4 ms·

> The "feel" part probably can happen only in the sufficiently large brain, and lobster most likely don't qualify. This seems pretty arbitrary. As a vegan I dr

> The "feel" part probably can happen only in the sufficiently large brain, and lobster most likely don't qualify. This seems pretty arbitrary. As a vegan I draw the line at plants vs animals and while it is hard to live in industrialized society without harming animals, it’s easy for me to see how dropping a lobster in a pot will cause the animal to suffer. I’m doing just fine simply not eating them. Why do mental gymnastics to convince yourself dropping a lobster in a boiling pot doesn’t cause it to “feel” pain when you could just not do that? Lentils are so damn good.

Yizahi 5y ago
The thing is - lobsters are an easy problem. We can (theoretically) collectively decide that lobsters shouldn't be touched at all and nobody will be hurt (some fishers maybe?). But the same logic about "feeling" pain is applicable to practically anything as is demonstrated in the comments below. And then it becomes a humanity problem - can we kill living organisms for ANY reason? There is no easy, or even hard answer at all for this. And won't be in the nearest future, simply due to a sheer scope of the problem, number of different kinds of organisms and numbers of reasons they are being killed today.
- akudha 5y ago
  Killing is one thing, Killing by boiling alive is on a whole another level of cruelty, like unit 731 level, nazi level cruelty. I don’t eat meat, so I don’t know why only lobsters are boiled alive and not other sea food. Whatever the reason, it is hard to justify. If we are going to kill something, the least we could do is kill it painlessly. At the beginning of COVID-19, some farm in the Midwest killed hundreds of pigs by steaming. Could you imagine the suffering?
  - NoGravitas 5y ago
    Yeah, ffs, just kill the lobster quickly right before you boil it, and stop whining about how not getting to boil it alive infringes "muh freedumbs". Instructions: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/how-to-kill-lobster-1.4491189 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/how-to-k...
    - bumby 5y ago
      From the HN guidelines: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says Please don't post shallow dismissals
  - Enginerrrd 5y ago
    Serious question here... but, are you sure that's a cruel method of killing lobsters? (I'm 100% with you on the pigs but here me out on the lobsters.) I think when you're evaluating killing methods based on how humane they are, one thing to keep in mind is that how something looks to the executioner is NOT a good metric. As an example: Consider the oft repeated anecdote about how being hanged is only "humane" if you break someones neck during the hanging. If you don't, the subject with jerk and spasm wildly. HOWEVER... I have been choked out in jiu-jitsu.... it's like going to sleep. However, I can only imagine the uncommunicateable horror of having my neck broken and then having to endure 2 minutes of consciousness before I succumb to not breathing and pass out. One looks distressing but is suffering-free. One looks great, but is probably terrifying. For a lobster, there are a couple of metrics I'd be concerned with: - time experiencing a sense of alarm - time experiencing what is likely pain If I take a lobster, and I suddenly plunge them into fully boiling water, full submerged, how long do you think it is before they succumb? Keep in mind, that movement isn't necessarily a good cue here, because the physical structures will move in response to heat even if consciousness is long gone. Smaller animals have a high surface area to volume ratio. The heat transfer is likely pretty fast. I have experience cooking dungeness crabs, and I can say from experience, the time between putting them in the water and when they stop moving entirely is quite quick... I'd say no more than ~5-10 seconds. The last part of that movement seems uncoordinated as well so may not represent conscious effort. For lobsters, would you prefer they be decapitated first? There's likely some consciousness that will remain for a similar time period in the head, so you should probably behead them, AND plunge the head into boiling water. BUT... then you also have to consider the "time experiencing alarm"... Wrestling them still to behead them will undoubtedly be alarming.
