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Comment by ikesau | Hacker News Reader

> The review also evaluated the potential welfare implications of current commercial practices involving these animals. It recommends against declawing, nicking, eyestalk ablation, the sale of live decapod crustaceans to untrained, non-expert handlers, and extreme slaughter methods such as live boiling without stunning. It also includes suggestions for best practices for transport, stunning and slaughter.

Good grief. I wish we could skip the incrementalism for once and just put an end to all animal slaughter, extreme or not.

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> Good grief. I wish we could skip the incrementalism for once and just put an end to all animal slaughter, extreme or not.

At some point - we have to eat something that is alive. Even plants react to being damaged in intentional and measurable ways (including trying to repair themselves, signaling neighbors of the damage, and passing nutrients to each other in response). I think it's impossible to ditch incrementalism, because EVERYTHING we eat is already somewhere on that sliding scale of "something alive that is trying to stay that way".

I am in favor of reducing the harm I am able to, while still acknowledging that simply existing requires that I consume resources (And those resources have to be a living thing, because humans are consumers... not producers). Those resources could have gone to keep another living thing alive, but I am using them. At some point, I expect to die, and it will be something else's turn.

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Also - It would be really, really cool if we could get the whole "KloraDerm" thing going from "Old Man's War" by John Scalzi.

I would LOVE to be able to do photosynthesis.

Could we make sugars or fats straight from CO2 and Water? Just wondering could you theoretically make either from some process that does not involve plants, bacteria, protist or fungi? Enzymes are probably fair game.

Sure - I think there's a possible long game here where we're able to technologically engineer our way back to producer status.

Bio-engineering is one route (KloraDerm), but I could see alternative routes that are essentially just chemical/material sciences.

I think it's probably an incredibly complicated supply chain we'd have to really work through to make sure you can synthesize all the required components without going through something living, but we know that producers exist - so there's hope.

Also now that I think about it. Basically anything at all can contaminate the process and include living things...

Probably not realistic on industrial scale. And then how do you get to the clean starting point...

Sure... CO2 capture => Fischer-Tropsch => wax => fatty acid => food. The CO2 capture part is new, and presumably one would use solar now, but the rest was attempted during WW2.

E-fuel plants do this for synthetic aviation fuel.

You can also do it slightly more indirectly via acetate: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00530-x.pdf

> At some point - we have to eat something that is alive

Alive and sentient aren't the same thing. You can eat non-sentient beings that are alive (like plants) and they won't suffer.

> You can eat non-sentient beings that are alive (like plants) and they won't suffer.

Define suffer?

what are you doing :( don't kill the whataboutism in less than 5 minutes

How are you so confident plants aren't suffering? They have measureable responses to stress and harm

Stress and harm are loaded words for stimuli here. Parts of plants can be triggered by a stimulus to begin emitting chemical signals that govern growth, senescence, etc elsewhere in the plant. They do this in response to a wide range of stimuli, not just "harm". Which stimuli feel "bad" to the plant? How would you know?

It's all very stimulus-response for a plant. If things responding to inputs means they can feel or think, then I suppose single cell organisms and computer programs and doorbells count.

Your brain develops using an incredibly similar system of chemical signals (hormone distribution).

Also - almost every plant out there is capable of repairing damage to itself, which I would take as fairly strong evidence that it prefers to not die. That repair is a complicated and involved process as well, and often includes adaptations that attempt to prevent further damage (ex: Lots of plants signal neighbors when eaten, and those neighbors chemically adjust to change how they taste to the animal eating them).

I'm just saying...

I can vividly picture the alien farting out a cloud of pheromones that essentially say "It's all very stimulus-response for a human - they just begin emitting auditory response to a wide range of stimuli" before he eats them.

What part of the plant suggests that it "wants" anything instead of just being adapted by force of natural selection to respond in certain ways?

There is nothing in plants that should make us believe they can do anything like thinking, certainly short of sentience. They have no neurons, or anything resembling neurons, only cells locked into a grid that behave in deterministic ways. It's not impossible to imagine a system that thinks using chemical signaling alone, but what makes you think plants have this quality?

They respond, for example, to light. The cells can detect light, and this induces chemical signaling that directs the plant on internodal length and direction. We could make a robot or something that does this. Could we say such a thing "wants" light? Probably not, except as a convenience of explanation out of personification.

Or, to summarize, these simple stimulus-response effects are not sufficient to justify a belief that there is intelligence. I suppose it's argumentum ad absurdum.

> They respond, for example, to light. The cells can detect light, and this induces chemical signaling that directs the plant on internodal length and direction. We could make a robot or something that does this. Could we say such a thing "wants" light? Probably not, except as a convenience of explanation out of personification.

