Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ending factory farming as soon as possible

80000hours.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 83 posts

Re: Ending factory farming as soon as possible

#51

Post by viraptor »

lprubin wrote: post #46
DougN7 wrote: post #8

Just pointing out an unintended consequence I saw in a cartoon: As soon as nobody farms cows for meat, milk, and leather, cows will become an endangered species/extinct because nobody will pay to keep them alive. And there's not much space where they could survive on their own in the wild.

As a thought experiment, would it be OK to breed human slaves because at least they got to exist?

If the current alternative was growing in a box until ready to be eaten, then sure. It does look like a great short term improvement. Provided we're not planning to stop there.

Re: Ending factory farming as soon as possible

#52

Post by rta1421 »

civilian wrote: post #35
blizkreeg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

perhaps it's my ignorance as i haven't tasted it.

Okay. I was wondering if you thought the labelling would turn people off. (America has a lot of random fear-of-science. See: anti-GMOs, anti-vaccine, anti-evolution sentiments.) Or maybe that it would be that people wouldn't actually be able to reocognize what cut of meat it was from, and it would be some kind of uncanny valley problem. Or a kind of macho attitude like "if a pig didn't die, it doesn't count as breakf…

>America has a lot of random fear-of-science. See: anti-GMOs, anti-vaccine, anti-evolution sentiments.

these sentiments are not random when you consider the history of Monsanto, of DuPont, the tuskegee syphilis experiments, etc. You don't need to look far to find reasons to distrust global corporations and governments.

Re: Ending factory farming as soon as possible

#53

Post by sien »

mattzito wrote: post #36
sien wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were 21M horses in the US in 1900. In 1960 there were 3M. https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/12516/how-common...

The GP said increased variety, not increased numbers.

Yes. However, the magnitude of the decrease is significant and it seemed that it would interest people, as it has, to see the numbers involved in the decline for horses.

For bovines it's likely to be even larger.

Re: Ending factory farming as soon as possible

#54

Post by ben_w »

dforrestwilson wrote: post #9
DougN7 wrote: post #8

Just pointing out an unintended consequence I saw in a cartoon: As soon as nobody farms cows for meat, milk, and leather, cows will become an endangered species/extinct because nobody will pay to keep them alive. And there's not much space where they could survive on their own in the wild.

Zoos would likely be collectors of last resort. A lot of people think milk cows in particular are cute.

The location and the sexuality.

When Sweden voted to outlaw the latter, a Swedish friend of mine revealed he had lost his virginity that way years earlier. Without passing absolute moral judgement (pro or con) on either type of human-bovine interaction, I cannot see how the latter is relatively worse than the former, which is why his revelation caused me to attempt veganism for a bit (I failed, vegan cheese is no substitute for the real thing).

Re: Ending factory farming as soon as possible

#55

Post by openfuture »

belorn wrote: post #28

Looking through the different approaches on the list, I am missing one large one. Fishermen are currently throwing away a majority of caught fish because people only buy a very small selection of species (which also differ between nations). We could more than double the amount of fish meat that get eaten without changing the number of fish being killed, and yet for mostly cultural reasons we don't.

Something in the ocean is definitely eating that leftover fish, not throwing it away is not a "free" change.

Re: Ending factory farming as soon as possible

#56

Post by hacking_again »

civilian wrote: post #35
blizkreeg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

perhaps it's my ignorance as i haven't tasted it.

Okay. I was wondering if you thought the labelling would turn people off. (America has a lot of random fear-of-science. See: anti-GMOs, anti-vaccine, anti-evolution sentiments.) Or maybe that it would be that people wouldn't actually be able to reocognize what cut of meat it was from, and it would be some kind of uncanny valley problem. Or a kind of macho attitude like "if a pig didn't die, it doesn't count as breakf…

Lab-made synthetic flavors* are readily distinguished from non-lab flavours. Getting lab-made flavors right must be an easier problem than growing a steak in the lab... and we still still can't do it.

* a.k.a. artifical and natural flavours - the only difference between artificial and natural is the starting ingredient in the synthesis

Re: Ending factory farming as soon as possible

#57

Post by tnzn »

StavrosK wrote: post #50
lprubin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what's stopping you from going vegan or vegetarian in the interim?

Pretty much only this equation: meat tastiness * degree it affects me > immorality of killing animals * degree it affects me

Yeah, "vegan in the head but not in the plate", I think our ranks are growing haha

Re: Ending factory farming as soon as possible

#58

Post by StavrosK »

tnzn wrote: post #57
StavrosK wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much only this equation: meat tastiness * degree it affects me > immorality of killing animals * degree it affects me

Yeah, "vegan in the head but not in the plate", I think our ranks are growing haha

Exactly that. One of these days, someone will give me a choice between a normal, horrifyingly-grown slab of meat and a slightly-more-expensive-but-ethically-grown one, and then we'll see who's a hypocrite!

Re: Ending factory farming as soon as possible

#59

Post by cies »

NeoBasilisk wrote: post #2

I think lab-grown meat (if it ever becomes economically feasible) is the only thing that can ever put a dent in factory farming.

One great thing I foresee with lab grown meat is that the discussion changes. Suppose you can get your labgrowns to be cheaper yet indistinguishable from the meat that was once part of a sentient being. In that world you have to be especially sadistic to still want slaughters variant.

Investors seem to notice too.

"Why Bill Gates And Richard Branson Invested In 'Clean' Meat" https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2017/08/25/why-bil...

"Richard Branson predicts the world will no longer need to kill animals in 30 years" http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/indyventure/memph...

By the way, if anyone who reads still consumes dairy: that stuff is undermining your health. Replacements are getting close, and given that the replacements are WAY more healthy it is just not the same story as meat. (Similar, but less convincing, case can be made for eggs)

If lab grown meat can "in the future" make a dent in slaughtered meat consumption (can attract "us" away), then plant-based dairy alternatives should be able to do so today.

And they do -- https://www.google.nl/search?q=dairy+consumption+is+down -- all over the western world. Their best strategy: sell it to new markets of people that are, unlike those of European decent, much more likely to be lactose intolerant.

Re: Ending factory farming as soon as possible

#60

Post by civilian »

hacking_again wrote: post #56
civilian wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. I was wondering if you thought the labelling would turn people off. (America has a lot of random fear-of-science. See: anti-GMOs, anti-vaccine, anti-evolution sentiments.) Or maybe that it would be that people wouldn't actually be able to reocognize what cut of meat it was from, and it would be some kind of uncanny valley problem. Or a kind of macho attitude like "if a pig didn't die, it doesn't count as breakf…

Lab-made synthetic flavors* are readily distinguished from non-lab flavours. Getting lab-made flavors right must be an easier problem than growing a steak in the lab... and we still still can't do it. * a.k.a. artifical and natural flavours - the only difference between artificial and natural is the starting ingredient in the synthesis

Idk, I'm not convinced. You're comparing two very different processes--- artificial flavors are a matter of organic chemistry and if we [humans] are guiding the process, then we have to get every single fraction of chemicals exactly right.

Whereas, when you have cells, you already have a system that grows and does the chemistry via it's own enzymes. The dream is that you "just add sugar / water / salt" and it'll grow. I'm not saying that there won't be problems. (Like, maybe the meat tissue think that it's stressed or has been cut, if it's exposed to water/air? Maybe stressed tissue will taste bad or produce bad hormones?) But they will be very very different problems.

Post reply on HN