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There's the BBC Horizon programme from 2006 "The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow" about Temple Grandin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin https://en.wik

There's the BBC Horizon programme from 2006 "The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow" about Temple Grandin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00791tq https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00791tq Who went to great lengths to make it easier for Cows to be slaughtered, perhaps I missed something, it talks about her efforts to empathise with the cow, at what might disturb it as it is moved into the slaughter house. It just seemed quite jarring about being so empathetic to cows, yet making it easier to be slaughtered, a strange disconnect. I eat meat, and indeed spent summers on the family pig farm, but this documentary just seemed very strange, yet no I know of thought it was strange.

retrac 4y ago
I don't find it jarring or disconnected. In many worldviews, the most problematic aspect of meat is the pain and discomfort inflicted during the rearing and slaughter process. I've met hunters who will tell you they're far more at-ease with eating meat from an animal they killed in the wild (thus knowing it did not live in a cage and died instantly) than they are with factory farming.
- dr_orpheus 4y ago
  Other like-minded people are some of the former vegetarian/vegan run butcher shops [0]. Basic premise is they only wanted to eat meat if it was from somewhere with animal well-being and conservationism as a focus, and they came to the conclusion that the best way to do that was to source the meat themselves. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/dining/butchers-meat-vegetarian-vegan.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/dining/butchers-meat-vege...
  - sweetheart 4y ago
    > Basic premise is they only wanted to eat meat if it was from somewhere with animal well-being and conservationism as a focus When meat is being served, you know animal welfare is not being considered. One cannot claim to value the welfare of a being before killing it prematurely and unnecessarily. That is a simple fact. EDIT: I'd love if someone could reply and provide an analogous situation where we can safely say that we value someone's wellbeing before causing them fatal harm, outside of mercy killings.
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      I think this is a matter of having different values. One can easily hold animal life at a lower value than their own dietary preferences and cultural practices, while also wanting to minimize the animal suffering involved. In fact some religions command particular practices around slaughter that are intended to be a quick as possible. You could come up with plenty of analogies. Self defense is an easy first place to look. You can hold the value the health and wellbeing of all other people as equal to your own right up until the point that they directly threaten you with fatal harm.
      - sweetheart 4y ago
        > Self defense is an easy first place to look. There are some extremely relevant and notable moral differences between someone defending their own life from a threat, and raising a lamb in a cage so small that it cannot turn around, forcing it to drink it's own urine in a desperate attempt to recycle the little iron it has in it's system (gotta keep the meat anemic and tender!), before stunning it with a bolt gun and slitting it's throat. All because you enjoy the taste. It is not a case of having different values. It is a case of being socialized from a young age to disregard the wellbeing of certain animals. The values are fundamentally the same.
        ch4s3 4y ago
        You’re arguing against a stew man. I responded to a prompt about cases where one might make an argument about not causing suffering up until the point of taking lethal action with respect to people. In fact I was making a case for considering animal welfare as a meat eater.
        sweetheart 4y ago
        How exactly did I mis characterize your argument? I’ve reread it about 10 times and cannot understand how you’re advocating for animal welfare. You say that people can easily value animals lives less than their tastebuds, but still want to minimize suffering (which is wrong, because minimizing suffering would mean not killing anyone). Then you make the case that self defense could be a similar example of taking well-being into consideration while still causing fatal harm. I make the point that self defense isn’t remotely like the act of killing animals for food, and you said I’m building a strawman. What exactly is being lost in translation?
  - myshpa 4y ago
    "Ethical butchers" is an oxymoron.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  "instantly" Modern hunt is all about instant killing, but traditional hunting techniques (ie prior to firearms) were all about exhausting the prey by chasing it on foot for hours. Probably still better than factory farming, but very stressful for the animal.
zasdffaa 4y ago
She was trying IIRC to prevent them suffering nearly so much before slaughter which seems like a better thing.
- aerostable_slug 4y ago
  She's also a proponent of mechanically-separated meat ("pink slime") — the animal was killed, so isn't it more respectful to use as much of it as possible? Related aside: I used to raise beef cattle, and the amount of products cow "stuff"/byproducts goes into is amazing. There's nearly nothing simply thrown out (except blood, I suppose).
  - zasdffaa 4y ago
    > She's also a proponent of mechanically-separated meat how is that relevant? > the animal was killed, so isn't it more respectful to use as much of it as possible 'respectful' - using that word about an animal you've killed is self-deceit. The animal is dead, and when it was alive it had no concept of 'respect'. Deluded talk. I also don't get the point of your related aside. My post was about animal suffering, not use of the carcass so it looks like you're changing the subject.
    - aerostable_slug 4y ago
      I'm not sure I can adequately express how I feel about morally exploiting animals (because that's what it is: beef cattle exist to be slaughtered and their bodies exploited, that is their entire purpose and why they exist) to someone who at least appears to be vegan. Similarly, as a hunter what I consider "respectful" you appear to consider "deluded." Arguing over that seems like arguing over religion and isn't something I'm interested in doing today. Have a great Friday!
      - late2part 4y ago
        Apophasis much?
    - 4y ago
michael1999 4y ago
Dr Grandin is autistic. That jarring sense is you being normal. Normal people who feel empathy for something have a hard time killing it. This plays out in ugly ways in that business -- they either hire psychos who enjoy being cruel _because_ then know that the animals suffer, or the people doing the work convince themselves that the animals are too "dumb" to understand what's happening, and are incapable of suffering. Grandin complains that workers often undo her changes after the fact (e.g. removing a piece of metal that blocks a view of the killing bolt) because they don't understand that the changes aren't to make _their_ jobs easier, and the workers are either constitutionally incapable of understanding how those changes serve the cows, or that the cows deserve any consideration at all. Any fisherman will tell you that fish can't suffer.
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  How do you know they're normal? "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." -Hunter S. Thompson
- anotherevan 4y ago
  Perhaps you mean "neurotypical" when you are saying "normal".
  - pannSun 4y ago
    "Typical" and "normal" are synonyms to all except those seeking a reason to be offended.
    - anotherevan 4y ago
      I wasn't particularly offended by the original comment. Am vacillating a little between offended and amused by yours. There are several autistic people in my life that I love and have watched have very real, not just semantic battles with what is considered normal. Both inward and outward struggles.
      - pannSun 4y ago
thrown_22 4y ago
People assume that empathy is something that nice people do. It isn't. It's just another tool. Back when I cared about liberal politics [0] one of the points I constantly made was that we needed to be sympathetic and understand conservative worries even if ultimately we didn't care. I had managed to get dozens of hard right people to consider ditching the GOP when attacking the party in a way that their base understood. [0] Having OWS raided in the middle of the night with flashbangs and killdozers made me seriously reconsider who you support politically. Thanks Obama!
itronitron 4y ago
effective altruism?
myshpa 4y ago
It seemed strange to me as well. IIRC she cares about (empathises with) cows only as not to be a disturbance in the killing process. Eg. single column access, remove direct sight of blood, steps to "guarantee" the painless death, etc. But there is nothing what can be done with the smells and sounds, all animals know beforehand they're gonna be killed, and with the nature of the killing job causing unnecessary 'mistakes' and violence. It's something different to see her talking in a meat processing facility, cleaned up and ready for filming, and then see hidden recording of the process (won't describe it here, it's too gruesome). And she can do nothing for the slaughtermen and their families themselves. They have a plethora of psychologic problems themselves, have to see a shrink every 3 months, if i'm not mistaken, and their families often have higher numbers of domestic violence than normal.

