5 ms·

Tza'ar Ba'alei Chayim

54 points by quantumwoke 7y ago

29athrowaway 7y ago
Show this to someone at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
- ngneer 7y ago
  I was wandering with a friend at night at the Weizmann and was curious to see the view from atop one of the buildings. The next thing we know, campus security is ordering us to come down, concerned we were there to liberate the animals. Anecdotes aside, not sure what the wikipedia article is doing on HN, seems highly unrelated.
  - howard941 7y ago
    Surely it has aspirational merit?
intellectronica 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita#Animal_welfare_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita#Animal_welfare_contro...
jeswin 7y ago
I used to be non-vegetarian until two years back. Today it's difficult to imagine sentient animals being separated from their families and taken to be slaughtered. There really is no excuse for this cruelty.
- weregiraffe 7y ago
  >Today it's difficult to imagine sentient animals being separated from their families and taken to be slaughtered. There really is no excuse for this cruelty. What is your opinion about predators in the wild, murdering and eating sentient animals?
  - jschwartzi 7y ago
    I'm not quite a vegetarian, but I understand where OP is coming from. There's a very significant difference between animals behaving like animals and humans treating animals like elements of a factory production line, to be mechanically separated from their lives and "processed." We have no control over what animals do, and part of being a good steward of nature is allowing animals to be animals. But as a human, it's difficult for me to accept that the intensive factory farming of chickens, cows, and pigs is necessary for my welfare. And since I'm aware of other protein sources than meat, I feel that I have a duty to use those protein sources instead of meat. And if I can't use plant proteins, then I also have a duty to minimize the amount of animal protein that I consume, and to ensure that it doesn't end the life of the animal where I can. This doesn't preclude me from hunting or from eating hunted meat if I need to, but hunting is very different from factory farming. My prey has a fighting chance. Rabbits, deer, bears, elk, mountain lions, etc. all have evolved in an environment where they may be hunted. They all have tools at their disposal to counteract my cunning. And to hunt a wild animal also means that I have to butcher the animal myself, meaning that I come face-to-face with the fact that I've ended an animal's life to stay alive.
    - vharuck 7y ago
      >My prey has a fighting chance. Rabbits, deer, bears, elk, mountain lions, etc. all have evolved in an environment where they may be hunted. They all have tools at their disposal to counteract my cunning. Where do you draw the line of what's sporting? I think humanity's cunning is why we have domesticated animals and efficient slaughter houses. >And to hunt a wild animal also means that I have to butcher the animal myself, meaning that I come face-to-face with the fact that I've ended an animal's life to stay alive. I'd bet every slaughtered animal had a person watch it die. Or at least see it alive and know they'd be complicit in the slaughter.
      - jschwartzi 7y ago
        > Where do you draw the line of what's sporting? I think humanity's cunning is why we have domesticated animals and efficient slaughter houses. I think it's when I'm having to do the work against the animal to catch it that's sporting. Driving to the grocery store and buying pre-packaged chunks of muscle isn't particularly sporting. It's not really cunning to stick 3000 chickens in a dark room, dump food on the floor periodically, and then vaccuum them all up after X months. It's industrial. > I'd bet every slaughtered animal had a person watch it die. Or at least see it alive and know they'd be complicit in the slaughter. This is true, but it's much easier to be complicit in something when it's as impersonal as watching as chickens which are hung from a gantry conveyor slowly make their way past a set of spinning blades which efficiently separate their head from their neck, and you're watching this process for hours a day.
- tsimionescu 7y ago
  Wait till you hear what happens to these same animals in the woods! I don't mean to be dismissive, and I do believe that there are legitimate ethical and environmental (and maybe even health-related) motivations for being a vegetarian. However, I don't see a problem with the slaughter itself, especially as practiced in modern societies. It is significantly more humane than most ways a lot of animals die in the wild, killed in a desparte struggle, or eaten away by disease. The much bigger ethical problem is the way we force most of these animals to live in industrial settings, cooped up, filthy, unmoving. This is the true ethical dilemma of industrial farming. Hopefully, if we stopped eating and throwing away the vast quantities of meat we do today, we could get back to more sustainable and more humane animal husbandry, while still being able to occasionally enjoy meat - to boot, it will even be much better tasting, if the animals are allowed to roam and eat grass.
  - strict9 7y ago
