Boiling would have to be one of the most excruciating ways to die. Horrific pain at each and every pain sensor in your body for as long as you live. I can’t think of anything more painful. If you go unconscious that would be because there is so much pain that the brain cannot endure it and shuts down.
Quick? No idea. Wouldn’t want to find out. Start cold then heat it up? Perhaps that would prolong the agony, or perhaps the creatures would just go to sleep…
I would imagine when the nerve, let alone the spinal cord, is severed there is no pain. I’ve always thought chickens run around because of nerves firing randomly, as the steady stream of orders coming from Brain Central controlling things like balance and breathing are no longer coming, so things act randomly for a bit before shutting down too. People sometimes twitch when newly dead too…
The Western slaughter system is likely the most humane, painfree system of killing there is. Stun, then cut the throat. Decapitate. It’s brutally efficient, and has a kind of horror because of the unemotional cold-blooded machine aspect of it, but it’s painless. The cruelty of Western livestock lies in their lives, not their deaths.
Interesting ethical question. As I understand it, lobsters, frogs, prawns and shellfish are often boiled alive because they have no central nerve centre - often the entire spine is the brain stem, or there are two - and therefore there’s no way to shut it down and kill them quickly. As to the ethics, I wouldn’t object if boiling alive was illegal, and therefore these species were illegal to eat.
Interesting ethical question. As I understand it, lobsters, frogs, prawns and shellfish are often boiled alive because they have no central nerve centre - often the entire spine is the brain stem, or there are two - and therefore there’s no way to shut it down and kill them quickly. As to the ethics, I wouldn’t object if boiling alive was illegal, and therefore these species were illegal to eat.[/quote]
As George Orwell put it in Animal Farm,
“ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS”
[quote=“Mother Theresa”]As George Orwell put it in Animal Farm,
“ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS”[/quote]
As mah daddy used t’say, “Every man has his price, and mine is lower than most”.
If you can show there is a way to slaughter an animal that causes less pain, and you don’t hurt it any more than you have to knowingly (maliciously), that should be sufficient right? We sometimes ascribe human feelings and emotions to animals that just aren’t there, or aren’t provably there, like to the lowly shrimp, we see it twitching and we can’t help but imagine ourselves on that BBQ. It’s one of the things that puts humans “above” animals - empathy.
But that shrimp may not be able to feel “pain”, it might just be an electrical reaction to external stimuli, and they probably have no “thoughts” or “feelings” as we know it, just reactions. There’s a reason we’re called “higher level mammals” and it’s not because we killed a Beholder on level 9 of the Lich’s Lair, it’s because we provably have a consciousness and emotions and can plan and imagine. While we may not be able to quite prove it, I think most of us agree that a shrimp or an insect or maybe even a chicken does not qualify.
I generally follow the rule that my evangelical fruitcake coworker used to follow: “PETA stands for People for the Eating of Tasty Animals”, just don’t be malicious about it.
*** of course, he also was into interrogation equipment from the Inquisition, so you might take his concept with a grain of salt
Sorry, but that’s bollocks TwoTongues. Pain has to be one of the most basic stimuli there is; it’s nature’s way of saying “this is bad for you, don’t do it.” The other basic stimulus is pleasure receptors: nature’s way of saying “this is good for you (or your species), do more of it.” They’re both basic chemical/electrical impulses, for us and for every animal, but they have a profound effect on us. If we stick our hand in the fire, it bloody hurts! And we never, ever, want to do that again! In fact some people will look at fire and be absolutely terrified. And that’s the way it’s got to be: anything else just doesn’t work. Anything that says “oh, sticking my hand in fire, I got some kind of weird electrical response, let’s try that again” doesn’t work. Anything that says “Oooh, fire, you know what, I think I like that!” doesn’t work. Anything that says “Fire, shmire. Like water, only red coloured” doesn’t work. Whatever response that the brain gets from the nerves, it’s GOT to be something that profoundly disturbs the creature and discourages it from that behaviour. Same but opposite for pleasure: any stimulus that discourages creatures from eating or mating dooms that creature to an evolutionary failure. Pleasure receptors have GOT to actively encourage creatures.
You can say that shrimp are not “higher creatures” because they operate at a basic instinctive level, and have no concept of art or music or mathmatics, or “twue wuv”, but pain and pleasure are not “higher concepts.” They are at the very core of that basic instinctive level.
Chickens have all the ‘wiring’ that we do to experience pain. It’s a pretty wild assumption to say that it probably doesn’t do what ours does.
Yes. It’s because we’re the ones doing the labeling.
