7 ms·

This is nothing but plutocracy fighting its final battle. No one is actually suggesting that animal cruelty is OK. But when documenting such (immoral, mind you

by yuvadam 14y ago

This is nothing but plutocracy fighting its final battle. No one is actually suggesting that animal cruelty is OK. But when documenting such (immoral, mind you) acts raises awareness that eventually harms business, in the meat and dairy industry in this case, then big money raises its head in the form of legislation that favors the $$$. We see the same pattern when hackers are cast as the new terrorists.

pm24601 14y ago
"final battle" ? Not hardly. This continues to be a successful tactic of suppression
randomdata 14y ago
I wonder how the tech community would respond if undercover reporters were breaking into offices and documenting the "incomprehensible" C that managers are forcing down on employees when they could be purportedly writing software in English, and people stopped using software to help free the abused employees who are stuffed in a small cubicle to write nonsensical gibberish day-in, day-out? That is what this situation seems like. Animal cruelty is definitely not okay, but I have noticed a growing trend of reporting best practices, that attempt to minimize animal suffering as much as possible, as animal cruelty. And the solutions people are coming up with to improve on those best practices are as non-sensical as a non-industry expert suggesting that we write software in English. In a perfect world, sure, but the real world has real constraints. I would like to see real awareness, not people who feel they are experts on all rural affair matters after watching a two hour documentary and a YouTube clip or two. A video ban is definitely not the way to do that, but I can see the other side. Google isn't going to be too happy if you go around filming their datacenter, lamenting that you could do the same with a server in your closet at home, either.
- carbocation 14y ago
  Not that this is really relevant to the topic at hand, but are you actually drawing an equivalency between people who get paid to write code for a living and an animal being slaughtered? I don't think the analogy works at all.
  - randomdata 14y ago
    No. I'm saying people who do not understand technology could be lead to believe such things if people started reporting it. Nobody is going to take the time to realize that people actually enjoy writing software using programming languages. And I'm not suggesting animals enjoy being slaughtered, but if it is going to happen, do you not support doing it the most humane way possible?
    - glesica 14y ago
      I support free information. If "best practices" in animal slaughter gross people out, then maybe we need better "best practices" or maybe we need to rethink our agriculture system. Just because something has been decided upon by a group of experts does not make it socially just or appropriate. The treatment of slaves was, I'm sure, generally done according to what, at that time, would have been considered "best practices", and people wanted cotton. But that doesn't mean that slavery should have been ignored and "left to the professionals".
      - randomdata 14y ago
        I am sure agriculture would love to work with the people concerned about current best practices to find new and better best practices. Agribusiness is always at the forefront of technology and is quick to adopt better ways. The problem is that the people who come with concern tend to not take time to understand the situation. I recall a recent incident with a celebrity suggesting dairy farmers should breed their calves to not have horns. Great idea in theory. The genes do exist in some living cattle, but it is quite rare. Anyone with even a basic understanding of biology can see how that isn't going to work out so well, but we cannot even seem to find that level of understanding out there.
        glesica 14y ago
        They demonstrate this by lobbying to suppress freedom of speech? Weird. You haven't justified restricting free speech. I am willing (happy) to admit that some animal-rights people are uninformed blowhards. But that doesn't justify punching holes in the first amendment.
- Zigurd 14y ago
  Governments and large corporations, simply because of the size of their budgets, seem to be the biggest victims of bad practices in software development. If the public understood these boondoggles better, compared with, say, cost overruns on construction projects, taxpayers and shareholders might be better off. I really don't see the downside to greater transparency in most endeavors. Either there isn't an analogy here, or livestock farming is somehow special, which I'm also not seeing how that is.
  - randomdata 14y ago