    >Wait till you hear what happens to these same animals in the woods! A mostly instant death for most mammals in the woods is not in the same solar system as an industrial slaughterhouse in terms or experience for the animal. And this is why I don't eat meat. If it were truly a stress-free and near-instant experience my opinions would be different.
    - judah 7y ago
      >> "mostly instant death" Afraid you're mistaken. See /r/natureismetal [0] -- or any nature documentary, for that matter -- and you'll see many animals are eaten while still alive. Predators tend to do the bare minimum to subdue their prey before devouring it. See how this eagle eats its prey [1], for example. This is true of lions and wildebeest, sea lions and penguins, alligators and zebra, snakes with frogs, frogs with insects, and more. The prey is devoured while still alive. [0]: http://reddit.com/r/natureismetal http://reddit.com/r/natureismetal [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Natureisbrutal/comments/d3hgka/snake_eagle_gutting_a_snake/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Natureisbrutal/comments/d3hgka/snak...
    - peterwwillis 7y ago
      > A mostly instant death for most mammals in the woods What woods are you hanging out in? Most animals I see get eaten are drowned, asphyxiated, bled out, poisoned, or just plain eaten alive. Some animals (raptors, cats) kill for sport, or to defend territory. I agree that the way animals are treated by humans is disturbing and should be fixed, but an animal's life and death is tough even in nature. We should focus more on their quality of life, but death is death. (Incidentally, a calmer/quicker death creates more flavorful meat, so there's plenty of reason to be more humane)
mmanfrin 7y ago
Interesting -- this likely explains why Tel Aviv has such a high concentration of vegans.
- harel 7y ago
  No, i doubt that is the reason. It's just higher level of global awareness and a touch of hipster that is the likely cause. Israel is still largely a country of meat eaters. And personally, as a former vegetarian/current carnivore, I don't see how kosher slaughter is related the welfare of animals. Surely a swift instant death is better than letting the animal suffocate and/or bleed to death.
  - cat199 7y ago
    > I don't see how kosher slaughter is related the welfare of animals. not jewish so commenting outside of my area, but, I think that when the practices were installed, the methods were the 'best available' (and so in line with this thinking), but the problem is that now there is so much tradition bound up with the practice that it's hard to install an alternative practice if one indeed is better (also not up on butchering, so cant comment here either)
    - harel 7y ago
      I think you're right (I am Jewish by some default, but very much non-kosher). The practice itself is what makes the Kosher "Kosher". If the animal was killed in a different way, it's not Kosher. I know that as a carnivore I might be frowned upon by militant vegans for saying it, but I'm very aware i'm eating dead animals, not apologetic about it, and would rather eat animals that had a good healthy life and a swift painless death. Kosher slaughter to me is not a swift painless death (not to mention I have a lot of "beef" with the whole "Kosher" rabbinical institute).
  - tinyhouse 7y ago
    True. I'd also add that it's easier to be vegan in Israel since vegetables are big part of the local cuisine and Israelis love falafel, hummus, etc. In Tel Aviv there's a falafel joint every few blocks. (good falafel, not like most falafel in the US)
caiocaiocaio 7y ago
I quit Reddit about a year ago, and the straw that broke the camel's back was me mentioning this in passing, and having literally hundreds of neo-nazis flood my inbox with all kinds of indescribably insane messages.
tinyhouse 7y ago
I don't really understand why this wiki article is a HN post... but since kosher slaughter was mentioned let me give you some more details. BTW, I'm Jewish myself. 1. Based on Jewish holidays and traditions, I doubt "Tza'ar Ba'alei Chayim" was ever a factor. For example, in Yom Kippur one of the traditions called Kapparot is about swinging a live chicken over others' head. Example: https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2013/09/f111007DV041-e1378973790967.jpg https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2013/09/f111007... 2. The main reason today for kosher slaughter and kosher food in general is money. It's how the orthodox community in Israel makes money. It's a big industry that employs many orthodox people. Kosher restaurants in Israel need to pay money to get a kosher certificate. There are multiple organizations that can certify a place as kosher (some have more strict requirements than others). Those places usually visit those restaurants to inspect their kosherness similarly to food inspection everywhere else. (but their focus is only the kosher part, not the food quality). A restaurant can be 100% kosher but most religious people won't visit it unless it's certified kosher by somebody that meets their requirements. For secular people in Israel the worse part about kosher restaurants is that they must be closed during Shabbat (Friday afternoon till Saturday evening). Basically, the religious parties in Israel want everything to be closed during that time (no public transit, no entertainment, restaurants, etc.)

