241–247 of 247 posts
What's a sustainable level of whaling? Whale beef is totally delicious, but I'm wondering if Norways catch is sustainable and I can continue to enjoy it.
whales are definitely sentient, have language and culture - enjoy eating something else
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Legal avenues for fishing are gone. Illegal fishing takes over with no controls. More deaths more over fishing. Another scenerio. Farming fishing increases causing increase population which[p is then dumped into the clean water supply. What no one is mentioning is the amount of radioactive waste Japan is pumping into the ovean still. This is bigger problem but one being ignored.
Got a citation for all that waste? A disaster for sure, but I feel the radiation talk is overblown. I am open to being set straight on the matter, but skeptical. I am particularly suspicious of anyone spouting baseless, and frankly antiscience 'nuculear power is bad' memes.
The Japan pumping nuclear waste into the ocean problem is ongoing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_di...
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The most intelligent Cetaceans are Orcas and Bottle-nosed Dolphins. Both pass the mirror test* while other whales have failed. The same applies for pigs and most other mammals. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test
Are you suggesting that pigs or cows can't feel anything (pain or pleasure) because they don't understand how a mirror works?
Most multi-cellular life is able to feel pain, and probably pleasure too. That includes both pigs and cows (and whales for that matter). Heck -- even plants have chemical responses to damage, even though they don't have nervous systems. Individual plants can even communicate with each other and let others know of the pain it experiences. In other words: if pain to the living being that you are consuming for food is a concern, then you should stick to eating fruit and things that are already dead.
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Are you suggesting that pigs or cows can't feel anything (pain or pleasure) because they don't understand how a mirror works?
Awareness of oneself is a completely different matter. The Mirror Test is far from perfect, but it does demonstrate that some individuals of some species are indeed capable identifying themselves as individuals in a group, indicating at least rudimentary sentience. There are also other tests for animal sentience, though I suspect it's hard to test many animals due to logistical reasons. Most multi-cellular life is ab…
The way cows, dogs, pigs, cats, sheep and horses express pain is very similar to humans: screaming and squirming or trembling, trying to escape, sweating, increased pulse and blood pressure, etc.
Responding to damaging stimuli is not necessarily the same, and I'm therefore not convinced that plants can "feel pain"; but perhaps neither are you? Surely you'd have a harder time grabbing a red hot iron bar and poking a puppy than poking a turnip with it? (There's a reason the killing is done behind closed doors[1].)
> The Mirror Test is far from perfect, but it does demonstrate that some individuals of some species are indeed capable identifying themselves as individuals in a group, indicating at least rudimentary sentience.
What about the individuals that fail it? I expect tiny infants to be able to fail the mirror test. That wouldn't make it ok to eat them, of course? Same argument for blind people; and of course the kind of people who, when they wake up after they've been drugged and strapped firmly to a chair in front a mirror, don't consider investigating a sticker on their shoulder as a first priority (because that's how that test works, right?).
Also pigs seem to be able to understand mirrors anyway:
> They found that pigs:
> • have excellent long-term memories
> • are whizzes with mazes and other tests requiring location of objects
> • can comprehend a simple symbolic language and can learn complex combinations of symbols for actions and objects
> • love to play and engage in mock fighting with each other, similar to play in dogs and other mammals
> • live in complex social communities where they keep track of individuals and learn from one another
> • cooperate with one another
> • can manipulate a joystick to move an on-screen cursor, a capacity they share with chimpanzees
> • can use a mirror to find hidden food
> • exhibit a form of empathy when witnessing the same emotion in another individual
Source: https://www.seeker.com/iq-tests-suggest-pigs-are-smart-as-do...
> In other words: if pain to the living being that you are consuming for food is a concern, then you should stick to eating fruit and things that are already dead.
I think it should even extend beyond personal diet to preventing others from inflicting pain on the living, just like slavery was not considered a personal choice by abolitionists.
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Animals need even more water and space, both for themselves and for the huge amount of plant crops we grow to feed them. Which one do you think is more effecient to eat?
How much grass can a human eat? There are huge swathes of land where nothing but grass grows. Animal can graze it and people can eat animals.
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Awareness of oneself is a completely different matter. The Mirror Test is far from perfect, but it does demonstrate that some individuals of some species are indeed capable identifying themselves as individuals in a group, indicating at least rudimentary sentience. There are also other tests for animal sentience, though I suspect it's hard to test many animals due to logistical reasons. Most multi-cellular life is ab…
> Individual plants can even communicate with each other and let others know of the pain it experiences. The way cows, dogs, pigs, cats, sheep and horses express pain is very similar to humans : screaming and squirming or trembling, trying to escape, sweating, increased pulse and blood pressure, etc. Responding to damaging stimuli is not necessarily the same, and I'm therefore not convinced that plants can "feel pain…
> I think it should even extend beyond personal diet to preventing others from inflicting pain on the living
If we assume a lion (or another predatorial animal) has at least a rudimentary form of counciousness, would that mean that a lion that ate a human would feel bad about it's actions?
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> Individual plants can even communicate with each other and let others know of the pain it experiences. The way cows, dogs, pigs, cats, sheep and horses express pain is very similar to humans : screaming and squirming or trembling, trying to escape, sweating, increased pulse and blood pressure, etc. Responding to damaging stimuli is not necessarily the same, and I'm therefore not convinced that plants can "feel pain…
I was going to write a long rant as a reply, but it all really comes down to this: > I think it should even extend beyond personal diet to preventing others from inflicting pain on the living If we assume a lion (or another predatorial animal) has at least a rudimentary form of counciousness, would that mean that a lion that ate a human would feel bad about it's actions?
Similarly vegans are generally also not arguing for dogs to have drivers license, or to give cows the right to vote, because they don't have the mental abilities to do so.
But really, the behavior of lions doesn't have anything to do with the question of whether we should keep pigs in factory farms, and whether it's ok for us to murder.