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New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

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Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#141

Post by diacritical »

trymas wrote: post #129
sosodev wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false dichotomy. The choice is not lab grown or suffering. Farmed animals could live happy, healthy lives and then be culled in a humane way. The problem is that it costs slightly more and our society is more concerned with cost than animal suffering.

I am too lazy to do the math, but I somehow think it would cost _multiple times_ more: https://www.farmtransparency.org/kb/food/abattoirs/age-anima... > society is more concerned with cost than animal suffering. Yes, and it's politically very hard to change. I totally understand price sensitivity around food. At least where I live milk and meat is extremely subsidised. How can you have chicken that is grown, slaughte…

> being a vegetarian/vegan is more expensive than being omnivore.

Being vegan is cheaper where I live regardless of whether we factor in the subsidies or not. Beans, chickpeas, lentils and sometimes soy (examples of protein sources) are pretty inexpensive. Peanuts, some other nuts (in the culinary sense of the word) and some of the vegetable oils are also inexpensive.

If you factor in foods meant to replace or replicate the taste of a carnivore diet like vegan yogurt, milk or cheese, or things like Beyond Meat burgers, it might become expensive, but you don't have to limit yourself by trying to replicate what you used to eat - you can make lots of things from 10-20 basic ingredients.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#142

Post by grimblee »

akramachamarei wrote: post #136
quesera wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Capitalism precludes slavery. Hmm? Capitalism neither precludes nor predates slavery.

Capitalism precisely precludes slavery. One of the most important and foundational of its principles is private property. The first, most natural, and universal instance of private property is the ownership of one's own body. Heck, we even have the phrase "private parts." Slavery requires the most basic violation of bodily autonomy. In other words, to permit slavery is to permit the violation of the most basic proper…

Go ask kids forced to work for years in cocoa plants or coltan mins in africa what they think of your little explaination

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#143

Post by NoGravitas »

greygoo222 wrote: post #131
moribvndvs wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suggesting that the wholesale suffering wrought by humanity unto itself and all other life on this planet throughout its entire history is merely in my mind or a problem with my personal life is actually incredibly insulting on top of being willfully ignorant.

That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting your attitude towards it might be.

“For better or worse, pessimism without compromise lacks public appeal. In all, the few who have gone to the pains of arguing for a sullen appraisal of life might as well never have been born. As history confirms, people will change their minds about almost anything, from which god they worship to how they style their hair. But when it comes to existential judgments, human beings in general have a unfalteringly good opinion of themselves and their condition in this world and are steadfastly confident they are not a collection of self-conscious nothings” ― Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#144

Post by NoGravitas »

mock-possum wrote: post #6
abound wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite questions to ask people is something like: "Imagine a button appears in front of you. Pressing it will snap all human beings painlessly out of existence. Do you push the button?" Some people get caught in minutiae about downstream effects, I tell them it can go however they want (house pets are free or gone too, planes land harmlessly, etc) In my circles, I've found it's about 50/50 button pushers…

God what an awful prospect. How about when you push the button it only removes the button pushers, so the rest of us are free to continue enjoying our existence.

“optimism, where it is not merely the thoughtless talk of those who harbor nothing but words under their shallow foreheads, seems to me to be not merely an absurd, but also a really wicked, way of thinking, a bitter mockery of the most unspeakable sufferings of mankind” ― Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#145

Post by danaris »

Insanity wrote: post #89
sosodev wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false dichotomy. The choice is not lab grown or suffering. Farmed animals could live happy, healthy lives and then be culled in a humane way. The problem is that it costs slightly more and our society is more concerned with cost than animal suffering.

> Farmed animals could live happy, healthy lives and then be culled in a humane way. Breeding animals _specifically for killing them_, no matter how they are killed, is not what I'd consider humane. If we take 'humane' literally, it means to be treated as you would treat a human. I doubt we'd do this to humans. So the only way to be okay with this is adhering to a form of specieism.

Many, many people disagree with you.

It is not at all a logical, ethical, or emotional contradiction to say that we should have humanely-raised livestock whose purpose is to be slaughtered for meat. We can ensure that they are kept in healthy, safe, and humane ways during their lifetimes, and are killed as quickly, cleanly, and painlessly as we can reasonably manage.

And, um, the meaning of "humane" is only loosely related to "treat like a human." It means "treat well, view with compassion", and similar. We talk of things being "humane" or "inhumane" in how we treat each other, too. [0]

Humans have been raising meat animals with compassion and treating them well during their lifetimes for longer than we have had written language. Veganism/vegetarianism is not even physically an option for many people, excludes many cultures' traditional practices, and very, very often requires (or at least tends toward) supplementing with foods that are at least as unethical as factory farming practices.

[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/humane

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#146

Post by penguin_booze »

ritlo wrote: post #138
sosodev wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false dichotomy. The choice is not lab grown or suffering. Farmed animals could live happy, healthy lives and then be culled in a humane way. The problem is that it costs slightly more and our society is more concerned with cost than animal suffering.

