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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)

#91
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as animals are treated as commodities instead of sentient beings, yeah, nothing is going to be enough for vegans. Empathy is a great quality to cultivate.

Demonstrated sentience/consciousness is on a gradient, from nil/very-low, to high. And somewhere in between, a gray area. - mussels/mollusks (zero sentience) - insects (very low demonstrated consciousness) - fish (low demonstrated consciousness) - chickens/reptiles (disputed level) - dogs, dolphins, primates, etc (high) You can't equivocate chicken sentience with human sentience. What you can do is suggest they have…

Mollusks include Cephalopods like octopus and cuttlefish, which are on the higher side of the consciousness gradient.

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

#92
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Assuming they weight around 30 grams it's ~1,800,000 tons of meat Check your math.

Yep, it's 180,000 tons. Which would still feed 18,000,000 million people in Africa for a year.

why "in Africa"?

Global waste meats can't in practice all be shipped to Africa; and this seems a little bit like you think Africans should eat waste products.

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

#93
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing's ever enough for vegans. > Would be more interested in seeing more means of producing tasty food without using animals and at reduced costs to the environment. There is increasingly more of that all the time. > On the other hand it just seems like another step into the direction of turning the chickens into optimized food machines. Another step? They aren't getting any more optimized, if anything new availab…

> 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 mean the subject matter is itself a disruption and improvement, which is being rejected. It is not the status quo. So I don't see that as analogous.

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

I also try to be cognizant of related issues. But I see developments like these as a win, whereas for for a certain demographic, it's irrelevant. They aren't the ones asking for this in the first place, egg consumers are. Granted vegans are a good base for criticism which probably contributed.

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

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing's ever enough for vegans. > Would be more interested in seeing more means of producing tasty food without using animals and at reduced costs to the environment. There is increasingly more of that all the time. > On the other hand it just seems like another step into the direction of turning the chickens into optimized food machines. Another step? They aren't getting any more optimized, if anything new availab…

Nothing is ever enough for anyone. Look at any discussion here. "This software should be fully free without ads", "this license isn't permissive enough", it's not distrbuted, it's not blockchain, it is blockchain, it's written in java. And I think it's fine. We need people on the extremes in order to put pressure and advance things, as extremes rarely get implemented, but meeting in the middle does.

> We need people on the extremes

After 2020, I'd like to see more in the middle. I think extremes are overrepresented.

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

#95
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing's ever enough for vegans. > Would be more interested in seeing more means of producing tasty food without using animals and at reduced costs to the environment. There is increasingly more of that all the time. > On the other hand it just seems like another step into the direction of turning the chickens into optimized food machines. Another step? They aren't getting any more optimized, if anything new availab…

As long as animals are treated as commodities instead of sentient beings, yeah, nothing is going to be enough for vegans. Empathy is a great quality to cultivate.

This is a reducto ad absurdum takeaway, but I wonder if at some point will we consider the humans required to create said food, part of the "animals treated as commodities"?

Unless humans are somehow exempt from the list, I don't see how this argument is feasible in the realistic sense. Humans are frequently treated as commodities, as any team over the size of 1 needs to delegate responsibilities to people. Hence, "doctor, lawyer, police officer, teacher, pilot" are all words that describe a delegated responsibility of a human, and therefore the commodity that they represent. "We need more firefighters!" is a phrase that literally treats humans as commodities - showing how replaceable they are. How about whenever you ask a friend, or a family member to pick something up for you from the grocery store? Are they not being treated as a commodity to suit a need in that moment?

However idealistic the notion, being a "sentient being" isn't mutually exclusive from being treated as a commodity.

I understand the empathic argument in support of veganism full well (and I empathize with it), but there is such a thing as runaway-empathy, to the point that it becomes unproductive conversation.

This is a win in an aim to reduce unnecessary suffering and pain. I'll take it as such.

Seeking some sort of absolutism though, I can't wrap my mind around that. It gives me some serious Sith vibes...

