Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

tampabay.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 69 posts

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#31

Post by akudha »

AznHisoka wrote: post #18

If they kill this much chicks, why are people who choose to be vegetarian for moral/religious reasons OK with eating eggs?

Not defending vegetarians (or anyone else) here, but people decide how much morality/ethics they are willing to go for. There are people who don't eat steak/chicken etc, but eat seafood. Some people don't consider fish as meat, some don't consider chicken as meat. I don't claim to understand their logic, but each to their own.

There are people who don't eat meat, but drink milk (dairy industry is horrific too) or eat egg based products (cakes etc). There are people who classify honey as an animal product and there are people who disagree.

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#32

Post by poincaredisk »

akudha wrote: post #29
poincaredisk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We aren't gonna reduce our meat consumption, Why? This is certainly possible if we, humans, really wanted to. So I assume you just don't believe society will ever decide to do it. This is unnecessarily negative outlook IMO - the first step to change something is to believe change is possible.

This is not negativity, this is reality. I have never eaten meat in my life. But I am surrounded by meat eaters. Even polite, rational, calm discussion about reducing meat consumption doesn't last more than a minute. It is as though people are more addicted to meat than alcohol and somehow it is drilled into their heads that humans need meat for protein and strength, though there are tons of vegetarians who lead heal…

>This is not negativity, this is reality.

Saying "we aren't gonna reduce our meat consumption" is negativity. Saying "we aren't gonna stop eating meat" would be realistic. But there are plenty of ways we could reduce it. For example, there is a growing trend (in larger cities at least) to reduce one's meat consumption (sometimes completely - there are more vegetarians year by year). Another thing would be reducing subsidies that go towards producing meat - they skew the market in a way that promotes meat. That would be a unpopular change, which is why nobody does it, but it would make sense considering just environmental impact (carbon credits are an even different but related topic).

I'm not going to convince anyone to stop eating meat, who am I to tell them how to live (and I understand why that would be annoying). But changing my personal habits is absolutely within my power, and that may even convince someone to do the same (just like my decision to stop eating meat was because I learned my friend does it.

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#33

Post by emptiestplace »

AznHisoka wrote: post #18

If they kill this much chicks, why are people who choose to be vegetarian for moral/religious reasons OK with eating eggs?

You're right: vegetarianism is not a respectable ethical stance.

As someone who has actively tried to minimize my contribution for more than 25 years, I feel quite strongly that vegetarianism is a net negative in terms of progress on this cause.

> kill

This is the part everyone seems to get incensed over, but for me this is actually the highlight. I guess it's difficult for people to accept that their grocery shopping habits contribute to what is essentially billions of individual lives not worth living.

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#34

Post by sahila »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #23
poincaredisk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We aren't gonna reduce our meat consumption, Why? This is certainly possible if we, humans, really wanted to. So I assume you just don't believe society will ever decide to do it. This is unnecessarily negative outlook IMO - the first step to change something is to believe change is possible.

This is a classic is-ought situation. Seems easier to improve the process and ethics of killing animals for consumption rather than reducing meat consumption at a society level. People don’t change their ways very easily. I know I have to fight rolling my eyes whenever someone suggests the the solution is simple: eat less meat.

When speaking of ethics, how do you measure the ethics of causing pain vs killing? I'd say even a 1% reduction in consumption (killing) is better than whatever pain reduction.

I guess the point is you and others feel so strongly about ways to reduce suffering but couldn't care less about life.

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#35

Post by emptiestplace »

doublerabbit wrote: post #26
AznHisoka wrote: post #18

If they kill this much chicks, why are people who choose to be vegetarian for moral/religious reasons OK with eating eggs?

Vegetarian. I consume eggs however I ensure they are ethnically sourced from organic, free range and roam freely farms; like my local. As soon as it has a formed element of biological life to it, then no. I don't eat fish neither as it was alive. Honey, milk I'm fine with it's a byproduct if sourced ethically. Unless I know the source, I won't eat it. The problem isn't eating meat, the problem is the inhumanity cause…

None of this matters because it is not even remotely feasible for 8 billion people to ethically source animal products.

