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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

#271

Post by lifeformed »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #142

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 f…

This particular case isn't quite about eating meat or not, rather it's about defining the boundaries of cruelty. Surely most meat eaters would consider boiling a living chicken or cow to be unnecessarily cruel, and most would agree that it should be illegal to do so. This law is just saying that the same rules should apply to lobsters, based on some scientific research.

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

#272

Post by c_shu »

nurettin wrote: post #260
c_shu wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that we should pay more attention to people that are suffering. But I think the rationale of such laws is somewhat valid. Can you imagine a person who is totally emotionless when torturing an animal but is also very compassionate towards human beings? I think in some ways human ethics and animal ethics are connected. Though if you ask me whether Switzerland has gone too far, I'm still hesitant about yes/no.

Imagine grandpa gutting fish and shooting animals with a rifle all day to come back and give children a goodnight kiss. I am not the one lacking imagination.

That's not the kind of torture i meant. Rifle or knife should be acceptable to most people. (This process is simple. Experienced butchers even work fast and clean.) Switzerland law is also about killing the lobster instantly so it's the same.

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

#273

Post by shabble »

woodson wrote: post #259
Tomminn wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's poisonous, killing is considerably easier.

Venomous. Poisonous is when you die from eating it (like a pufferfish). Sorry if I come off as pedantic, I just see this very often and think it’s a pretty basic distinction.

But is the venom also poisonous?

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

#274

Post by lawl »

wallace_f wrote: post #270
Matumio wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I completely agree with you in general, even in Switzerland we're not safe[0]. You just picked a really shitty example, and in europe we're in general a bit more pro government than in the US.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_files_scandal

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

#275

Post by wallace_f »

csomar wrote: post #248
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.

It only strip your liberties if you think you have full rights over the animals, and they have none. One can argue that humans are animals. Animals are protected by law and thus you should not harm any animal being human or from other species.

It's not a comment about that. It's about thinking of where we should draw the line with allowing Western democracies to do things they were never meant to do.

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

#276

Post by opencl »

eridius wrote: post #153

> That means cats must have a daily visual contact with other felines Wow, really? Why? Cats are loners, they don't need to be around other cats. In fact, my cat hates other cats, giving her daily visual contact with other cats would basically be torture.

The law is actually far more sensible and says that "Cats kept on their own shall have daily contact with humans OR visual contact with members of their own species." Some people like harping on the Swiss animal protection laws as horrible tyranny but I feel really bad for any animals whose owners don't follow such basic standards of decency.

This PDF is the actual text of the law, the cat-specific part is section 11: http://www.zuerchertierschutz.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/Tiers...

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

#277

Post by stillkicking »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #203
ricardobeat wrote: post #120

> and Kunfermann said offenders could land in a lot of hot water Is there serious journalism being made anywhere these days? I feel like these subtle puns everywhere detract from the reading experience - not everything is for entertainment.

Puns in journalistic reporting are as old as printed news itself. If anything they have become significantly less popular with time.

In my experience it is a uniquely Anglo-Saxon phenomenon. Doesn't happen over here at all. The news tries to maintain a modicum of seriousness, even if the last few years it has also gone down the internet outrage and tumblr politics route.

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

#278

Post by icebraining »

microcolonel wrote: post #66
miles wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

There are people who have averse reactions to almost every plant based food, and can largely only eat meat or suffer horrible mental and physical health problems. Diet is not one-size-fits all, and we have basically no idea how complex diet is, or the specific long term effects of most dietary interventions on people. It is absolutely reprehensible to represent going vegan as an obvious way forward when it is unclear…

Can you link to a description of that condition? It sounds fascinating.

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

#279

Post by theoh »

firethief wrote: post #143
theoh wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, the prohibition of infanticide is a norm that presumably derives from a perception that killing babies harms the person who does it or others with a relationship to the child (possibly in a very indirect, diffuse way). It is perceived as going against the natural order of things, I guess. Utilitarian ethics does flirt with accepting infanticide in many cases, which is something a lot of people undoubtedly find repugant. Like this story:

"On his faculty page, Mr. Singer argues: “Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time. So killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living. That doesn’t mean that it is not almost always a terrible thing to do. It is, but that is because most infants are loved and cherished by their parents, and to kill an infant is usually to do a great wrong to its parents."

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/16/peter-singer-...

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

#280

Post by smoe »

wallace_f wrote: post #275
csomar wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only strip your liberties if you think you have full rights over the animals, and they have none. One can argue that humans are animals. Animals are protected by law and thus you should not harm any animal being human or from other species.

It's not a comment about that. It's about thinking of where we should draw the line with allowing Western democracies to do things they were never meant to do.

It is always good to think where to draw the line in terms of government interference.

But in this case the Swiss direct democracy is working exactly as expected by the people of the country. They voted decades ago that the government must be in charge and enforce the protection of the dignity and well-being of animals as well as update the law based on new findings. The new rules (which include the lobster stuff) going into effect are just the current iteration.

For example, from the first of March all devices that automatically punish dogs for barking will be outlawed. This is an intrusion in personal liberty, but the Swiss as a whole seem quite fine with valuing the well being of the animals higher than their owners liberty to use those devices on them.

If the Swiss are unhappy with the decisions made by the government here, we have the referendum as an quite often used instrument to stop it. You would need 55'000 signatures within 100 days if I remember correctly to trigger a vote on the national level.

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