Comment by scoofy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by scoofy | Hacker News Reader

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So, there is animal rights, and animal welfare. I think one of the main problems for orcas is size. Creating an appropriately sized habitat for them would be a gargantuan endeavor, however, if we could, i think a lot of us would be less vehemently opposed to keeping them in captivity.

For pigs, this is entirely plausible. While i'm also very opposed to our current factory farming practices, since i'm fairly nihilistic about ending meat consumption for high functioning mammals in my lifetime, we could absolutely and trivially easily make their lives pleasant before slaughtering them for their delicious bacon. Yes, it would cause bacon to be more expensive, but it's definitely doable. This is simply impossible for orcas under the current paradigm.

Even as someone who supports animal rights and welfare, i could see myself being okay with orcas in captivity, if we're talking about oceanic reservations, say, the size of Connecticut, but at that size, it'd be impossible for us to make them do tricks and crap that people go to sea world for.

It sounds like you support animal welfare, but not animal rights. I would expect someone who supports animal rights to not be OK with captivity for human gain.

This is why i pointed out that i was generally a nihilist on the subject. If we lived in a world in which the possibility that a ban on captivity for human gain could possibly exist, then it would be worth having that discussion. The fact is that we don't, and we very very probably won't within our lifetimes or our grandchildren's lifetime for that matter. To discuss the subject on those grounds seems counterproductive to me.

I try to take a more game-theoretic approach. Support those that are doing more to change the culture of how we treat animals to minimize the harm that exists and will persist. This may even arguably go as far is purchasing potentially objectionable animal products from those that are trying to change the social norms of farming.

The animal rights argument is perfectly good to have in the halls of academia, but in the world we live in, those of us who are good consequentialists may vastly differ in our approaches to how we should respond to the marketplace we live in to most effectively reduce the suffering that persists. It's also arguable that a diversity of approaches will be more effective due to the vast open-ended questions of how approaches will be accepted by the greater population. I for one think that convincing people that we should raise our "bacon" humanely will do vastly more for the reduction of suffering in the world than would telling people we should ban it because it's clearly immoral to consume.

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