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In Switzerland, it's now illegal to boil a live lobster

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Re: In Switzerland, it's now illegal to boil a live lobster

#51

Post by paulcole »

nickjj wrote: post #2

"...dipping it into salt water and then thrusting a knife into its brain." So for a few seconds it will think it's being released back into its natural habitat and then seconds later its brains are dripping down some chef's knife. The article talks about "animal dignity", but how is that giving them any form of dignity? They are still being killed unnaturally. NOTE: I'm not some animal rights person and I do eat meat…

>I do eat meat without thinking

Congratulations? I’m not sure the point you’re making here.

Re: In Switzerland, it's now illegal to boil a live lobster

#52

Post by zer00eyz »

chongli wrote: post #45
lukaslalinsky wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a dangerous route to take, because at that point you can start comparing yourself to animals. We spent a few centuries developing our world, so I think it's fair to assume higher standards. Animals kill other animals to solve their hunger and they do their best to end it quickly.

Animals kill other animals to solve their hunger and they do their best to end it quickly. Not always. Weasels and their relatives engage in surplus killing. Cats regularly play with their prey, clawing them and batting them around for fun, many times without even eating the dead prey animal. Dolphins are known to devour a shark's liver and leave the rest of the animal to sink, dying a slow death. Humans are animals.…

> Dolphins are known to devour a shark's liver and leave the rest of the animal to sink, dying a slow death.

Killer whales will do this to other whales as well (well liver and tongue)

The caracas goes on to feed lots of other things however, and the cycle of life continues.

And then there is this: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18454-hippy-apes-caug...

Re: In Switzerland, it's now illegal to boil a live lobster

#53

Post by zaroth »

miles wrote: post #19
tptacek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having to do with the fact that lobsters (according to Wallace) have decentralized nervous systems consisting of ganglia wired in series, so that slicing through one of them might not disable the creature's nociception upon being immersed in boiling water. You might just be keeping it from flailing around, paralyzed but still "aware" in whatever sense a lobster is aware of anything. Dave Arnold, another favorite writ…

> Dave Arnold, another favorite writer of mine, has a solution to this problem: clove oil anesthetizes lobsters (and fish). Clove oil, knife through the head, then boil. Or, you know, don’t kill them. Not sure why this idea is still considered extreme. Why harm fellow creatures when it is simply unnecessary? As Tolstoy wrote[1], "A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats me…

It’s fairly difficult not to kill them, you know, when you plan to eat them.

If your Tolstoy quote is accurate, it seems fairly sloppy reasoning to me. Animal protein is an essential component of nourishing billions of people. Calling sustenance “appetite” is a rhetorical flourish which undermines the argument.

I think what would be immoral is telling billions of people they can’t eat meat.

There are many ways one could prescribe humans should act to minimize their impact on the flora and fauna of our world. But at the same time, humans are entitled to a certain degree of leeway in this regard. Sustainably eating the plants and animals beneath us on the food chain is one of those areas.

Re: In Switzerland, it's now illegal to boil a live lobster

#54

Post by georgecmu »

I'm torn on the subject.

There's a Korean restaurant in Queens that serves live seafood (octopi chopped in front of you; hot pots with live scallops cooked at your table): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfu9MzeEMxo

I don't have a problem with chopping up an octopus at the dinner table, but I probably wouldn't want to see a chicken clubbed to death before it lands in plate.

On a different subject, I'm not sure that 'dignity' is a well-defined concept or that it applies to death in the first place. Is bleeding out from a cut throat as per the kosher slaughter method [1] less or more dignified than boiling alive in a pot?

[1] https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/7/73/Properly-Slaughter...

Re: In Switzerland, it's now illegal to boil a live lobster

#55

Post by shrimp_emoji »

bernardino wrote: post #46
miles wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dave Arnold, another favorite writer of mine, has a solution to this problem: clove oil anesthetizes lobsters (and fish). Clove oil, knife through the head, then boil. Or, you know, don’t kill them. Not sure why this idea is still considered extreme. Why harm fellow creatures when it is simply unnecessary? As Tolstoy wrote[1], "A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats me…

While I still eat meat, etc, at times I do think about what kind of suffering animals, etc, go through. I often come to the conclusion that we should just let them be - their lives, much like ours, are short-lived, and they deserve their little piece happiness. All this reminds me of Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered by Ernst F. Schumacher - a great read.

I disagree because they're not smart enough to enjoy their short and simple lives, so the enjoyment our lives get via eating them takes precedence.

