Comment by noduerme | Hacker News Reader

Comment by noduerme | Hacker News Reader

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I get irritated that every post here recently about a wild bird virus (H5N1) entering mammal populations, has to feature a holy diatribe about the evils of factory farming.

To be clear, this is a wild avian virus that jumped the species barrier to numerous mammals in the wild now, including marine mammals, with no relationship ever to farming practices.

Yes, factory farming is gross and dangerous and a disease vector. Currently, though, it is likely the only vector through which this virus is being monitored for a potential further jump to humans.

The vegan argument that keeps cropping up here is not much more than a "tisk tisk, you deserve horrors because... (X)". In each of these posts you could replace farming practices with overpopulation, spread of humans into wildlife populations, global warming, overuse of antivirals/antibiotics, ventilation systems, air travel, large religious gatherings, or people not wearing masks all day every day.

My point is just that responding to a post about a virus jumping species by writing a public service announcement implying that people have brought this upon themselves because of your pet cause "X" is basically the HN equivalent of the guy with the sandwich board saying REPENT THE END IS NEAR.

> To be clear, this is a wild avian virus that jumped the species barrier to numerous mammals in the wild now, including marine mammals, with no relationship ever to farming practices.

The rest aside, wasn't the "bird" part of bird flu referring to poultry, mainly? Which presumably would be related to farming practices.

Bird flu makes itself most prominently known in chicken farms, yes, but they are brought there by wild birds.

You could have the cleanest, ethicalest, modernest chicken farm known to man, but there's only so much you can do until a wild disease sees a high population density and says "I'mma infect that".

Your comment is ranting and bordering on ad hominem. It would be no different if you substituted "factory farming" with "climate change". The science and data support my statements. Do you have anything to say in response to that rather than just tone policing?

You list factory farming and climate change, and say they're bad. I agree. You say data and science support your statements. You don't list the data or science. But moreover, you don't even mention the virus which is the topic of this thread or attempt to tie it through any data to the things you list in your post. In fact, the spread is H5N1 to mammals is largely unrelated to any human activity. So it's hard to know to which data or science you're referring, and I suppose people are supposed to come to their own conclusions. But as I said, I find that these types of posts detract from and derail useful conversations on this topic.

You are being disingenuous with your own tone, you started up comment by calling their post a diatribe against factory farming.

what would you call it?

https://www.foodunfolded.com/article/animal-agriculture-is-i...

Again, this article doesn't mention H5N1, avian flu, etc. As with your initial comment, it's untethered from any useful discussion about this topic. It can serve as total absolute verification of your statements about farming practices, but it still does nothing for a conversation about the mutations necessary for h5n1 to go airborne between humans. So back to my original point, I think these kinds of comments serve to derail technical and useful conversations by injecting broad political/social statements that serve little purpose except to demo the bonafides of whoever posts them first.

Eh. The problem pandemic-wise is the number of humans in slobbering distance of the animals: pets like cats are less of a problem (toxoplasmosis) because they're in less proximity with each-other. But all the unsanitary conditions add up to a gigantically increased chance of developing new pathogens when compared to most natural settings.

Yes factory farms are basically a training ground for viruses to learn how to spread.

They look practically custom designed for this task.

The purpose of a system is what it does.

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