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World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

theguardian.com

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Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#351

Post by WillPostForFood »

grecy wrote: post #347
kelnos wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this just depends on your values and moral code, and there's no clear right or wrong here. I personally do not see a problem with using animals as food. If that's good enough for all the other omnivores and carnivores in the food chain, it's good enough for humans. There are certainly a lot of problems with the sustainability and humane-ness of our livestock farming, but I don't see "become vegetarian/vegan"…

> But I also recognize that a lot of people just don't have any kind of emotional response to this sort of thing, and that's ok too I will guarantee that a massive percentage of people do in fact have a very strong emotional response to this kind of thing, but it's all just "out of sight, out of mind". If you make people be involved in the killing of millions of baby chicks, they'll suddenly care very, very much. Our…

If you make people be involved in the killing of millions of baby chicks, they'll suddenly care very, very much.

For a few days, then they'll get used to like the 1000 previous generations of humans that had to kill animals to survive.

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#352

Post by nkrisc »

Razengan wrote: post #346
kelnos wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this just depends on your values and moral code, and there's no clear right or wrong here. I personally do not see a problem with using animals as food. If that's good enough for all the other omnivores and carnivores in the food chain, it's good enough for humans. There are certainly a lot of problems with the sustainability and humane-ness of our livestock farming, but I don't see "become vegetarian/vegan"…

> If that's good enough for all the other omnivores and carnivores in the food chain, it's good enough for humans. If there’s a larger “food chain” on the interstellar scale where some intelligent species mass-consume others, would it be “good enough” for some aliens to farm humans like we do animals?

Sure. Though we'd probably mount an armed resistance to the idea, successful or not.

The animals on the farm are welcome to do the same if they don't like being farmed.

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#353

Post by kempbellt »

throwaway2245 wrote: post #317
kempbellt wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interpret OPs point to be one that highlights the already existing Nirvana Fallacy that is the core of idealistic veganism. My analogy adds directly to that point.

Vegans don't have to be vegan for ethical reasons. They can be vegan for health reasons, or environmental reasons, or any combination of reasons. Vegans in general choose to not consume animals or (non-human) animal products, by definition. There is a large variety of adherence and some variety in self-definition, just as there is in any common human community. The Nirvana Fallacy lies in claiming that all vegans are…

Individuals have all kinds of reasons for doing the things that they do, which is why I wouldn't use the phrase "vegans in general", and why I haven't addressed my comments to vegans at all.

Veganism, however, has strong ethical foundations, and any amount of research shows this.

Unless we are considering the mental health benefit that comes with feeling ethically superior by being vegan, there are no valid health conditions that support unilateral veganism. It's akin to swearing off all liquids because of a lactose intolerance when consuming milk.

Veganism relies on the assumption that commodification of animals and products created by animals is considered unethical and should be rejected. I don't disagree with the sentiment to a degree, but I also don't agree with it absolutely. I do feel the need to point out that there is a Nirvana Fallacy within veganism itself, as it fails to truly define what is considered an "animal", and what is considered "commodification", and this is where conversations frequently turn into splitting hairs. Many animals (humans and not) engage in symbiotic relationships. Dogs will guard a home, and as a result, will be fed and protected by people in that home. It's how families work, friends, etc.

If a sheep sheds wood, naturally, is it anti-vegan to use that wool to create a coat? What about skinning a dead cow (natural causes) for its leather? There's a ton of gray area.

Veganism, at face value, is an idealistic platitude based on a beautiful notion, but it doesn't work on its own. There are a lot of great things about it, but it has never held much sway in my mind besides, "That's a cool idea, and I like seeing strides being made to make it easier to make 'vegan' choices, but I cannot bring myself to promote it".

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#354

Post by colechristensen »

difosfor wrote: post #59

I suppose it's slightly more animal friendly. On the other hand it just seems like another step into the direction of turning the chickens into optimized food machines. Would be more interested in seeing more means of producing tasty food without using animals and at reduced costs to the environment. Working towards one final giant culling of all unnaturally engineered animals and just continuing on with a small numb…

There’s a moral difficulty here where western societies care a lot about the beginnings of things and can’t stomach things ending, as if the only desirable world is one in which we all experience immortal bliss until the heat death of the universe.

Every living thing exists by consuming other living things in some way or another. Every living thing has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Most animals are at least in small ways, consumers of animals.

There is moral value in striving to maximize the quality of life in all its stages, that does not necessarily have to exclude death for a purpose.

