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> The review also evaluated the potential welfare implications of current commercial practices involving these animals. It recommends against declawing, nicking
by ikesau 3y ago
> The review also evaluated the potential welfare implications of current commercial practices involving these animals. It recommends against declawing, nicking, eyestalk ablation, the sale of live decapod crustaceans to untrained, non-expert handlers, and extreme slaughter methods such as live boiling without stunning. It also includes suggestions for best practices for transport, stunning and slaughter.
Good grief. I wish we could skip the incrementalism for once and just put an end to all animal slaughter, extreme or not.
- avalys 3y agoWhat is the difference between an animal being slaughtered for human consumption vs. being eaten alive by another animal in the wild?
- incone123 3y agoWhich other species boils lobsters alive?
- iLoveOncall 3y agoMany animals will feed on dying preys that stay alive suffering for hours. Literally being eaten alive. I don't think boiling a lobster is even remotely comparable.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoSurely there are nature murders more brutal than lobster boiling? Does the lobster even have overheating sensors? Seems pretty out of spec for range of lobster environment.
- Timon3 3y agoHumans aren't being boiled in their natural environment, yet our temperature senses react to it. Why do you suspect lobsters to work fundamentally differently? They are exposed to different temperatures in their natural habitat, just as we are.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoAre lobsters around fire much? I would guess that this is why humans react to being dangerously overheated.
- Timon3 3y agoAre land animals around fire much? Humans have been around fire a lot more since a short time ago, but aside from that fire is a very rare thing for most animals to encounter.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoWell, for example, I believe that exposure to dangerous levels of nuclear radiation does not induce pain in humans. It would seem that mammals, at least, have encountered fire enough as an evolutionary pressure to develop a specific reaction to it. I’m having trouble finding a video of a lobster walking near an open fire, it would be instructive to see its reaction. Does anyone own a lobster as a pet and is willing to perform an experiment for us? You don’t need to hurt the lobster.
- Timon3 3y ago> It would seem that mammals, at least, have encountered fire enough as an evolutionary pressure to develop a specific reaction to it. What specific reaction are you referring to? Fire isn't the only natural source of heat. Why is evolutionary pressure from fire required for animals to evolve a sense of "something is too hot"? Why is it not sufficient for animals to evolve this due to e.g. exposure to sunlight, with the same mechanism being triggered through fire?
- pfannkuchen 3y agoSubjectively, as a human, it seems like the pain of being burned is qualitatively a different type of sensation from e.g. being warmed by sunlight. So the lobster feeling that they should ideally move to cooler water makes sense. Evolutionarily it wouldn’t surprise me if they don’t feel like they are in an emergency situation in the same way that a human would if they are standing in a fire.
- tjnaylor 3y agoMy response is an attempt to summarize lobster-pain-experience info I just gleaned in this thread from a much more thought-provoking and lengthy article already linked to in another comment called "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace. http://www.columbia.edu/~col8/lobsterarticle.pdf http://www.columbia.edu/~col8/lobsterarticle.pdf Lobsters definitely feel pain at least as a stimulus responding to extreme heat. Lobsters have nociceptors, special pain-receptors that are “sensitive to potentially damaging extremes of temperature, to mechanical forces, and to chemical substanceswhich are released when body tissues are damaged.” Humans have similar receptors. Consider if you touch an extremely hot stove and remove your hand before you even realized what happened. That (temperature) pain stimulus is sent to your spinal cord (not your cortex) and then responds by moving your hand before you are consciously aware (through the cortex) of what is going on. Lobsters do not have anything like the cortex which is involved in pain interpreation for humans (and also pain supression like in extremely traumatic events where a person doesn't feel any pain immediately after losing a limb). The lack of a pain suppression mechanism is a little scary to think about in the context of being boiled alive, but this could potentially be because lobsters' experience of pain is so radically different from our own that they may not even have use of a pain supressor. There are interesting anecdotes about people who received frontal lobotomies experiencing pain as a neutral experience that is neither bad or good. As in they feel pain from, but it is not perceived or interpreted as "bad" by them. Also in general, lobsters are unusually sensitive to temperature among invertebrates, responding to temperature changes in lab studies as small as 1°, and their seasonal migratory patterns also seem to highly motivated by finding their preferred temperatures. If you drop a lobster in a container of room temperature sea-water, the lobster just kind of sits at the bottom looking for the darkest most isolated space if there is one (normal behaviour) vs boiling sea-water you will notice lobsters trying to use their claws to not be fully submerged, push off the lid, etc... in the 35-45 seconds it takes for boiling water to kill them. p.s. I hope this response is useful, I wrote it partially to let the mentioned article I just read sink in for myself.
- GuardianCaveman 3y agoBeing eaten alive by a tiger vs being boiled alive. Which would you prefer ? Like natural deaths are so humane compared to humans killing animals .