Let me counter: I do not believe you have sufficiently proven that we ourselves are anything more than chemical signaling mechanisms.

We happen to not understand the signals that the plants are making (we really are only just barely scratching that surface - but we KNOW plants use VOCs to communicate both among themselves as well as much more distinct species like insects: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3405699/)

We just don't have nearly as much empathy available because that experience is so foreign to our understanding.

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To follow - I find it particularly interesting that people still cling so dearly to your argument as we watch machine learning tackle and overcome many behaviors we considered uniquely human. Those machines can talk just like us, their signals mirror the complexity of our own (and are much more complex than those we currently understand from plants). Does that signaling complexity now mean that it's alive?

I certainly don't think so - I would still call a plant more alive than that machine (at least right now, things are shifting fast here). Yet that machine is using a fairly simple system to process, internalize, and then create complexity that mirrors your own.

I guess I'm saying that I, personally, don't find your moral argument nearly so clear as you seem to be implying that it is. There is no easy out. We are dealing with shades of grey.

We can't even really define what it is to be a thinking mind, let alone determine what it means to suffer. We just relate more to (some) animals than plants and imagine empathy from their position. Its just another form of species-ism to protect the animals but not other life.

"You’re a vegetarian, but don’t you realize that plants have feelings? He said, Yes, I do, but they don’t scream so loudly." Alan Watts.

Yes, but it's a lot easier to get a complete amino-acid profile in your proteins by eating things that were alive (e.g. animals), than to get it from even a balanced grain diet.

This is especially important in developing children.

It isn't at all evident that forcing kids onto a meat-free diet is the best path forward for society as a whole.

but have you had snow crab legs? this also seems like it could quickly become a freedom of religion debate, if your religion tells you to have a BBQ, you have a BBQ

No, I only have two Human Legs. Too important to eat.

You can eat an animal without it suffering too, if that's your main worry.

> At some point - we have to eat something that is alive.

Not necessarily as we could wait for living things to die naturally and then consume them (maybe becoming fungus-like in the process). For livestock, that could possibly create a loophole of farms having conditions that cause a premature death.

With plants, there's the option of following fruitarianism and just eating plant material that falls off such as fruit. (Fruit is unusual when it comes to being consumed as it arguably "wants" to be eaten so that the parent plant can better distribute its seeds). There's problems with following such a fruit heavy diet though and I don't think it's a good idea by itself.

Alternatively, we could go the Soylent Green route?

The plant matter of a fruit is still alive, though. At some point you're drawing an arbitrary line that separates the living things that are okay to eat from those that are not.

That depends on the definition of "alive". Fruits don't respire which a lot of definitions include. And yes, it's going to be an arbitrary line.

Perhaps not the fruit as a whole, but the individual cells certainly do.

Going to the cellular complicates matters. That'd probably mean that you'd have to wait for fruit and veg to go mouldy before eating it and then do we consider fungus to be alive?

Like I said, arbitrary lines. The only way to sidestep it completely would be if you could directly synthesize sugars, lipids, and proteins. Then you could sustain people killing-free.

It's not whether they're alive but if they can suffer.

> With plants, there's the option of following fruitarianism and just eating plant material that falls off such as fruit. (Fruit is unusual when it comes to being consumed as it arguably "wants" to be eaten so that the parent plant can better distribute its seeds). There's problems with following such a fruit heavy diet though and I don't think it's a good idea by itself.

I guess this is why it's so complicated (and you can't get off the scale). From the perspective of the fruiting plant - I agree with you, it doesn't mind if you eat some fruit. From the perspective of each seed, they'd probably rather you didn't.

And interestingly - if we're willing to go multi-body (since we're admitting that eating fruit is bad for some seeds, but possible advantageous to the species as a whole) I think you'd have to make the same argument for herd animals: It might be bad for a single deer to be eaten, but it's pretty good for the herd if someone happens to remove the weakest single member every now and then.

Anyways... I'm rambling at this point. Not sure why you're getting downvoted but long story short: I hope people acknowledge and respect the things they eat (plants, animals, or other), I'd love to see us move back a step from the automated and industrial production methods we're using right now (Both animals and plants - monoculture crops are a real ecosystem killer) and work to make food something that is local and folks can connect with.

> From the perspective of each seed, they'd probably rather you didn't.

I recall that some seeds are designed to pass through the mammalian digestive system and thus get deposited with some fresh manure in which to grow. Maybe they enjoy the experience.

> you'd have to make the same argument for herd animals: It might be bad for a single deer to be eaten, but it's pretty good for the herd if someone happens to remove the weakest single member every now and then.

