To quote the article:
> Reports indicate that Mike's beak, face, eyes and an ear were removed with the hatchet blow. But Smulders estimates that up to 80% of his brain by mass - and almost everything that controls the chicken's body, including heart rate, breathing, hunger and digestion - remained untouched.
So in effect the chicken was still alive and potentially suffering the whole 18 months. Lovely.
Anyway, if I had the choice of being ground up nearly instantaneously or to have the front half of my skull removed with a hatchet, I'd have to pick the grinder.
The only better way I could think of, other than somehow stopping male eggs from being viable somehow, would be to use nitrogen suffocation. Most animals and humans don't register a lack of oxygen but an excess of CO2 and actually get a bit euphoric (at least humans do and pigs that were tested would willingly go back into the environment for apples). That would have it's own issues with it being a more batch-y process than the grinder, and how to you keep them from just waiting in packed conditions before being euthanized.
There's a BBC documentary on capital punishment and alternatives that explores this iirc.
It's not safe for work nor kids and could be regarded as FUD (as I have no verification on the facts in the video). This is purely for intellectual curiosity; I'm not trying to start a heated debate on animal cruelty.
you must be kidding. Until of course under "suffering" you mean a suffering of a Victorian girl who can't communicate her love to that fine Navy officer.
> Once you remove parts of the brain, all bets are off. In a human, the front of your brain (such as the prefrontal cortex) is where a lot of what makes you "you" lives.
if you google something like "brain pain perception", you'll find that the front of the brain is responsible for conscious reaction to pain, like planning action to avoid it. The pain itself is very primal, ie. like amygdala primal.
suffering - "the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship."
Introducing new definitions like yours is just an implicit attempt to advance anthropocentric exclusivity, pretty much the re-worded equivalent of that religious dogma of "only humans have soul"
Oh man, I hope you realize how /r/iamverysmart you sound right now. The poster you're replying to has a very good point that is often discussed by philosophers[1]. Your anti-theist quip doesn't serve your point either. It just makes you seem like more of an asshat.
Let me explain: since pain is (trivially) a subjective experience, does X still experience pain if it no longer has the capability for a subjective experience? For example, if I got hit by a car and ended up brain dead, it's intuitive to claim that I would no longer be able to experience pain even if you decided to cut off one of my limbs.
Was the chicken in a similar state of being? I don't know -- maybe, but probably not. Either way, it's an interesting question.
no. Pain has basic objective component, basic common denominator - it is the specific reaction of nervous system, specific set and intensity of signals going through it in reaction to tissue damage. More complex nervous systems build more complex constructs on top of that foundation, like the expectation of pain, memory of pain, etc... and many of that additional constructs are subjective in nature, no argument here.
>For example, if I got hit by a car and ended up brain dead, it's intuitive to claim that I would no longer be able to experience pain even if you decided to cut off one of my limbs.
does your amygdala still function - fully "brain dead" would mean no, so no pain.
A bit OT: what is the purpose of that subreddit? The last thing our braindead modern culture needs is further normalization of the belittling of intelligence.
Comparison photo of a full chicken[2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken [2] http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130606165306/animalcros...