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Farm animals don't have long lives. It's likely possible to continuously escalate the dose such that they'd never have to suffer. If not, wireheading can bypass

by mrob 8y ago

Farm animals don't have long lives. It's likely possible to continuously escalate the dose such that they'd never have to suffer. If not, wireheading can bypass problems with tolerance. It looks like our real disagreement is "perfect is the enemy of good". If you don't want animals to be killed for food, then animal suffering is actually a good thing, because animal suffering helps convince people not to farm them. I'm working on the assumption that humans are going to continue killing animals like they've always done, and therefore it's better to reduce suffering with the most effective methods available. If animals are going to be farmed anyway, I'd rather they have access to an unlimited supply of recreational drugs (or equivalent brain modification technology). Animals don't care about the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

pell 8y ago
I was not arguing for prolonging the suffering of animals as some method to make people turn away from animal products. I'm not really sure where you seem to have read that in my comment. I don't think that's a fruitful strategy at all and I've never advocated for that. Some farm animals are killed after a few months, others like dairy cows are used for multiple years. Also, the animal psyche is not that simplistic. Yes, they might not care about the the upper levels of Maslow's model, but they're not stuck on the first one either. Therefore, throwing mind altering drugs at the problem seems like a naive and hardly effective substitute for me for the reasons I've stated earlier. I think, there are cheap solutions that can improve the lives of these animals today, e.g. more space. But as I argued in my initial comment, I think a cultural shift is necessary (similar to smoking) and this is why I think factory farming needs to be forbidden in the long-term, meat taxes need to be introduced, meat prices need to be raised, government incentives for alternative food products need to be given, etc.

by mrob 8y ago

pell 8y ago

I was not arguing for prolonging the suffering of animals as some method to make people turn away from animal products. I'm not really sure where you seem to have read that in my comment. I don't think that's a fruitful strategy at all and I've never advocated for that. Some farm animals are killed after a few months, others like dairy cows are used for multiple years. Also, the animal psyche is not that simplistic. Yes, they might not care about the the upper levels of Maslow's model, but they're not stuck on the first one either. Therefore, throwing mind altering drugs at the problem seems like a naive and hardly effective substitute for me for the reasons I've stated earlier. I think, there are cheap solutions that can improve the lives of these animals today, e.g. more space. But as I argued in my initial comment, I think a cultural shift is necessary (similar to smoking) and this is why I think factory farming needs to be forbidden in the long-term, meat taxes need to be introduced, meat prices need to be raised, government incentives for alternative food products need to be given, etc.