This is a very fascist position, though! I could say the same for a human on life support who's gone through brain death (really, a lobster's smarter, at that point). Although perhaps that's not really that bad, albeit macabre. Perhaps, one day, we'll lab-grow meat, maybe our own, to eat, just to see what we taste like. That's equivalent to consuming non-lab-grown but also unconscious human tissue, I think. BUT SCARIER, this same line of thinking might lead to much-vaster-than-human intelligences deciding we don't have rights and that it's okay to eat us!

Am I okay with being eaten by a hyperintelligent being to whom I have the status of a lobster or a cow? Maybe. Because I really admire a being like that. Maybe it could effortlessly convince me to surrendering to being eaten with arguments more creative and compelling than a million Shakespeares could pen up, effortlessly, like some Saruman-godthing[0], because that just goes with the territory of being that smart! But, short of that, I'd try to run away, and many people don't share my ambivalence...

Ethics is difficult. But chicken is tasty.

[0]: https://youtu.be/VHrTTgmB_3w?t=385

Re: In Switzerland, it's now illegal to boil a live lobster

#57

Post by [deleted] »

david38 wrote: post #26
miles wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dave Arnold, another favorite writer of mine, has a solution to this problem: clove oil anesthetizes lobsters (and fish). Clove oil, knife through the head, then boil. Or, you know, don’t kill them. Not sure why this idea is still considered extreme. Why harm fellow creatures when it is simply unnecessary? As Tolstoy wrote[1], "A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats me…

Lots of things aren't necessary. Eating lots of meat, sex without intent to procreate, travel. They sure are fun!

[deleted]

Re: In Switzerland, it's now illegal to boil a live lobster

#58

Post by darkerside »

zaroth wrote: post #53
miles wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dave Arnold, another favorite writer of mine, has a solution to this problem: clove oil anesthetizes lobsters (and fish). Clove oil, knife through the head, then boil. Or, you know, don’t kill them. Not sure why this idea is still considered extreme. Why harm fellow creatures when it is simply unnecessary? As Tolstoy wrote[1], "A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats me…

It’s fairly difficult not to kill them, you know, when you plan to eat them. If your Tolstoy quote is accurate, it seems fairly sloppy reasoning to me. Animal protein is an essential component of nourishing billions of people. Calling sustenance “appetite” is a rhetorical flourish which undermines the argument. I think what would be immoral is telling billions of people they can’t eat meat. There are many ways one co…

> beneath us on the food chain

This sounds... tautological. We can morally eat whatever we can eat? Does that include gorilla meat? Weaker humans?

Re: In Switzerland, it's now illegal to boil a live lobster

#59

Post by Sharlin »

chr1 wrote: post #41
tptacek wrote: post #4

It's at this point you'd probably want to go read David Foster Wallace's essay "Consider The Lobster", an assignment he took from (I shit you not) Gourmet Magazine, which begins with a sort of Illinois Country Fair style travelogue from the Maine Lobster Festival and "ends", if you can call the back 2/3rds of an essay "ending", in a discussion of the meaning of pain and its applicability to the specific nervous syste…

What is worse, causing pain or killing? If we consider an extreme case of someone going through a horrible torture, but the next day waking up as healthy as before, and without some kind of mental illness, and without losing significant amount of his time, or opportunity, would it be any different than a game? Would most people try such a game, where they play for someone getting executed in middle ages? My guess is…

Wait, what? You mean most people would volunteer to be tortured horribly as long as any damage is 100% reversed the next day? Uh, I’m not sure whether your model of people is entirely accurate.

Re: In Switzerland, it's now illegal to boil a live lobster

#60

Post by miles »

zaroth wrote: post #53
miles wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dave Arnold, another favorite writer of mine, has a solution to this problem: clove oil anesthetizes lobsters (and fish). Clove oil, knife through the head, then boil. Or, you know, don’t kill them. Not sure why this idea is still considered extreme. Why harm fellow creatures when it is simply unnecessary? As Tolstoy wrote[1], "A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats me…

It’s fairly difficult not to kill them, you know, when you plan to eat them. If your Tolstoy quote is accurate, it seems fairly sloppy reasoning to me. Animal protein is an essential component of nourishing billions of people. Calling sustenance “appetite” is a rhetorical flourish which undermines the argument. I think what would be immoral is telling billions of people they can’t eat meat. There are many ways one co…

> Animal protein is an essential component of nourishing billions of people

It doesn't have to be; in fact, humans, animals, and the planet would be much better off in many ways were we to transition to plant-based diets:

Go vegan, save the planet https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/08/opinions/go-vegan-save-the-pl...

Five things would happen if everyone stopped eating meat http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/five-things-would-happen...

What would happen if everyone went vegan? https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/what-would-world-loo...

What the Health http://www.whatthehealthfilm.com

The Game Changers http://gamechangersmovie.com

Cowspiracy http://www.cowspiracy.com

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