Pigs are smart and sensitive, yet we continue to justify killing them for food | Hacker News Reader

Pigs are smart and sensitive, yet we continue to justify killing them for food

aeon.co

44 pointsdoener33 comments

Not only smart and sensitive, they are very very clean. We have a minipig and it won't do any of its stuff on its house or surroundings. I'm sure the big ones, if weren't forced because of us humans to live enclosed, would behave the same way.

The incorrect premise here is that we won't kill and/or eat smart animals. Cute animals may (or may not) get a pass, but humans don't care about smart animals. After a decade and a half as a vegetarian, I realized we're nowhere advanced enough to make a difference in this or most other causes and a lifetime of vegetarianism won't even make a difference. Hell, we can't even stop killing ourselves and causing mass extinction events through our actions. A human, in its natural state, is the most disgusting, cruelest, nastiest creature in the known universe. Until we can figure out how to provide tools to the majority of people to raise them up out of this state (at least levels 1-2 of Maslow's pyramid), we have no hope in hell of fixing problems like this. This is not an argument to not try. It's simply an explanation of what is. If we ever get to a point where humans are able to fix such problems and have empathy and respect for each other and other creatures, it'll be amazing indeed. I certainly won't see it in my life or any of my peers' children's lives, I'm pretty sure of that, but I think certain cultures have indeed made big strides towards this in the last 50-100 years.

> A human, in its natural state, is the most disgusting, cruelest, nastiest creature in the known universe.

Claims like this are utterly lacking perspective. Cats will happily torture smaller animals. Primates hunt each other. Dolphins rape. Humans are animals, yes. In no way are they more disgusting or cruel than others, though.

> Claims like this are utterly lacking perspective

Hmm, lack of perspective you say? IMHO, the ability to point at cruelty in other animals and find reasonable justification of our own actions (which in magnitude, are not even into the same ballpark of cruelty) has got to count as somewhat vile, and uniquely human, don't you think?

No. Awareness of the realities of the world does not count as vile.

Whether or not humans should be more empathetic or less violent or whatever else, it is absurd to call humans worse than other animals simply because humans happen to be smart and aware.

Or alternatively pigs are terrible animals because they're smarter than average and happy to kill other animals (including humans).

> No. Awareness of the realities of the world does not count as vile.

I didn't call the awareness vile. I called using that awareness (subtle difference) to justify actions that are a great many times worse, vile.

But well, if you don't agree, I suppose it doesn't matter.

I'm not justifying anything. I'm saying that awareness alone does not make humans worse. If other animals do the exact same things as humans then why are humans worse? It seems that the distinguishing factor, is that humans want to imagine that they are special, so they get an automatic "worst ever" categorization on anything they do, simply because they are humans. Not because they do anything actually different.

The only thing you called out about humans being different is that they are capable of noting that other animals behave the same violent ways. So you are basically saying humans are worse because they are observant.

Comparing cats torturing other animals to systematic genocide, using nuclear weapons on others, starving whole populations, and other atrocities committed by humans is what lacks perspective. Another big difference is that we are capable of knowing what is right and wrong and choose to still hurt and torture others en masse. We are now close to choosing to likely cause a worldwide extinction event, but somehow a cat torturing a mouse is comparable? No other creature even comes close.

> Comparing cats torturing other animals to systematic genocide, using nuclear weapons on others, starving whole populations, and other atrocities committed by humans is what lacks perspective.

Are any of these things the 'natural' state of humanity? It looks like you only get to that after at least a few thousand years of cultural development as a whole, and two decades plus socialization to adulthood in a person.

I feel like cats certainly would commit genocide if they had the mental capacity to plan for it.

Overall, I think that it is a wrong view that morality exists as an abstract separate from the current social circumstance and any species (even humans) can be measured against that perfect ideal.

There's plenty of armies that recruit young children around 8, 9 years old as they have been for thousands of years. You don't need nuclear bombs to commit genocide or kill whole populations. Blades and spears will do just fine. So, yeah, I do think this is the natural state of humanity. Even a little kid who is not even an adult human is easily coaxed into a monster and has been so for thousands of years.

You're complaining that I compared cats to humans, while at the same time you're drawing a connection between genocide and eating pork.

I stand by my initial statement that this is utterly lacking in perspective.

No, I'm comparing the torture of a few creatures to the torture and deaths of millions. I'm not drawing a connection between genocide and eating pork. I'm saying genocide is a lot worse than torturing a few creatures. You completely misunderstood.