54 points by quantumwoke 7y ago

29athrowaway 7y ago

Show this to someone at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

ngneer 7y ago
I was wandering with a friend at night at the Weizmann and was curious to see the view from atop one of the buildings. The next thing we know, campus security is ordering us to come down, concerned we were there to liberate the animals. Anecdotes aside, not sure what the wikipedia article is doing on HN, seems highly unrelated.
- howard941 7y ago
  Surely it has aspirational merit?

intellectronica 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita#Animal_welfare_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita#Animal_welfare_contro...

jeswin 7y ago

I used to be non-vegetarian until two years back. Today it's difficult to imagine sentient animals being separated from their families and taken to be slaughtered. There really is no excuse for this cruelty.

weregiraffe 7y ago
>Today it's difficult to imagine sentient animals being separated from their families and taken to be slaughtered. There really is no excuse for this cruelty. What is your opinion about predators in the wild, murdering and eating sentient animals?
- jschwartzi 7y ago
  I'm not quite a vegetarian, but I understand where OP is coming from. There's a very significant difference between animals behaving like animals and humans treating animals like elements of a factory production line, to be mechanically separated from their lives and "processed." We have no control over what animals do, and part of being a good steward of nature is allowing animals to be animals. But as a human, it's difficult for me to accept that the intensive factory farming of chickens, cows, and pigs is necessary for my welfare. And since I'm aware of other protein sources than meat, I feel that I have a duty to use those protein sources instead of meat. And if I can't use plant proteins, then I also have a duty to minimize the amount of animal protein that I consume, and to ensure that it doesn't end the life of the animal where I can. This doesn't preclude me from hunting or from eating hunted meat if I need to, but hunting is very different from factory farming. My prey has a fighting chance. Rabbits, deer, bears, elk, mountain lions, etc. all have evolved in an environment where they may be hunted. They all have tools at their disposal to counteract my cunning. And to hunt a wild animal also means that I have to butcher the animal myself, meaning that I come face-to-face with the fact that I've ended an animal's life to stay alive.
  - vharuck 7y ago
    >My prey has a fighting chance. Rabbits, deer, bears, elk, mountain lions, etc. all have evolved in an environment where they may be hunted. They all have tools at their disposal to counteract my cunning. Where do you draw the line of what's sporting? I think humanity's cunning is why we have domesticated animals and efficient slaughter houses. >And to hunt a wild animal also means that I have to butcher the animal myself, meaning that I come face-to-face with the fact that I've ended an animal's life to stay alive. I'd bet every slaughtered animal had a person watch it die. Or at least see it alive and know they'd be complicit in the slaughter.
    - jschwartzi 7y ago
      > Where do you draw the line of what's sporting? I think humanity's cunning is why we have domesticated animals and efficient slaughter houses. I think it's when I'm having to do the work against the animal to catch it that's sporting. Driving to the grocery store and buying pre-packaged chunks of muscle isn't particularly sporting. It's not really cunning to stick 3000 chickens in a dark room, dump food on the floor periodically, and then vaccuum them all up after X months. It's industrial. > I'd bet every slaughtered animal had a person watch it die. Or at least see it alive and know they'd be complicit in the slaughter. This is true, but it's much easier to be complicit in something when it's as impersonal as watching as chickens which are hung from a gantry conveyor slowly make their way past a set of spinning blades which efficiently separate their head from their neck, and you're watching this process for hours a day.
tsimionescu 7y ago
Wait till you hear what happens to these same animals in the woods! I don't mean to be dismissive, and I do believe that there are legitimate ethical and environmental (and maybe even health-related) motivations for being a vegetarian. However, I don't see a problem with the slaughter itself, especially as practiced in modern societies. It is significantly more humane than most ways a lot of animals die in the wild, killed in a desparte struggle, or eaten away by disease. The much bigger ethical problem is the way we force most of these animals to live in industrial settings, cooped up, filthy, unmoving. This is the true ethical dilemma of industrial farming. Hopefully, if we stopped eating and throwing away the vast quantities of meat we do today, we could get back to more sustainable and more humane animal husbandry, while still being able to occasionally enjoy meat - to boot, it will even be much better tasting, if the animals are allowed to roam and eat grass.
- strict9 7y ago
  >Wait till you hear what happens to these same animals in the woods! A mostly instant death for most mammals in the woods is not in the same solar system as an industrial slaughterhouse in terms or experience for the animal. And this is why I don't eat meat. If it were truly a stress-free and near-instant experience my opinions would be different.
  - judah 7y ago
    >> "mostly instant death" Afraid you're mistaken. See /r/natureismetal [0] -- or any nature documentary, for that matter -- and you'll see many animals are eaten while still alive. Predators tend to do the bare minimum to subdue their prey before devouring it. See how this eagle eats its prey [1], for example. This is true of lions and wildebeest, sea lions and penguins, alligators and zebra, snakes with frogs, frogs with insects, and more. The prey is devoured while still alive. [0]: http://reddit.com/r/natureismetal http://reddit.com/r/natureismetal [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Natureisbrutal/comments/d3hgka/snake_eagle_gutting_a_snake/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Natureisbrutal/comments/d3hgka/snak...
  - peterwwillis 7y ago
    > A mostly instant death for most mammals in the woods What woods are you hanging out in? Most animals I see get eaten are drowned, asphyxiated, bled out, poisoned, or just plain eaten alive. Some animals (raptors, cats) kill for sport, or to defend territory. I agree that the way animals are treated by humans is disturbing and should be fixed, but an animal's life and death is tough even in nature. We should focus more on their quality of life, but death is death. (Incidentally, a calmer/quicker death creates more flavorful meat, so there's plenty of reason to be more humane)