- tjnaylor 3y agoIf I can jump in a cage with a wild tiger, or a giant pot of boiling water, hands down I'll die by tiger. Nature has a lot of horrible deaths, don't get me wrong. But boiling sensory wise (at least for humans) is similar to immolation (being burned alive) and it unfortunately takes longer to actually kill the person than burning them alive. Tigers naturally kill prey quickly to avoid injury, often going for the neck.
- bell-cot 3y agoNot a species, per se...but consider what happens in a volcanic eruption.
- InitialLastName 3y agoWhat's the difference between murdering someone and them being eaten by a lion? One of those things humans are a critical agent in.
- waffleiron 3y agoWhat’s the difference between humans murdering humans and animals killing humans. We hold ourselves to a higher ethical standard in other cases, and maybe we should here too?
- mecsred 3y agoDo we hold ourselves to a higher standard? An animal that kills a human is executed. A human that kills a human goes to prison.
- waffleiron 3y agoA higher punishment doesn’t not mean higher ethical standard.
- arcticbull 3y agoWithout weighing in too much on this (I'm ok with meat personally, assuming a human execution and a happy life for the animal)... ... the difference is we can choose not to.
- wahahah 3y ago"Humane"; unless you are talking about some kind of 1:1 sacrifice system
- nehal3m 3y agoI'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant 'a humane execution'. Requiring a human execution before eating meat is a little extreme.
- arcticbull 3y agohahaha, man, I need a new keyboard. Yes. Humane. I'm not demanding a human sacrifice. I'm just going to leave the typo up for posterity, hopefully more folks get a kick out of it.
- moffkalast 3y agoWell you've certainly disappointed some enthusiastic Aztecs now.
- chrisin2d 3y agoHumans have moral agency whereas animals have little or none. Animals must listen to their instincts, whereas humans get a choice. That choice is more important to some people, less important to others. This depends on which animals people consider to be moral subjects and therefore worthy of moral consideration, rights, and protections. Some people (vegans) consider all animals as moral subjects. Some people (pescatarians) may consider most animals as moral subjects, but not certain ones like fish. Most people consider some animals like dogs, cats, and horses, as moral subjects, and not others like cows, chickens, and pigs. These definitions are unconsciously arrived at by sociocultural factors, but some people consciously arrive at them.
- EatingWithForks 3y agoThe difference is in the scale of the slaughter and the actual slaughtering being dissociated from the eating for many of these animals, such that a disproportionate minority takes on the task of killing for a majority of meat consumption. This has recorded known harmful effects on the people doing the killing as well as the community in which the killing is done, in a way other large industrial processes do not. As an aside: this is a gotcha question and doesn't fundamentally address the position that animal slaughter is cruel. It relies on an obviously false rhetoric that something performed by non-sapient creatures in an environment where the only way to survive for some creatures is largely through the personal killing of other creatures is morally equivalent to an environment where sapient creatures who have wide dietary availability make the choice to consume the flesh of another creature that has been usually killed for them.
- acover 3y agoDo you not want to kill insects either? How do you grow crops without killing insects?
- EatingWithForks 3y agoThese are still gotcha questions that don't fundamentally address the concerns of the original poster. Either address my points in good faith or just say you disagree with the position and provide your own reasoning; these questions feel clever but they're intellectually shallow.
- acover 3y agoThey are genuine questions. You want to stop all animal slaughter and insects are animals so we need to stop killing insects but I have no idea if that's achievable. It would be really interesting if you could.
- fluoridation 3y agoI don't understand. You're saying the problem with eating animal meat is not that an animal has to die, but in who does the killing? So it'd be better if each person had to kill their own food, even though it would almost surely result in a lot more waste, and thus a lot more killing? >As an aside: this is a gotcha question and doesn't fundamentally address the position that animal slaughter is cruel. I don't think so. If you think killing animals is cruel in itself, then you have only two logically consistent options: you either a) change your lifestyle to ensure you don't kill any animals whatsoever, or b) accept that some cruelty is inevitable and set some standard of acceptable cruelty for yourself. Anything else is a symptom of cognitive dissonance.
- hombre_fatal 3y agoHumans don’t have to do it. Just like widespread rape in the animal kingdom and in human history doesn’t give me moral justification to do it today. Though even before getting that far, humans are participants in one of your scenarios and not the other. What other animal behaviors justify your human behaviors? Can any of them? Does another intelligence have moral justification in farming humans on the same basis? There are some absurd reductios here that you’d have to sign off on.
- valval 3y agoWe kinda do though. We need many of the nutrients present only in various animal-based products to remain healthy.
