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The fight over transparency in the meat industry

nytimes.com

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Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#31

Post by kbenson »

gorhill wrote: post #26
kbenson wrote: post #7

With uBlock enabled some script that removed the semi-transparent white overlay doesn't get loaded, so the article presents as faded and hard to read. I mention this to help people figure out what's going on, and let people that see it make an informed decision whether to visit, not to start a discussion on the merits of this practice. Please , that discussion has been done to death. People have very strong convictio…

I do not see this issue with default filter lists.

Well, I'm using uBlock Origin, but I haven't futzed with the default block lists from what I can remember. I'm not really sure the difference between the origin and non-origin versions, so maybe it's related to that? You're probably uniquely suited to answer that... ;)

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#32

Post by ldehaan »

tjic wrote: post #10

As I mentioned in another thread, I live on a farm. (I hack Ruby and C++ as a day job, the farm is just a hobby). One major reason for doing so is animal welfare. I'm a meat eater and will staunchly defend it...but factory farming is terrible. At this point we get most of our meat from our own pastures: chicken, goat, lamb, pork. It's much more expensive than buying factory farmed meat, and even more expensive (in la…

Super cool! My family and I are also looking to buy a small farm and basically do the same thing, use it to provide good healthy food for our kids and hopefully at some point setup a program for other food conscious programmers and do a hackathon every couple months to improve on farming equipment.

Did you get a govt loan for your farm? If so did they require a certain amount of food to be sold or grown?

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#33

Post by 1457389 »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #28
adamnemecek wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some definition of ethical, maybe. I guess fundamentally my question to you is, why do you think that human life is worth more than animal life, because that is the foundation of our differences.

tjic didn't say that human life is worth more than animal life. Are you projecting? All life is precious, but we are all still animals. We need food to survive. Almost all life consumes other life for survival. There is nothing more natural than eating.

>We need food to survive.

Non sequitur, food isn't synonymous with killing animals

>Almost all life consumes other life for survival

Appeal to popularity, almost all life does all sorts of things that we don't condone or have decided is suboptimal.

>There is nothing more natural than eating.

Non sequitur and naturalistic fallacy. Eating is natural but that doesn't imply killing and eating animals is natural. Even if both are, that isn't in and of itself a valid justification for that behaviour.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#34

Post by sambobeckingham »

pillowkusis wrote: post #30
tjic wrote: post #10

As I mentioned in another thread, I live on a farm. (I hack Ruby and C++ as a day job, the farm is just a hobby). One major reason for doing so is animal welfare. I'm a meat eater and will staunchly defend it...but factory farming is terrible. At this point we get most of our meat from our own pastures: chicken, goat, lamb, pork. It's much more expensive than buying factory farmed meat, and even more expensive (in la…

you seem concerned with animal welfare, or at least the minimization of suffering; how do you justify willfully killing animals (which undoubtedly creates suffering)?

Humane killing, I imagine?

Stun gun or that bolt hammer thing right to the brain, over in a flash as far as the animal is concerned.

Far more pleasant than the natural way - 6 of us chasing it round the prairie chucking spears.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#35

Post by drakonandor »

adamnemecek wrote: post #22
tjic wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Meat CAN be ethical, and often is.

For some definition of ethical, maybe. I guess fundamentally my question to you is, why do you think that human life is worth more than animal life, because that is the foundation of our differences.

If you value them as the same, you couldn't really support vegetarian diets either, as little furry mammals do die as a result of farming in general.

Granted maybe less death, but you are still obviously valuing the animals as lesser than humans, as you're saying it's ok if a few field mice or rabbits die so a human can eat a tofu sandwich.

Side note, if you truly believe carnivorous diets are barbaric, than you'd probably also have to kill all the carnivorous animals (especially considering many of them torture their prey, rather than quickly killing it).

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#36

Post by CarpetBench »

adamnemecek wrote: post #22
tjic wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Meat CAN be ethical, and often is.

