Should we create pain-free animals for eating? | Hacker News Reader

Should we create pain-free animals for eating?

stuckk.net

7 pointsawans25 comments

Wouldn't animals without a pain response just stand there quietly while farmers poked them with cattle prods trying to get them to move off the railroad tracks, hailstones pelted them bloody, predatory birds pecked them to death, etc.?

Anyway, yeah, like everyone else said, for all these reasons, in vitro meat seems like a massive win over this idea.

(Of course, if in vitro meat does deliver on its promises of lower-cost, more sanitary meat, you're probably just trading less animal suffering for more human suffering: lots of people are going to become unemployed, and the bulk of them will be found in relatively rigid economies, especially in the developing world, who can't easily switch from agriculture to to other economic sectors due to structural reasons)

> if in vitro meat does deliver on its promises of lower-cost, more sanitary meat, you're probably just trading less animal suffering for more human suffering:

You could argue this for any technological development. So the reduction of animal suffering in this case would be a bonus on top of the usual economic gains.

lots of people are going to become unemployed

Lots of people becoming unemployed from agriculture practically defines development.

There is another human suffering tradeoff: poor people will be able to eat meat on a regular basis. For many people, this is actually one of the defining things that makes them un-poor. It is routinely advanced as one of the "We've made it, guys!" signs for Japan in the post-war era, for example. (The truly poor can then transition to the health problems of the rich: obesity caused by overconsumption of cheap tasty food. See the lower socioeconomic strata in the US, who on a global scale are so un-poor it hurts my head to see the two compared with each other.)

Good point.

And a third benefit I didn't think of in the first place: third-world governments not only often misprice water, but also can't effectively enforce water access rights --- which often leads to violent conflict (between tribes with different modes of production, etc). Shifting food production towards richer economies would reduce the strain on water resources in the third world.

Industrial meat production is ecologically unsustainable. Replacing cows, pigs and chickens with these soulless flesh-trilobites would do nothing to solve the real problem: there are billions of people mainly in Asia aspiring for the Western lifestyle, and the Earth can't support it. (Sounds like a recipe for global war.)

In the Roman era, clothes were washed with human urine. Fortunately modern detergents are not merely synthetic urine... Similarly, we need to give up on the notion of somehow producing indistinguishable ersatz-meat, and instead invent something fundamentally better.

(Personally I think the Chinese already did it a thousand years ago with the invention of tofu, but I know most people don't agree.)

I'd eat tofu if they got the keto-estrogen out. I'm not eating something that will make me androgynous.

Cattle produce a lot more than meat - e.g. cows are used for meat, leather, horn, bonemeal, whilst living they produce fertiliser and milk. Cattle can survive in areas where crop production would be too intensive to be a viable source of food (rocky hills, marsh, semi-dessert).

There's a list of chemical by-products here, http://www.telusplanet.net/public/jross/beefprod.htm . You can get beef-derived insulin and gelatin used to all come from beef-cattle (boiling up the bones I think though it's also in intestine).

Wow. Never thought of it like that before...

My biggest gripe with factory farming is the suffering. Animals are cramped together, pumped up with hormones, treated callously, and dragged kicking and screaming to their deaths. And some videos are truly sickening. (I know all meat production is not like this, but a lot of it is)

I'm not opposed to people eating meat, I just abhor the way animals are treated. If the suffering were eliminated, then I would be OK with farming animals for food.

However, this wasn't what I had in mind. Seeing a pig get "mistreated" would still bother me a lot, even if I knew the pig couldn't feel pain. I don't know whether it's the intelligence or appearance of the pig that's influencing me.

It also gives you a new perspective on abortion. I'm still pro-choice, but this article did help me understand the other point of view.

I think generally, there seems to be an inherent respect for Nature's creations that varies among people.

EDIT: I do hope this idea never advances past the "what if" stage. We should end suffering by treating animals humanely and compassionately. And Vegetarianism would be an ideal long-term goal.

genetic engineering will be old hat soon. Our kids will be writing 'Hello World' in DNA++. As for creating pain-free livestock to eat? Why not go one step further and create livestock without any awareness at all? Better yet, just add engineered nanobots to a nutrient solution to create the perfect steak? Livestock would be obsolete. Future generations will think us barbaric for killing other sentient life.

The distinction between meat and non-meat would likely fade if that was the case. Of course you'd probably be able to control both the nutritional and taste characteristics of the food produced which would be a big benefit as well. .

Future generations will think us barbaric for killing other sentient life.

I think that it is more likely they'll look at us with bemused semi-contempt, much like we currently look almost all practices rendered economically irrelevant with the exception of a very few (slavery, child labor, etc).