- hkt 3y agoThis is kind of an old discussion. I'm perfectly happy eating meat but equally recognise that vegan diets are perfectly feasible for almost everyone. If not vegan, then vegetarian (preferably with a premium on animal products to reflect their impact etc). A nice example of this is omega 3 and similar: it is actually synthesised in kelp and works its way through the food chain to us with fish as an intermediary. It doesn't have to be that way, it just is right now. B vitamins are a similar story.
- AndyKluger 3y agoWhich nutrients that we need to eat are only found in animal products?
- moffkalast 3y agoWhichever nutrient is required for smug satisfaction of beating nature at its own game and being so far beyond the food chain that it might as well not be a thing.
- ben_w 3y ago"Animal products" yes (with the caveat we're getting good at genetic engineering and also vat-growing meat cells); "flesh" no; "poke their eyes out and boil them alive" absolutely not.
- theropost 3y agoAnimals are pretty brutal as well. My neighbor has free range chickens. The other morning, I woke up and looked out in my backyard, and there were 7 dead chickens strewn about my property. They were all over the place, it was a mess. So, I checked my cam for the next couple nights, and found a fox strolling across the property with a chicken in its mouth. I figured they'd eat one, but nope... 7. And he's been back for more since.
- lsaferite 3y agoI had a fox wipe out my small backyard flock in a single night. They are brutal.
- globular-toast 3y agoIf you consider yourself equal to other animals, then you should treat them with the same respect you would have them treat you. If you consider yourself better than other animals then stop comparing your behaviour to theirs and be better.
- ben_w 3y agoWe only bear moral responsibility for that which is in our power to affect.
- standardUser 3y agoWe purposefully choose to torture animals that we breed and keep in captivity and that would otherwise not be alive if not for our intervention. And we could easily choose to limit their suffering at minimal expense to ourselves! But we choose not to, for reasons I simply cannot comprehend. Animals in the wild obviously do not have any such choice.
- LinXitoW 3y ago1. Moral agency: Humans can reason morally, and (at least in theory) strive to act morally. Lions are not capable of that (afaik) 2. Necessity: Lions have no supermarkets. 95% of the people reading this can most definitely go vegan (and 99% vegetarian). Just like how self defense and murder are different. 3. Non-existence: 99% of the animals we slaughter we also artificially bred into existence. It's a false equivalence, because those animals wouldn't even exist 4. Practicality: Regulating wild animal feeding behaviour would be stupendously difficult. A vegan world on the other hand is not just possible, but also better for everyone. In zoos, where we can control "wild" animals, we already reduce suffering by not feeding live prey.
- ben_w 3y agoThat would be good[0], but doing it all in one step is about as plausible as going up a mountain in one step. [0] while the question "what even is this sentience thing anyway?" remains open, animals-as-food is not environmentally sustainable for 8e9 humans, so ending that is still good even when the ethics has a layer of indirection from suffering
- chillbill 3y agoBefore even getting there, how about putting an end to all human slaughter? Call me old fashioned but I like humans. American government and presidency (by both parties) have been pro war and pro weapon sale for the last 5 or 6 decades by now.
- NotYourLawyer 3y agoAnd pro abortion.
- Timon3 3y agoI'll do you one better: let's do both, instead of arbitrarily doing one after the other!
- chillbill 3y agoIt's not arbitrary. Human > Other Animals, no sane way to discuss anything else really. So start with the more important one then move to the other. Don't try to hold two watermelons in on hand.
- Timon3 3y agoWhy is one dependent on the other? Why must we start with one, instead of tackling both at the same time? Why not use both my hands to hold the two watermelons at the same time?
- chillbill 3y agoIt's not, but I find it distasteful when people are feeling sad for the crab being boiled, while children are dying of hunger in Yemen because of politicians and their enablers. If we can't figure out the first it'll be impossible to figure out the second. Similar to how you can't neglect your own kids and take care of the neighbor's at the same time.
- Timon3 3y ago
- horsawlarway 3y ago> Good grief. I wish we could skip the incrementalism for once and just put an end to all animal slaughter, extreme or not. At some point - we have to eat something that is alive. Even plants react to being damaged in intentional and measurable ways (including trying to repair themselves, signaling neighbors of the damage, and passing nutrients to each other in response). I think it's impossible to ditch incrementalism, because EVERYTHING we eat is already somewhere on that sliding scale of "something alive that is trying to stay that way". I am in favor of reducing the harm I am able to, while still acknowledging that simply existing requires that I consume resources (And those resources have to be a living thing, because humans are consumers... not producers). Those resources could have gone to keep another living thing alive, but I am using them. At some point, I expect to die, and it will be something else's turn. --- Also - It would be really, really cool if we could get the whole "KloraDerm" thing going from "Old Man's War" by John Scalzi. I would LOVE to be able to do photosynthesis.
