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Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

nytimes.com

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Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you want to get the milk.

Almost this. The better answer is because we want to get ALL the milk. So instead of letting the mother cow nurse her calf for the first few months and then start taking her milk for our use, the more "modern" practice is to separate the calf immediately. Which means if you are drinking milk, you are drinking it from seriously depressed cows. I wonder how this contributes to our culture's growing mood of depression?…

Back in my ancestral village the practice was to let cow nurse her calf and get the remaining for the owner's family. This kinda ensured co-existence. The modern dairy industry has all evil practices baked into its operations. It is the thing that keeps me from going vegetarian. Even with going off meat, I would still harm the livestock by consuming dairy. A lot of vegetarians (at least those who virtue signal) do not understand this.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practicality. To put it bluntly, the majority of humans do not think it is immoral in principle to kill and eat an animal. After all, that's how biological life just is. At an individual level, you can choose to think it's wrong but you do have to simply accept the fact that not everyone agrees, and very likely there will always be someone who disagrees. To most people, killing an animal for food is not a problem con…

> The majority of humans do not think it is immoral in principle to kill and eat an animal This is wrong, the majority of humans may think that way because they don't have to kill any animal personally, they are disconnected from the "killing" part of the whole equation. Let's see how many people eat and kill animals (i.e. hunting) once we remove meat factories. Another counterargument is: pets. Somehow all meat eate…

> Another counterargument is: pets. Somehow all meat eaters gasp on the idea of eating their pet, so they are not morally okay to eat an animal (as you claimed).

You seem to think humans are rational if-this-then-that machines but we're perfectly irrational enough to hold two dissenting views at the same time very closely. It doesn't prove much that people like their pets, serial killers also like their own families.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practicality. To put it bluntly, the majority of humans do not think it is immoral in principle to kill and eat an animal. After all, that's how biological life just is. At an individual level, you can choose to think it's wrong but you do have to simply accept the fact that not everyone agrees, and very likely there will always be someone who disagrees. To most people, killing an animal for food is not a problem con…

> The majority of humans do not think it is immoral in principle to kill and eat an animal This is wrong, the majority of humans may think that way because they don't have to kill any animal personally, they are disconnected from the "killing" part of the whole equation. Let's see how many people eat and kill animals (i.e. hunting) once we remove meat factories. Another counterargument is: pets. Somehow all meat eate…

If I had to kill animals to eat meat, I would have zero problem doing so. You’re free to make your own choices, but you’re not going to change anyone’s stance on eating meat with your arguments. Get off your high horse.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#55
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has worked on farms i can verify that such things happen. I personally witnessed sheep behaving exactly as decided in The Silence of the Lambs. Our sheep were famously noisy and certainly were used to being moved around in lorries but when the abattoir lorry turned up you could almost smell their fear. I also witnessed a cow storm through four fences in order to be reunited with her calf. The irony: Th…

[flagged]

I’m gonna guess it was somewhat tongue in cheek.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#56
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The majority of humans do not think it is immoral in principle to kill and eat an animal This is wrong, the majority of humans may think that way because they don't have to kill any animal personally, they are disconnected from the "killing" part of the whole equation. Let's see how many people eat and kill animals (i.e. hunting) once we remove meat factories. Another counterargument is: pets. Somehow all meat eate…

> Another counterargument is: pets. Somehow all meat eaters gasp on the idea of eating their pet, so they are not morally okay to eat an animal (as you claimed). You seem to think humans are rational if-this-then-that machines but we're perfectly irrational enough to hold two dissenting views at the same time very closely. It doesn't prove much that people like their pets, serial killers also like their own families.

Should we move towards irrationality or rationality? If being rational is marginally better we should move towards that. We want less serial killers in the society.

So pointing out the fact about pets is to force meat eaters to consider their irrationality face to face.

We have done this throughout our evolution. Some people notice the irrational things in our behavior and try to reason with other humans why doing these irrational things is wrong and should be stopped (slavery, racism, etc).

That's what I am doing, and anyone should do. Just accepting the fact that humans are irrational is just accepting the status quo.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The majority of humans do not think it is immoral in principle to kill and eat an animal This is wrong, the majority of humans may think that way because they don't have to kill any animal personally, they are disconnected from the "killing" part of the whole equation. Let's see how many people eat and kill animals (i.e. hunting) once we remove meat factories. Another counterargument is: pets. Somehow all meat eate…

If I had to kill animals to eat meat, I would have zero problem doing so. You’re free to make your own choices, but you’re not going to change anyone’s stance on eating meat with your arguments. Get off your high horse.

the key word is "had". I would eat any animal any day if I "had" to and had no other food source.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#58
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

For a long time humans did not breed animals for the sake of eating them, they used to hunt (just like a lion). No one was guilt-tripping anyone in those days (I hope), as we had to survive (not thrive). The situation has changed completely in the modern world. We have created meat factories, forcefully torturing millions of animals daily, and have somehow agreed upon what animals to kill and not to kill. A lion will…

Having seem children play I think many in would be quite comfortable killing a pig and draining it's blood if they could. You see children chasing pigeons - and I don't think it's just to hug them if they catch one.

I say this without commenting in favor of either side of this debate which I am undecided on and reading with interest.

But I think it's important not to shy away from the reality that cruelty and the desire to kill are very much a part of human nature from the beginning. And that applies no matter where or how we are brought up.

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#59
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has worked on farms i can verify that such things happen. I personally witnessed sheep behaving exactly as decided in The Silence of the Lambs. Our sheep were famously noisy and certainly were used to being moved around in lorries but when the abattoir lorry turned up you could almost smell their fear. I also witnessed a cow storm through four fences in order to be reunited with her calf. The irony: Th…

[flagged]

Have you forgotten your priors about human bias? ;)

Re: Orca that carried dead calf for weeks appears to be in mourning again

#60
post #45
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real crime is that alternatives are expensive due to how our new economy is structured. I personally prefer oatmilk (oatside) to dairy milk. However, it’s too damn expensive that I find myself only drinking it from time to time. Now how is a vegetarian milk more expensive than a full cycle of cow milk (cows are too burdening to maintain) you might ask?!? My guess is that we are seeing something along the lines of…

> Now how is a vegetarian milk more expensive than a full cycle of cow milk (cows are too burdening to maintain) you might ask?!? Not enough scale because little demand compared to regular milk.

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