That's a good argument for free ranging or wild animals, but it's more complicated with farmed animals. If we breed animals just to eat them and select for the traits we desire, then it could be considered bad for that species although it certainly increases their numbers.

I don't particularly disagree with you.

I just think attempting to apply a moral imperative to how species happen to have adapted to their niche is hard.

Rabbits work around their prey status by rote production - which means if nothing eats them, eventually they go through a large starvation event once they hit the carrying capacity of their habitat.

Chickens are arguably one of the most successful species on the planet right now.

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I am in favor of free ranging animals, I agree that breeding animals moves them more into a niche that requires humans to exist - but I'm not convinced that's bad for them as a species (at least not as long as humans exist, and as a human that's my current preference with some admitted bias).

I think globally - monoculture crops are often also a huge risk, and find that they are destroying other animals indirectly (decimating the population of insects, small mammals, and birds in the area).

So I think the problem is hard, and that responsible stewardship likely means less industrialization in agriculture across the board (both plant and animal) and more local production of food. Intentional hunting grounds reserved for wild populations like turkey and deer (at least in my area) are very much a part of that, so I'm also with you on wild animals when it makes sense.

> Chickens are arguably one of the most successful species on the planet right now.

The dinosaurs didn't die out, they just got a lot smaller.

There’s a really good case for sentience, though. This isn’t a problem of infinite regression: no one is asking for you to become a Jain.

one law at a time

Sure - I won't argue that I emotionally understand and relate much more strongly to the pain and suffering of animals that are biologically similar to me.

I also agree that minimizing that pain is a reasonable goal, and worth taking steps to do at most every point we can afford to (and realistically - we are fairly rich as a species, we could be doing better).

I don't particularly agree that forgoing meat consumption entirely is the right call - although reducing it likely is (especially if you live in the US).

I also don't think that just because you happen to be eating a plant, you're off the hook - I think monoculture production and certain farming practices (see: palm oil) are causing suffering on similar scales.

In my opinion - we should be trusting large conglomerates less with our foods (whether they're plant or animal) and doing more production locally. Acknowledging and respecting where the food you eat comes from is a huge step up from where many folks are right now.

You’re right on all fronts. I’ll add that there’s a human element to both the plant and meat consumption story: in both cases, harvesting and slaughtering, the dirty work is often done by migrant workers with very little enforced legal protections. They work in terrible conditions, for low pay.

For one, it's incredibly hard to believe that anyone genuinely believes that "killing" a carrot and killing a dog are in anyway morally similar.

Secondly, this is utterly IRRELEVANT IN PRACTICE! Your consumption of animals causes far, far, far more plant "deaths" than if you actually just ate plants. BY YOUR OWN LOGIC you should be vegan. Of course, you can also use your logic to go the other way. If it's all the same morally, might as well start eating humans. Us white people have got some experience with that.

> I am in favor of reducing the harm I am able to

Wonderful, that makes you vegan. As in, that is the actual (common) definition of veganism: Reduce suffering and death as far as practicable and possible.

What is the difference between an animal being slaughtered for human consumption vs. being eaten alive by another animal in the wild?

Which other species boils lobsters alive?

Surely there are nature murders more brutal than lobster boiling? Does the lobster even have overheating sensors? Seems pretty out of spec for range of lobster environment.

Humans aren't being boiled in their natural environment, yet our temperature senses react to it. Why do you suspect lobsters to work fundamentally differently? They are exposed to different temperatures in their natural habitat, just as we are.

Are lobsters around fire much? I would guess that this is why humans react to being dangerously overheated.

Are land animals around fire much? Humans have been around fire a lot more since a short time ago, but aside from that fire is a very rare thing for most animals to encounter.

Well, for example, I believe that exposure to dangerous levels of nuclear radiation does not induce pain in humans. It would seem that mammals, at least, have encountered fire enough as an evolutionary pressure to develop a specific reaction to it. I’m having trouble finding a video of a lobster walking near an open fire, it would be instructive to see its reaction. Does anyone own a lobster as a pet and is willing to perform an experiment for us? You don’t need to hurt the lobster.

> It would seem that mammals, at least, have encountered fire enough as an evolutionary pressure to develop a specific reaction to it.

What specific reaction are you referring to? Fire isn't the only natural source of heat. Why is evolutionary pressure from fire required for animals to evolve a sense of "something is too hot"? Why is it not sufficient for animals to evolve this due to e.g. exposure to sunlight, with the same mechanism being triggered through fire?

Subjectively, as a human, it seems like the pain of being burned is qualitatively a different type of sensation from e.g. being warmed by sunlight.