mmanfrin 7y ago

Interesting -- this likely explains why Tel Aviv has such a high concentration of vegans.

harel 7y ago
No, i doubt that is the reason. It's just higher level of global awareness and a touch of hipster that is the likely cause. Israel is still largely a country of meat eaters. And personally, as a former vegetarian/current carnivore, I don't see how kosher slaughter is related the welfare of animals. Surely a swift instant death is better than letting the animal suffocate and/or bleed to death.
- cat199 7y ago
  > I don't see how kosher slaughter is related the welfare of animals. not jewish so commenting outside of my area, but, I think that when the practices were installed, the methods were the 'best available' (and so in line with this thinking), but the problem is that now there is so much tradition bound up with the practice that it's hard to install an alternative practice if one indeed is better (also not up on butchering, so cant comment here either)
  - harel 7y ago
    I think you're right (I am Jewish by some default, but very much non-kosher). The practice itself is what makes the Kosher "Kosher". If the animal was killed in a different way, it's not Kosher. I know that as a carnivore I might be frowned upon by militant vegans for saying it, but I'm very aware i'm eating dead animals, not apologetic about it, and would rather eat animals that had a good healthy life and a swift painless death. Kosher slaughter to me is not a swift painless death (not to mention I have a lot of "beef" with the whole "Kosher" rabbinical institute).
- tinyhouse 7y ago
  True. I'd also add that it's easier to be vegan in Israel since vegetables are big part of the local cuisine and Israelis love falafel, hummus, etc. In Tel Aviv there's a falafel joint every few blocks. (good falafel, not like most falafel in the US)

caiocaiocaio 7y ago

I quit Reddit about a year ago, and the straw that broke the camel's back was me mentioning this in passing, and having literally hundreds of neo-nazis flood my inbox with all kinds of indescribably insane messages.

tinyhouse 7y ago

I don't really understand why this wiki article is a HN post... but since kosher slaughter was mentioned let me give you some more details. BTW, I'm Jewish myself. 1. Based on Jewish holidays and traditions, I doubt "Tza'ar Ba'alei Chayim" was ever a factor. For example, in Yom Kippur one of the traditions called Kapparot is about swinging a live chicken over others' head. Example: https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2013/09/f111007DV041-e1378973790967.jpg https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2013/09/f111007... 2. The main reason today for kosher slaughter and kosher food in general is money. It's how the orthodox community in Israel makes money. It's a big industry that employs many orthodox people. Kosher restaurants in Israel need to pay money to get a kosher certificate. There are multiple organizations that can certify a place as kosher (some have more strict requirements than others). Those places usually visit those restaurants to inspect their kosherness similarly to food inspection everywhere else. (but their focus is only the kosher part, not the food quality). A restaurant can be 100% kosher but most religious people won't visit it unless it's certified kosher by somebody that meets their requirements. For secular people in Israel the worse part about kosher restaurants is that they must be closed during Shabbat (Friday afternoon till Saturday evening). Basically, the religious parties in Israel want everything to be closed during that time (no public transit, no entertainment, restaurants, etc.)