5 ms·

This is a very hot take—the feed lots you describe are horrific! Not only are they in tiny, cramped pens, these pens are filled with mud and shit! The food they

This is a very hot take—the feed lots you describe are horrific! Not only are they in tiny, cramped pens, these pens are filled with mud and shit! The food they're eating is not nirvana, it's the barest possible nutrition to fatten them up according to their warped genetic urgency to get bigger at an unnaturally fast pace that trashes their natural health. This isn't an all you can eat buffet and a spa—getting pumped full of antibiotics because their environment is so toxic is hardly what I'd guess they "want." This kind of argument relies on the idea that human beings and animals are fundamentally different, that somehow cow suffering is unrelated to human suffering. But most of what we feel and do every day is not actually dictated by consciousness. If you were put into a tiny, roasting summer pen so tiny you couldn't even walk in circles, filled with drugs, covered in your own excrement, ravaged by hunger even though all you do is eat dirty grey hard food, I don't think you'd respond with some kind of elegant, mathematical, civilized emotion. You'd be out of your mind with terror, sadness and grief. Cows can feel all those things, and they do in factory farms. It's common sense, and I agree with those who say we will look back on this era as a disgusting, ignominious chapter in human society.

wysifnwyg 7y ago
>https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26669595/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26669595/ >That study measured fecal cortisol (indicator for stress) upon arriving at a feedlot and after fattening and the animals seem to be within normal limits the whole time. It seems like your opinion is not supported by the scientific evidence that reflects stress levels.
- throw_away 7y ago
  I'm not going to buy the whole paper, but this seems to be studying whether there is additional stress in humid, tropical climates, not whether feedlots affect stress levels. Note that there is no non-feedlot control. The fact that it says that stress indicators were in the "normal ranges for cattle" could mean simply that they are not more stressed than feedlot animals in non-humid, non-tropical climates. The one paper that cites this one is also about how temperature and climate differences affect reproduction rates: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0191961 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
  - wysifnwyg 7y ago
    >That study measured fecal cortisol (indicator for stress) upon arriving at a feedlot and after fattening and the animals seem to be within normal limits the whole time. Perhaps you have a different definition of what normal means?
    - throw_away 7y ago
      I think you're willfully ignoring the main intent of this paper (effects of climate, not effects of feedlots) and instead replying with trite, condescending responses and nitpicks, so I highly doubt anything productive can come out of this thread. I don't think that's normal. I think that's trolling. & I think I'm done here.
      - wysifnwyg 7y ago
        If you've got any evidence which would support the idea that they were stressed, I would imagine you'd provide it. As you haven't, we both know what the answer is.
- lawlessone 7y ago
  >It seems like your opinion is not supported by the scientific evidence that reflects stress levels. people can be happy in pretty shite situations too.
  - wysifnwyg 7y ago
    One animal's "shite situation" is another animal's "happy situation".
- ForrestN 7y ago
  This summary is certainly not scientific evidence of the experience of suffering in these animals! As a start, who decided what level of stress is "within normal limits?" If the idea is that this somehow "scientifically" proves that cows don't suffer when confined in abject squalor, well, good luck with that.
  - wysifnwyg 7y ago
    It seems like you'd prefer to reject science when it doesn't support your opinions.
    - throw_away 7y ago
      It seems you just read the titles of papers and then use them as weapons to further your own viewpoint even when reasonable arguments are made that the papers don't mean what you think they mean.
      - wysifnwyg 7y ago
        >That study measured fecal cortisol (indicator for stress) upon arriving at a feedlot and after fattening and the animals seem to be within normal limits the whole time. If you're not aware, that's not the title of the paper and is indeed the content.
Retra 7y ago
>This kind of argument relies on the idea that human beings and animals are fundamentally different The argument that humans have any sort of ethical duty at all assumes that humans and animals are fundamentally different. Animals don't have any ethical duty to prevent their food from suffering. EDIT: Furthermore, human suffering is categorically different from animal suffering because human suffering can be inter-generational and have very long-term consequences. Animals don't transfer their suffering and their morality between generations, and that fact does make human suffering much worse than animal suffering, because human suffering can lead to arbitrarily catastrophic consequences. A tiger biting a human can lead directly to the complete extinction of the tiger. The emotional content of the suffering my be similar, but the consequences are not.
- ForrestN 7y ago
  That doesn't logically follow. My argument is about this case, not about hypothetical cases in which animals cause each other to suffer. If I were able to communicate with, say, a predator who likes torturing its live prey, I'd be happy to do my best to convince them not to do so. EDIT: So as long as we strip children from their parents (like cows) and thereby ameliorate the generational connection to the parents suffering, it doesn't matter so much that we cause suffering to both the parent and the child?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Retra 7y ago
    >My argument is about this case, not about hypothetical cases in which animals cause each other to suffer. I don't know what you're talking about. You said it is wrong to assume humans are different from animals, which makes this case a case of animals (humans) causing suffering in other animals (cows). >If I were able to communicate with, say, a predator who likes torturing its live prey, I'd be happy to do my best to convince them not to do so. If I crapped gold, I would be rich. That doesn't mean you can assume I am rich. You can't make a convincing argument by basing your assumptions in fantasy. >So as long as we strip children from their parents (like cows) and thereby ameliorate the generational connection to the parents suffering, it doesn't matter so much that we cause suffering to both the parent and the child? What? No. This has nothing to do with parent-child relationships, it has to do with the fact that humans teach and write and communicate ideas across long periods of time. If you take away the ability of humans to communicate and teach each other, then their suffering will be comparable to animal suffering. If you teach cows to read and write, they will stop being treated like animals.
YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
Cramped pens are awful and should be illegal, but farm animals normally and quite nonchalantly shit right were they eat without a care about bacteria and parasites (which many parasites exploit readily) . Mud is really not a problem. Pigs actually wallow in it. Literally. That is were the word "wallow" comes from. Perhaps human sensitivities are in need of adjustment, just as much as our in sensitivities.