    - akudha 5y ago
      This is a good question. I don't have an answer. I don't eat meat, never have, never killed anything in my life, other than mosquitoes. I assumed that boiling alive is a horrific way to die. As for pigs, I found the article https://theintercept.com/2020/05/29/pigs-factory-farms-ventilation-shutdown-coronavirus/ https://theintercept.com/2020/05/29/pigs-factory-farms-venti... That is from last year.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  I’d be happy if we started at simply not killing lobsters and other animals for food (or for any other industrial purpose). You’re right that we could spend a lot of time debating the finer points of it but as you said: lobsters are easy. By that logic I would imagine so are chickens and cows and baby sheep (lamb) and pigs. So let’s start with the “easy” stuff. Whether or not we allow ourselves to harm insects or something while harvesting grains is another question. We could ponder whether it’s ethical to kill bacteria, but we’d die if we didn’t do that so let’s not fret about that. A lot of people in this thread seem to be suggesting that since we can’t pin down an absolute answer we should what… do nothing? If you really mean to say that deciding not to eat lobsters is easy then let’s go with that logic and stop eating all the bigger animals too. Seems an easy place to start.
  - bumby 5y ago
    >A lot of people in this thread seem to be suggesting that since we can’t pin down an absolute answer we should what… do nothing? I don't think this is the most generous take. I think what most people are trying to find is the underlying principles. Consider the following potential first principles: 1) Minimize suffering 2) Minimize animal death 3) Minimize charismatic mega fauna death 4) Minimize climate impacts 5) Maximize human health 6) Maximize human performance 7) Maximize human longevity (healthspan or lifespan) Each of those can lead down different, sometimes competing tracts. Can vegan/vegetarianism be compatible with any of those? Sure. Can it optimize all of them at the same time? I'm doubtful. It's certainly possible that in the rush to do something we end up on the wrong trade-off. That's why it's import to drill down on exactly what one is claiming is ultimately important.
Lhiw 5y ago
As a vegan how do you reconcile the thousands of insects and field animals that get culled during harvesting those lentils? I don't really have a problem with vegetarians but I do struggle to understand the lines they seemingly draw at random. Minimising harm should be a given for all but that doesn't rule out all meat eating that veganism somehow does.
- valenaut 5y ago
  Eating farm animals requires you to grow 9 times as many crops to feed them as if you had just eaten the crops directly, since only about 9% of the food they eat is converted into edible flesh. So even if you take this argument seriously, the insects and field animals are better off if you grow fewer crops, which you accomplish by directly eating the crops you grow, not feeding them to livestock.
  - sojournerc 5y ago
    But you get 10 times the nutrition density from animal protein.
    - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
      That sort of claim is going to require some numbers for what you define as "nutrition density". Picking at random 100g of steak vs 100g of kidney beans you get more calories, equal protein, far more potassium, vitamin c, iron, vitamin b, calcium, and magnesium from the beans. I enjoy a good steak too, but I know it's a luxury.
  - Lhiw 5y ago
    I addressed that with my remark about minimising harm. Veganism isn't about minimising harm, its drawing an arbitrary line around what constitutes animal harm and goes from there, I don't understand this as it isn't very realistic or usable in the real world where as minimising harm is.
  - bumby 5y ago
    >Eating farm animals requires you to grow 9 times as many crops to feed them as if you had just eaten the crops directly This applies to industrial meat production. Do your thoughts change in regards to hunting/fishing which doesn't (necessarily*) rely on industrial crop agriculture? (I realize a lot of species population numbers - especially deer in the Midwest - are inflated due to the availability of crops for them to feed upon. But there are other species where this isn't necessarily the case.)

