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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

#261

Post by tscs37 »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #119
nefitty wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we could genetically engineer animals to be intelligent enough to have conscious desires, and also have an overwhelming desire to be killed and eaten, would it still be morally wrong to eat them? (This dilemma assumes that you share my belief that the demand for meat products causes a net increase in suffering.)

That would be hilarious. Taken to an extreme, we could have those animals be humans that are somehow born masochists, desperate to get consumed by cannibals. Hmm. I think it's morally dubious to make them in the first place. Past that, we're talking about fulfilling their desires. If someone wants to die (say they're suffering from some slow, terminal illness or maybe incurable depression), is it ethical to keep them…

The Hitchhiker book "Restaurant at the End of the Universe" explores this concept somewhat (as do some other books in the series IIRC).

The cow in question repeatedly assures the protagonist that the entire process is very humane and that it desires nothing more than to be eaten and enjoyed by others. It's actually quite offended when Arthur only orders a salad.

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

#262

Post by scruple »

mudil wrote: post #213
parent5446 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making an assumption that it is indeed the right thing to do.

I catch all spiders at home with a wine glass and piece of paper and throw them out. I do the same with all the flies. No need to kill. Also, I am grossed out to see people smashing insects at home.

Do people not have Black Widows where they live? 90% of the spiders that I encounter in and around my home (mostly in my garage and my garden) are Black Widows and I thoughtlessly and indiscriminately kill them on sight. When I didn't kill them, they seemed to try to take ownership of different areas of the garden or garage. This happened where I lived in LA, in Goleta, CA, in north Santa Barbara county, and in Orange County. The only place I didn't experience this issue was when I spent a brief period in Riverside County. No spiders in that place, I always assumed it was because it was summer and > 100F highs every day. As if spiders give a shit about a heat wave, but it seemed to have some truth to it.

My thinking is: I don't want to risk my own or my wife or a guests personal health, and so I "deal" with them. Am I wrong?

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

#264

Post by watwut »

white-flame wrote: post #230
watwut wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Natural death of an animal in the nature can be quite long and very painful. The point is not to simulate natural kill, the point is to kill the animal without torturing it unnecessary.

Right, if we can kill it within 30 seconds, that eliminates a lot of unnecessary torture compared to a natural death. But then if 30 seconds is the new normal, then it becomes outrageous again, and killing it in 10 seconds is now eliminating unnecessary torture, right? But then that becomes the new norm and we shave another second off? Do we end up disputing the transmission of pulses down their nervous systems and i…

You talk about it as if it would be bad process. It is not. It is process that takes into account our natural need to eat, pleasure we have from eating and practicality of killing.

If civilization crushed and I would be suddenly living in the forest with family, I would kill the animal however I could - to eat. Probably painfully, because I know nothing else and probably am too exhausted to waste energy. I care more about me and kids not dying then about lobster pain.

On the other extreme, we have cheap pulses to kill them quick available, why not.

The same process happen with everything: legal systems, medicine and even child raising.

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

#265

Post by Matumio »

wallace_f wrote: post #251
lawl wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it wouldn't, they could easily change it as everybody can submit a law change suggestion (sorry, I don't know the correct term) Referendum to kill an existing law, popular initiative to propose a new one. They use different tricks when they're extending their power. This is definitely not one of them. Laws they suspect could be overturned by voters they create 2 simular but separate ones shortly after each other…

It's not that anyone ever sat around a board room with an evil plot involving the protection of guinea pigs. It's that it is so normal that the state act as your parents, which was never the intention of Western democracies, that nobody even thinks "should we really be letting ourselves hand over so many decisions to a monopoly on violence?"

I get the point you're trying to make, it's just that you have picked the perfect counter-example to make it against. Both with animal protection (no human will profit) and with Switzerland (we as citizens can force a popular vote against any law our elected government is about to pass, or even propose new laws).

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

#266

Post by ptaipale »

djrogers wrote: post #206
nixpulvis wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you treat me like your dog I'll probably end up punching you in the face. Just saying.

And on the flip side, if you treat your dog like a human, it’ll probably wind up being a misbehaving menace.

That is a worthy point. Some dog owners, particularly those getting their first dog, treat their dogs like humans, which is bad both for humans and dogs.

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

#267

Post by Matumio »

nixpulvis wrote: post #170

I think the only logical solution is to learn to communicate with the lobsters. Then we can establish diplomatic relations, and learn of their ways. Only after we truly understand the lobster can we say what is a dignified way for them to go. Who knows maybe one will even run for president one day.

Funny thing you should say this about lobsters in particular. In Charles Stross' novel "Accelerando" simulated (uploaded) lobster brains got smart enough to reach out for help and escape their experiment. They eventually become a superhuman being, living in space.

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

#268

Post by kpil »

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…

I'm not convinced that 250,000 neurons is capable of much self reference at all, so the psychological suffering must be negligible.

But sure, electrical stunning is probably preferable.

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

#269

Post by ht_th »

scruple wrote: post #262
mudil wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I catch all spiders at home with a wine glass and piece of paper and throw them out. I do the same with all the flies. No need to kill. Also, I am grossed out to see people smashing insects at home.

Do people not have Black Widows where they live? 90% of the spiders that I encounter in and around my home (mostly in my garage and my garden) are Black Widows and I thoughtlessly and indiscriminately kill them on sight. When I didn't kill them, they seemed to try to take ownership of different areas of the garden or garage. This happened where I lived in LA, in Goleta, CA, in north Santa Barbara county, and in Orang…

> Do people not have Black Widows where they live?

Nope. I think the most dangerous animal you'd encounter around here is the tick, which is related to the Lyme disease it might carry.

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

#270

Post by wallace_f »

Matumio wrote: post #265
wallace_f wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that anyone ever sat around a board room with an evil plot involving the protection of guinea pigs. It's that it is so normal that the state act as your parents, which was never the intention of Western democracies, that nobody even thinks "should we really be letting ourselves hand over so many decisions to a monopoly on violence?"

I get the point you're trying to make, it's just that you have picked the perfect counter-example to make it against. Both with animal protection (no human will profit) and with Switzerland (we as citizens can force a popular vote against any law our elected government is about to pass, or even propose new laws).

You're right that Switzerland is just about the least concerning place in the world in terms of government tyranny. However, there are problems with only starting to be critical when the government starts confiscating your phone at the airport, reading your email, etc. At this point you've even set precedent that they should be allowed to do those things, just so long as it can be justified as good, or even "the will of the people." So in this case we have ourselves to blame for this being in this mess.

And this kind of government js actually quite a shift from the type of democracy that Enlightenment figures helped developed for us, which gave us so much in the world.

Governments are responsible for most of the evil in the 20th century. Culling that probably starts with thinking about what a legitimate government should be permitted to do in the first place.

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