- Ekaros 3y agoCould we make sugars or fats straight from CO2 and Water? Just wondering could you theoretically make either from some process that does not involve plants, bacteria, protist or fungi? Enzymes are probably fair game.
- horsawlarway 3y agoSure - I think there's a possible long game here where we're able to technologically engineer our way back to producer status. Bio-engineering is one route (KloraDerm), but I could see alternative routes that are essentially just chemical/material sciences. I think it's probably an incredibly complicated supply chain we'd have to really work through to make sure you can synthesize all the required components without going through something living, but we know that producers exist - so there's hope.
- Ekaros 3y agoAlso now that I think about it. Basically anything at all can contaminate the process and include living things... Probably not realistic on industrial scale. And then how do you get to the clean starting point...
- tssva 3y ago> I wish we could skip the incrementalism for once and just put an end to all animal slaughter, extreme or not. I wish I could stop having to hear people complain about slaughtering delicious animals, so it looks like neither of us is getting what we want.
- luckydata 3y agoI don't as I don't believe in vegan diets as being equivalent to carnivorous diets. I think meat should be significantly more expensive especially in the US for environmental reasons but I don't think humans can be healthy without animal proteins.
- camel-cdr 3y agoWhat do you think makes animal protein different from plant protein?
- the_doctah 3y agoWell, taste, first and foremost. But also probably concentration and quality.
- camel-cdr 3y agoTaste is really a thing of habit. Concentration depends on what you eat, and iirc you don't need that much protein anyways, if you aren't training/body building. Tofu has about half the amount of protein per gram then ground beef, tempeh about 85%. If you really crave protein tvp has between 50 and 70% per gram (absolute, not relative to ground beef) protein depending on the brand. You still need to hydrate it and cook it properly with a good marinade, but then it can pretty easily beat ground beef or even chicken breast in protein by weight. For quality see the other reply.
- the_doctah 3y agoHere's what ChatGPT says Amino Acid Profile: Proteins are composed of amino acids, and the composition of amino acids can vary between animal and plant sources. Animal proteins tend to be "complete proteins" because they contain all the essential amino acids that the body cannot produce on its own. Plant proteins, on the other hand, may be "incomplete proteins" as they may lack or have lower levels of certain essential amino acids. However, by combining different plant protein sources (e.g., legumes with grains or seeds), vegans and vegetarians can achieve a complete amino acid profile. Digestibility: Animal proteins are generally more easily digested and absorbed by the body compared to plant proteins. This is primarily because animal proteins have a higher biological value, meaning they contain all the essential amino acids in the proportions needed by the human body. Plant proteins, especially those from whole food sources, may be slightly less digestible, but this can be improved by cooking, soaking, fermenting, or sprouting certain plant foods. Fat Content: Animal proteins often come with varying amounts of saturated fats and cholesterol, depending on the source. Plant proteins, on the other hand, are typically lower in saturated fats and devoid of cholesterol. Plant-based protein sources, such as legumes, tofu, tempeh, and certain nuts and seeds, can be particularly beneficial for individuals seeking lower fat and cholesterol intake. Fiber and Phytonutrients: Plant proteins are often accompanied by dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients present in the whole plant foods. These components offer additional health benefits and can help support digestive health, cardiovascular health, and overall well-being. Animal proteins, particularly those from lean sources, tend to have less fiber and fewer plant-based nutrients. Health Implications: Research suggests that the source of protein, whether from animal or plant sources, can have varying effects on health outcomes. High intake of animal protein, especially from processed or red meats, has been associated with increased risks of certain diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and some cancers. Plant protein, when part of a well-balanced diet, has been linked to lower risks of chronic diseases and overall improved health outcomes.
- proanimalia 3y agoIs kingdom animalia some magical line in the sand? Are we not okay with killing mosquitoes, bedbugs, or other (harmful) pests? The world is much more continuous than discrete, and any hard boundary is going to be arbitrary. I would guess the current median line (meaning 50% of people would be okay with vs against killing) is somewhere around small rodent, and unlikely to deviate far from that in the near future.
- cityofdelusion 3y agoWhy should animal slaughter be halted? I spend a lot of time outdoors and nature is exceedingly cruel. Animals and fish in my neck of the woods constantly are suffering with festering, infected wounds, missing limbs, gnawed up faces and especially, starvation. It just seems odd to direct our human emotions, experiences, and feelings towards other species when slaughter and death is part and parcel of their very existence. If the goal is to reduce animal suffering then we have to go way, way past not eating them since they inflict so much suffering on each other. Something like large non-profit zoos or preserves and eliminating all carnivores from the planet.
- jrflowers 3y ago> just put an end to all animal slaughter, extreme or not. How would you handle animals that are occupying land that you intend to plant crops in?
- johngladtj 3y agoI wish we could stop telling people what they can do with their property, so i guess neither of us are getting what we want.