wysifnwyg 7y ago

>https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26669595/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26669595/ >That study measured fecal cortisol (indicator for stress) upon arriving at a feedlot and after fattening and the animals seem to be within normal limits the whole time. It seems like your opinion is not supported by the scientific evidence that reflects stress levels.

throw_away 7y ago
I'm not going to buy the whole paper, but this seems to be studying whether there is additional stress in humid, tropical climates, not whether feedlots affect stress levels. Note that there is no non-feedlot control. The fact that it says that stress indicators were in the "normal ranges for cattle" could mean simply that they are not more stressed than feedlot animals in non-humid, non-tropical climates. The one paper that cites this one is also about how temperature and climate differences affect reproduction rates: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0191961 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- wysifnwyg 7y ago
  >That study measured fecal cortisol (indicator for stress) upon arriving at a feedlot and after fattening and the animals seem to be within normal limits the whole time. Perhaps you have a different definition of what normal means?
  - throw_away 7y ago
    I think you're willfully ignoring the main intent of this paper (effects of climate, not effects of feedlots) and instead replying with trite, condescending responses and nitpicks, so I highly doubt anything productive can come out of this thread. I don't think that's normal. I think that's trolling. & I think I'm done here.
    - wysifnwyg 7y ago
      If you've got any evidence which would support the idea that they were stressed, I would imagine you'd provide it. As you haven't, we both know what the answer is.
lawlessone 7y ago
>It seems like your opinion is not supported by the scientific evidence that reflects stress levels. people can be happy in pretty shite situations too.
- wysifnwyg 7y ago
  One animal's "shite situation" is another animal's "happy situation".
ForrestN 7y ago
This summary is certainly not scientific evidence of the experience of suffering in these animals! As a start, who decided what level of stress is "within normal limits?" If the idea is that this somehow "scientifically" proves that cows don't suffer when confined in abject squalor, well, good luck with that.
- wysifnwyg 7y ago
  It seems like you'd prefer to reject science when it doesn't support your opinions.
  - throw_away 7y ago
    It seems you just read the titles of papers and then use them as weapons to further your own viewpoint even when reasonable arguments are made that the papers don't mean what you think they mean.
    - wysifnwyg 7y ago
      >That study measured fecal cortisol (indicator for stress) upon arriving at a feedlot and after fattening and the animals seem to be within normal limits the whole time. If you're not aware, that's not the title of the paper and is indeed the content.

Retra 7y ago

>This kind of argument relies on the idea that human beings and animals are fundamentally different The argument that humans have any sort of ethical duty at all assumes that humans and animals are fundamentally different. Animals don't have any ethical duty to prevent their food from suffering. EDIT: Furthermore, human suffering is categorically different from animal suffering because human suffering can be inter-generational and have very long-term consequences. Animals don't transfer their suffering and their morality between generations, and that fact does make human suffering much worse than animal suffering, because human suffering can lead to arbitrarily catastrophic consequences. A tiger biting a human can lead directly to the complete extinction of the tiger. The emotional content of the suffering my be similar, but the consequences are not.

ForrestN 7y ago
That doesn't logically follow. My argument is about this case, not about hypothetical cases in which animals cause each other to suffer. If I were able to communicate with, say, a predator who likes torturing its live prey, I'd be happy to do my best to convince them not to do so. EDIT: So as long as we strip children from their parents (like cows) and thereby ameliorate the generational connection to the parents suffering, it doesn't matter so much that we cause suffering to both the parent and the child?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Retra 7y ago
  >My argument is about this case, not about hypothetical cases in which animals cause each other to suffer. I don't know what you're talking about. You said it is wrong to assume humans are different from animals, which makes this case a case of animals (humans) causing suffering in other animals (cows). >If I were able to communicate with, say, a predator who likes torturing its live prey, I'd be happy to do my best to convince them not to do so. If I crapped gold, I would be rich. That doesn't mean you can assume I am rich. You can't make a convincing argument by basing your assumptions in fantasy. >So as long as we strip children from their parents (like cows) and thereby ameliorate the generational connection to the parents suffering, it doesn't matter so much that we cause suffering to both the parent and the child? What? No. This has nothing to do with parent-child relationships, it has to do with the fact that humans teach and write and communicate ideas across long periods of time. If you take away the ability of humans to communicate and teach each other, then their suffering will be comparable to animal suffering. If you teach cows to read and write, they will stop being treated like animals.

YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago

Cramped pens are awful and should be illegal, but farm animals normally and quite nonchalantly shit right were they eat without a care about bacteria and parasites (which many parasites exploit readily) . Mud is really not a problem. Pigs actually wallow in it. Literally. That is were the word "wallow" comes from. Perhaps human sensitivities are in need of adjustment, just as much as our in sensitivities.