So the lobster feeling that they should ideally move to cooler water makes sense. Evolutionarily it wouldn’t surprise me if they don’t feel like they are in an emergency situation in the same way that a human would if they are standing in a fire.

I think you misunderstood me, or I just wasn't explicit enough. I was talking about humans being burned by natural things other than flames. From my (admittedly limited) experience, being burned by a flame or by a hot surface or a hot liquid isn't qualitatively different. Even sunburn (the aforementioned exposure to sunlight) feels similar if bad enough.

Got it, yes-- I definitely agree that a sensation can be cross-triggered by conditions other than the evolutionary pressure conditions.

Is there a "dangerous heat" environmental candidate for lobsters that we can speculate could be sensory-cross-triggered by boiling water? Underwater lava?

My response is an attempt to summarize lobster-pain-experience info I just gleaned in this thread from a much more thought-provoking and lengthy article already linked to in another comment called "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace.

http://www.columbia.edu/~col8/lobsterarticle.pdf

Lobsters definitely feel pain at least as a stimulus responding to extreme heat.

Lobsters have nociceptors, special pain-receptors that are “sensitive to potentially damaging extremes of temperature, to mechanical forces, and to chemical substanceswhich are released when body tissues are damaged.”

Humans have similar receptors. Consider if you touch an extremely hot stove and remove your hand before you even realized what happened. That (temperature) pain stimulus is sent to your spinal cord (not your cortex) and then responds by moving your hand before you are consciously aware (through the cortex) of what is going on.

Lobsters do not have anything like the cortex which is involved in pain interpreation for humans (and also pain supression like in extremely traumatic events where a person doesn't feel any pain immediately after losing a limb).

The lack of a pain suppression mechanism is a little scary to think about in the context of being boiled alive, but this could potentially be because lobsters' experience of pain is so radically different from our own that they may not even have use of a pain supressor.

There are interesting anecdotes about people who received frontal lobotomies experiencing pain as a neutral experience that is neither bad or good. As in they feel pain from, but it is not perceived or interpreted as "bad" by them.

Also in general, lobsters are unusually sensitive to temperature among invertebrates, responding to temperature changes in lab studies as small as 1°, and their seasonal migratory patterns also seem to highly motivated by finding their preferred temperatures.

If you drop a lobster in a container of room temperature sea-water, the lobster just kind of sits at the bottom looking for the darkest most isolated space if there is one (normal behaviour) vs boiling sea-water you will notice lobsters trying to use their claws to not be fully submerged, push off the lid, etc... in the 35-45 seconds it takes for boiling water to kill them.

p.s. I hope this response is useful, I wrote it partially to let the mentioned article I just read sink in for myself.

Many animals will feed on dying preys that stay alive suffering for hours. Literally being eaten alive. I don't think boiling a lobster is even remotely comparable.

Being eaten alive by a tiger vs being boiled alive. Which would you prefer ? Like natural deaths are so humane compared to humans killing animals .

If I can jump in a cage with a wild tiger, or a giant pot of boiling water, hands down I'll die by tiger.

Nature has a lot of horrible deaths, don't get me wrong.

But boiling sensory wise (at least for humans) is similar to immolation (being burned alive) and it unfortunately takes longer to actually kill the person than burning them alive.

Tigers naturally kill prey quickly to avoid injury, often going for the neck.

Not a species, per se...but consider what happens in a volcanic eruption.

Don't see how that's relevant?

Lobsters get boiled alive, no? (+/- where Mother Earth is splashing her molten rock, and where the lobsters happen to be.)

What's the difference between murdering someone and them being eaten by a lion? One of those things humans are a critical agent in.

What’s the difference between humans murdering humans and animals killing humans.

We hold ourselves to a higher ethical standard in other cases, and maybe we should here too?

Do we hold ourselves to a higher standard? An animal that kills a human is executed. A human that kills a human goes to prison.

A higher punishment doesn’t not mean higher ethical standard.

Without weighing in too much on this (I'm ok with meat personally, assuming a human execution and a happy life for the animal)...

... the difference is we can choose not to.

"Humane"; unless you are talking about some kind of 1:1 sacrifice system

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant 'a humane execution'. Requiring a human execution before eating meat is a little extreme.

hahaha, man, I need a new keyboard. Yes. Humane. I'm not demanding a human sacrifice. I'm just going to leave the typo up for posterity, hopefully more folks get a kick out of it.

Well you've certainly disappointed some enthusiastic Aztecs now.

Humans have moral agency whereas animals have little or none. Animals must listen to their instincts, whereas humans get a choice.

That choice is more important to some people, less important to others.