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

#96

I was wondering what happens to the (hopefully) very small amount male chicks that still hatch because no testing is free from false positives/negatives. The good news is, according to section 5.2.4 of the the "respeggt System Manual"[1] they are forbidden to kill earlier than 12 weeks old. [1] https://respeggt-group.com/files/respeggt-Systemhandbuch_en.... Edit: link to the English system manual

Sarcasm aside is killing a 1 year old, let alone at 12 weeks, more ethical than killing a day-old chick? The latter is basically post-natal abortion, which, is not a huge world different than abortion aside from consciousness of inflicted pain.

12 weeks is the point at which they have grown enough to be viable as a meat supply. Killing a 1 day old chick has zero purpose to the wider world - it is just killing. Harvesting for meat at 12+ weeks serves the purpose of feeding people.

If you have an ethical problem with eating animals at all, this won't matter. Otherwise, killing animals for food is part of our reality, and waiting until the 12 week mark brings the killing in line with the realities (and problems) of our worldwide food supply chain.

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

#97

I was wondering what happens to the (hopefully) very small amount male chicks that still hatch because no testing is free from false positives/negatives. The good news is, according to section 5.2.4 of the the "respeggt System Manual"[1] they are forbidden to kill earlier than 12 weeks old. [1] https://respeggt-group.com/files/respeggt-Systemhandbuch_en.... Edit: link to the English system manual

Sarcasm aside is killing a 1 year old, let alone at 12 weeks, more ethical than killing a day-old chick? The latter is basically post-natal abortion, which, is not a huge world different than abortion aside from consciousness of inflicted pain.

I don’t think there’s a binary switch at any single point from conception to birth to 1 year old where an organism switches from “not conscious to pain” to “conscious to pain”.

The first few days / weeks after birth are certainly louder but otherwise not much different developmentally from the preceding days.

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

#98

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…

Nothing's ever enough for vegans. > Would be more interested in seeing more means of producing tasty food without using animals and at reduced costs to the environment. There is increasingly more of that all the time. > On the other hand it just seems like another step into the direction of turning the chickens into optimized food machines. Another step? They aren't getting any more optimized, if anything new availab…

"Nothing's ever enough for vegans."

I stopped reading right there.

- non-vegan with low tolerance for counterproductive comments

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

#99

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…

So clearly you’re strongly pro-life as well?

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

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demonstrated sentience/consciousness is on a gradient, from nil/very-low, to high. And somewhere in between, a gray area. - mussels/mollusks (zero sentience) - insects (very low demonstrated consciousness) - fish (low demonstrated consciousness) - chickens/reptiles (disputed level) - dogs, dolphins, primates, etc (high) You can't equivocate chicken sentience with human sentience. What you can do is suggest they have…

Mollusks include Cephalopods like octopus and cuttlefish, which are on the higher side of the consciousness gradient.

Octopus have a pop culture reputation for being intelligent owing to lab maze experiments, but their intelligence isn't well known or defined. They have an average lifespan between 3-6 months to a few years depending on the species.

"Until the 1970s, researchers tried to classify the intellectual abilities of different animals and rank them within a universal intelligence scale with humans at the top. That view crumbled as it became obvious that the abilities of different animals were tuned to the circumstances in which they live. Rats learn some things slowly and others very rapidly. Just one experience with a novel food that makes them ill will put them off that food for life, even if they only become sick many hours after eating it. It's a useful memory feat for an animal that survives by scavenging. Honey bees remember the location of a flower that is producing nectar after a single visit and with just a few trips will learn at what time of day the nectar flow is at its peak. Octopuses are not very social so we should not expect their intelligence to show itself in observational learning. [...] True, octopus have huge brains. But they look nothing like the brains of the vertebrates that are so adept at learning. [...] some critics suspect that their intelligence has been grossly exaggerated by anthropomorphising observers-"they watch my every move, therefore they must be curious". On the other hand, because cephalopod behaviour and brain structure are so foreign, others argue that their greatest cognitive feats are probably still being overlooked. " -- https://web.archive.org/web/20120407062518/http://www.fortun...

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