81–90 of 274 posts
Like if we didn't knew that minks usually pick up and mutate viruses. Here in the Netherlands we had some serious covid outbreaks on mink farms and all farms are due (or already are) to be terminated over the next few months.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do we have to compare it? Multiple things can be terrible and require changes.
The issue is very much analogous. Lots of pigs getting culled (in many cases burned and/or buried alive on a grand scale) because they are infected with diseases that are dangerous to humans. Corona included. I just keep being surprised that there is consensus forming around mink but the hog issue, which is very similar and actually a bigger problem by numbers, is not really part of the mainstream debate. For some re…
Norway's Fur Farming Prohibition Act is set to take effect in 2025. May this neighboring scare hasten the demise of this abusive and unnecessary industry.
Is it that much worse than farming hogs? Most of that is done in cages too small to turn around or stand. Live transport and slaughter is also amazingly horrific.
Meat is a disaster for the environment, in terms of the resources that grazing animals take, and the total energy needed for the same caloric amount of food from animals.
Meat needs to slowly be eventually banned. Plant-based meat is getting better and better. Initially, we should start with a limit on meat sales, and then gradually reduce the limit until it reaches zero.
And then impose sanctions, tariffs or embargoes on countries that refuse to reduce/stop meat consumption.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue is very much analogous. Lots of pigs getting culled (in many cases burned and/or buried alive on a grand scale) because they are infected with diseases that are dangerous to humans. Corona included. I just keep being surprised that there is consensus forming around mink but the hog issue, which is very similar and actually a bigger problem by numbers, is not really part of the mainstream debate. For some re…
A single hog being killed for 150000 kcal of sustenance is a lot more morally acceptable than 50 minks being killed for a single luxury coat. It's not cognitive dissonance to think this. (numbers from quick, non-exhaustive googling)
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Humans raise mink in horrible conditions just to be slaughtered so we can make a fashion statement. Then, when the very conditions we created become an inconvenience to us, we slaughter them and fail to make even frivolous use of them, rendering their tortured lives even more pointless and sad. After all that you have to be pretty callous and self-important as a species to think "Humans > Minks"
I completely agree with your first paragraph, but humans > minks by literally any measure.
You belong to a certain group, in this case humans, and your tendency seems to be to apply measures of value that reward the traits at which your group naturally excels. Which all reduce to physiological traits which were no choice of your own.
If you can't judge one race superior to another for physiological differences (e.g skin color), then how can you in good conscious judge one species superior to another for the same thing, i.e. physiological differences?
I'm always surprised that people generally reject sexism, racism, nationalism, and various other forms of tribalism yet speciesism never seems to register as directly analogous and similarly worthy of condemnation.
I think perhaps keeping animals in packed conditions should be reevaluated for human threat. We are essentially keeping animals in conditions that are not much unlike 14th century Paris where the plague ran rampant
Any guesses yet on whether the vaccines in development would respond to this virus as well?
Does the rest of the world need to immediately cut travel to Europe? Would rather stop travel and wish we didn't than allow travel and wish we stopped it...
We literally just had a real life trial for how we deal with new pandemics in January... have we learned our lesson?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue is very much analogous. Lots of pigs getting culled (in many cases burned and/or buried alive on a grand scale) because they are infected with diseases that are dangerous to humans. Corona included. I just keep being surprised that there is consensus forming around mink but the hog issue, which is very similar and actually a bigger problem by numbers, is not really part of the mainstream debate. For some re…
Everyone eats pork. Only the rich wear mink coats.
Hopefully, it's a side effect of diseases that we will be starting to think this all over though.
Technologically, I don't think there's much to be done here. Fake fur is pretty good.
Reminds me of "2M chickens to be killed in US processing plants due to lack of employees" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22993157
Just reading these headlines puts a damper on my ability to find joy in anything for a while. The words "cull millions" should not be happening to anything, in any sane world. How are people so fucking desensitized to the grim practices of factory farms?
Makes me wish for an alien species to do the same to us some day.
What does it mean that the virus responds weakly to antibodies? Were these antibodies produced before against the unmutated virus? Or is it that humans have a harder time forming effective antibodies against this new variant.
It means the virus naturally developed a resistance being incubated in minks and everyone is afraid that it could lead to another pandemic wave where the sunk cost of already stuffing a vaccine early, could be useless. Country loses, corporation loses, citizens lose if that's the case. If they just cull the minks, only the minks lose.