This depends on which animals people consider to be moral subjects and therefore worthy of moral consideration, rights, and protections.

Some people (vegans) consider all animals as moral subjects. Some people (pescatarians) may consider most animals as moral subjects, but not certain ones like fish.

Most people consider some animals like dogs, cats, and horses, as moral subjects, and not others like cows, chickens, and pigs.

These definitions are unconsciously arrived at by sociocultural factors, but some people consciously arrive at them.

The difference is in the scale of the slaughter and the actual slaughtering being dissociated from the eating for many of these animals, such that a disproportionate minority takes on the task of killing for a majority of meat consumption. This has recorded known harmful effects on the people doing the killing as well as the community in which the killing is done, in a way other large industrial processes do not.

As an aside: this is a gotcha question and doesn't fundamentally address the position that animal slaughter is cruel. It relies on an obviously false rhetoric that something performed by non-sapient creatures in an environment where the only way to survive for some creatures is largely through the personal killing of other creatures is morally equivalent to an environment where sapient creatures who have wide dietary availability make the choice to consume the flesh of another creature that has been usually killed for them.

Do you not want to kill insects either?

How do you grow crops without killing insects?

These are still gotcha questions that don't fundamentally address the concerns of the original poster. Either address my points in good faith or just say you disagree with the position and provide your own reasoning; these questions feel clever but they're intellectually shallow.

They are genuine questions. You want to stop all animal slaughter and insects are animals so we need to stop killing insects but I have no idea if that's achievable.

It would be really interesting if you could.

I don't understand. You're saying the problem with eating animal meat is not that an animal has to die, but in who does the killing? So it'd be better if each person had to kill their own food, even though it would almost surely result in a lot more waste, and thus a lot more killing?

>As an aside: this is a gotcha question and doesn't fundamentally address the position that animal slaughter is cruel.

I don't think so. If you think killing animals is cruel in itself, then you have only two logically consistent options: you either a) change your lifestyle to ensure you don't kill any animals whatsoever, or b) accept that some cruelty is inevitable and set some standard of acceptable cruelty for yourself. Anything else is a symptom of cognitive dissonance.

> If you think killing animals is cruel in itself, then you have only two logically consistent options: you either a) change your lifestyle to ensure you don't kill any animals whatsoever, or b) accept that some cruelty is inevitable and set some standard of acceptable cruelty for yourself.

Neither of these are addressed by equivocating this to wild animals predating.

> I don't understand. You're saying the problem with eating animal meat is not that an animal has to die, but in who does the killing? So it'd be better if each person had to kill their own food, even though it would almost surely result in a lot more waste, and thus a lot more killing?

I don't know if it's better if each person had to kill their own food. I'm not making a prescription on what people should do. I am only pointing out that there are real consequences to the current way we consume meat in a way that damages people and communities in a way that could be described as cruelty.

>Neither of these are addressed by equivocating this to wild animals predating.

Yes, because the question is about how "cruelty" is defined. You can either say killing in the wild is cruel or not cruel. If it's not cruel, then how is industrial slaughter cruel? If it is cruel, then one can pose the question of whether it's possible to slaughter industrially humanely.

>I am only pointing out that there are real consequences to the current way we consume meat in a way that damages people and communities in a way that could be described as cruelty.

Umm... Sure, but I think avalys was asking about cruelty to the prey, not to the predator.

> it'd be better if each person had to kill their own food, even though it would almost surely result in a lot more waste, and thus a lot more killing?

That's only true assuming people would keep up their meat consumption levels, which I seriously doubt.

Humans don’t have to do it. Just like widespread rape in the animal kingdom and in human history doesn’t give me moral justification to do it today.

Though even before getting that far, humans are participants in one of your scenarios and not the other. What other animal behaviors justify your human behaviors? Can any of them? Does another intelligence have moral justification in farming humans on the same basis?

There are some absurd reductios here that you’d have to sign off on.

We kinda do though. We need many of the nutrients present only in various animal-based products to remain healthy.

This is kind of an old discussion. I'm perfectly happy eating meat but equally recognise that vegan diets are perfectly feasible for almost everyone. If not vegan, then vegetarian (preferably with a premium on animal products to reflect their impact etc).

A nice example of this is omega 3 and similar: it is actually synthesised in kelp and works its way through the food chain to us with fish as an intermediary. It doesn't have to be that way, it just is right now. B vitamins are a similar story.

Which nutrients that we need to eat are only found in animal products?

Whichever nutrient is required for smug satisfaction of beating nature at its own game and being so far beyond the food chain that it might as well not be a thing.