I can't agree more. Humans need to evolve but sometimes that seem to be an utopian idea or to far in the future. Anyway, I hope humanity reach that level sooner or later.

And yet the wild population still needs to be controlled.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/a-plague-of-pig...

Opportunistic omnivores that wreak havoc on wherever they go? Sounds like another sentient species I'm acutely familiar with. If you replaced "wild hogs" with "humans" the narrative wouldn't read much differently, but probably on a government/national scale. Do you believe our population be controlled by mass killings?

I actually started cutting pork out of my diet after a comment on HN about vegetarianism and meat choices pointed out the same thing. I still eat it -- because it's so ubiquitous -- but am trying to shift to chicken whenever I have the choice.

Eating something that's smart and social just seems wrong to me, when there are plenty of stupider animals as alternatives.

Also... watch Okja on Netflix ( https://www.netflix.com/title/80091936 ), especially the ending.

As a counterpoint I recently saw an astonishing-if-true stat of the number of animals killed per million calories by food [1]. About 14x as many chickens die vs pigs. Even if pigs are smarter, that may change the way you weight the ethics a bit.

We should all be eating brainless bivalves perhaps? [2]

[1]: http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc

[2]: https://sentientist.org/2013/05/20/the-ethical-case-for-eati...

So with reference 2 I don't understand how you can be okay eating mussels but not okay eating eggs or dairy. If a hen naturally drops eggs and those eggs don't turn into chicks, they will rot anyway. And dairy involves no death. So why would one be "vegan" and eat oysters but not eat dairy or eggs?

Dairy and eggs both involve the death of animals. Dairy cows produce milk for their offspring. In order for us to get milk the offspring must be removed. Typically males are sold for veal, females continue as dairy cows. The production of laying hens results in roughly 50/50 male vs female chickens. Most of the males are killed shortly after hatching as they are not the variety kept for meat.

Are you familiar with Derek Parfait's "Repugnant Conclusion"? https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/

It does not necessarily hold that killing lots of dumb things is worse than killing fewer smarter things, but it could.

I know this sounds selfish, but I sometimes wonder if it would be possible to genetically engineer a pig to stay a cute young piglet for it's entire life, rather than turning into a large, hungry adult pig. In this way, pigs could be companion animals, rather than food animals, and I haven't thought through all the angles, but if I was a pig, it seems that would sound be more appealing for sure. (Compare below images:

http://beavercreekfarm.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Charlot...

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/b/bb/Free_... )

I don't see anything wrong with the first picture. It's gruff, but it's not repulsive.

Even if we ignore appearances, at some point there is just a max size convenience limit to house pets.

Well, we /did/ turn wolves into Pomeranians.

The neoteny is real.

You could say the same about dogs and cats. Wouldn't everyone love it if their puppy or kitten would stay cute forever.

But then again, if you've somehow invented a way for animals to stay looking young forever, 7 billion humans might want a word with you...

Maybe a bit ironic in this case but that first image is of a adult mini pig which is general seen as a companion animal and not a farm animal that is used for food.

Also, those pigs just love being scratched behind the ear. My family had one when I was growing up, and they are quite nicer and more friendly than piglets for regular domestic pigs (which we also had).

Pigs are vicious animals that will ruthlessly attack other animals and even humans. (In places where feral hogs run loose, they are found very difficult to control.)

Besides, bacon is delicious.

So if we've decided an animal is dumb or insensitive, it's fine?

Based on what scale? Are cows dumb enough? What about chickens? Goldfish can be trained to swim through obstacle courses, so are they too smart?

I care about animals. I try to at least only buy cage free eggs and meat from humanely treated animals.

However I wonder if the author is also against killing lions, wolves and other predators. Those animals are so brutal in how they kill they make people look like angels. I don't understand how naturalists can so vigorously protect animals who's life depends on mauling other animals regularly.

it is something of a massive troll, but this essay does take your idea seriously: http://www.jpe.ox.ac.uk/papers/consistent-vegetarianism-and-...

This is a great article. Thank you for sharing it.

This is delightful, and very close to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Meat Manifesto, which is in his cookbook/textbook on eating meat entitled, Meat. Basically, the contract we have with domesticated animals is that we'll remove the daily suffering of a wild animal's life, and in exchange we will eat you a time we specify. Having slaughtered animals myself, and watched animals die at the hands of foxes and (oh God) fishers. I'd say turning them upside down and making a single cut across their carotid artery is about as easy as it comes.

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