    The analogy is that software companies would react the same way, if faced with the same problem. I'd love to walk into a large software company and document all of their inefficiencies to share with everyone, but I suspect I'd quickly end up in legal hot water, even as the law is written today.
    - sophistroll 14y ago
      I don't think text files should have the same rights as animals. Yet.
    - Zigurd 14y ago
      > I'd love to walk into a large software company and document all of their inefficiencies to share with everyone Many large software companies develop some of their software in the open, recognizing the benefits of such transparency. You only have to peruse Github and other repo sites. The idea of developing software in the open is widely adopted, and practically a requirement for some kinds of software, like cryptography and other security software. It seems more natural to draw the exact opposite analogy: If proper handling of livestock and meat is critical to one's safety, meat production should be as easy to monitor as "git log" for a repo of crypto software.
      - randomdata 14y ago
        To be fair, I haven't met many farmers that wouldn't love to have you come tour their operation. In fact, its pretty common, at least where I reside, for farmers to host open houses so people can do exactly that. Certain species are prone to illness by human exposure, so there are some limitations on certain farms, but generally farmers are proud about what they are producing and love to show it off. If you feel there is a lack of transparency, I would suggest it is primarily due to distance. When the nearest metropolitan area is hours away, you get a disconnect on several levels. If you don't already have connections to farmers, its difficult to find the connections to build the opportunities to learn more, granted. Especially when you consider that only 2-3% of the population are farming to begin with.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  I have noticed a growing trend of reporting best practices, that attempt to minimize animal suffering as much as possible, as animal cruelty. I am reminded of Mike Rowe's discussion about castration and docking of lambs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-udsIV4Hmc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-udsIV4Hmc
- kragen 14y ago
  I have noticed a growing trend of reporting best practices, that attempt to minimize animal suffering as much as possible, as animal cruelty. What are these best practices, and how do they get reported? I noticed the article said the same thing, but didn't give any examples.
igravious 14y ago
I picked up Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature the other day† and I have to say that it allows me to view this whole episode quite clearly. Pinker documents the increasing ratcheting down of violence in humanity, perhaps not in absolute terms but certainly in percentage of population terms. Take modern Western Europe, it has statistically the lowest homicide rate compared to anywhere and any time. The decrease in violence has occurred with what Pinker calls Rights Revolutions at two points in history, around about the time of the American and French revolution and mid-twentieth century onwards. So we have people asserting the rights of man in general leading to the abolition of chattel slavery, the rights of woman in particular, gay rights, the rights of children, and recently the rights of animals. In England the last blood sport (fox hunting) was recently outlawed in the teeth of much protest from the good old boys that think cruelty to animals is A OK. These rights revolutions stem from ideas born out the Age of Reason and the Age of Enlightenment which led most famously the amendments to the US constitution but which have there parallel in most of the Western world. Forces that work against these ideas are thus called counter-enlightenment forces. Getting back to the issue at hand (I've got a point I tells ya!) these laws represent a back-sliding and we should take these counter-enlightenment forces very seriously - we are talking about a centuries long struggle to eliminate violence (of whatever type) from our societies. I guarantee you that future generations will look back at our times and recoil in horror at the way we treat animals in much the same way that systemic torture, bear-baiting, corporal punishment, domestic abuse and so on leave most of us (apart from the odd sadist and sociopathic outlier) sickened nowadays. † I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Here it is on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1455883115 http://www.amazon.com/dp/1455883115
samegreatsleeve 14y ago
How is it a final battle? The plutocracy is not going anywhere. It is the new organizational principle for the Earth and it will last 2000 years just as the previous organizational principle did.

