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Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

erichgrunewald.com

131–140 of 319 posts

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#131
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>or being expelled from society entirely So the main reason to exploit animal is because the other human hate it and that other human could harm you. I see so it has nothing to do with the animal suffering itself.

No its because the presence of such people in society only increases total overall suffering (animal or human).

But why would I care about the increase of animal suffering (if not because other human may angry) ?

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#132

As an academic who isn't directly involved in anything close to animal testing (I'm a physicist) I always find it strange that people working in biology have to jump through incredible hoops relating to how the animals they work with are treated, but then the lunch place in the biology department sells sandwiches with chicken, ham etc in with incredibly minimal oversight for how the animals are treated. The differenc…

I don't think that's that weird, they're setting standards for their own behavior and the food source is largely beyond their control. That space probably isn't even directly controlled by them but by the larger university.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a fraction (and sometimes even tiny fraction ) of the land is needed to supply the same amount of protein and calories when replacing animals sources with plant sources. That means that you actually will not need to convert all these pastures to fields because they are just not needed anymore. Here are charts that compare land use of different foods normalized per calorie / grams of protein: https://ourworldinda…

This is incredibly misleading. I live in a community with ranches and farms. The ranchland looks like nature. Other than cows here and there, it's wildland. Coyotes, mountain lions, hawks, and all sorts of wildlife abound. The farms are manicured flat with row crops, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, etc. Farming is vastly more destructive to the natural environment. "Land use" measured in abstract square feet is…

> The farms are manicured flat with row crops, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, etc. Farming is vastly more destructive to the natural environment.

You might be surprised but 40% of all (cereal) crops are produced to feed animals. That would almost completely go away except a bit to compensate for the loss of meat.

See https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cereal-distribution-to-us...

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a fraction (and sometimes even tiny fraction ) of the land is needed to supply the same amount of protein and calories when replacing animals sources with plant sources. That means that you actually will not need to convert all these pastures to fields because they are just not needed anymore. Here are charts that compare land use of different foods normalized per calorie / grams of protein: https://ourworldinda…

This is incredibly misleading. I live in a community with ranches and farms. The ranchland looks like nature. Other than cows here and there, it's wildland. Coyotes, mountain lions, hawks, and all sorts of wildlife abound. The farms are manicured flat with row crops, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, etc. Farming is vastly more destructive to the natural environment. "Land use" measured in abstract square feet is…

I would argue this is incredibly misleading.

What percentage of meat or dairy comes from pasture animals? You can't fulfill a country like the US's meat and dairy demand with pasture raised animals. So realistically we are talking about factory farmed animals. If we are talking about factory farmed animals then it goes back to the needing these nature destructing farms you are talking about just to feed animals that then feed humans, this is not an efficient system.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a fraction (and sometimes even tiny fraction ) of the land is needed to supply the same amount of protein and calories when replacing animals sources with plant sources. That means that you actually will not need to convert all these pastures to fields because they are just not needed anymore. Here are charts that compare land use of different foods normalized per calorie / grams of protein: https://ourworldinda…

This is incredibly misleading. I live in a community with ranches and farms. The ranchland looks like nature. Other than cows here and there, it's wildland. Coyotes, mountain lions, hawks, and all sorts of wildlife abound. The farms are manicured flat with row crops, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, etc. Farming is vastly more destructive to the natural environment. "Land use" measured in abstract square feet is…

> I live in a community with ranches and farms. The ranchland looks like nature.

That depends on the land. Cattle and rainforests don't go together well

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a fraction (and sometimes even tiny fraction ) of the land is needed to supply the same amount of protein and calories when replacing animals sources with plant sources. That means that you actually will not need to convert all these pastures to fields because they are just not needed anymore. Here are charts that compare land use of different foods normalized per calorie / grams of protein: https://ourworldinda…

This is incredibly misleading. I live in a community with ranches and farms. The ranchland looks like nature. Other than cows here and there, it's wildland. Coyotes, mountain lions, hawks, and all sorts of wildlife abound. The farms are manicured flat with row crops, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, etc. Farming is vastly more destructive to the natural environment. "Land use" measured in abstract square feet is…

The problem is that for every acre of ranch, you need 5 to 10 acres of farm to feed the ranch.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#137
post #76

Unpopular opinion but I'm yet to hear a convincing argument that the reduction of suffering is something that we should strive for. Edit, looking at the replies I'm disappointed in hn, expected better.

You dropped a controversial opinion with absolutely nothing to back it up and are now disappointed of the replies. What else did you expect instead? (Well, beside something "better")

> What else did you expect instead?

I've expected for people to formulate an interesting, persuasive counter argument. That's how you advance a conversation. You don't advance the discussion by ad hominem remarks or ignoring the argument like some people have done.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#138

As an academic who isn't directly involved in anything close to animal testing (I'm a physicist) I always find it strange that people working in biology have to jump through incredible hoops relating to how the animals they work with are treated, but then the lunch place in the biology department sells sandwiches with chicken, ham etc in with incredibly minimal oversight for how the animals are treated. The differenc…

[deleted]

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#139
post #93
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the reduction of suffering is not something that you internally see as valuable, you might want to check with a psychologist (I mean that plain matter-of-fact-ly). While I can construct philosophical arguments and know what nihilism is, outside of thought experiments this is highly unusual for any individual capable of any empathy at all.

Thanks for the diagnosis, I think it's not as highly unusual as you might think. I bet outside of their relatively small social circles humans aren't preoccupied with reduction of suffering or altruism in any meaningful way. Of course, it's not a fashionable thing to say (see the downwotes) and I'd love to be proven wrong but I just don't see it.

There is a difference between not actively working on reducing suffering and not seeing a point in reducing suffering.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#140
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am willing to sacrifice an insane amount of animal lives in order to save anyone human. That is insane, and psychopathic. But it is shared by many (most?) humans. The result will be that there will be no animals left, and soon afterwards, no humans left either. Another question is, how many humans are you willing to sacrifice to save your wife? Your child? Is your child worth a specific number of human lives, in…

> The result will be that there will be no animals left, and soon afterwards, no humans left either. This is illogical. Humans have been eating animals since the dawn of civilization. We've been using animals in experiments for centuries. There are still animals to eat and use in experiments. Why? because animals reproduce. There aren't a fixed number of animals. We only lose species when we kill faster then they rep…

OK. We'll be only left with food animals and even those will be replaced soon with some salad cause the popular opinion it that this is more effective. I believe this is going to be a sad place and we are getting there quite fast now, cause for centuries the population was much smaller. And yet humans managed to depopulate vast areas.
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