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I understand the interest in a novel kind of engineering, and this seems to be more of a thought exercise than anything else. I also understand that not everyon
by Falling3 14y ago
I understand the interest in a novel kind of engineering, and this seems to be more of a thought exercise than anything else. I also understand that not everyone shares my views on animals, but this is such an awful exercise. This absurd mechanization of a living creature is just disgusting. Modern factory practices already deny animals of so many of their natural behaviors. This kind of thinking totally lacking in empathy and consequences scares the hell out of me.
- jon-wood 14y agoI'm one of Hubbub's developers (the one who attached lasers), and just wanted to respond to this because I can completely understand the distaste you're feeling. As you seem to realise, this is just an exercise in thinking "what if", I don't think anyone here would actually want to go ahead and make any of this happen, and we're definitely all very much against factory farming. Thats why we do what we do, giving independent butchers who genuinely care about the animals they raise a chance to compete with the big chains.
- jopt 14y agoWhat if the new chicken is hard-coded with a set of natural behaviors that are more conducive to food factory use?
- AngryParsley 14y agoOn the other hand, we could drastically improve the lives of farm animals if we engineered them more. For example, we could give them CIPA[1]. We could make their brains smaller. A vegetable chicken can't suffer. These modifications may sound perverse, but I doubt we're going to stop cooping these creatures up and killing them any time soon. We might as well do our best to reduce the amount of suffering we cause them. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hereditary_sensory_and_autonomic_neuropathy#Type_5.2C_Congenital_insensitivity_to_pain_with_partial_anhidrosis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hereditary_sensory_and_autonomi...
- Falling3 14y agoYou think factory farms are disturbing now? Just wait until animals cannot feel pain. I'm envisioning far more fights to the death for starters.
- AngryParsley 14y agoPainless death at the hands of other chickens sounds more moral than the current situation: a life of suffering followed by painful death at the hands of a machine. Of course if all chickens are born into a persistent vegetative state (or something close to it), I don't see how fights could happen. Also, farms where chickens kill each other would probably be less profitable than farms that slaughtered their chickens at the optimal time. Painless animals were discussed on Overcoming Bias a few years ago: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/09/painless-meat.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/09/painless-meat.html . Interestingly, vegetarians were more likely to oppose painless animals than meat-eaters.
- Falling3 14y agoWell animals in a coma all of their lives will clearly not being killing each other. You're right about profits though which of course is the driving force behind all of this. There's also human safety to consider. Painless, larger animals would be quite dangerous.
- jon-wood 14y agoHonestly, the driving force behind all of this is that we thought it was an interesting question which tells you about how people view food. My favourite answer so far has been "Don't redesign the chicken, redesign society to better use it."
- motoford 14y agoWhat you are proposing has been done already, well -- sort of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken