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Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

nytimes.com

41–50 of 261 posts

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#41
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scientist M. Temple Grandin is known for her great contributions in the field of mitigating pre-slaughter animal panic. She is autistic. Her methodology included walking the chutes used to direct cattle to slaughter and working out in great detaiL mods that would reduce their stress. I've heard her interviewed a few times. She's extraordinary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin

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Practicality. To put it bluntly, the majority of humans do not think it is immoral in principle to kill and eat an animal. After all, that's how biological life just is. At an individual level, you can choose to think it's wrong but you do have to simply accept the fact that not everyone agrees, and very likely there will always be someone who disagrees.

To most people, killing an animal for food is not a problem conceptually. Causing undue and unnecessary suffering is a problem for pretty much everyone with a functioning moral system.

But given that mass farming will not be stopping tomorrow, would you rather the animals suffer more? Or is less suffering better? Should we actively torture the animals on the way to slaughter or maybe not?

All that aside, if we stopped farming tomorrow, a billion or two people would have to stop eating. So we do the least worst thing and give the cow a pat on the head before we grind it up.

That said, most people would probably prefer if no animals were killed at all. Once cultured meat starts producing at the required scale, industry farming will probably end very quickly.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you want to get the milk.

Almost this. The better answer is because we want to get ALL the milk. So instead of letting the mother cow nurse her calf for the first few months and then start taking her milk for our use, the more "modern" practice is to separate the calf immediately. Which means if you are drinking milk, you are drinking it from seriously depressed cows. I wonder how this contributes to our culture's growing mood of depression?…

The real crime is that alternatives are expensive due to how our new economy is structured. I personally prefer oatmilk (oatside) to dairy milk. However, it’s too damn expensive that I find myself only drinking it from time to time. Now how is a vegetarian milk more expensive than a full cycle of cow milk (cows are too burdening to maintain) you might ask?!?

My guess is that we are seeing something along the lines of EVs. Instead of making these healthier alternatives mainstream, they are being sold as a status symbol for the rich and making them unaffordable to the common man.

Here waiting for my chinese oat milk.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Practicality. To put it bluntly, the majority of humans do not think it is immoral in principle to kill and eat an animal. After all, that's how biological life just is. At an individual level, you can choose to think it's wrong but you do have to simply accept the fact that not everyone agrees, and very likely there will always be someone who disagrees. To most people, killing an animal for food is not a problem con…

Cultured meat is a long, long ways away, unfortunately. I suspect economic, environmental, and ethical factors will push people away from meat long before cultured meat replaces it.

Well put argument though!

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Practicality. To put it bluntly, the majority of humans do not think it is immoral in principle to kill and eat an animal. After all, that's how biological life just is. At an individual level, you can choose to think it's wrong but you do have to simply accept the fact that not everyone agrees, and very likely there will always be someone who disagrees. To most people, killing an animal for food is not a problem con…

> The majority of humans do not think it is immoral in principle to kill and eat an animal

This is wrong, the majority of humans may think that way because they don't have to kill any animal personally, they are disconnected from the "killing" part of the whole equation. Let's see how many people eat and kill animals (i.e. hunting) once we remove meat factories.

Another counterargument is: pets. Somehow all meat eaters gasp on the idea of eating their pet, so they are not morally okay to eat an animal (as you claimed).

> Or is less suffering better?

Ask yourself, how would you like to die? After listening to music you love? getting massages? OR being hurled up a thousand other humans in a small room? The fact is you are dying, your neck will be cut off, and it doesn't matter what you did before it, how is listening to peaceful music before dying less of a suffering?

It is like saying that concentration camps should have been more "humane", they should have cared more for prisoners before killing them to reduce their suffering. Death matters the most for any living creature, all of us (humans + animals) are primed to avoid it. So, we need to take a path where we are reducing overall deaths, not a path where we are reducing pre-death suffering.

What you can say is, "I don't care about suffering; I just need meat." That would be a more logically correct statement than claiming that you care about reducing their suffering.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#45
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost this. The better answer is because we want to get ALL the milk. So instead of letting the mother cow nurse her calf for the first few months and then start taking her milk for our use, the more "modern" practice is to separate the calf immediately. Which means if you are drinking milk, you are drinking it from seriously depressed cows. I wonder how this contributes to our culture's growing mood of depression?…

The real crime is that alternatives are expensive due to how our new economy is structured. I personally prefer oatmilk (oatside) to dairy milk. However, it’s too damn expensive that I find myself only drinking it from time to time. Now how is a vegetarian milk more expensive than a full cycle of cow milk (cows are too burdening to maintain) you might ask?!? My guess is that we are seeing something along the lines of…

> Now how is a vegetarian milk more expensive than a full cycle of cow milk (cows are too burdening to maintain) you might ask?!?

Not enough scale because little demand compared to regular milk.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#46

https://freefromharm.org/animal-farmer-turned-vegan/jackie-s...

I believe this is nice, but how do regular people actually find the time to care about this stuff? If you have kids, bills, a job, listen to crap from politicians all day, where do you find the time to be this empathetic. My kids school gives them milk as part of lunch, my kid likes milk now. You have to live in a very special world to get around this. I was a vegetarian for a while, I was mostly starving hungry and…

> listen to crap from politicians all day

This part I recently decided I will stop doing. It will not be easy and I may fail, but I think my mood requires it.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#47
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

For a long time humans did not breed animals for the sake of eating them, they used to hunt (just like a lion). No one was guilt-tripping anyone in those days (I hope), as we had to survive (not thrive). The situation has changed completely in the modern world. We have created meat factories, forcefully torturing millions of animals daily, and have somehow agreed upon what animals to kill and not to kill. A lion will…

People don't care about people as long as they are out of sight and you're trying to get them to care for non humans that are even further from sight.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#48
post #4

Yes, it made me think about animals panicking so much before slaughter that they often have heart attacks. And dairy cows who have their babies slaughtered who cry for weeks. Maybe these are apocryphal stories, but we are very much trained to believe we shouldn’t anthropomorphise animals. I hope that we are able to grow meat in a way without suffering as soon as possible.

https://www.google.com/search?q=rat+not+eating+after+death+o...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277240852....

I've kept rats for a long time, I don't know why, but I do know they change behaviour for a period of time once one dies.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#49
post #4

Yes, it made me think about animals panicking so much before slaughter that they often have heart attacks. And dairy cows who have their babies slaughtered who cry for weeks. Maybe these are apocryphal stories, but we are very much trained to believe we shouldn’t anthropomorphise animals. I hope that we are able to grow meat in a way without suffering as soon as possible.

Love animals but “grown meat” has proven to be very gross.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Practicality. To put it bluntly, the majority of humans do not think it is immoral in principle to kill and eat an animal. After all, that's how biological life just is. At an individual level, you can choose to think it's wrong but you do have to simply accept the fact that not everyone agrees, and very likely there will always be someone who disagrees. To most people, killing an animal for food is not a problem con…

> That said, most people would probably prefer if no animals were killed at all. Once cultured meat starts producing at the required scale, industry farming will probably end very quickly.

Most people can only afford cheap food, which means after the novelty period, regular meat will be something reserved for only the very wealthy.

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