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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

#161

Post by eigenket »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #159
eigenket wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the way trophic levels work humans eating plants is way more efficient as a system than humans eating animals that eat the plants. Humans eating animals eating plants is an ecological disaster.

Having too many humans on this earth is more of an ecological disaster than eating animals is. Plenty of animals eat only or mostly meat, and they aren’t causing any ecological disasters.

As a human you have a choice about how much of an ecological disaster you, personally, are going to be. That is the privilege and responsibility of sapience.

Its worth emphasising that many animals and their eating habits are also ecological disasters. Cats, cane toads and rabbits come to mind.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#162

Post by dang »

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.

That's obvious flamebait, and tedious self-congratulatory tropes like "Unpopular opinion" and "expected better" are flame multipliers. Please don't post like that here.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27492086.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#163

Post by eigenket »

wallscratch wrote: post #56
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…

Yeah, but maybe this is an argument for treating the food animals, rather than ridiculousness of standards for science animals.

Of course, I agree. I hope my comment didn't imply otherwise.

Actually I would argue for the wholesale reduction of the category "food animal". Its largely unnecessary, there are very few people (e.g. with unusual medical needs or living in unusual situations) for whom eating other animals is necessary.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#164

Post by matz1 »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #157
matz1 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally don't care about animal suffering, whatever you do to non-human is fair game to me. I draw the line between human and non-human. The only reason I may care about animal suffering is because the other human that care about animal can get angry and cause me trouble.

Now I’m curious: why do you care about human suffering?

I guess its just matter of subjective preference, like some people hate eating chocolate some people loves it.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#165

Post by dang »

amusedcyclist wrote: post #158
omega3 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You wrote down a truly idiotic thought with no argument or justification whatsoever and you expect people to take you seriously, where did you learn to be so brave and clever.

Please don't cross into personal attack or respond by breaking the site guidelines yourself. Regardless of how bad or annoying another comment is (or you feel it is), you owe the community better if you're participating here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#166

Post by dang »

rootusrootus wrote: post #96
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.

That seems like a perfectly legitimate question. Is it a good idea to anthropomorphize other animals? Is it beneficial to society overall to make macro-level policy decisions based on moral beliefs that are more of a personal thing? FWIW, HN on the weekend is a different beast entirely than it is on weekdays. Even dang needs some time off, and the reduction in moderation can be glaringly obvious. Makes me really appr…

I think this is probably sample bias. HN on the weekend isn't a different beast entirely, and FWIW my and other mods' time off doesn't particularly correlate with weekends. Thanks for the kind words in any case!

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#167

Post by nerdponx »

rtkwe wrote: post #132
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…

I don't think that's that weird, they're setting standards for their own behavior and the food source is largely beyond their control. That space probably isn't even directly controlled by them but by the larger university.

An able-bodied person with decent income should have no trouble being at least mostly vegetarian, if not most vegan, in North America.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#168

Post by nerdponx »

runawaybottle wrote: post #80
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…

Death is not the same as torture. Kill me before you ever torture me.

Too bad most food animals are tortured, sometimes for their entire life, before being killed. The unluckiest ones are the females kept alive for breeding.

Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective

#169

Post by Retric »

lettergram wrote: post #146
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...…

1) It’s straightforward to be a healthy vegetarian, on net even in cultures that are largely vegetarian meat eaters are generally less healthy.

Personally a really enjoy meat, but at one point I became vegetarian for a few months simply based on what I was eating. I accidentally ended up with a vegetarian diet with sufficient protein etc, which demonstrates how little effort it actually takes.

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