We don’t have a ‘higher’ intelligence; we have a different intelligence–one that is proving to be the end of us, at it causes us to manipulate our environment in ways other animals wouldn’t. Humans and their ‘different’ intelligence are proving to be a comparatively short, failed experiment.
The earthlings that ultimately endure will of course be of a different intelligence to ours–one that I’m guessing you might label ‘low-level’.
Let’s hope the last standing human ridicules the cockroaches and viruses for their lack of mental capacity so that we can have the last laugh, then.
I just want to say I totally agree with ice raven’s and stray dog’s comments above. Thanks for the clear words. I can’t believe that somebody can even think putting a chicken in boiling water is painfree and anything else but torture for the animal. Unfortunately, this seems to be a very common practice at factory farms for all kinds of animals, not just chicken, but also cows and pigs (not to speak of other kinds of horrors endured by those animals). That’s one of the reasons why I’ve become a vegetarian.
C’mon. I hate anthropomorphizing animals as much as you. They are intricate creatures working in a totally different way to us (and just as much a miracle). But you know as well as the rest of us that lack of “higher level” human emotions doesn’t rule out experiencing pain and loss.
So yes, thanks Stray dog and ice raven.
For the record, I agree. Pain is a very basic sensation, which must have evolved extremely early. And I think being dropped into boiling water alive must be as horrible for a chicken or cat or lobster as it is for a human. I partially freeze shrimp before putting them in the guillotine so they’ll be too numb to know what hit them. I’d extend any of you the same basic courtesy, if it ever came to that.
Well, the COA has ruled that its perfectly OK, as long as you’re not doing it for shits and giggles. I kid you not. One step forward, 17 steps back. Fucking clowns.
Yes pls freeze me solid before skewering me with a steel rod and putting me over the coals. But if a guillotine is to be used, id rather not be frozen first. As the steel blade should be quite fast and relatively painless. Your eyes will just have a second to see yourself removed from your bod I think.
hotel fined 100,000 nt for the chicken stunt.[/quote]
good there is no excuse for that kind of cruelty.
[/quote]
Couldn’t agree more. It’s just sick.[/quote]
I definitely agree too. However, pls don’t forget here that this is not an isolated incident and it should be seen in the grander context of industrial farming and even our culture of eating meat. What I mean is that cruelties of this kind happen on a regular basis millions of times every day all over the world (yes, EVEN in such civilized countries as the US and EU) and is considered normal practice and is therefore NOT fined. The problem is nobody knows about these things, because apparently there is no media interest in such mundane things as farm animals and how they are treated, thus nobody cares.
Why do I mention this? I just finished reading a book called “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer which powerfully documents facts about this subject matter which sadly are not known to the general public. I highly recommend this book to everyone, meat eater or not. Check for amazon reviews: amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jo … 892&sr=8-1
For the record, I’m by no means an animal rights activist, just a regular vegetarian. Peace!
hotel fined 100,000 nt for the chicken stunt.[/quote]
good there is no excuse for that kind of cruelty.
[/quote]
Couldn’t agree more. It’s just sick.[/quote]
I definitely agree too. However, pls don’t forget here that this is not an isolated incident and it should be seen in the grander context of industrial farming and even our culture of eating meat. What I mean is that cruelties of this kind happen on a regular basis millions of times every day all over the world (yes, EVEN in such civilized countries as the US and EU) and is considered normal practice and is therefore NOT fined. The problem is nobody knows about these things, because apparently there is no media interest in such mundane things as farm animals and how they are treated, thus nobody cares.
Why do I mention this? I just finished reading a book called “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer which powerfully documents facts about this subject matter which sadly are not known to the general public. I highly recommend this book to everyone, meat eater or not. Check for amazon reviews: amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jo … 892&sr=8-1
For the record, I’m by no means an animal rights activist, just a regular vegetarian. Peace! [/quote]
I’m not a veggie like yourself and have hunted and killed such things as rabbits in England. However I do agree about factory farming being bad. I once worked in a turkey farm as a teenager around 25 years ago and it was really sick! Not good at all. I feel that the eating of game animals such as pheasants and grouse is far more humane. After all at least they get to live a free life before they get shot. Unlike those birds confined to little cages not big enough to turn around in.
Yah it’s sick as I said I’ve seen it first hand. I agree people get too hung up on the individual cases and looking at the situation organically is important. A guy keeping his dog on a small chain for its whole life is cruel but if you compare that to the cruelty to wild animals resulting from chopping down thousands of square miles of rain forest or the production farming of meat chickens it is minimal.
