Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwanem | Hacker News Reader

Few other predators take the same trouble to ensure their prey is beyond suffering before beginning to eat.

> Few other predators take the same trouble to ensure their prey is beyond suffering before beginning to eat.

I'd argue human factory farming practices are far worse than anything other predators do. Even cats that play with their food are better. At least that's relatively quick (a few hours at most). Humans frequently cause their prey to live their entire lives in tortuous conditions. The fact that the act of death itself is relatively painless is rather besides the point.

Not to mention that humans induce the creation of these lifelong sufferers. Animals in the wild do no such thing (or at least nowhere near the scale that humans do and certainly with nothing close to the cognitive abilities of the animals we do it to).

May I suggest that you acquire a dracunculiasis parasite to verify your perpsective?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis

I think there's a scale issue here. For such a parasite, the host body is an environment rather than prey. It's analogous to our species' depressingly poor record of considering negative externalities.

If that's the case, then you should be able to easily manage the scale of this event in your life.

By all means, demonstrate it for us!

"Around a year later, the adult worm migrates to an exit site – usually a lower limb – and induces an intensely painful blister on the skin. The blister eventually bursts to form an intensely painful open wound, from which the worm slowly crawls over several weeks. The wound remains painful throughout the worm's emergence, disabling the infected person for the three to ten weeks it takes the worm to emerge."

Invalid inference. In fact, I pointed out that our species also has a tendency toward environmental destruction.

It would be quite a noble gesture for you to personally host all of these poor, endangered creatures.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qNWWrDBRBqk

What a kind and selfless act!

I have no idea what point you are trying to make or why you are being so sarcastic to me and other people you replied to.

A parasite doesn't stalk and hunt the same way a predator does prey. In this case, the larvae infect tiny fleas, which are then consumed by people and other animals drinking unfiltered water. It doesn't have a brain, as such; just a nerve ring and some sensory hairs that cue it to start eating once it is in the right environment.

I merely seek to laud your refined sense of responsibility and duty, and to express wholehearted agreement that humankind is the most vicious of creatures, unrivaled in the infliction of suffering.

Were you to provide yourself as a host to these poor and unfortunate organisms, you would doubtless attest that their impact upon you pales to insignificance compared with the misery imposed by our species.

Since I never expressed such a point of view, perhaps you should look for some other well to poison.

Because sweet truth flowed so freely in your waters already.

It's probably worth separating slaughter and processing from raising.

In the USA, my understanding is that even small farms, using humane and environmentally friendly practices, still generally need to send the animals to a larger commercial facility for slaughter and processing. According to what I've read, this is largely due to USDA and/or FDA regulations that are cost-prohibitive to implement at a smaller scale.

This is a perfect example of how American capitalism abhors competition. I have used smaller, non-approved slaughterhouses and there's nothing wrong with them. If enough small slaughterhouses prospered to make the market for meat competitive, our masters would change the regulations again. Both farmers and consumers are at the mercy of Smithfield, Tyson, JBS, Cargill. While regulators refuse to enforce the law, we will remain so.

No other animal has the mental capacity that we do, the ability to reason, or ethics like us.

We are not like other animals in this regard, we have the option to do better.

Who defines what “better” is? You’re a collection of atoms put together by a meaningless evolutionary process. In that sense, “better” is purely your preference not some objective truth. And in this case, some people prefer to kill and eat animals.

We're the universe trying to learn about itself. We have the duty to be best ones we can be. Agree that on the cosmic timescale it's meaningless. On the individual level it's not.

That’s just anthropomorphizing the universe, which cannot learn or think and therefore cannot impute meaning. It is simply your opinion that something has meaning on an individual level. It may to you, but it’s purely subjective.

How do you know that universe is not a giant computing device?

Or you know everything there is about infinity, other universes, how and where where "the playground" is placed (what's beyond its borders), what's the origin/meaning of life and so on?

Everything is meaningless and therefore we can do what we like? Even if it has no meaning to you, are you sure (deep down) it has no meaning for the lives you're taking (with your food choices)?

So far our option we went for is to reduce undue suffering of our prey.

To even pose the question of animal suffering is unique to humans. After all, it's only humans who create humane societies to advocate for animal welfare.

Why?

I don't know how others belief systems would explain that, but from a Christian perspective, humans aren't exactly the same as animals. We're like animals in that humans and animals are all creatures, and yet distinctly non-animal in that we're the only creatures made in the image of God, and given rule over all creature to promote the flourishing of life---human, animal, and plant---for God's glory. And the biblical story is that humans went so far off-course in rebellion against their Creator God that the Son of God had to become human, die, and rise again to restore our ability to care rightly for creation.

Thus, concerns to minimize animal suffering are uniquely human concerns because we /aren't/ animals, but human; and the concern itself is proof we're different from other animals.

Many animals are perfectly capable of understanding the suffering of other animals. It's illustrated by menu recorded instance of one animal helping other animals in need. Even of a different species. There's probably nothing unique about humans except slightly nimbler neurons.

As for the stories humans invented to explain their grace and their horribleness I can't say much. Only that we are very creative in that regard.

I think anyone who’s been in a slaughterhouse would find it difficult to agree with that statement and even so, the sheer scale means that the amount of suffering is unfathomable.

Not to mention the terrible conditions that animals are forced to live in and injuries caused by processing (from birth to death) [1] as well as abuse by low-paid workers who are, themselves, working in poor conditions. [2] Factory farming is not clean and free of animal suffering by any means, but most people's experience with animals as food comes in neat, little, clean plastic-wrapped chunks of meat.

1. https://www.ciwf.org.uk/factory-farming/animal-cruelty/ 2. https://ffacoalition.org/articles/dangerous-conditions-facto...

Sheep are stunned and are pretty much out instantly.

IDK if you've ever slaughtered a sheep the non-slaughterhouse way done where most of the people live (i.e. the third world). I've done it out in rural asia. You take a long blade and pierce the heart / surrounding blood vessels straight through the chest. It takes a second or two for it to pass out. The slaughterhouse is a slight upgrade with basically no suffering at the time of death as they're instantly knocked out by electrical impulse.

If I were the sheep I would definitely pick the slaughterhouse over being shipped alive to the average end customer which is someone in the third world with a long blade.

Without cotext sure, but if you could visit places where people prepared animal for cosumption over last few thousand years. I'd say there is a trend expressing the intent of reducing suffering.

Not in total of course, but per life taken.

Temporarily putting personal feelings aside, I think you've touched on interesting philosophical questions: can something so subjective as suffering ever be fathomed, does it scale, can you do math on it...

I think the complaint here is not about the moment of death, but about the literal lifetime of torment and agony leading up to that moment. Death probably comes as a relief for animals raised on factory farms.

As a scuba diver, I have seen California sea lions killing ocean sunfish (mola molas) for what appears to be pure sport. The sea lions tear the fish's fins off and play with the body like a living frisbee. Then when they get bored they let the maimed fish sink to the bottom to be eaten alive by crabs. Occasionally you'll see like a dozen of those half-dead molas clustered together on the seafloor, pathetically flopping around as the crabs close in.

Nature, red in tooth and claw.

Thanks for sharing.. While we can admire & protect many aspects of nature, there's no reason for us to take other animals as our role-models..

ate a bowl of steamed veggies this morning

Reply on news.ycombinator.com