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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

#51

Post by titanomachy »

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 not that simple. If the world consumes a million less pigs every year, that's not a million pigs that get to live happy, wild pig lives; it's a million pigs that will never exist, because we don't need to make them.

You could certainly make the argument that non-existence is preferable to the life of a present-day factory-farmed animal. I wouldn't contest that. But perhaps there is some value of ethical treatment for which "a few years of peaceful farm life followed by a painless death" is preferable to non-existence.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#52

Post by devsatish »

wmil wrote: post #3

What's really interesting is that slaughterhouses are major users of H1B visas.

Interesting. Just searched on dolstats for that employer (Murphy Brown) and found more details. Looks like most of the h1bs in this industry are from South American countries (Honduras etc) http://dolstats.com/search

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#53

Post by adamnemecek »

titanomachy wrote: post #48
adamnemecek wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the ethics of cultured meat are actually interesting. IIRC you still need some cells (stem cells?, not a biologist) to start a 'cultured meat' production and you cannot make these synthetically. As a result, you might scale to something like 1 slaughtered cow producing the amount of meat equal to 10,000 slaughtered cows which somewhat changes the question.

Even if it's true that you would need some cells from a cow to get started, there's no reason you have to kill that cow or treat it inhumanely.

They aren't like normal cells. IIRC you have to abort a late stage fetus to obtain them.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#54

Post by drakonandor »

adamnemecek wrote: post #43
drakonandor wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pr…

Lol, did you just read some listicle like "10 top anti-vegan arguments" and you are just repeating them? Because these are rehashed arguments that you can easily find convincing counter-arguments for but I can tell you haven't done the research. > If you value them as the same, They don't have to be the same value for one to still be valuable. > a few field mice or rabbits die so a human can eat a tofu sandwich. This…

You implied, or rather asked, if the previous poster thinks humans > animals.

I replied from a standpoint of assuming you believe a human and an animal have the same value.

Thusly, one can only assume that you if you are against eating meat because the cow and a few field mice will die, you must also be against eating grain because a few field mice will die (and maybe a bird or two).

You certainly can (and we do) impose human morals on animals. We put down dangerous animals (rabies, mountain lions venturing into civilization). We even put down pets if they're deemed dangerous (pit bull bit the neighbor). We neuter our pets, even the "animal lovers" encourage this. We also taken it upon ourselves to kill wolves if there's too many of them and they're about to exterminate the deer.

So, to re-ask your question, what makes you more valuable than the dozens of field mice and birds that die so you can have your soybean sandwich?

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#56

Post by adamnemecek »

titanomachy wrote: post #51
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.

It's not that simple. If the world consumes a million less pigs every year, that's not a million pigs that get to live happy, wild pig lives; it's a million pigs that will never exist, because we don't need to make them. You could certainly make the argument that non-existence is preferable to the life of a present-day factory-farmed animal. I wouldn't contest that. But perhaps there is some value of ethical treatmen…

> But perhaps there is some value of ethical treatment for which "a few years of peaceful farm life followed by a painless death" is preferable to non-existence.

The thing is that the planet can't handle that many beings. You realize that farm animals are a worse contributor to global warming than all cars right?

> But perhaps there is some value of ethical treatment for which "a few years of peaceful farm life followed by a painless death" is preferable to non-existence.

Sure. Would you find this ethical if you replaced pigs with humans? Furthermore you are describing this idyllic, farm life which only a very small fraction of animals get to live. For the most part it's industrial farming. Do you know why? Farms can't scale. Industrial processes on the other hand, oh boy do they scale.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#57

Post by jasonparallel »

ldehaan wrote: post #32
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?

I'm not sure if they are still active, but this group was hacking together some cool stuff for the farm: opensourceecology.org

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#58

Post by hx87 »

tjic wrote: post #17
kbenson wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who raises animals for food, how would or wouldn't your behavior change if sufficiently cheap and adequately tasty cultured (i.e. var-grown) meat were available? I ask as someone who eats meat quite regularly, but would prefer not to contribute to the raising of animals for slaughter if I don't have to. I understand that the death of one animal to feed another is part of the natural way our ecosystem funct…

If my choices were factory farming or vat grown food, I'd choose vat grown in an instant, to minimize suffering. If my choices are vat ground vs home ground...that's complicated. There's a lot to be said for small scale farming. It brings animals into the world and lets them enjoy life, which I see as actively good. We don't have to go remotely near the Repugnant Conclusion Paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_…

If vat grown meat contains fat as well as muscle, I'd take in a heartbeat too, but if it's just muscle...I would have to turn it down. Lean meat is tasteless meat, IMHO.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#59

Post by angryredblock »

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…

Do you generally work 'normal' (9-5) hours? Do you have help on the farm or are you the primary caretaker? I'd not have thought of farming as low-time-commitment enough to be a hobby.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#60

Post by WalterSear »

titanomachy wrote: post #55
wmil wrote: post #3

What's really interesting is that slaughterhouses are major users of H1B visas.

I guess there aren't enough Americans who are willing to do soul-crushing unskilled labour for minimum wage.

Slaughterhouse jobs correlate with increases in PTSD, domestic violence and violent crime. "Contracting out" the cognitive dissonance of causing suffering and misery has consequences to all involved.

https://www.google.com/search?q=slaughterhouse+workers+domes...

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