retrac 4y ago

I don't find it jarring or disconnected. In many worldviews, the most problematic aspect of meat is the pain and discomfort inflicted during the rearing and slaughter process. I've met hunters who will tell you they're far more at-ease with eating meat from an animal they killed in the wild (thus knowing it did not live in a cage and died instantly) than they are with factory farming.

dr_orpheus 4y ago
Other like-minded people are some of the former vegetarian/vegan run butcher shops [0]. Basic premise is they only wanted to eat meat if it was from somewhere with animal well-being and conservationism as a focus, and they came to the conclusion that the best way to do that was to source the meat themselves. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/dining/butchers-meat-vegetarian-vegan.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/dining/butchers-meat-vege...
- sweetheart 4y ago
  > Basic premise is they only wanted to eat meat if it was from somewhere with animal well-being and conservationism as a focus When meat is being served, you know animal welfare is not being considered. One cannot claim to value the welfare of a being before killing it prematurely and unnecessarily. That is a simple fact. EDIT: I'd love if someone could reply and provide an analogous situation where we can safely say that we value someone's wellbeing before causing them fatal harm, outside of mercy killings.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    I think this is a matter of having different values. One can easily hold animal life at a lower value than their own dietary preferences and cultural practices, while also wanting to minimize the animal suffering involved. In fact some religions command particular practices around slaughter that are intended to be a quick as possible. You could come up with plenty of analogies. Self defense is an easy first place to look. You can hold the value the health and wellbeing of all other people as equal to your own right up until the point that they directly threaten you with fatal harm.
    - sweetheart 4y ago
      > Self defense is an easy first place to look. There are some extremely relevant and notable moral differences between someone defending their own life from a threat, and raising a lamb in a cage so small that it cannot turn around, forcing it to drink it's own urine in a desperate attempt to recycle the little iron it has in it's system (gotta keep the meat anemic and tender!), before stunning it with a bolt gun and slitting it's throat. All because you enjoy the taste. It is not a case of having different values. It is a case of being socialized from a young age to disregard the wellbeing of certain animals. The values are fundamentally the same.
      - ch4s3 4y ago
        You’re arguing against a stew man. I responded to a prompt about cases where one might make an argument about not causing suffering up until the point of taking lethal action with respect to people. In fact I was making a case for considering animal welfare as a meat eater.
        sweetheart 4y ago
        How exactly did I mis characterize your argument? I’ve reread it about 10 times and cannot understand how you’re advocating for animal welfare. You say that people can easily value animals lives less than their tastebuds, but still want to minimize suffering (which is wrong, because minimizing suffering would mean not killing anyone). Then you make the case that self defense could be a similar example of taking well-being into consideration while still causing fatal harm. I make the point that self defense isn’t remotely like the act of killing animals for food, and you said I’m building a strawman. What exactly is being lost in translation?
- myshpa 4y ago
  "Ethical butchers" is an oxymoron.
inglor_cz 4y ago
"instantly" Modern hunt is all about instant killing, but traditional hunting techniques (ie prior to firearms) were all about exhausting the prey by chasing it on foot for hours. Probably still better than factory farming, but very stressful for the animal.

