Why I Don't Love Gödel, Escher, Bach

The very physical/analog nature of a record player makes it not hard for me to imagine a record designed to break a player, one can totally imagine one whose grooves jostle the arm so much it breaks (no idea if this is actually practical, it doesn't really matter).

I wonder if it doesn't work anymore now that fewer people have experienced a record player, although the author DID say he encountered it first 20 years ago and had trouble with it then, I dunno.

> can the problem of record-player-breaking-records be suitably addressed by redesigning record-players? If no, why not? What if we simply read the information from a record using a visual device with no moving parts?

Dude, it's a metaphor/analogy, it's not that hard to realize taking it that literally takes you out of it. No analogy can ever be carried to it's end and still be a good analogy or metaphor. That's why it's an analogy, not the thing analogized. (which is a lesson that is (ironically? intentionally?) consistent with the messages of GEB? The map is not the territory.)

However I suspect we agree some lives are so filled with suffering that the compassionate choice is to not breed a sentient being into that life. Imagine choosing to get pregnant if you had certain evidence it'd damn your future child to a life of physical and mental anguish -- you'd refuse. That's the life of pigs and chickens on modern farms: too much suffering[1], below the threshold of "worth living."

Moreover, the state of the animal welfare movement is bleak[2] compared to the scope. Farm animal advocacy is a niche and regularly ridiculed. Progress is constantly on shaky ground: recent initiatives in MA and CA prohibiting animal products from animals raised in cages too small to turn around in is at serious risk of being overturned by the federal government's "King amendment," which would prevent any state-based welfare reforms. I'm passionately in support of this work, but under no delusion we're near the end of it.

Given that, the strategy I advocate for is both improved treatment of farm animals and reduced breeding of them -- at least until farm animal treatment improves. Hoping that treatment will catch up soon so that it'll obviate the need for dietary change is unrealistic today, though I sincerely hope (and will support those trying) to get there[3].

[0] Caveat that slaughter today is not always humane, in particular for chickens and fish.

[1] E.g. gestation crates and lifetime of small cages, genetic breeding that causes chickens to grow so fast they break their own legs, debeaking practices, and more.

[2] Progress is happening, and in fact the wins we've had are hugely beneficial to animals -- but I suspect decades before we're at "enough" of an improvement. Within that time billions of animals will be raised and slaughtered for food; the scale is hard to fathom.

[3] And frankly, I expect cultured meat and sophisticated plant-based meats like Beyond Burger to gain wide adoption before that.