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Comment by cpsns | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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...

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