by yuvadam 14y ago

pm24601 14y ago

"final battle" ? Not hardly. This continues to be a successful tactic of suppression

randomdata 14y ago

I wonder how the tech community would respond if undercover reporters were breaking into offices and documenting the "incomprehensible" C that managers are forcing down on employees when they could be purportedly writing software in English, and people stopped using software to help free the abused employees who are stuffed in a small cubicle to write nonsensical gibberish day-in, day-out? That is what this situation seems like. Animal cruelty is definitely not okay, but I have noticed a growing trend of reporting best practices, that attempt to minimize animal suffering as much as possible, as animal cruelty. And the solutions people are coming up with to improve on those best practices are as non-sensical as a non-industry expert suggesting that we write software in English. In a perfect world, sure, but the real world has real constraints. I would like to see real awareness, not people who feel they are experts on all rural affair matters after watching a two hour documentary and a YouTube clip or two. A video ban is definitely not the way to do that, but I can see the other side. Google isn't going to be too happy if you go around filming their datacenter, lamenting that you could do the same with a server in your closet at home, either.

carbocation 14y ago
Not that this is really relevant to the topic at hand, but are you actually drawing an equivalency between people who get paid to write code for a living and an animal being slaughtered? I don't think the analogy works at all.
- randomdata 14y ago
  No. I'm saying people who do not understand technology could be lead to believe such things if people started reporting it. Nobody is going to take the time to realize that people actually enjoy writing software using programming languages. And I'm not suggesting animals enjoy being slaughtered, but if it is going to happen, do you not support doing it the most humane way possible?
  - glesica 14y ago
    I support free information. If "best practices" in animal slaughter gross people out, then maybe we need better "best practices" or maybe we need to rethink our agriculture system. Just because something has been decided upon by a group of experts does not make it socially just or appropriate. The treatment of slaves was, I'm sure, generally done according to what, at that time, would have been considered "best practices", and people wanted cotton. But that doesn't mean that slavery should have been ignored and "left to the professionals".
    - randomdata 14y ago
      I am sure agriculture would love to work with the people concerned about current best practices to find new and better best practices. Agribusiness is always at the forefront of technology and is quick to adopt better ways. The problem is that the people who come with concern tend to not take time to understand the situation. I recall a recent incident with a celebrity suggesting dairy farmers should breed their calves to not have horns. Great idea in theory. The genes do exist in some living cattle, but it is quite rare. Anyone with even a basic understanding of biology can see how that isn't going to work out so well, but we cannot even seem to find that level of understanding out there.
      - glesica 14y ago
        They demonstrate this by lobbying to suppress freedom of speech? Weird. You haven't justified restricting free speech. I am willing (happy) to admit that some animal-rights people are uninformed blowhards. But that doesn't justify punching holes in the first amendment.
Zigurd 14y ago
Governments and large corporations, simply because of the size of their budgets, seem to be the biggest victims of bad practices in software development. If the public understood these boondoggles better, compared with, say, cost overruns on construction projects, taxpayers and shareholders might be better off. I really don't see the downside to greater transparency in most endeavors. Either there isn't an analogy here, or livestock farming is somehow special, which I'm also not seeing how that is.
- randomdata 14y ago
  The analogy is that software companies would react the same way, if faced with the same problem. I'd love to walk into a large software company and document all of their inefficiencies to share with everyone, but I suspect I'd quickly end up in legal hot water, even as the law is written today.
  - sophistroll 14y ago
    I don't think text files should have the same rights as animals. Yet.
  - Zigurd 14y ago
    > I'd love to walk into a large software company and document all of their inefficiencies to share with everyone Many large software companies develop some of their software in the open, recognizing the benefits of such transparency. You only have to peruse Github and other repo sites. The idea of developing software in the open is widely adopted, and practically a requirement for some kinds of software, like cryptography and other security software. It seems more natural to draw the exact opposite analogy: If proper handling of livestock and meat is critical to one's safety, meat production should be as easy to monitor as "git log" for a repo of crypto software.
    - randomdata 14y ago
      To be fair, I haven't met many farmers that wouldn't love to have you come tour their operation. In fact, its pretty common, at least where I reside, for farmers to host open houses so people can do exactly that. Certain species are prone to illness by human exposure, so there are some limitations on certain farms, but generally farmers are proud about what they are producing and love to show it off. If you feel there is a lack of transparency, I would suggest it is primarily due to distance. When the nearest metropolitan area is hours away, you get a disconnect on several levels. If you don't already have connections to farmers, its difficult to find the connections to build the opportunities to learn more, granted. Especially when you consider that only 2-3% of the population are farming to begin with.
sliverstorm 14y ago
I have noticed a growing trend of reporting best practices, that attempt to minimize animal suffering as much as possible, as animal cruelty. I am reminded of Mike Rowe's discussion about castration and docking of lambs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-udsIV4Hmc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-udsIV4Hmc
kragen 14y ago
I have noticed a growing trend of reporting best practices, that attempt to minimize animal suffering as much as possible, as animal cruelty. What are these best practices, and how do they get reported? I noticed the article said the same thing, but didn't give any examples.

igravious 14y ago

I picked up Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature the other day† and I have to say that it allows me to view this whole episode quite clearly. Pinker documents the increasing ratcheting down of violence in humanity, perhaps not in absolute terms but certainly in percentage of population terms. Take modern Western Europe, it has statistically the lowest homicide rate compared to anywhere and any time. The decrease in violence has occurred with what Pinker calls Rights Revolutions at two points in history, around about the time of the American and French revolution and mid-twentieth century onwards. So we have people asserting the rights of man in general leading to the abolition of chattel slavery, the rights of woman in particular, gay rights, the rights of children, and recently the rights of animals. In England the last blood sport (fox hunting) was recently outlawed in the teeth of much protest from the good old boys that think cruelty to animals is A OK. These rights revolutions stem from ideas born out the Age of Reason and the Age of Enlightenment which led most famously the amendments to the US constitution but which have there parallel in most of the Western world. Forces that work against these ideas are thus called counter-enlightenment forces. Getting back to the issue at hand (I've got a point I tells ya!) these laws represent a back-sliding and we should take these counter-enlightenment forces very seriously - we are talking about a centuries long struggle to eliminate violence (of whatever type) from our societies. I guarantee you that future generations will look back at our times and recoil in horror at the way we treat animals in much the same way that systemic torture, bear-baiting, corporal punishment, domestic abuse and so on leave most of us (apart from the odd sadist and sociopathic outlier) sickened nowadays. † I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Here it is on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1455883115 http://www.amazon.com/dp/1455883115

samegreatsleeve 14y ago

How is it a final battle? The plutocracy is not going anywhere. It is the new organizational principle for the Earth and it will last 2000 years just as the previous organizational principle did.