The fight over transparency in the meat industry • Hacker News Board

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#101

Post by st3v3r » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 9:10 PM UTC

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…

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

Sure it does. But eating is not one of those things. And you're going to have to do a lot better than that to convince people that eating shouldn't be condoned or is suboptimal.

"Non sequitur and naturalistic fallacy."

No.

"Eating is natural but that doesn't imply killing and eating animals is natural."

No, but the fact that it naturally happens in nature does.

"Even if both are, that isn't in and of itself a valid justification for that behaviour."

You haven't given valid justification for why it's not justified.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#102

Post by 1457389 » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 9:10 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #76

1457389 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust HN to find a way to make animal suffering all about their career prospects...

One of the negative effects of visa holders that are completely dependent on their employers is that working conditions don't matter as much. That's probably true in abattoirs as it is in coding shops.

What isn't as true in coding shops is the torture and killing of sentient creatures, which was the whole point of this article. I think my point about the fixation of certain elements of this forum on inappropriately narrow and pecuniary perspectives still stands given that the comment I responded to was one of the first posted.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#103

Post by st3v3r » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 9:14 PM UTC

1457389 wrote: post #98

wildmusings wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as in grinding up foetuses into fetal calf serum, or the like. You must not be paying attention to how little we care about human fetuses.

I see your point, though probably not in the way you mean. So let's pay attention shall we? FCS and FBS are collected from slaughtered dairy cows once they have exhausted their productive lifespans and rendered into meat. Details: >After slaughter and bleeding of the cow at an abattoir, the mother's uterus containing the calf fetus is removed during the evisceration process (removal of the mother's internal organs) a…

"So let's pay attention shall we?"

There's no way you're going to have a productive conversation if you're going to be a condescending ass like that.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#104

Post by 1457389 » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 9:30 PM UTC

st3v3r wrote: post #103

1457389 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point, though probably not in the way you mean. So let's pay attention shall we? FCS and FBS are collected from slaughtered dairy cows once they have exhausted their productive lifespans and rendered into meat. Details: >After slaughter and bleeding of the cow at an abattoir, the mother's uterus containing the calf fetus is removed during the evisceration process (removal of the mother's internal organs) a…

"So let's pay attention shall we?" There's no way you're going to have a productive conversation if you're going to be a condescending ass like that.

I think that possibility went out the window as soon as he brought up abortion. I'm not here to change his mind in particular, I'm just here to win the argument.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#105

Post by _wmd » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 9:44 PM UTC

tjic wrote: post #61

HSO wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Glad you're intrigued! Feel free to reach my by email with any questions! > Do you not get cognitive dissonance from killing "your children"? Well, first, they're not my children. I don't mean that flippantly, and it's a great question to ask, it's just that my answer is: my wife is my wife, my dogs are my dogs (and, yes, family), pigs are livestock...and chickens are sort of walking squawking vegetables. :) I should…

This is probably the most rewarding and insightful thing I've read on HN in 5 years

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#106

Post by 1457389 » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 9:45 PM UTC

ewzimm wrote: post #89

howling wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to force yourself not to name and play animals to be able to kill them eventually, it is probably wrong to kill them. Disclaimer: I am a vegetarian.

Some people might say that our instincts are often wrong. A lot of people use tricks to do something other than what their emotions are telling them. They get angry and contain it. They feel jealous that someone else is getting attention and ignore it. We tend to divide emotions into bad ones like that and good ones like empathy, but there's an argument to be made that the natural empathy we feel toward animals is wr…

>Taken to its extreme, we'd end up with a world where we tried to save everything, even every insect, and we'd end up with an unsustainable world or at best a planet-sized zoo where everything was controlled and coddled

We are in the middle of the largest extinction event in this planet's history, and it's our fault as a species. A major causative factor is our dependence on needless animal slaughter to get our jollies. I'd say we are at the opposite extreme to the one you hypothesize, and perhaps some extreme thinking to rectify this is needed. Don't let conciliation become collusion, even rhetorically.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#107

Post by gurkendoktor » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 9:46 PM UTC

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.