Yizahi 5y ago

The thing is - lobsters are an easy problem. We can (theoretically) collectively decide that lobsters shouldn't be touched at all and nobody will be hurt (some fishers maybe?). But the same logic about "feeling" pain is applicable to practically anything as is demonstrated in the comments below. And then it becomes a humanity problem - can we kill living organisms for ANY reason? There is no easy, or even hard answer at all for this. And won't be in the nearest future, simply due to a sheer scope of the problem, number of different kinds of organisms and numbers of reasons they are being killed today.

akudha 5y ago
Killing is one thing, Killing by boiling alive is on a whole another level of cruelty, like unit 731 level, nazi level cruelty. I don’t eat meat, so I don’t know why only lobsters are boiled alive and not other sea food. Whatever the reason, it is hard to justify. If we are going to kill something, the least we could do is kill it painlessly. At the beginning of COVID-19, some farm in the Midwest killed hundreds of pigs by steaming. Could you imagine the suffering?
- NoGravitas 5y ago
  Yeah, ffs, just kill the lobster quickly right before you boil it, and stop whining about how not getting to boil it alive infringes "muh freedumbs". Instructions: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/how-to-kill-lobster-1.4491189 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/how-to-k...
  - bumby 5y ago
    From the HN guidelines: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says Please don't post shallow dismissals
- Enginerrrd 5y ago
  Serious question here... but, are you sure that's a cruel method of killing lobsters? (I'm 100% with you on the pigs but here me out on the lobsters.) I think when you're evaluating killing methods based on how humane they are, one thing to keep in mind is that how something looks to the executioner is NOT a good metric. As an example: Consider the oft repeated anecdote about how being hanged is only "humane" if you break someones neck during the hanging. If you don't, the subject with jerk and spasm wildly. HOWEVER... I have been choked out in jiu-jitsu.... it's like going to sleep. However, I can only imagine the uncommunicateable horror of having my neck broken and then having to endure 2 minutes of consciousness before I succumb to not breathing and pass out. One looks distressing but is suffering-free. One looks great, but is probably terrifying. For a lobster, there are a couple of metrics I'd be concerned with: - time experiencing a sense of alarm - time experiencing what is likely pain If I take a lobster, and I suddenly plunge them into fully boiling water, full submerged, how long do you think it is before they succumb? Keep in mind, that movement isn't necessarily a good cue here, because the physical structures will move in response to heat even if consciousness is long gone. Smaller animals have a high surface area to volume ratio. The heat transfer is likely pretty fast. I have experience cooking dungeness crabs, and I can say from experience, the time between putting them in the water and when they stop moving entirely is quite quick... I'd say no more than ~5-10 seconds. The last part of that movement seems uncoordinated as well so may not represent conscious effort. For lobsters, would you prefer they be decapitated first? There's likely some consciousness that will remain for a similar time period in the head, so you should probably behead them, AND plunge the head into boiling water. BUT... then you also have to consider the "time experiencing alarm"... Wrestling them still to behead them will undoubtedly be alarming.
  - akudha 5y ago
    This is a good question. I don't have an answer. I don't eat meat, never have, never killed anything in my life, other than mosquitoes. I assumed that boiling alive is a horrific way to die. As for pigs, I found the article https://theintercept.com/2020/05/29/pigs-factory-farms-ventilation-shutdown-coronavirus/ https://theintercept.com/2020/05/29/pigs-factory-farms-venti... That is from last year.
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
I’d be happy if we started at simply not killing lobsters and other animals for food (or for any other industrial purpose). You’re right that we could spend a lot of time debating the finer points of it but as you said: lobsters are easy. By that logic I would imagine so are chickens and cows and baby sheep (lamb) and pigs. So let’s start with the “easy” stuff. Whether or not we allow ourselves to harm insects or something while harvesting grains is another question. We could ponder whether it’s ethical to kill bacteria, but we’d die if we didn’t do that so let’s not fret about that. A lot of people in this thread seem to be suggesting that since we can’t pin down an absolute answer we should what… do nothing? If you really mean to say that deciding not to eat lobsters is easy then let’s go with that logic and stop eating all the bigger animals too. Seems an easy place to start.
- bumby 5y ago
  >A lot of people in this thread seem to be suggesting that since we can’t pin down an absolute answer we should what… do nothing? I don't think this is the most generous take. I think what most people are trying to find is the underlying principles. Consider the following potential first principles: 1) Minimize suffering 2) Minimize animal death 3) Minimize charismatic mega fauna death 4) Minimize climate impacts 5) Maximize human health 6) Maximize human performance 7) Maximize human longevity (healthspan or lifespan) Each of those can lead down different, sometimes competing tracts. Can vegan/vegetarianism be compatible with any of those? Sure. Can it optimize all of them at the same time? I'm doubtful. It's certainly possible that in the rush to do something we end up on the wrong trade-off. That's why it's import to drill down on exactly what one is claiming is ultimately important.

Lhiw 5y ago

As a vegan how do you reconcile the thousands of insects and field animals that get culled during harvesting those lentils? I don't really have a problem with vegetarians but I do struggle to understand the lines they seemingly draw at random. Minimising harm should be a given for all but that doesn't rule out all meat eating that veganism somehow does.

valenaut 5y ago
Eating farm animals requires you to grow 9 times as many crops to feed them as if you had just eaten the crops directly, since only about 9% of the food they eat is converted into edible flesh. So even if you take this argument seriously, the insects and field animals are better off if you grow fewer crops, which you accomplish by directly eating the crops you grow, not feeding them to livestock.
- sojournerc 5y ago
  But you get 10 times the nutrition density from animal protein.
  - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    That sort of claim is going to require some numbers for what you define as "nutrition density". Picking at random 100g of steak vs 100g of kidney beans you get more calories, equal protein, far more potassium, vitamin c, iron, vitamin b, calcium, and magnesium from the beans. I enjoy a good steak too, but I know it's a luxury.
- Lhiw 5y ago
  I addressed that with my remark about minimising harm. Veganism isn't about minimising harm, its drawing an arbitrary line around what constitutes animal harm and goes from there, I don't understand this as it isn't very realistic or usable in the real world where as minimising harm is.
- bumby 5y ago
  >Eating farm animals requires you to grow 9 times as many crops to feed them as if you had just eaten the crops directly This applies to industrial meat production. Do your thoughts change in regards to hunting/fishing which doesn't (necessarily*) rely on industrial crop agriculture? (I realize a lot of species population numbers - especially deer in the Midwest - are inflated due to the availability of crops for them to feed upon. But there are other species where this isn't necessarily the case.)