Hacker News Reader

Comment by mapme | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn’t you need to kill the animal in the prime of its life, causing a moral issue?

Pigs reach slaughter weight at about 6 months[0] and the lifetime of a domestic pig is 15 to 20 years. Their breeding age is 8+ months. So we kill them before they reach the prime of their life most of the time. Killing them at their prime might be less of a moral issue than what we do currently.

[0]https://modernfarmer.com/2016/05/raising-pigs/#:~:text=Most%....

That is an interesting comparison to other reasons why we kill animals, however, the point wasn’t a relative moral comparison to animal slaughter for food purposes but that it’s not zero cost morality wise to kill an animal in its prime.

It's not zero cost morality wise to kill anything at any point in their lifetime; from bacteria, to worms, to flies, to pigs each has its own weight on a person's conscience be it nil or hefty. I mean that. But a pig is not human so it's acceptable to me.

Would you feel the same if cats were the only animal whose organs could be harvested?

Yes, I would be OK with killing any number of cats to save any human’s life.

One million cats to save Putin?

Yes.

Absolutely - why wouldn't you? Serious question.

If you were the cat, I bet you'd feel differently.

That's as serious of an answer as I can give. It's the same reason I never neutered my cats, since it felt like a mutilation.

Yes, but if I were a cat I wouldn't lick my own anus and yet cats happily do that - my opinion on what I would or wouldn't like as a cat is not really relevant.

My point is - we are not cats, and cats aren't humans. They deserve good treatment, respect and all the love they can get - but at the end of the day they are not humans and should not be treated as such.

How would you clean your anus if you were a cat?

Suppose a cat had fingers, and basic language ability. Would you still feel the same way?

Suppose we didn't slaughter the other five proto-human species (Neanderthals et al). Would you still feel the same way?

The line gets blurrier the more you think it over.

I reject the notion that you can clean anything by licking it.

Friction and liquids? Seems pretty much like the wet wipe used to clean my countertop - only a different friction material, and a different liquid solvent.

> Suppose a cat had fingers, and basic language ability

It would no longer be a cat.

That's why "If you (a human) were a cat" is a problem, b/c you need to say what level of human/cat this hybrid creature is imagined to be.

It's like that joke: "Behold! The dog with two heads! and two bodies!"

My mom thought that way until we ended up with 5 more cats. The prospect of 20 more cats didn't quite appeal to her either.

> it's acceptable to me

Your earlier comment mentioned morality without qualifiers; here you refer to your own morality; this seems more accurate. Note that there are people who refuse to eat or otherwise harm animals and they cite moral reasons too.

I don't think life length is an issue, the pig doesn't know how long it will live so there doesn't seem much scope for suffering.

It comes back to the question if never being born at all is better than some (domesticated) life at all.

Food animals are killed in adolescence for far less noble reasons.

I'm a vegetarian.

Grow me a goddamned lung pig.

I understand your view and agree with what you’ve said, however, the primary point was that there are moral implications if you intervene in another life so it is not a moral freebie.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com