Now this is pure internet gold.
*purr internet gold
Meow.camera
151–160 of 270 posts
Re: Meow.camera
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
In his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari called the farming of animals by humans "Nature's biggest fraud", which I always found to be an apt description. It makes me wonder if humans are the only animals who "farm" other animals in some way (not on the same scale as humans do of course). At the same time, it makes me wonder, "is being a parasitic animal socially better or worse than animals who farm fellow animals" ;).
Ants farm aphids and another species of ant farms fungus. Parasites are ubiquitous in nature and they range from the infamous cuckoo who lays eggs in other birds’ nests to tiny worms that infest the eyes of children to the horrifying tarantula hawk wasp that paralyses a spider and leads it to a burrow and then lays an egg which soon hatches and devours the still-living spider from the inside out!
There are many parasitoid wasps, of which the tarantula hawk wasp is only one. It's an sound evolutionary strategy even if their existence even horrified Charles Darwin (and these wasps were obviously the inspiration for the Xenomorph in the Alien movies)
Re: Meow.camera
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Then be angry at factory farming, not eating meat. When one of the most common responses to pointing out how awful factory farming is "well you can just buy from farms" when the reality is that 99% of consumption comes from factory farms, it's completely reasonable to associate the two > We can easily feed people as we do now, not have factory farming, but still not have the tens of thousands of acres of grassland…
Going to need a source for that because all the information i've seen shows that there is absolutely not enough land to be able to sustain the current levels of meat consumption. You're sort of mixing up things here. Yes, there is enough land in some parts of the world (Canada, US), but that's not the point. I specifically said not full grass feed. That's what people believe and assert there is not enough land for. Y…
> As factory farms already feed those herds, clearly there's enough grain to feed them.
1. Feed Conversion Ratio is worse for pasture-raised vs. factory farmed so that's not a given - animals being able to move more, waste more calories that aren't being converted to meat
2. You still haven't provided a source for your claim about land usage
Re: Meow.camera
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is an immense difference between factory farming, and traditional farming, of which most countries and places still do. I don't know what sort of fantasy lifestyle people think wild animals live, but it's constant fear of death all day long, fights with other of its kind over territory, constant predation, disease, pests (including bot flies and worms), starvation during population upswings, dying of thirst dur…
Which life would you choose for yourself? Would you be okay if someone else chose for you, especially if the choice was different?
Would you ask an amoeba the same thing? A plant? What about an insect? A mouse? Humans are capable of thought that cows are not. Chickens are not.
For example, cows cannot conceive of object persistence. Human infants do not until 2+ years, some parrots do, etc. So what you have to ask yourself, is would the animals even be aware they are captured? And do they have the intellect to care? Or do they entirely live "in the moment", and thus, are happy if healthy, fed, and not being hunted or fearful of a wolf nearby?
Or maybe you might want to ask yourself, would you prefer to be eaten alive? For an animal like a bison, death seldom comes instantly. Death comes while pieces of your body are ripped off of you, as you mewl and scream and cry and bleed to death slowly. Passing out, waking up again only to see you're still being eaten.
Trying to make a choice based upon your mind, your body, your reality is frankly unfair. An example being, there are pack animals and animals that live solo.
By your metric, that is by measuring happiness for an animal by how you would want to live, you'd take those animals that hate living together, and try to force them to? Because that's what you're asking...
What would I want?
So I ask you instead, if we shouldn't interfere, should we then ensure we don't succor or help wild animals in any way? Let's say we stop eating all meat. We do so because "it's wrong to keep an animal captive, even if they are happier and healthier". OK.
So, then by what metric do we have to help animals in the wild? If they have a plague, should we not care or try to help? We have helped wild animals in the past with such things.
Would the animals understand the question asked? Would a cow understand vaccination? Eradication of bot flies?
Re: Meow.camera
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
The vast majority of farmed animals are factory farmed: https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/almost-all-livestoc... I agree that cows are an exception and live decent lives, but >95% of pigs, chickens, and fish are farmed in atrocious conditions, inside and outside the US: https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-animals-are-factory-farm...
Then be angry at factory farming, not eating meat. There are loads of people that still have a farm, just for them too. Yes, it's generally in rural areas in the West. Yet for thousands of years, people often just farmed to feed themselves! Factory farming sucks. Yet this can be fixed, note that you don't need to full grass feed (as an example) to end factory farming. You just need room for mild grazing. We can easil…
> Then be angry at factory farming, not eating meat.
Yes I fully agree with that, you might be interested in this TED talk (linked in my original comment) https://www.ted.com/talks/lewis_bollard_how_to_end_factory_f... for what you can do about it
Re: Meow.camera
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Going to need a source for that because all the information i've seen shows that there is absolutely not enough land to be able to sustain the current levels of meat consumption. You're sort of mixing up things here. Yes, there is enough land in some parts of the world (Canada, US), but that's not the point. I specifically said not full grass feed. That's what people believe and assert there is not enough land for. Y…
> As factory farms already feed those herds, clearly there's enough grain to feed them. 1. Feed Conversion Ratio is worse for pasture-raised vs. factory farmed so that's not a given - animals being able to move more, waste more calories that aren't being converted to meat 2. You still haven't provided a source for your claim about land usage
We already throw away 30% of our food, and everywhere I look there's fallow land ripe for crops where I live. Rural Canada.
That said, cattle don't need cropland to graze. They just need land that can grow some grass, and space to move around.
Yes there is a higher calorie count for moving around compared to sitting in a box every day. So? It's fairly widely known that we throw away massive amounts of grain due to lack of market.
No, I won't be providing sources or references. I'm the source and reference. You of course can disagree.
If you don't like this path to end factory farming, you may choose another. However I will fight anyone taking my food away. I will at the same time, help those working towards traditional humane farming methods.
Choose which battle you prefer. One with allies, one with enemies. Decide which will get closer to your current goal, even if it doesn't fully align with mine, and others like me.
Change comes in steps, not leaps.
Re: Meow.camera
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
The pendulum could swing the other way and instead animal rights activists could be looked upon with complete disdain. Just like human rights, progress is never guaranteed.
Dystopian comments are hot right now, but your comment really don't have basis when looking at long periods of time. We are objectively in a better place now than ever, and that is usually true by picking a time and looking backwards 100+ years.
When have dystopian comments NOT been hot? Maybe a few years in the 90's, between the fall of the USSR and the Balkan war?
Re: Meow.camera
#158Re: Meow.camera
#159In one of the feeds (Mr. Fall) the cat is eating what looks like soap shavings or feathers or something. They apprear to be fairly light weight since the cat appears to be sort of licking them up. Any idea what they are?
Dehydrated chicken?
Re: Meow.camera
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually agree. I have said this in another comment but I feel like its up to us. Slavery wasn't eradicated suddenly and became suddenly morally bad, I think that slowly but steadily we got better though till the point that now everyone mostly considers slavery morally evil. Lets hope the same can be the case with animals as well. I can't emphasize the impact of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gqwpfEcBjI&t=25s (ea…
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The stuff coming out of young republicans is beyond the pale. These kids are making vile jokes about doing a genocide / Holocaust of Democrats, minorities, their political opponents, etc.
And they’ve been consistently doing it for so long in this chat, that it’s hard to dismiss this as some crass joking. It seems like many of these people sincerely hold pro-Nazi views.