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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

#291

Post by travisjungroth »

firethief wrote: post #236
TomMarius wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people can. Any sources? Most of the professionals seem to think otherwise.

[Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics]( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27886704/)** * It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy,…

Thank you!

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

#292

Post by lazyasciiart »

shard972 wrote: post #186
lazyasciiart wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascinating thoughts, maybe you shouldn't live in Switzerland.

Thanks captain obvious, Although maybe a more insightful response would have been pointing out the contrast between the modern culture of switzerland and that of nature which lacks major intrusions by humans.

I think the contrast is between the modern culture of Switzerland and that of the US, where people feel that their right to kill animals inhumanely is too important to be legislated away.

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

#293

Post by shard972 »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #292
shard972 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks captain obvious, Although maybe a more insightful response would have been pointing out the contrast between the modern culture of switzerland and that of nature which lacks major intrusions by humans.

I think the contrast is between the modern culture of Switzerland and that of the US, where people feel that their right to kill animals inhumanely is too important to be legislated away.

Or maybe it's a difference in a country that isn't as bought and sold on the idea that you can fix everything by passing a law.

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

#294

Post by RJamesGauvreau »

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…

I used to live in Michigan, and much of my extended family still lives there. We're used to black widows, and don't kill them (even though one of my cousins got bitten by a brown recluse and came out pretty badly, you're really in no danger so long as you exercise a few ounces of prudence).

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

#295

Post by mirimir »

chr1 wrote: post #288
mirimir wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovach novels, virtual torture typically drives victims insane. And for me, I fear prolonged illness and pain more than death.

> virtual torture typically drives victims insane. Is that self evident though? It seems like the difference between pleasure and pain is that pain is a signal that is interpreted as "get out of here, or you may die". And brain is pretty flexible when it comes to reinterpretting the meaning of signals. E.g. with food taste, some tastes that induce revulsion on first try, become peculiar and interesting after a while.

Yes, and that's part of the strategy that Envoys (and presumably, real life counterparts) use in resisting torture. But with virtual torture, the victim can experience thousands of AI-driven sessions with a clock rate that's thousands of times faster than normal. So years of torture in hours.

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

#296

Post by wallace_f »

lawl wrote: post #274
wallace_f wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Err, the "shittiness" of the example was deliberate. Of course I could point out violations that everyone would agree with, such as the TSA confiscating your electronics. That threat is personally threatening to people, so all of a sudden they're civil libertarians.

Consider another example: what benefit is there in the government spending so much time and money giving due process, health care and other rights to murderers, child predators or terrorists, while free, good people go without healthcare? It's not because the criminals deserve it. If I advocated human rights for these people when we didn't have them, you would say the same thing you are now: "I agree with human rights, but you just picked a really shitty example." The point is this: to consider what constitutes legitimate government.

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

#297

Post by wallace_f »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #160
wallace_f wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think you'll find that this kind of thing started with making slavery illegal, a.k.a the actual use of force by the government to take away people's freedom to own other humans. The idea that all authority is immoral because authority can be used for immoral purposes is a simplistic slippery slope, and frankly anyone arguing that is just arbitrarily picking one ingredient of tyranny and saying that it should be ban…

Permitting private individuals to enact injustice such as slavery is advocating anarchy. You should read a little bit of Locke, Hume, JSM, Jefferson on democracy... The idea is very generally that we agree to a social contract to "give up some of our liberties to protect the remainder." Nobody has a right to remove the rights of another in this tradition, and it has always been that way going back, long before the Civil War. So the state using force to protect the liberties has always been just.

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

#298

Post by wallace_f »

stordoff wrote: post #287
wallace_f wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're misunderstanding this. The issue is with regard to what constitutes legitimate authority. It's because the government has a monopoly on violence. The time to leash that is when it oversteps its legitimate authority. Not wait until something awful happens when they're locking up communists, reading your email, or killing minorities.

I'll go back to my first question: in this case, what legitimate authority is being overstepped? It seems widely accepted that governments have the ability to make laws for the protection of animal welfare, and we seem in agreement that the ends reached here are a good thing. To me, this seems like a legitimate and proportional use of governmental power.

I can't seem to find a way to communicate this. I do agree those laws achieve good ends. I suppose most people don't like being called ugly and stupid, should government ban that?

All I'm advocating is the ideals proposed during the Enlightenment and founding of America be taken more seriously.

Most of the evil in the world is done by governments. Once you set them up with the size, authority to do that, it will be done.

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

#299

Post by lawl »

wallace_f wrote: post #296
lawl wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Err, the "shittiness" of the example was deliberate. Of course I could point out violations that everyone would agree with, such as the TSA confiscating your electronics. That threat is personally threatening to people, so all of a sudden they're civil libertarians. Consider another example: what benefit is there in the government spending so much time and money giving due process, health care and other rights to mur…

> while free, good people go without healthcare?

Doesn't happen in Switzerland.

> If I advocated human rights for these people when we didn't have them, you would say the same thing you are now: "I agree with human rights, but you just picked a really shitty example."

Nope, I wouldn't. In fact I got heavily downvoted on HN before because I advocated for freedom of speech even for terrorists.

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

#300

Post by eridius »

opencl wrote: post #276
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…

Thanks! That sounds a lot better than what was mentioned in the article.
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