For some definition of ethical, maybe. I guess fundamentally my question to you is, why do you think that human life is worth more than animal life, because that is the foundation of our differences.

It's an interesting question because it informs where we draw arbitrary lines about what's ok to eat and what's not.

Honestly, and not to just be a smart-ass, but what are the acceptable life forms to eat? We've drawn the arbitrary line that "humans aren't ok to eat," but that's really about the only nearly-unanimous thing we can agree upon.

If we move the line further, to say, "no intelligent animals," then we're stuck defining what "intelligent" means, or how complex a nervous system needs to be before we classify it as intelligent.

Ok, we could say "no animals," but why do, say, sponges deserve protection that we don't extend to algae?

Don't get me wrong: I'm fully in favor of re-examining our modern diet and how other living organisms are included in that. It's just an interesting discussion when we move the line further than "no humans".

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#37

Post by danellis »

adamnemecek wrote: post #22
tjic wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Meat CAN be ethical, and often is.

For some definition of ethical, maybe. I guess fundamentally my question to you is, why do you think that human life is worth more than animal life, because that is the foundation of our differences.

Human life is worth more to us because we're humans. What's wrong or surprising about that? There are plenty of valid arguments for the humane treatment of animals, but don't sit there and pretend you value all animal life equally.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#38

Post by kbenson »

adamnemecek wrote: post #19

I think that fundamentally this is just a sign of people realizing that the meat industry can't ever be ethical. I'm expecting society to become maybe 50% vegetarian/vegan in the next couple of decades.

How is cultured meat unethical? Sure, it's uneconomical at this point, but I'm not sure how it's unethical. You could even go so far as to culture your own cells, and eat meat derived from yourself. That would be somewhat unappealing to most people (at least with current cultural taboos and stigmas), but I'm not sure how that could be seen as unethical.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#39

Post by HSO »

tjic wrote: post #10

As I mentioned in another thread, I live on a farm. (I hack Ruby and C++ as a day job, the farm is just a hobby). One major reason for doing so is animal welfare. I'm a meat eater and will staunchly defend it...but factory farming is terrible. At this point we get most of our meat from our own pastures: chicken, goat, lamb, pork. It's much more expensive than buying factory farmed meat, and even more expensive (in la…

You've just put a new idea about "the good life" into my head… This sounds positively delightful, to combine tech with rural living. I just might give that a try someday!

As someone who has struggled with his diet for ethical reasons for a long time, I have a question though. You say

> at the end of the season, when it's time to turn living creatures into meat, doing it yourself ensures that it's done well, and with minimal stress and pain.

How does this work? Do you not get cognitive dissonance from killing "your children"?

In the abstract, I completely agree with you that 1) eating meat can be done in a good, respectful way and 2) that perhaps the best, most honest way is to do it your way. But I would imagine that once I actually raise a chicken, I could probably not bring myself to kill it with my own hands (let alone eat it). Hell, I'm probably soft enough that even spending just enough time with a chicken to get a sense of its personality would make this impossible for me. Well, maybe if it's a particularly nasty personality, I could kill it but then how could I put such a revolting character in my body? Either way, it seems undoable to me… So how does it actually work, in practice?

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#40

Post by kbenson »

1457389 wrote: post #33
nathanaldensr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tjic didn't say that human life is worth more than animal life. Are you projecting? All life is precious, but we are all still animals. We need food to survive. Almost all life consumes other life for survival. There is nothing more natural than eating.

>We need food to survive. Non sequitur, food isn't synonymous with killing animals >Almost all life consumes other life for survival Appeal to popularity, almost all life does all sorts of things that we don't condone or have decided is suboptimal. >There is nothing more natural than eating. Non sequitur and naturalistic fallacy. Eating is natural but that doesn't imply killing and eating animals is natural. Even if…

Those arguments could be applied to just about any behavior, including not eating meat. You're presupposing the need to justify eating meat, and then using generic arguments to dismantle specific statements without point. If you want to have a useful discussion, please provide an argument..
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