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

Post by byset » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 10:55 PM UTC

miles wrote: post #60

zaroth wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-wou…

Post by ptaipale » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 10:59 PM UTC

Post by nefitty » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 11:03 PM UTC

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #55

bernardino wrote: post #46

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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…

Post by Waterluvian » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 11:07 PM UTC

miles wrote: post #19

tptacek wrote: post #16

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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…

Post by kaybe » Sat, Feb 17, 2018, 11:10 PM UTC

fmihaila wrote: post #8

nickjj wrote: post #6

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Yes but dignity is usually related to respect and honor. When was the last time you killed and ate something out of respect? They should change that phrase to "reduce cruelty towards animals" and then it's fine. Say it as it is basically.

> Yes but dignity is usually related to respect and honor. When was the last time you killed and ate something out of respect? I don't kill what I eat, but most communities and cultures where this is a regular occurrence have long traditions of respecting the animals being sacrificed. One form of respect is to minimize the animal's suffering (both when it's raised and when it's killed), another is to use all parts of…