"Man, that sure must have sucked back when they had to grow a whole darn cow just to have some beef to eat. Can you imagine how inefficient that is? Heck, the cow bits would be so valuable, you'd probably actually save the ones you didn't eat, so that you could eat them later! Imagine how absurd that would be!"

(If this dialogue strikes you as unlikely, consider what you would say to any friend who, on deciding they were done drinking from a glass of water, put a saran wrap cover on the top of the cup and put it in the fridge "so I can drink it for leftovers tomorrow". Local caching of water made plenty of sense up until quite recently, historically speaking.)

I often drink water from a refillable bottle, when I've had enough I don't throw the rest away but instead replace the cap and then drink the water later.

You must be from the USA?

Water costs plenty in production and produces waste due to energy requirements and chemical processing. Whilst water is cycled through their is a substantial lag involved meaning that water reserves can be damagingly depleted.

Throwing consumables away that are still directly usable is unnecessary waste - put the rest of the water on your pot plants or pour it in the kettle to use later.

One other thing, do you saran-wrap (aka cling-film) a glass of water sitting on the counter in the kitchen? Why then do that when it sits in the fridge? If you find you need a cover then use a reusable container with a cover.

Local caching of water still makes plenty of sense.

Yeah, we're saving our own spare water (extra from a glass; leftover water from cooking, etc.). We have a jug in the kitchen with a funnel. But we're in an area with mandatory water restrictions.

Sure... as long as those nanobots know where the nutrient solution stops and us people begin.

As an omnivore I don't really have a dog in the race so to speak, but I suspect an activist would argue that an animal that is killed without suffering is still 'murdered'. The lack of pain isn't really the point, is it?

Depends on the activist. There are people that just think that the livestock industry mistreats the animals (sometimes the animals that are supposed to be knocked out make it down the 'assembly line' and are torn apart for meat while they are still alive; though one could argue they may be in shock and not feeling anything).

In the same way, there are many reasons that people do things like eat 'organic' meat:

* I don't want the animal to suffer

* I don't want the animal to be 'hopped up' on antibiotics (i.e. having all their food 'laced' with antibiotics)

* I don't want the animal to be 'bio-engineered.' (i.e. farms that 'engineer' their cattle to grow to maturity very -- unnaturally -- rapidly in order to increase profits)

* I want the animal to have a 'good life.' (i.e. to spend 99% of their time from birth to death in a cage so small that they can't even turn around)

[ Unfortunately terms like 'organic' don't always mean what people think that they mean. At least in Canada (and I think the US), if an animal on an 'organic' farm gets sick and needs antibiotics, they have to go to a non-organic farm after being treated because all 'organic' livestock can't have any antibiotics in them. In general, I don't think that this is what people mean when they think about 'organic' farming practices, but sometimes it can be beneficial to humans -- e.g. someone that is allergic to any trace of common animal antibiotics in the meat that they eat. ]

Actually for a lot of people who chose not to eat meat the pain inflicted on animals is a significant part of the problem. I don't think there are too many people who are arguing that an animal life is the direct equivalent to a human life. I would actually argue that for animals, torture is worse than death but for adult humans the reverse is true. This is because the value of a human life is significantly greater but relative ability to feel pain is likely to be a lot more similar. It isn't really fun to logically delve too far into this which is why I guess a lot of people don't do it.

There are actually a lot of people arguing that animal life is equivalent to human life.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_liberation_movement

Richard Dawkins recently put up an interview he had with Peter Singer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYNY2oKVWU in 2008 about it which convinced me they are right but I still eat meat as I can't stand nearly all the vegan food I've tasted.

> There are actually a lot of people arguing that animal life is equivalent to human life.

The reference you've provided doesn't really speak to the absolute or relative number of who hold this view. They certainly exist but I'd say they would be a small minority. Most people who cared about animals in a way that compelled them to act wouldn't see a direct 1:1 equivalence.

Interesting video.

We already have some pain-free meat in the form of invertebrates: shrimp, crab, mussels, etc. Also, I'm not sure how I feel about devolving the pain reaction out of animals that have it.

Yep animals are a really inefficient way to convert the Sun's energy into edible calories - why don't we hear more about synthetic meat research?

I'm no veggie but this recent book is making me question a lot about current food production systems: "Waste" by Tristram Stuart http://www.tristramstuart.co.uk/

Probably, but we might as well just skip to the meat grown in vats.

http://media.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2008/may/in_v...

Mmmmm, sludge-steak. :)

Should we grow meat in-vitro?

how do you measure mental pain?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com