"Animal products" yes (with the caveat we're getting good at genetic engineering and also vat-growing meat cells); "flesh" no; "poke their eyes out and boil them alive" absolutely not.

Can you elaborate on how I and a good number of the people I know cannot remain healthy? I have to say, I feel pretty fine.

Animals are pretty brutal as well. My neighbor has free range chickens. The other morning, I woke up and looked out in my backyard, and there were 7 dead chickens strewn about my property. They were all over the place, it was a mess.

So, I checked my cam for the next couple nights, and found a fox strolling across the property with a chicken in its mouth. I figured they'd eat one, but nope... 7. And he's been back for more since.

I had a fox wipe out my small backyard flock in a single night. They are brutal.

If you consider yourself equal to other animals, then you should treat them with the same respect you would have them treat you.

If you consider yourself better than other animals then stop comparing your behaviour to theirs and be better.

We only bear moral responsibility for that which is in our power to affect.

We purposefully choose to torture animals that we breed and keep in captivity and that would otherwise not be alive if not for our intervention. And we could easily choose to limit their suffering at minimal expense to ourselves! But we choose not to, for reasons I simply cannot comprehend.

Animals in the wild obviously do not have any such choice.

1. Moral agency: Humans can reason morally, and (at least in theory) strive to act morally. Lions are not capable of that (afaik)

2. Necessity: Lions have no supermarkets. 95% of the people reading this can most definitely go vegan (and 99% vegetarian). Just like how self defense and murder are different.

3. Non-existence: 99% of the animals we slaughter we also artificially bred into existence. It's a false equivalence, because those animals wouldn't even exist

4. Practicality: Regulating wild animal feeding behaviour would be stupendously difficult. A vegan world on the other hand is not just possible, but also better for everyone. In zoos, where we can control "wild" animals, we already reduce suffering by not feeding live prey.

Before even getting there, how about putting an end to all human slaughter? Call me old fashioned but I like humans. American government and presidency (by both parties) have been pro war and pro weapon sale for the last 5 or 6 decades by now.

And pro abortion.

I'll do you one better: let's do both, instead of arbitrarily doing one after the other!

It's not arbitrary. Human > Other Animals, no sane way to discuss anything else really. So start with the more important one then move to the other. Don't try to hold two watermelons in on hand.

Why is one dependent on the other? Why must we start with one, instead of tackling both at the same time? Why not use both my hands to hold the two watermelons at the same time?

It's not, but I find it distasteful when people are feeling sad for the crab being boiled, while children are dying of hunger in Yemen because of politicians and their enablers. If we can't figure out the first it'll be impossible to figure out the second. Similar to how you can't neglect your own kids and take care of the neighbor's at the same time.

You know what's distateful? Acting like we can only ever do one thing, and we must necessarily do that one thing to the end before we start another. I'm capable feeling sad for both dying children as well as for animal cruelty - both at once! Who will it help if I do not feel sad for crabs being boiled? How many children do I save?

I think you're missing the point and slightly arguing outside of the main point I initially made, which I think you understand already: It's more about how attention rather than ability of feeling sad or compassion towards animals.

Well, I was just replying to your point:

> It's not, but I find it distasteful when people are feeling sad for the crab being boiled, while children are dying of hunger in Yemen because of politicians and their enablers.

The issue why I'm "missing the point" is pretty simple: you say we can only pay attention to one of the two things, but you haven't shown that to be the case. You're just saying that's how it is.

I know you believe that attempting these things sequentially will save more human lives. But until you've shown me that we really can only pay attention to one of the two, sequential attempts will only prolong animal suffering, not shorten human suffering!

I'd bet money that most people that vegan or vegetarian are also far more active about human suffering. It makes sense that someone that believes we should (and can) act to reduce/end suffering would apply that concept universally, rather than selectively.

But just so you realize, your argument sounds EXACTLY like all the right wingers that suddenly care about all the poor americans once immigrants enter the discussion. Most people that make these arguments care about neither, all they care about is not having to actually do anything and still feel moral.

Anecdotally, there's a certain armed conflict in Europe, where peace movements of any kind are in the absolute minority – on either side. (Oh, progress, I guess…) It's not just the US.

Exactly. People generally have not yet moved passed fucking genghis khan way of thinking yet, and some people want to seriously discuss options for a more "humane" way to kill and eat some animal, all to satisfy their own ill-defined feeling of doing "better".

It's funny you're phrasing it this way, because none of the "peace movements" can answer the most simple question: How do you ensure peace after whatever treaty you're putting in to "bring peace"? If Russia wins literally anything, even a single square meter, why would they not start the next war in a couple of years? Or will you then stop "calling for peace" yourself?

And the only way to sort this out is by fighting to the bitter end, until either of the two biggest countries in Europe runs out of men? (This, BTW, may take some time, while we're maximizing casualties.)

The only way to sort this out is for the aggressor to stop invading the other country - to actually restore peace. Seems pretty simple, no?

Force an armistice onto both sides instantly, spare a few 100K lives and a few economies, sort things out. This could have been over for more than 400 days. Seems pretty simple.

Well, surely you saw this coming, but I'll ask my previous question: how do you guarantee peace after the armstice? Why shouldn't Russia attempt the same thing again in a couple of years, since the war would have netted them territory (you're not mentioning Russia retreating from invaded territory)?

> you're not mentioning Russia retreating from invaded territory)

You are aware, you are implying things. (By the same means I could suppose you want the invasion to succeed a 500K dead later, since you weren't ruling out this chance explicitly.)

No, I'm not. You have mentioned an armistice and nothing further. Does your solution have more than just that? If not, how do you resolve my question?

And you haven't mentioned anything that guarantees a specific outcome of the conflict.

Nobody can guarantee a specific outcome to the conflict.

Back to the conversation that was happening, it was about hypothetical peace treaties. Are you going to answer the question about your suggested treaty? It was a reasonable question based on your phrasing and you're deflecting. It wasn't some kind of made up gotcha, like your deflection was. And if you won't answer it then you've gone from conversation to trolling.

So, to stick to the conversation, how is this different from the demand to know or guarantee the outcome of a political process beforehand?

However, I'm not here to discuss specific politics, just principles of reasoning.

I guess I'll just add one to the number of "people who say they want peace, but can't answer the most simple question about keeping peace". One day I'll receive an answer, I'm sure!

And I'll add 1 to the number of people who say, "because I can't guarantee the outcome of a political process, I'll go for brute force, because I can't guarantee the outcome of this, as well." Where is the logic to this?

(Isn't this even more at random? How does this contribute to the articulation of the will of the people? Isn't this, why we have such a thing as a political process in the first place? The only thing guaranteed will be slaughtering en mass. Also, if "peace" is just exhaustion, the next round of the conflict will be just around the corner, probably at an even larger scale, compare WWII following WWI. Where is any answer in this? Enforcing treaties – there had been the Minsk agreements, there had been Turkish diplomacy early on – and armistices and following through on this, is, however, at least some answer to the problem. On the other hand, if you reserve for strategic action "beyond politics", this is what you will get eventually. The answer, if there is any, is in removing the strategic option from any armed conflict.)

I am not talking about brute force. Haven't you noticed how I've never said a word about attacking Russia? Surely you can't be saying that defending your own country is "brute force" in any way. You're projecting and strawmanning in every reply.

Funny you should mention the Minsk agreements. Why did Russia not keep to them? Why should we trust them with an armistice considering they already broke the Minsk agreements?

The kicker is: We know that appeasement doesn't work. We know that if Russia gains any territory, they will attack again, and that if they don't the chance of another attack is massively smaller (since the population will not see the current war as a victory, making it political - and most likely literal - suicide). But somehow that doesn't matter to you, just like it doesn't matter to you what happens after the armistice.

You may also note that Zelenskyy was running and was elected on a ticket to stick to Minsk II and fixing relations with Russia, and this wasn't followed trough (eventually appeasing Azov, instead). The conflict is not just the invasion, rather it's the final escalation after years of built-up towards this. Several millions were already displaced before, fleeing to either side. But, apparently, this conflict served some purpose…

But I really don't want to discuss particulars. We may keep in mind, for there being a conflict, there must be several, incompatible perspectives on the subject in question, there have to be "contested concepts". This question of concepts has to be addressed and to be resolved, and this is a political agenda. The question is really, do we want to address the underlying conflict or just the armed escalation, or just a particular of several steps of escalation? However, it must be made clear, beyond any doubt, that armed conflict doesn't resolve anything.

BTW, a story from my own backyard: Austria and Italy were in a state of conflict over the question of South Tyrol for decades. Even with basic treaties (Gruber–De Gasperi agreement), minority protections and autonomy in place, things were escalating steadily. Austria handed out passports, there were dedicated news segments in public broadcasting on a regular basis, and this eventually escalated in tolerated (or even sponsored) terrorism in the late 1960s, which wasn't especially unwelcome on the Italian side in the name of the "strategy of tensions". This was going nowhere. However, in order for Austria joining the EU, this conflict had to be dissimulated and eventually resolved, and both sides managed to crack down on the structures supporting the conflict. And, voila, nowadays, this isn't even a topic. In hindsight, it's just a ridiculous episode. The younger generation probably isn't even aware of this having been a thing.

