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New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

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Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#91

Post by diacritical »

sosodev wrote: post #85
block_dagger wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any kind of domination of one species over another raises serious ethical questions. Avoiding suffering on the dominated side is nearly impossible.

Are all pets suffering?

I think what GP meant is that when it involves money, suffering is nearly impossible to prevent. That's why you have puppy mills, for example. Most people don't know how the puppies are raised, they just see the cute puppy in the shop. The same way people see a pretty piece of meat in the supermarket and don't know its history.

Raising animals for meat is theoretically doable with no suffering (not sure about milk), but it's not happening in practice. With pets the situation is better - a lot of people adopt and some care about how their pet was raised if they buy it from a breeder.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#92

Post by sosodev »

diacritical wrote: post #84
sosodev wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false dichotomy. The choice is not lab grown or suffering. Farmed animals could live happy, healthy lives and then be culled in a humane way. The problem is that it costs slightly more and our society is more concerned with cost than animal suffering.

That's exactly why lab grown meat is the best way to solve the issue. Society is only concerned with cost, regulations are weak and rarely enforced and companies are operating in a capitalistic market where they can't compete unless they squeeze every last cent out of each animal. That's hard to change as lots of people have an interest in keeping the status quo and the citizens who vote don't have the time to read e…

I'm skeptical of this claim because there's clearly a growing population that hates the idea of putting anything they don't understand in their bodies. Genetically modified vegetables, food dyes, vaccines, etc.

I find it hard to believe you could convince a large portion of Americans to eat lab grown meat just to save a buck.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#93

Post by mperham »

sosodev wrote: post #85
block_dagger wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any kind of domination of one species over another raises serious ethical questions. Avoiding suffering on the dominated side is nearly impossible.

Are all pets suffering?

Don't strawman other people's comments.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#94

Post by greygoo222 »

hypeatei wrote: post #41
mock-possum wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God what an awful prospect. How about when you push the button it only removes the button pushers, so the rest of us are free to continue enjoying our existence.

Well, some people do choose suicide but I have a feeling that you'd be uncomfortable discussing assisted suicide. These conversations around humanity and suffering typically end in thought terminating takes such as yours. Why even respond if you're effectively throwing your hands up in the air and ignoring nuance?

The person you're responding to is explicitly saying they would be fine with suicide.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#95

Post by stouset »

greygoo222 wrote: post #59
stouset wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that continuing to enjoy your existence is inflicting a massive toll of suffering around the world, to both others humans as well as non-humans. I’m not saying I’d be one to push the button, but I think it’s worth trying to understand the mindset of someone who would. It’s very arguable that pushing it would be the ethical thing to do.

[flagged]

Humanity did not introduce evil, but we have absolutely industrialized and massively scaled it.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#96

Post by Insanity »

enaaem wrote: post #80
1234letshaveatw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not let that pesky detail get in the way of the USA bad narrative he has going.

Still banned China, Russia and the EU...

Looking at the stuff China puts in their food (like the actual instant noodles), definitely a red flag if even they ban it.

Generally I look at EU for what's good/bad to consume though. It's scary how much stuff is banned there that's in everyday US products.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#97

Post by greygoo222 »

moribvndvs wrote: post #11
abound wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite questions to ask people is something like: "Imagine a button appears in front of you. Pressing it will snap all human beings painlessly out of existence. Do you push the button?" Some people get caught in minutiae about downstream effects, I tell them it can go however they want (house pets are free or gone too, planes land harmlessly, etc) In my circles, I've found it's about 50/50 button pushers…

My first serious programming job was at a start up and the owner asked me this question. I was caught off guard, of course I wouldn’t! I couldn’t really explain why at the time, but it essentially revolved around the fact that I was young and optimistic. 25 years later, I’m not so sure. Now, said optimism has almost vanished and there are days pushing seems like the path to least suffering, but I also feel it’s uneth…

I mean this sincerely, not as an insult: consider that the problem is with your mind or personal life, not with the world, and you should look for a way to address that if you haven't already.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#98

Post by anonym29 »

Insanity wrote: post #89
sosodev wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false dichotomy. The choice is not lab grown or suffering. Farmed animals could live happy, healthy lives and then be culled in a humane way. The problem is that it costs slightly more and our society is more concerned with cost than animal suffering.

> Farmed animals could live happy, healthy lives and then be culled in a humane way. Breeding animals _specifically for killing them_, no matter how they are killed, is not what I'd consider humane. If we take 'humane' literally, it means to be treated as you would treat a human. I doubt we'd do this to humans. So the only way to be okay with this is adhering to a form of specieism.

Many farm animals aren't bred specifically for killing them. Think egg-laying hens and ducks, milk-producing cows and goats, etc.

Not too different from humans in that respect; humans are bred systematically (we have dedicated hormonal supplements, birth facilities, documented birthing procedures, standardized post-birth checklists of forms of vaccination regiments, standardized mass schooling, government-subsidized feeding programs, etc) and most are used machinistically by society exclusively for productive output, regardless of whether the society is corporatist, capitalist, socialist, communist, etc.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#99

Post by bayarearefugee »

gowld wrote: post #69
bayarearefugee wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW I wouldn't push the button. I just think we are going to absolutely deserve the outcome as we collectively and metaphorically push that button... which we continue to do and are regressing on stopping ourselves from doing so a handful of super wealthy can watch gamified number go up.

What makes you think that we we collectively and metaphorically are pushing the painless button?

Well you're right, the real world isn't so simple and the button we are pushing certainly isn't going to be painless.

Re: New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates

#100

Post by sosodev »

mperham wrote: post #93
sosodev wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are all pets suffering?

Don't strawman other people's comments.

I didn't intend to. I think that domesticated animals have long had a harmonious relationship with humans so I find it a bit difficult to believe that it's always an ethical dilemma. Pets are just the most obvious lens to identify that.

I also think we need to be careful with the idea that we should entirely avoid suffering because it's impossible to do.

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