Everything dies whether by accident, disease, predation, of degradation by age. Thinking things were better off not existing or better off dying of organ failure instead of being eaten doesn’t always make sense to me.

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#355

Post by grecy »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #351
grecy wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I also recognize that a lot of people just don't have any kind of emotional response to this sort of thing, and that's ok too I will guarantee that a massive percentage of people do in fact have a very strong emotional response to this kind of thing, but it's all just "out of sight, out of mind". If you make people be involved in the killing of millions of baby chicks, they'll suddenly care very, very much. Our…

If you make people be involved in the killing of millions of baby chicks, they'll suddenly care very, very much. For a few days, then they'll get used to like the 1000 previous generations of humans that had to kill animals to survive.

> like the 1000 previous generations of humans that had to kill animals to survive

Just a couple of hundred years ago there wouldn't have been many people killing more animals than they could eat.

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#356

Post by wpietri »

kelnos wrote: post #341
wpietri wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing's ever enough for vegans. That's a weird complaint on a site about eternal disruption, eternal improvement of things that are basically fine already. I'm an omnivore, and I'm comfortable with it. But that doesn't keep me from recognizing the ethical issues with killing and controlling other beings to survive. I really appreciate people pushing the envelope on this. If I could eat basically the same diet but…

> That's a weird complaint on a site about eternal disruption, eternal improvement of things that are basically fine already. I disagree. Vegans generally adopt a hard-line, no-compromising position on things like this. That's the antithesis of a lot of what we talk about here, which is continual improvement, perfect-is-the-enemy-of-good, and making reasonable trade-offs and compromises to find better solutions. A st…

I agree that some people here are in the perfect-is-the-enemy-of-good camp. But far from all of them. Think about all the arguments about which technology is best. Or the worship of people like Steve Jobs, famous for being unreasonable and uncompromising. Or the continual brushing aside of societal balance when it's a shiny new technology or a company on the rise.

Even as a person big on incrementalism, I believe that there's a lot of benefit in being uncompromising in long-term goals. Look at Toyota and their "one piece flow" concept, which they've been pursing for decades. I also think the people who seem unreasonable in the moment turn out to be right in the long term. Look at Google launching when people thought search was basically a solved problem. Or Dropbox. When they were getting going many saw them as entering a crowded market with a too-simple product.

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#357

Post by jhasse »

SkyBelow wrote: post #308
ImprobableTruth wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the very least it's still less-kill.

How is it less kill if all the male chicks are raised then used for meat? Same number of chickens being killed either way, some just get slightly longer to live.

Some die before you have the chance to kill them.

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#358

Post by [deleted] »

grecy wrote: post #355
WillPostForFood wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you make people be involved in the killing of millions of baby chicks, they'll suddenly care very, very much. For a few days, then they'll get used to like the 1000 previous generations of humans that had to kill animals to survive.

> like the 1000 previous generations of humans that had to kill animals to survive Just a couple of hundred years ago there wouldn't have been many people killing more animals than they could eat.

[deleted]

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#359

Post by sixstringtheory »

soperj wrote: post #340
sixstringtheory wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever raised a garden or slaughtered an animal? I would never hold it against you if you had not, I didn't for the first decades of my life, but anyone who has done both of those things and tries to equate them is not being intellectually honest. Or has the emotional capacity of a potato, which I posit is strictly less than the emotional capacity of a chicken. Again, if you haven't done either of those things…

Both actually. I worked at a slaughterhouse during my summers while at University. Plants aren't strictly for eating. You use them in everything from building houses to all of the furniture in your house. Just curious, but what would you rank the emotional capacity of a chicken? Because honestly it's basically non-existent from what I can tell.

I would rank it something like [all plants] < chicken < human. Chickens may not cry over spilt milk, but they do experience fear.

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#360

Post by dzolob »

kaycebasques wrote: post #307
dzolob wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t try to imply anything. I’m no vegan myself. Empathy is a great quality to cultivate; I don’t know if an ideal world is a vegan one, but I’m sure an ideal world treats humans, animals and living systems (intentionally avoiding the plants debate going on) with a great deal of empathy and respect.

Ah, OK. For the reasons I mentioned earlier I did assume you were vegan. We're on the same page and we want the same thing. My goal was to point out to my fellow vegans that empathy seems to be a trigger word for meat/dairy eaters and usually doesn't lead to productive debate.

Sure, I know :) Our egos tend to throw ‘empathy’ without it.

Glad we had this exchange.

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