Making peace by allowing an aggressor to expand their territory is called appeasement, and there are historical reasons why people are reluctant to do it: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-britain-hoped-to-avoid-wa...

You are aware, that H. was actually disappointed that he didn't get what he wanted, namely war? (France and the UK would have missed on getting an entire cycle of the arms race into the field.)

That would be good[0], but doing it all in one step is about as plausible as going up a mountain in one step.

[0] while the question "what even is this sentience thing anyway?" remains open, animals-as-food is not environmentally sustainable for 8e9 humans, so ending that is still good even when the ethics has a layer of indirection from suffering

Is kingdom animalia some magical line in the sand? Are we not okay with killing mosquitoes, bedbugs, or other (harmful) pests?

The world is much more continuous than discrete, and any hard boundary is going to be arbitrary. I would guess the current median line (meaning 50% of people would be okay with vs against killing) is somewhere around small rodent, and unlikely to deviate far from that in the near future.

> just put an end to all animal slaughter, extreme or not.

How would you handle animals that are occupying land that you intend to plant crops in?

I wish we could stop telling people what they can do with their property, so i guess neither of us are getting what we want.

> I wish we could skip the incrementalism for once and just put an end to all animal slaughter, extreme or not.

I wish I could stop having to hear people complain about slaughtering delicious animals, so it looks like neither of us is getting what we want.

I don't as I don't believe in vegan diets as being equivalent to carnivorous diets. I think meat should be significantly more expensive especially in the US for environmental reasons but I don't think humans can be healthy without animal proteins.

What do you think makes animal protein different from plant protein?

Well, taste, first and foremost. But also probably concentration and quality.

Taste is really a thing of habit.

Concentration depends on what you eat, and iirc you don't need that much protein anyways, if you aren't training/body building.

Tofu has about half the amount of protein per gram then ground beef, tempeh about 85%.

If you really crave protein tvp has between 50 and 70% per gram (absolute, not relative to ground beef) protein depending on the brand. You still need to hydrate it and cook it properly with a good marinade, but then it can pretty easily beat ground beef or even chicken breast in protein by weight.

For quality see the other reply.

Here's what ChatGPT says

    Amino Acid Profile: Proteins are composed of amino acids, and the composition of amino acids can vary between animal and plant sources. Animal proteins tend to be "complete proteins" because they contain all the essential amino acids that the body cannot produce on its own. Plant proteins, on the other hand, may be "incomplete proteins" as they may lack or have lower levels of certain essential amino acids. However, by combining different plant protein sources (e.g., legumes with grains or seeds), vegans and vegetarians can achieve a complete amino acid profile.

    Digestibility: Animal proteins are generally more easily digested and absorbed by the body compared to plant proteins. This is primarily because animal proteins have a higher biological value, meaning they contain all the essential amino acids in the proportions needed by the human body. Plant proteins, especially those from whole food sources, may be slightly less digestible, but this can be improved by cooking, soaking, fermenting, or sprouting certain plant foods.

    Fat Content: Animal proteins often come with varying amounts of saturated fats and cholesterol, depending on the source. Plant proteins, on the other hand, are typically lower in saturated fats and devoid of cholesterol. Plant-based protein sources, such as legumes, tofu, tempeh, and certain nuts and seeds, can be particularly beneficial for individuals seeking lower fat and cholesterol intake.

    Fiber and Phytonutrients: Plant proteins are often accompanied by dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients present in the whole plant foods. These components offer additional health benefits and can help support digestive health, cardiovascular health, and overall well-being. Animal proteins, particularly those from lean sources, tend to have less fiber and fewer plant-based nutrients.

    Health Implications: Research suggests that the source of protein, whether from animal or plant sources, can have varying effects on health outcomes. High intake of animal protein, especially from processed or red meats, has been associated with increased risks of certain diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and some cancers. Plant protein, when part of a well-balanced diet, has been linked to lower risks of chronic diseases and overall improved health outcomes.

That seems to check out, with my knowlege.

A quick anecdote about "combining different plant protein sources": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35917066#35918941

Why should animal slaughter be halted? I spend a lot of time outdoors and nature is exceedingly cruel. Animals and fish in my neck of the woods constantly are suffering with festering, infected wounds, missing limbs, gnawed up faces and especially, starvation. It just seems odd to direct our human emotions, experiences, and feelings towards other species when slaughter and death is part and parcel of their very existence. If the goal is to reduce animal suffering then we have to go way, way past not eating them since they inflict so much suffering on each other. Something like large non-profit zoos or preserves and eliminating all carnivores from the planet.

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