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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

#141

Post by dsfyu404ed »

TomMarius wrote: post #111
chr1 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not volunteer for it alone, but try it as a part of a bigger package. Kind of like a more realistic version of a horror movie/game. Do you think i am entirely wrong, and suffering is worse than death? Do you think it is better to die, instead of enduring suffering and then getting to live some more?

I think you severely underestimate how much painful torture is.

If you knew there would be no permanent damage would you do it for $10, $100, $1,000, some amount that assures you never have to work again, etc?

There's many cultures that have coming of age rituals that would be considered torture in the western world. People do those things because they're "part of a larger package" so to speak.

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

#142

Post by myrandomcomment »

So you will crush a roach or swat a fly? I am all for humane chicken faming methods, et.al. However we are the top of the food chain and we eat everything below. That means it dies. My friends dogs will try to eat his chickens and it is not pretty (he trains the dogs not to of course.) I have a forest full of dear behind my house. I heard the very loud screaming of an animal the other day. One of the deer was lunch for a mountain lion. This is the way it works. If you have an issue with it then do not eat lobster or do not eat meat. I like lobster. If you told me I could do something simple to make their death more human I would, but it’s still going to die and I am still going to eat it.

Edit: English is hard :)

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

#143

Post by firethief »

theoh wrote: post #112
firethief wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering suffering alone seems like it could justify some counterintuitive conclusions. Would it be wrong to have a child, raise it happily to adolescence, and then give it a painless, instant death? If so, why?

I didn't mean that happiness wouldn't be considered, just that that appropriate thing to worry about is suffering (can we call it negative happiness?). There is obviously not going to be a simple happiness score at each moment of life—it should at least be a vector of scores. Would make sense to integrate over time, but then there's the spectre of a "happiness maximizer" (like a paperclip maximizer) that might produc…

Adding happiness to the model solves some of its problems (suffering+happiness model doesn't advocate nuclear annihilation), but I don't see how suffering-vs-happiness utilitarianism reaches the conclusion that infanticide is wrong. It seems like we need to consider more than happiness vectors for infanticide not to be okay.

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

#144

Post by stordoff »

chr1 wrote: post #88
Sharlin wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not volunteer for it alone, but try it as a part of a bigger package. Kind of like a more realistic version of a horror movie/game. Do you think i am entirely wrong, and suffering is worse than death? Do you think it is better to die, instead of enduring suffering and then getting to live some more?

> Do you think i am entirely wrong, and suffering is worse than death?

In some cases, certainly.

I'd also say that it being voluntary, and knowing that there is an end (and can be brought to an end by you), makes for a very different experience.

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

#145

Post by dsfyu404ed »

a_cactus wrote: post #138
wildmusings wrote: post #137

The bar for infringing on people's freedom should be high. Laws should exit only to protect human interests. That can include things like preserving biodiversity. But to use the power of the state against people for the sole purpose of protecting animal interests is unjustified in my opinion. I believe we have a moral duty to treat animals well, and certainly to avoid causing needless suffering. But not all moral dut…

Do you disagree with most animal cruelty laws then? What about dog or cock fighting?

That would fall under the scope of "needless".

The context of this law is a lobster that's going to be eaten.

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

#146

Post by wildmusings »

a_cactus wrote: post #138
wildmusings wrote: post #137

The bar for infringing on people's freedom should be high. Laws should exit only to protect human interests. That can include things like preserving biodiversity. But to use the power of the state against people for the sole purpose of protecting animal interests is unjustified in my opinion. I believe we have a moral duty to treat animals well, and certainly to avoid causing needless suffering. But not all moral dut…

Do you disagree with most animal cruelty laws then? What about dog or cock fighting?

One of the strongest arguments for banning cock/dog fighting is that it inculcates moral depravity in its participants. To stand there and take pleasure in causing suffering in living things can only serve make you callous to human suffering as well. It seems justified to ban it, at least as an organized, large-scale enterprise.

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

#147

Post by wallace_f »

kranner wrote: post #139
wallace_f wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a vegetarian, but I'm more troubled by these totalitarian laws. Yes, I know they 'are just helping animals,' but throughout history, too often tyrants strip your liberties in the name of of moral righteousness.

In what way does it strip one's liberties to be required to keep at least two guinea pigs if one must keep them? The "liberty" to keep exactly one guinea pig: that is just silly.

That's exactly the point. The first steps in the path to illegitimate authority is to start legitimizing it using these low-hanging fruits.

This is just textbook play calling. Removing net neutrality starts "we just want to help hospitals and police have faster internet, don't be ridiculous." Drug prohibition, the War on Terror, the TSA, police militarization. It all, every time, comes with "they're just trying to do something good and it doesn't seriously affect you." Except maybe thre TSA, because when someone starts searching you all of a sudden everyone is a civil libertarian.(1)

The problems 1) One can always make the argument that "those are just not worthwhile freedoms." 2) The idea that using the threat of violence from the government to solve every problem is the actual path to tyranny.

1-https://theintercept.com/2018/02/05/the-nunes-memo-and-katie...

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

#148

Post by sharkweek »

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…

Love that whole series of essays in the Consider the Lobster collection - you can also listen to several of them on YouTube and I have to say Wallace’s tone when reading the essays makes them more enjoyable

https://youtu.be/_fZOl7C_vDI

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

#149

Post by dsfyu404ed »

tzs wrote: post #28

Question: what is the maximum water temperature that a lobster can survive in? If that maximum is less than the boiling point of water, then another question: how carefully is the law drafted? If the law actually specifies boiling, is it just going to result in cooks bring the water to a boil, taking it off the heat, letting it drop to a little below the boiling point, and then inserting the lobster, where it still d…

>If the law actually specifies boiling, is it just going to result in cooks bring the water to a boil, taking it off the heat, letting it drop to a little below the boiling point, and then inserting the lobster, where it still dies but not as fast?

Yeah, make stupid rules, play stupid games. This seems like a feel-good law. I wonder how enforcement will be.

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

#150

Post by dsfyu404ed »

dvtv75 wrote: post #44
jjeaff wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, sometimes when I hear people talk about how we kill animals inhumanely, I feel like they should watch a little bit of national geographic. Makes a sketchy slaughterhouse seem like a picnic.

I went on a tour through a slaughterhouse when I was a teen, as part of a school trip. Didn't want to go, but my stepfather decided that it would be "good for" me. I made it clear I didn't want to go and he laughed. He loved the power trip of forcing me to watch animals be killed. It really messed me up. I won't eat red meat mostly as a result of this, but also because my family were also ridiculously poor cooks. (Th…

So forcing you to see the reality of where meat comes from was a power trip?
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