zasdffaa 4y ago

She was trying IIRC to prevent them suffering nearly so much before slaughter which seems like a better thing.

aerostable_slug 4y ago
She's also a proponent of mechanically-separated meat ("pink slime") — the animal was killed, so isn't it more respectful to use as much of it as possible? Related aside: I used to raise beef cattle, and the amount of products cow "stuff"/byproducts goes into is amazing. There's nearly nothing simply thrown out (except blood, I suppose).
- zasdffaa 4y ago
  > She's also a proponent of mechanically-separated meat how is that relevant? > the animal was killed, so isn't it more respectful to use as much of it as possible 'respectful' - using that word about an animal you've killed is self-deceit. The animal is dead, and when it was alive it had no concept of 'respect'. Deluded talk. I also don't get the point of your related aside. My post was about animal suffering, not use of the carcass so it looks like you're changing the subject.
  - aerostable_slug 4y ago
    I'm not sure I can adequately express how I feel about morally exploiting animals (because that's what it is: beef cattle exist to be slaughtered and their bodies exploited, that is their entire purpose and why they exist) to someone who at least appears to be vegan. Similarly, as a hunter what I consider "respectful" you appear to consider "deluded." Arguing over that seems like arguing over religion and isn't something I'm interested in doing today. Have a great Friday!
    - late2part 4y ago
      Apophasis much?
  - 4y ago

michael1999 4y ago

Dr Grandin is autistic. That jarring sense is you being normal. Normal people who feel empathy for something have a hard time killing it. This plays out in ugly ways in that business -- they either hire psychos who enjoy being cruel _because_ then know that the animals suffer, or the people doing the work convince themselves that the animals are too "dumb" to understand what's happening, and are incapable of suffering. Grandin complains that workers often undo her changes after the fact (e.g. removing a piece of metal that blocks a view of the killing bolt) because they don't understand that the changes aren't to make _their_ jobs easier, and the workers are either constitutionally incapable of understanding how those changes serve the cows, or that the cows deserve any consideration at all. Any fisherman will tell you that fish can't suffer.

DonHopkins 4y ago
How do you know they're normal? "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." -Hunter S. Thompson
anotherevan 4y ago
Perhaps you mean "neurotypical" when you are saying "normal".
- pannSun 4y ago
  "Typical" and "normal" are synonyms to all except those seeking a reason to be offended.
  - anotherevan 4y ago
    I wasn't particularly offended by the original comment. Am vacillating a little between offended and amused by yours. There are several autistic people in my life that I love and have watched have very real, not just semantic battles with what is considered normal. Both inward and outward struggles.
    - pannSun 4y ago

thrown_22 4y ago

People assume that empathy is something that nice people do. It isn't. It's just another tool. Back when I cared about liberal politics [0] one of the points I constantly made was that we needed to be sympathetic and understand conservative worries even if ultimately we didn't care. I had managed to get dozens of hard right people to consider ditching the GOP when attacking the party in a way that their base understood. [0] Having OWS raided in the middle of the night with flashbangs and killdozers made me seriously reconsider who you support politically. Thanks Obama!

itronitron 4y ago

effective altruism?

myshpa 4y ago

It seemed strange to me as well. IIRC she cares about (empathises with) cows only as not to be a disturbance in the killing process. Eg. single column access, remove direct sight of blood, steps to "guarantee" the painless death, etc. But there is nothing what can be done with the smells and sounds, all animals know beforehand they're gonna be killed, and with the nature of the killing job causing unnecessary 'mistakes' and violence. It's something different to see her talking in a meat processing facility, cleaned up and ready for filming, and then see hidden recording of the process (won't describe it here, it's too gruesome). And she can do nothing for the slaughtermen and their families themselves. They have a plethora of psychologic problems themselves, have to see a shrink every 3 months, if i'm not mistaken, and their families often have higher numbers of domestic violence than normal.