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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)

#401

Post by cygx »

nkrisc wrote: post #352
Razengan wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Might makes right is a poor foundation for any moral framework, imo.

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

#402

Post by distances »

kelnos wrote: post #344
kaycebasques wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a real vegan (not a meme about vegans that you saw from meat eaters) I can confidently tell you that "animals are alive and they have feelings and senses, we abuse them for food" is not my biggest line of defense. My biggest lines of defense are: * Dr. Kim Williams, former president of the American College of Cardiology, said "there are two kinds of cardiologists, vegans, and those who haven't read the data" * Ani…

Thank you for these references; it's great to see some logical arguments here rather than knee-jerk responses. But I do question how much of some the things you reference are actually problems . We have plenty of fresh water. Distribution is often our problem when it comes to getting that water to humans everywhere, but stopping livestock production will not fix that. Does it really matter how much of the USA is used…

Freed agricultural land can and should be returned to wild. Most of farmland that was freed in EU after discontinuing unproductive farming is now forested. Sorry I don't have a link, forgot where I read about this.

Cattle raising and soy production (for animal feed) are major contributors to the continued loss of Amazon.

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

#403

Post by krageon »

colechristensen wrote: post #354
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 s…

> as if the only desirable world is one in which we all experience immortal bliss until the heat death of the universe.

This is a very fast step beyond this point, which I think does not do it justice. This end goal is worthwhile and logical and it is not reasonable to pretend it somehow isn't the only desirable world.

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

#404

Post by krageon »

nkrisc wrote: post #352
Razengan wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So you think you only deserve the right to live if you can resist me murdering you? What if you become crippled? You cannot resist me, armed or not. Therefore you are an old-time farm animal, mine to kill whenever I want.

I think that's an unhealthy stance to take towards life.

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

#405

Post by cmrdporcupine »

stickfigure wrote: post #388
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should also mention another neat role roosters have: they mediate conflict. We got a rooster because our hens were picking on each other. That stopped once we got him. He even used to sit between the conflicting hens on the perch at night. Also a good rooster will find food for the hens, and call them over to it. Ours used to find bugs and then make this cute "coo coo coo" and they'd come running, and eat while he…

Oh, I definitely love having roosters! The crowing makes me happy. But our polish started mounting the most developed hens at 19 weeks, and the other two (silkies, believe it or not) wanted in on the action less than a month later. Too many roosters for the number of hens, and the girls were getting frazzled. The thing I'm hoping for out of this "no kill" technology is the ability to buy sexed fertile eggs at the ag…

Can I ask what method you use to cull? I originally got the birds for myself and my daughter to take care of but my wife fell in love with them and she treats them like babies, which is fine, but even when we've had very sick hens killing ourselves has been off the table and we've ended up paying vets big fees to take care of it. She wants more birds in the spring but I'm not going to go along with that unless this becomes a more serious 'farmy' type situation and we become more self-sufficient with the animal care.

I grew up rural and have dispatched my share of animals hung around on my grandpa's farm during meat bird processing, so I'm not squeamish. But I need a good humane way to do this that won't upset my wife and kids.

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

#406

Post by cercatrova »

nkrisc wrote: post #352
Razengan wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes. I've seen this alien argument used a lot by non-meat-eaters, as if it's some "gotcha". It is not. One can construct a sound and valid viewpoint that is consistent simply by saying that sure, I can eat animals that are lower in some quality than I am, such as sapience, but then if an eldritch alien with more sapience than me comes about, they are free to eat me.

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

#407

Post by throwaway2245 »

kempbellt wrote: post #381
throwaway2245 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are a lot of great things about it, but it has never held much sway in my mind On the contrary, it feels like veganism holds quite a lot of sway in your mind. Based on my understanding, you have created an imaginary idealised version of veganism, so that you can mentally reject its imperfections, while recognising that this version would still hold some value. All the best.

It holds enough sway that any time a conversation about veganism comes up, I find it easy to point out the flaws, again . Beyond that, it holds incredibly little. For a short while I dated a vegan, and that was the most veganism has had any impact on my life. Planning meals together required more work to find viable options. I enjoyed the few vegan meals that I ate during that time, but it never changed my personal e…

> It holds enough sway that any time a conversation about veganism comes up, I find it easy to point out the flaws, again.

But why are you spending your life doing this?

Again - I am not a vegan, why do you assume that anyone in this thread is a vegan?

>It doesn't mean that I believe it's a solid, effective, or feasible philosophy to live by.

And yet people do live by it, as a lifestyle practice, and that's fine. What other philosophies are solid, effective, and feasible? I don't think there are any, and I'm not sure why you would get to decide this anyway.

You keep suggesting that veganism (your own selective definition of veganism) is philosophically imperfect. But that's not an argument for anything. What's your actual point?

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

#408

Post by wpietri »

soperj wrote: post #128
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…

>But that doesn't keep me from recognizing the ethical issues with killing and controlling other beings to survive. Does that include plants?

Sorry, just saw this. Yes. The ethical issues for me are smaller, but they're not nonexistent. This is especially true when we look at the environmental effects of large-scale agriculture.

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

#409

Post by wpietri »

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #169
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…

> But that doesn't keep me from recognizing the ethical issues with killing and controlling other beings to survive. We don't undergo photosynthesis, so fundamentally we have to kill and eat other beings to survive. Plants are other living beings too. And a revolution is underway in learning about plant intelligence -- while not a nervous system, trees communicate with each other and share resources. [1] My primary r…

> We don't undergo photosynthesis, so fundamentally we have to kill and eat other beings to survive.

Currently that's true. But it's not an essential property of the universe. Yesterday's ludicrous may be tomorrow's normal. Thus my mention of Star Trek's replicator. Imagining those were common helps make clear the ethical tradeoffs.

If everybody were used to getting any food they wanted from a magic box, then what would we think of people who insisted on doing it the old way? A guy who spent months raising animals just to murder and consume them would certainly hear about it.

A person who had a vegetable garden might just be seen as a quirky hobbyist, or he might be seen as a person doing something weird and gross, the way many Americans feel about somebody who eats organ meat or dog. They might even be seen as heretical; many religions see life as sacred, after all. And if they did it at modern, industrial scale where they destroyed square miles of ecosystem? Perhaps it would be seen as historical reenactment, or perhaps it would be taken as a sign of severe mental health problems.

As I said, I'm an omnivore. But I try to be an honest, self-aware one. I just dismembered a turkey, ripping joints apart and rending flesh from bone. I'll enjoy the meal, but I'm aware of the horror, too. That's the deal with evolution and being part of a species that is early on in the self-uplift process.

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

#410

Post by wpietri »

Falling3 wrote: post #180
ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that doesn't keep me from recognizing the ethical issues with killing and controlling other beings to survive. We don't undergo photosynthesis, so fundamentally we have to kill and eat other beings to survive. Plants are other living beings too. And a revolution is underway in learning about plant intelligence -- while not a nervous system, trees communicate with each other and share resources. [1] My primary r…

Plants are not beings under any standard usage of the word. While plants certainly communicate and show some level of computational processing, there is no evidence they have subjective experiences. There is a very clearly line to be drawn between plants and animals. And if that's not a compelling enough counterargument, there are two additional issues with trying to conflate plants and animals in this context. First…

I think you should be careful of our heritage of narcissism here. Historically, ethical protections are extended to anybody sufficiently like the speaker's in-group, and denied outside it. You're making an identical argument here. There are always lines to be drawn, and they're almost always the ones convenient for the speaker.
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