out of these animals is the quantity of flesh and milk we get out of them? The whole debate will be moot as soon as synthetic meat and dairy tech comes online. People will say it's a revolting idea at first, but it will rapidly become socially unacceptable to harvest live animals once there's a viable alternative. I actually expect t…
There are rather real questions around whether synthetic meat and dairy are going to be cheaper than the real thing, particularly when you factor in externalities like energy consumption. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you can do it economically, and so far nobody's demonstrated that in this case (unless I missed a very recent development). If it can't be, the meat industry (and consumers) are unlikel…
Laws like this are a fantastic example of people trying to avoid a moral argument. Whether or not chickens are of moral consequence is an argument that can be had; it is perfectly reasonable to for the owners of these factory farms to either argue that chickens are not of moral consequence and deserve no more protection or consideration than the rocks in a quarry or that the methods they use are moral and do not cons…
I wonder how much of the shift in public opinion on animal rights is a result of people not being exposed to farm animals anymore. The vast majority of people these days, myself included, meets only pets (and occasionally wild animals). If the only examples of animals you have in your personal life are companions, it's natural to want to treat animals well.
[1] E.g. How Anthropomorphism Affects Empathy Toward Robots http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~pr10/publications/hri09.pdf [2] The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment http://www3.nd.edu/~wcarbona/Haidt%202001.pdf [3] The Status of Moral Emotions in Consequentialist Moral Reasoning http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/Fran... [4] The Secret Joke of Kant's Soul http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~lchang/material/Evolutionary/Dev...