Since I haven't seen this argument in the sibling comments: I've met a fellow vegetarian in Australia who still ate kangaroos, which are often killed for population control. Not everyone will agree that that's ethical, but it doesn't necessarily have to do with valuing human life more than animal life. I guess we'd see more of this if we'd let nature recover from human overdevelopment.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#108

Post by gumby » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 9:46 PM UTC

korethr wrote: post #86

tjic wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad you're intrigued! Feel free to reach my by email with any questions! > Do you not get cognitive dissonance from killing "your children"? Well, first, they're not my children. I don't mean that flippantly, and it's a great question to ask, it's just that my answer is: my wife is my wife, my dogs are my dogs (and, yes, family), pigs are livestock...and chickens are sort of walking squawking vegetables. :) I should…

> Because of my ethics re animals, if I'm going to take a life, I want to use every last bit of the animal. This meant capturing the gallons of blood in a five gallon bucket. I buy whole chickens and part them out myself, and I do use every bit of the chicken that comes in the package. The bones are used for stocks, skin gets rendered for fat, etc. So I like to think I (can?) get using every last bit of the animal. B…

> I buy whole chickens and ... do use every bit of the chicken > But I'm curious, what use(s) does the blood have?

When I was a kid, my dad used to take me sometimes to a street vendor (this was in a small city in Malaysia, late 60s/early 70s) who ran his business from a bicycle. He had a small gas ring, a crate on the back of the bike with a couple of chickens in it, and some veggies and noodles.

My dad would order a meal and the guy would grab a chicken out of the box, wring its neck, drain the blood into a bucket, burn off the feathers, dismantle the chook and fry it up with mein and veggies. Yum!

But after handing us our food he would boil and eat the then congealed blood (and the other stuff we didn't eat). The food was great (especially since my mum did not approve) but I was always fascinated by this last step.

As I got older I appreciated that he had us pay for the meal and then still got a meal himself out of the deal.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#109

Post by ewzimm » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 9:56 PM UTC

1457389 wrote: post #106

ewzimm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people might say that our instincts are often wrong. A lot of people use tricks to do something other than what their emotions are telling them. They get angry and contain it. They feel jealous that someone else is getting attention and ignore it. We tend to divide emotions into bad ones like that and good ones like empathy, but there's an argument to be made that the natural empathy we feel toward animals is wr…

>Taken to its extreme, we'd end up with a world where we tried to save everything, even every insect, and we'd end up with an unsustainable world or at best a planet-sized zoo where everything was controlled and coddled We are in the middle of the largest extinction event in this planet's history, and it's our fault as a species. A major causative factor is our dependence on needless animal slaughter to get our jolli…

This is true. Especially South American slash and burn of the rainforest for cattle grazing is a huge contribution. We're burning through our largest carbon sinks and also the most diverse ecosystem to raise meat. Switching to alternatives like lab-grown meat and vegetables would do more than anything to stop both climate change and species extinction. It's insane that we're dancing on the edge of the extermination of life on Earth because of flavor. I do think that it'a important to look at the other side though to understand why we're following these kinds of practices. There'a a lot of culture tied up with meat, and we won't be able to get past it unless we address the reasons for doing it on all levels.

Re: The fight over transparency in the meat industry

#110

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 9:56 PM UTC

1457389 wrote: post #106

ewzimm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people might say that our instincts are often wrong. A lot of people use tricks to do something other than what their emotions are telling them. They get angry and contain it. They feel jealous that someone else is getting attention and ignore it. We tend to divide emotions into bad ones like that and good ones like empathy, but there's an argument to be made that the natural empathy we feel toward animals is wr…

>Taken to its extreme, we'd end up with a world where we tried to save everything, even every insect, and we'd end up with an unsustainable world or at best a planet-sized zoo where everything was controlled and coddled We are in the middle of the largest extinction event in this planet's history, and it's our fault as a species. A major causative factor is our dependence on needless animal slaughter to get our jolli…

[deleted]