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#37

Post by aziaziazi »

akudha wrote: post #12

During COVID, farmers were killing pigs with steam. Imagine being steamed alive. Animal industry is cruel beyond most people's imagination. Anything to lessen that cruelty is good, very good. We aren't gonna reduce our meat consumption, the least we could do is lessen their suffering https://www.humanesociety.org/blog/factory-farms-are-baking-... From the article above In an even more extreme form, referred to as VSD…

The non-plus VSD is described as so:

> Ventilator shutdown involves locking a flock or herd of animals in a building and turning off the ventilation systems. As the temperature rises and gases inside the building accumulate, the animals suffocate to death, usually over a period of many hours.

Rising "gases" is CO2. Suffocation by co2 is one of the worse death because that’s how the body knows he needs to inhale. Most of the other gases will kill you without you noticing. but forcing a subject to breath co2 is absolute torture.

Images talk by themselfs I guess, here’s 4 hour of the process which is legal in most of the world beware, not a fun video : https://www.farmtransparency.org/videos?id=2d2a5ec62b

UK replaced CO2 with other gaz[0] and the pigs dies as a sleep. The price difference is a needle.

0: butane or nitrogen IIRC but someone more knowledgeable may correct me.

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#38

Post by neom »

sahila wrote: post #34
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a classic is-ought situation. Seems easier to improve the process and ethics of killing animals for consumption rather than reducing meat consumption at a society level. People don’t change their ways very easily. I know I have to fight rolling my eyes whenever someone suggests the the solution is simple: eat less meat.

When speaking of ethics, how do you measure the ethics of causing pain vs killing? I'd say even a 1% reduction in consumption (killing) is better than whatever pain reduction. I guess the point is you and others feel so strongly about ways to reduce suffering but couldn't care less about life.

Not sure that is fair. Many people accept that there are 2 sure things in life (maybe 3) - birth and death. In a way, birth and death are two of the most natural things we have, a family of birds is born, a fox makes it's way up the tree and eats them all. Many people be able to say "that's life, i just hope the didn't suffer!"

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#39

Post by akudha »

poincaredisk wrote: post #32
akudha wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not negativity, this is reality. I have never eaten meat in my life. But I am surrounded by meat eaters. Even polite, rational, calm discussion about reducing meat consumption doesn't last more than a minute. It is as though people are more addicted to meat than alcohol and somehow it is drilled into their heads that humans need meat for protein and strength, though there are tons of vegetarians who lead heal…

>This is not negativity, this is reality. Saying "we aren't gonna reduce our meat consumption" is negativity. Saying "we aren't gonna stop eating meat" would be realistic. But there are plenty of ways we could reduce it. For example, there is a growing trend (in larger cities at least) to reduce one's meat consumption (sometimes completely - there are more vegetarians year by year). Another thing would be reducing su…

I never asked anyone to stop eating meat or even reduce it. I only tried (very politely, because I know this is a sensitive topic) to point out the effects of overfishing etc and in my experience, people don't want to hear it. In many cases, they are fully aware of the effects of meat/dairy industry, they still don't want to give up meat. This I understand, I struggled to give up coffee for many many years.

On the question of reducing subsidies for the meat industry - are you aware how powerful the meat industry is? Even the almighty Oprah at the height of her fame and reach couldn't do anything, got sued by the beef industry. There are a few states that have ag-gag laws, do you really think there is political will to repeal these?

In my town, a single mango costs $3.49. Sure it would be nice to subsidize fruits and veggies, but animal industry lobbying is way more powerful than mango/watermelon lobbying.

I appreciate your positivity, I suppose our experience on this issue has just been polar opposite.

Re: US egg industry kills 350M chicks a year. New tech offers an alternative

#40

Post by i_love_retros »

akudha wrote: post #29
poincaredisk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We aren't gonna reduce our meat consumption, Why? This is certainly possible if we, humans, really wanted to. So I assume you just don't believe society will ever decide to do it. This is unnecessarily negative outlook IMO - the first step to change something is to believe change is possible.

This is not negativity, this is reality. I have never eaten meat in my life. But I am surrounded by meat eaters. Even polite, rational, calm discussion about reducing meat consumption doesn't last more than a minute. It is as though people are more addicted to meat than alcohol and somehow it is drilled into their heads that humans need meat for protein and strength, though there are tons of vegetarians who lead heal…

Spot on. And the fact that your comment is getting down voted proves your point.
Post reply on HN