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"If we lived in a vegetarian world I might object to it" I am not a vegetarian and do not plan on becoming one - but I still want to avoid animal suffering whe

"If we lived in a vegetarian world I might object to it" I am not a vegetarian and do not plan on becoming one - but I still want to avoid animal suffering wherever possible. Meaning I would like my meat to have seen the sun and outside and not only on the tightly packed way to the slaughterhouse. But yes you can argue, that the conventional meat factories are horrible, so being horrible here is allright as well. But I think that is a horrible line of reasoning.

RupertEisenhart 4y ago
Scale matters. There are multiple orders of magnitude difference between the things you are comparing. You get one or two orders of magnitude just from the lifespan of animals-- a pig in a factory will spend up to a decade suffering, musks monkeys presumably less than a year. You get the rest of the orders of magnitude from the number of animals involved.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  "avoid animal suffering wherever possible" This is the key factor for me. And yes, scale matters. To reduce animal suffering on a global scale, the obvious target are the meat factories. That doesn't mean, that avoiding animal suffering here isn't something that should be done as well. And when there was unnecessary testing, it clearly was unnecessary animal suffering.
  - RupertEisenhart 4y ago
    The problem I have with this discussion is it pretends to treat animal welfare as an absolute, when in fact nobody does that or believes in that (apart form militant vegans perhaps). There is a lot of biomedical research out there killing a lot of animals. Most of it is of dubious utility-- most of the low level stuff can be done in simpler organisms or simulation, lots of it is highly speculative with no applications in sight. This research has a very high expected return, and it can't be done in simpler organisms. I do agree that it could probably have been done more carefully or more slowly and saved a few animal lives, but I am certain that this is a long long /long/ way from the worst example of this.
    - hutzlibu 4y ago
      "The problem I have with this discussion is it pretends to treat animal welfare as an absolute" I don't see, where I did this. I clearly stated that I eat meat and I know that this means animal suffering. It is all about the relative suffering to me aka avoiding unnecessary suffering or finding better ways (simulations) wherever possible. "but I am certain that this is a long long /long/ way from the worst example of this. " And there surely are worse examples. So what? This is about this concrete example. Unnecessary animal suffering to meet some arbitary deadlines. Not to save the world from a pandemic or alike. "This research has a very high expected return, and it can't be done in simpler organisms." My question would be, why not use humans? At what point would the "very high expected return" justify this? Never? Why not? Apes are indeed quite close to us (so are pigs) and I think drawing a line along "with that species really anything is allowed as they cannot speak" to "they can speak, we have to take every caution with them" is just strange to me, or rather plain wrong. So to be clear, I never said animal testing is never allright. But I do think the reasoning of "anything is allowed with animals" is very wrong.
      - pvaldes 4y ago
        > why not use humans? Because killing humans to save mice would be a really stupid choice
      - RupertEisenhart 4y ago
        I wasn't calling out you specifically, more explaining my attitude here in general. Sorry for not being more clear about that. > My question would be, why not use humans? At what point would the "very high expected return" justify this? Never? Why not? Very good question! Obviously we are heading into sci-fi territory now, but in a world where all suffering was valued according to some agreed-upon objective metric I would suggest the following: - yes much more human testing, especially volunteers who are terminally ill/suicidal etc. - in such a world testing would presumably be much more expensive, so they could afford more complex research substrates that we don't bother with because we can just use animals - eg. lots of brain organoids and other synthetic experimental substrates And for the record, I do think such a world would either be some sort of anarchocapitalist chaos or painfully slow to develop. But at least it would be morally coherent! Joking aside I guess my only real message here is, people who find this stuff disgusting should think about their dinner plates. In my ideal world, we use approximately 50% as much animal testing and 0.1% as many animal food products.
paulcole 4y ago
> I am not a vegetarian and do not plan on becoming one - but I still want to avoid animal suffering wherever possible I don’t understand how these statements can possibly coexist unless you think that the animals you eat are slaughtered without suffering — a bar which is impossibly high, IMO.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  Is this really so hard? "avoid animal suffering wherever possible" The slaughtering is not really the problem to me. Cannot be avoided, allright, I can live with that (but there are of course worlds between how the meat I like to eat was slaughtered, compared to the cheap meat from the supermarket, think a deer that died with a clean shot, compared to a animal waiting in stress and panic for hours or days before the slaughtering factory). And what matters more, are the living conditions the animal had before the slaughtering. Like being outside in the sun and on real grass, compared to tightly locked inside the whole life, literaly living in their own shit.
  - paulcole 4y ago
    I mean you’re calling attention to the word you’re ignoring: “whenever.” You’re basically saying some suffering is fine as long as it’s suffering you’re fine with. Don’t get me wrong, that is a 100% valid attitude to have. But don’t pretend like you’re trying to avoid animal suffering whenever possible — because you’re clearly not. > The slaughtering is not really the problem to me Also lol at this. Makes it easy to avoid animal suffering if being slaughtered doesn’t count as suffering to you.
    - hutzlibu 4y ago
      Suffering is part of the world. I just try to minimize it, I do not believe it can be avoided. Do you believe differently in general?
      - paulcole 4y ago
        I’ll agree that there’s no way to eliminate suffering. But you can continue to reduce your creation of suffering in animals by not eating meat. It’s fine if that’s a decision you’re not willing to make. But if you say, “I just try to minimize suffering” and then continue to eat meat, you should instead say, “I just try to minimize suffering that I can’t justify to myself.” Otherwise you’re lying to yourself because you’re doing one thing and saying another.
zajio1am 4y ago
> I am not a vegetarian and do not plan on becoming one - but I still want to avoid animal suffering wherever possible. Perhaps if we cannot forbade animal suffering altogether from deontological position, we can just take consequentialist position and tax it like other externalities. That would reduce unnecessary animal suffering while allow necessary.
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  We do this already. It's called the IACUC. You have to get their approval to do any animal research, including with mice and rats. https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/standing-committee-for-the-care-and-use-of-animals-in-research https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/standing-committe...
  - fastball 4y ago
    I think you missed the point GC was making, which was (in my understanding) that we should basically allow people to do as much animal cruelty as they want (within extremity limits), we just tax them proportionally.

