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Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

erichgrunewald.com

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Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#141

Post by adrianN »

faebi wrote: post #21

Still a better usage of an animal life than eating them. I prefer to advance humanity, even minimally. If you put these numbers in comparison to animal farming, their suffering and their murdering, then it's absolutely worth it. For me it boils down to a simple set of questions. Would you murder 10'000 chickens to save your grandma's life? How about 10'000 cows? How about 10'000 rats? How about 10'000 rabbits? How ab…

I think the question is not whether people are willing to kill large numbers of animals to save a couple of humans, but whether we might have alternative methods that also save the humans, but with fewer dead animals. I mean, if we had no alternatives to eating animals, there would be far fewer vegans.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#142

Post by sweetheart »

xwolfi wrote: post #87
eigenket wrote: post #35

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…

Yet I think both these concerns come from very wealthy people who have time thinking those thoughts. Most people, when they have enough money to buy a bit of meat, are relieved to have such a good intake of protein. And most life, in the broader context, doesn't even have the ability to compute this question. I wonder if we're not overthinking it a bit. Sadistic pleasure in torturing animal should be prevented but al…

Assuming you are not living in a good desert, you can eat a delicious healthy plant based diet for very little. Plant based diets are not something that need to be left to the very wealthy at all.

To those who literally cannot access those foods, I don’t think anyone holds them accountable.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#143

Post by _Microft »

omega3 wrote: post #137
_Microft wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There was no argument that could have been countered. You stated the opinion that you have not heard any argument yet that suffering actually should be minimized but did not list any of these arguments much less explained why you did not find them convincing. There was nothing anyone could possibly have debated in a reasonable way.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#144

Post by sweetheart »

endisneigh wrote: post #38
faebi wrote: post #21

Still a better usage of an animal life than eating them. I prefer to advance humanity, even minimally. If you put these numbers in comparison to animal farming, their suffering and their murdering, then it's absolutely worth it. For me it boils down to a simple set of questions. Would you murder 10'000 chickens to save your grandma's life? How about 10'000 cows? How about 10'000 rats? How about 10'000 rabbits? How ab…

I don’t understand, you’re willing to kill tens of thousands of animals to save a single person, but are against meat consumption- an activity that inherently provides nutrients to sustain a human life?

Here is a simple video I recommend that anyone who is interested in the effects if animal agriculture on land should watch:

https://youtu.be/QnrtRaM28cY

It’s a really great intro to some of the common misconceptions

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#145

Post by sweetheart »

darksaints wrote: post #114
technocratius wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does so, but via an inefficient route ( plant -> animal -> human instead of plant -> human ), which causes huge sustainability and animal ethical issues.

That's a facile understanding of efficiency. For example, many animals that we eat are dramatically more efficient at absorbing or consuming certain nutrients from plants than we are: Iron, Calcium, Zinc, B12, EPA, DHA. If adding a step in a supply chain always introduced more net inefficiency, we would never own things like cars or televisions. The complexity you introduce by shortening the supply chain makes a whol…

You can live a completely healthy and nutritionally complete plant based life style though, and without consuming your body weight in anything. So if we don’t _need_ the animals to die for us, killing them is immoral. It’s immoral because it’s unnecessary.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#146

Post by lettergram »

faebi wrote: post #21

Still a better usage of an animal life than eating them. I prefer to advance humanity, even minimally. If you put these numbers in comparison to animal farming, their suffering and their murdering, then it's absolutely worth it. For me it boils down to a simple set of questions. Would you murder 10'000 chickens to save your grandma's life? How about 10'000 cows? How about 10'000 rats? How about 10'000 rabbits? How ab…

I agree with you on medical research. Particularly how many animals you’d be willing to sacrifice.

That being said and with respect, I think you are misrepresenting and lack some understanding... some alternatives to consider.

1) humans are built to consume meat. Yes we can manage alternatives, but it’s not really all that healthy (I know some people claim with a lot of work and expense it’s possible to be healthy...)

2) farms producing beans and grain require a large amount of pesticides, arguably far worse for the environment and humans. Pesticides have been the #1 killer of living creatures

3) animals can eat a diverse set of food, so cattle farms, etc have more biodiversity than row crop

4) many cattle, elk, etc farms, are particularly humane. I recently purchased a grass fed cattle farm and everything I need is onsite. Cattle just roam, drink from the springs, get medicine, have calf’s, etc they seem very very happy.

5) if you have a lot of produce in a field, it’s essential to kill the wildlife trying to eat the field. I don’t think most people understand this, but if you have fields of corn you need to ensure bugs, birds and deer aren’t overly in abundance

I would argue farms mass producing meat could be reduced or need to be changed. But generally speaking, I’d argue leaving chickens out and collecting eggs in the yard isn’t all that bad. Or letting cattle roam until right before butchering.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#147

Post by hairofadog »

emptysongglass wrote: post #111
omega3 wrote: 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.

Because you wouldn't want to be subjected to suffering yourself. It's not complicated. All humans everywhere desire the end of their own suffering. We're awful at minimizing it but you can see our hamfisted attempts in our seeking out of pleasures and avoidance of activities which are unpleasant, stressful, and painful. When we observe other humans/animals hurting most of us feel with what is suffering.

Exactly. If anyone reading this is puzzled about whether reduction of suffering is worth striving for, you only need to observe yourself when you are suffering. Do you want more suffering or less suffering?

I suppose a person could argue that the universe is just a bunch of atoms and that living beings and their suffering is just chemicals behaving in a certain way and in that sense it doesn’t matter any more than any other chemical reaction but it seems like that argument would also render the concept of “striving” to be moot.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#148

Post by sweetheart »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #78
bambax wrote: post #58

Specism is based on several flawed assumptions. We decide humans are superior to other animals because we are humans, and us>them. We also decide that because we are superior, we have all rights to do anything to members of "inferior" groups. But: - Superiority is at least debatable and strongly depends on the criteria used fot comparison; - There is absolutely no discernable logical link between being "superior" and…

> We decide humans are superior to other animals because we are humans, and us>them. That's painting things with a pretty broad brush, not everyone thinks this way. From conversing with people about the issue, those that do, do so mostly because they haven't actually put any conscious thought into it, even a few minutes is enough to knock down that straw man. Personally, I think humans are superior to other animals b…

So, a thought experiment:

If an alien species came to Earth, and they were FAR more emotionally sensitive than we were, and could suffer MUCH more as a result, would that make your suffering when they start to enslave you any less meaningful? Would you understand, and allow yourself to be enslaved, or would you believe that it was still wrong for them to do that to you, even if they had the capacity to suffer more?

I personally don’t think so. Can I feel a wider range of emotions than a chicken? Probably. Can I be upset or elated by more things than a chicken? Probably. Can the chicken still suffer? Yes. Can it be anxious? Can it be terrified? Can it be in pain? Can it be lonely? All yes.

Whether or not it feels any if those things more or less than anything else is irrelevant when it doesn’t need to happen at all.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#149

Post by hairofadog »

ptr2voidStar wrote: post #118
valgor wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of that stuff is known as humane washing in the animal rights world. Exploiting and inflicting suffering onto animals is almost always unethical. The only way to treat animals ethically is to not test on them at all.

Would you still hold that opinion if you contracted an illness that can be cured as a result of animal testing?

I’m not OP but speaking for myself, yes.
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