> Farmed animals could live happy, healthy lives and then be culled in a humane way. > The problem is that it costs slightly more and our society is more concerned with cost than animal suffering. IDK about other livestock, but this definitely doesn't hold for chickens, one of the cheaper meat sources in the US. Switching to breeds that could live more than a very-few weeks(!) before getting too overweight to walk, w…

It's not like chickens chose this way of life. Such breeds were developed for the specific purpose of meat, with no regard for their wellbeing. Don't shame the chickens for what human bastards do.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#147

Post by butILoveLife »

post-it wrote: post #68
butILoveLife wrote: post #43

I find it odd we need legislation to prevent this. There are not enough consumers to care? Or maybe with legislation we get better outcomes due to scaling effects? If we are willing to use legislation, could we tax such gestation crates, and use that tax revenue to breed unconscious pigs? Or find a way to disable consciousness in their brain? Or fund lab meat? I'm sure small labs are doing this, but if we are at the…

> If we are willing to use legislation, could we tax such gestation crates, and use that tax revenue to breed unconscious pigs? Or find a way to disable consciousness in their brain? Or fund lab meat? This is the kind of "big government libertarian" thinking that you only find on HN. It's like virtue signalling but the virtue is contrarianism. What you've suggested is more complicated, less ethical, less effective, a…

Lmao, you did describe me so hard.

But I think I'd push back that this is less ethical.

All sorts of things are unpopular, but the masses can't logic their way through it.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#148

Post by anonym29 »

globular-toast wrote: post #134
anonym29 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I hate being stuck with a luscious rare filet mignon basked in clarified butter, it's so flavorless that I have to chase it with celery, cucumbers, and lettuce just to stomach it... /s

Anything tastes good in butter. Try some okra or cabbage if you're ready for some flavour.

Keep in mind, there are more people who have a medical necessity to avoid cruciferous vegetables (like cabbage), gluten, nuts, and other types of plants than there are people who have a medical necessity to avoid meat.

As a whole, more humans are medically biologically incompatible with plant consumption than animal consumption.

Note that I'm talking about adverse medical reactions that range from worsening of chronic disease to acute death, not merely gastric discomfort, like with lactose intolerance.

Not everyone has the privilege of enjoying buttered cabbage.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#149

Post by ffsm8 »

Insanity wrote: post #89
sosodev wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false dichotomy. The choice is not lab grown or suffering. Farmed animals could live happy, healthy lives and then be culled in a humane way. The problem is that it costs slightly more and our society is more concerned with cost than animal suffering.

> Farmed animals could live happy, healthy lives and then be culled in a humane way. Breeding animals _specifically for killing them_, no matter how they are killed, is not what I'd consider humane. If we take 'humane' literally, it means to be treated as you would treat a human. I doubt we'd do this to humans. So the only way to be okay with this is adhering to a form of specieism.

> I doubt we'd do this to humans. So the only way to be okay with this is adhering to a form of specieism.

The obvious historical pointer to the Holocaust as a well covered example of people being treated like that - and a fact often swept under the rug: people are being treated essentially like that in North Korea, today.

An older interview but still good to watch

https://youtu.be/ZGJm4bjRaaE?is=E2hFWYi-ynPnWGfm

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#150

Post by aziaziazi »

trymas wrote: post #129
sosodev wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false dichotomy. The choice is not lab grown or suffering. Farmed animals could live happy, healthy lives and then be culled in a humane way. The problem is that it costs slightly more and our society is more concerned with cost than animal suffering.

I am too lazy to do the math, but I somehow think it would cost _multiple times_ more: https://www.farmtransparency.org/kb/food/abattoirs/age-anima... > society is more concerned with cost than animal suffering. Yes, and it's politically very hard to change. I totally understand price sensitivity around food. At least where I live milk and meat is extremely subsidised. How can you have chicken that is grown, slaughte…

> being a vegetarian/vegan is more expensive than being omnivore.

I read this often but the long term vegs usually says the opposite as does the studies [0]. Bonus point: The veg options are often the cheapest in the non-vegan restaurants (although not the tastiest). I have some hypothesis where it comes from:

- Meat substitues are seen as a necessary replacement. They are transformed, which require more work - and therefore more expensive. However they are as (un)necessary as a fined-prepared piece of charcuterie, which isn't cheap neither.

- Cost is evaluated at the supermarket shelf but as you noted the animal products are extremely subsidised. Vegs pays for them but don't use it. Infrastructures like airport, rails, road and urban amenities are not free either even if you don't pay for them. How you evaluate the price is at your own discretion.

- Fancy products are placed in the most visible shelf and thats the people see first, but they compare it with the cheapest animal alternative. I'm an engineer and by my fancy organic tofu 7-20€/kg but used to buy chicken at 25-35€/kg in the same fancy segment. If I'd be on a budget I'll probably buy the bottom shelf one at 3.5€/kg, next to the 5€/kg chicken.

- Cost of change: changing habits require to re-create the optimization you build during the previous years: where to find the best price for the product X, what quantity should you get or what daily stable you can add in the routine for cheap (fake meat and fancy milk aren't).

0:

> Main findings suggest that food expenditure negatively relates to vegetarian food self-identity, and unemployment status mediates the link between vegetarianism and food expenditure.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-025-06353-y

Vegan diet is always the cheapest - but not in the lower income countries. However it is when including costs of climate change and health care.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_vegetarianism

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