RupertEisenhart 4y ago

Scale matters. There are multiple orders of magnitude difference between the things you are comparing. You get one or two orders of magnitude just from the lifespan of animals-- a pig in a factory will spend up to a decade suffering, musks monkeys presumably less than a year. You get the rest of the orders of magnitude from the number of animals involved.

hutzlibu 4y ago
"avoid animal suffering wherever possible" This is the key factor for me. And yes, scale matters. To reduce animal suffering on a global scale, the obvious target are the meat factories. That doesn't mean, that avoiding animal suffering here isn't something that should be done as well. And when there was unnecessary testing, it clearly was unnecessary animal suffering.
- RupertEisenhart 4y ago
  The problem I have with this discussion is it pretends to treat animal welfare as an absolute, when in fact nobody does that or believes in that (apart form militant vegans perhaps). There is a lot of biomedical research out there killing a lot of animals. Most of it is of dubious utility-- most of the low level stuff can be done in simpler organisms or simulation, lots of it is highly speculative with no applications in sight. This research has a very high expected return, and it can't be done in simpler organisms. I do agree that it could probably have been done more carefully or more slowly and saved a few animal lives, but I am certain that this is a long long /long/ way from the worst example of this.
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    "The problem I have with this discussion is it pretends to treat animal welfare as an absolute" I don't see, where I did this. I clearly stated that I eat meat and I know that this means animal suffering. It is all about the relative suffering to me aka avoiding unnecessary suffering or finding better ways (simulations) wherever possible. "but I am certain that this is a long long /long/ way from the worst example of this. " And there surely are worse examples. So what? This is about this concrete example. Unnecessary animal suffering to meet some arbitary deadlines. Not to save the world from a pandemic or alike. "This research has a very high expected return, and it can't be done in simpler organisms." My question would be, why not use humans? At what point would the "very high expected return" justify this? Never? Why not? Apes are indeed quite close to us (so are pigs) and I think drawing a line along "with that species really anything is allowed as they cannot speak" to "they can speak, we have to take every caution with them" is just strange to me, or rather plain wrong. So to be clear, I never said animal testing is never allright. But I do think the reasoning of "anything is allowed with animals" is very wrong.
    - pvaldes 4y ago
      > why not use humans? Because killing humans to save mice would be a really stupid choice
    - RupertEisenhart 4y ago
      I wasn't calling out you specifically, more explaining my attitude here in general. Sorry for not being more clear about that. > My question would be, why not use humans? At what point would the "very high expected return" justify this? Never? Why not? Very good question! Obviously we are heading into sci-fi territory now, but in a world where all suffering was valued according to some agreed-upon objective metric I would suggest the following: - yes much more human testing, especially volunteers who are terminally ill/suicidal etc. - in such a world testing would presumably be much more expensive, so they could afford more complex research substrates that we don't bother with because we can just use animals - eg. lots of brain organoids and other synthetic experimental substrates And for the record, I do think such a world would either be some sort of anarchocapitalist chaos or painfully slow to develop. But at least it would be morally coherent! Joking aside I guess my only real message here is, people who find this stuff disgusting should think about their dinner plates. In my ideal world, we use approximately 50% as much animal testing and 0.1% as many animal food products.

paulcole 4y ago

> I am not a vegetarian and do not plan on becoming one - but I still want to avoid animal suffering wherever possible I don’t understand how these statements can possibly coexist unless you think that the animals you eat are slaughtered without suffering — a bar which is impossibly high, IMO.

hutzlibu 4y ago
Is this really so hard? "avoid animal suffering wherever possible" The slaughtering is not really the problem to me. Cannot be avoided, allright, I can live with that (but there are of course worlds between how the meat I like to eat was slaughtered, compared to the cheap meat from the supermarket, think a deer that died with a clean shot, compared to a animal waiting in stress and panic for hours or days before the slaughtering factory). And what matters more, are the living conditions the animal had before the slaughtering. Like being outside in the sun and on real grass, compared to tightly locked inside the whole life, literaly living in their own shit.
- paulcole 4y ago
  I mean you’re calling attention to the word you’re ignoring: “whenever.” You’re basically saying some suffering is fine as long as it’s suffering you’re fine with. Don’t get me wrong, that is a 100% valid attitude to have. But don’t pretend like you’re trying to avoid animal suffering whenever possible — because you’re clearly not. > The slaughtering is not really the problem to me Also lol at this. Makes it easy to avoid animal suffering if being slaughtered doesn’t count as suffering to you.
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    Suffering is part of the world. I just try to minimize it, I do not believe it can be avoided. Do you believe differently in general?
    - paulcole 4y ago
      I’ll agree that there’s no way to eliminate suffering. But you can continue to reduce your creation of suffering in animals by not eating meat. It’s fine if that’s a decision you’re not willing to make. But if you say, “I just try to minimize suffering” and then continue to eat meat, you should instead say, “I just try to minimize suffering that I can’t justify to myself.” Otherwise you’re lying to yourself because you’re doing one thing and saying another.

zajio1am 4y ago

> I am not a vegetarian and do not plan on becoming one - but I still want to avoid animal suffering wherever possible. Perhaps if we cannot forbade animal suffering altogether from deontological position, we can just take consequentialist position and tax it like other externalities. That would reduce unnecessary animal suffering while allow necessary.

iancmceachern 4y ago
We do this already. It's called the IACUC. You have to get their approval to do any animal research, including with mice and rats. https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/standing-committee-for-the-care-and-use-of-animals-in-research https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/standing-committe...
- fastball 4y ago
  I think you missed the point GC was making, which was (in my understanding) that we should basically allow people to do as much animal cruelty as they want (within extremity limits), we just tax them proportionally.