DOG -Maltreatment- little girl - TAIWAN

If we assume that animals can suffer, and that plants can’t, and that we can survive without killing animals, then by this logic all animal use could be labelled as “undue”, and therefore unjustified, or something like that…

also by eating a plant you don’t necessarily kill it. But I don’t know if a hyper non plant killing vegan actually exists. That would definitely be an insane level of not harming stuff with your mouth.

1 Like

This study was cited in that article and looks very germane:

1 Like

And you’re getting kind of disingenuous with the “undue suffering” part.
There’s living out your life as a regular chicken (yes, even them, probably the stupidest animal alive, outside of lawyers), walking around the yard eating bugs and chasing the 4-year-old cousins when they visit from the city and then suddenly there’s a split second of shock as your noggin gets lopped off, and it’s all over, compared to spending that same entire existence in a dark ear-splittingly loud cavern where your lungs are scorched from ammonia fumes and your feet, lower legs, and nether regions are actually burned from constant exposure to accumulated urine.

[quote=“Liam_Og, post:61, topic:158264, full:true”]
also by eating a plant you don’t necessarily kill it. [/quote]

You’re talking about fruit, in which case, yes, you don’t kill the plant, you just eat its sexual organs.
That’s certainly nice.

1 Like

Except we can’t assume this because it’s demonstrably false. Growing and distributing vegetables inevitably involves killing or harming animals, including some cute furry ones, and degrading habitats (usually permanently) in which animals live happy, bouncy lives with their families and friends.

If you wanted to farm vegetables sustainably, you’d have to kill different animals. As Rocket said, death is all part of the entropy waterfall that keeps the world humming along. If you try to fix it you’ll break it.

2 Likes

Yes, although actually most of the crops we grow are used for animal feed. So we are caught at every turn…

Yea, that wasn’t me, that was the angry vegan speaking… if it was me id pick the backyard for sure. I’m nearly ready to eat a backyard chicken now, whoop!

any part of a plant, like you dont have to kill a lettuce to pull one leaf off. Got to be nice to the lettuce.

:ponder:
:ponder:
I don’t want to be mean but it is just itchinggggg me
:ponder:
:ponder:

ok, if vegan are against killing animals, does it mean that they are against abortion???
or maybe just against eating animals???

:happyrunningaround:

i am out — this is just me being baaaaaad

Like all those people locked in the basement in The Road where the guys would come down and cut off your leg to eat it and stitch you up until next time?
Don’t sound all that nice to me.

Anyways, see how far one leaf of lettuce gets you.

[quote=“Liam_Og, post:65, topic:158264, full:true”]
Yes, although actually most of the crops we grow are used for animal feed.[/quote]

Uh, no they aren’t? Most crops are cereal grains for human consumption. Anyways, ask brother @finley how he feels about the standard carb-rich diet.

1 Like

It’s not most crops, but a big fraction of corn and soy output is used for animal feed. Varies from country to country, depending on imports/exports. Dunno if it’s “most”, but it’s definitely a lot.

Point is, though, there is absolutely no reason why it should be done this way. It’s the bloody economists and lawyers again telling farmers how to farm. It’s a subversion of the natural pig, chicken, or ruminant way of doing things. All of these animals are supposed to eat things that humans physically can’t eat. They root up the ground and poop out manure, which in theory would (positively) alter the soil that they browse from. You can then rotate them through some other useless land and put more economically-useful crops on the land that they just improved for you, for free.

1 Like

Yea just to be clear I wasn’t arguing for veganism, but against Ricky Gervaisism , which basically refers to the guy who “loves” animals and gets on a high horse about it, all the while chowing down on a turkey sandwich.

The main thing I’m taking from this discussion is the urinal vegan picture. That pretty much sums it all up for me.

So do you think world food needs could be met using traditional methods, without factory farming?

IMO factory farms are the reason we’re worrying how to feed 9 billion people. They are hopelessly inefficient and wasteful compared to well-designed mixed farms.

2 Likes

Ever play this? Was popular when I was a kid. Human vivisection yay! http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~gameprof/gamewiki/images/d/d9/OperationGame.jpg

That’s not vivisection, that’s legitimate medical treatment. Fun as heck when it buzzed someone too.

2 Likes

Pretty heavy going, that report. I was able to skim it a bit. They were clearly coming at this with the idea that there would be a correlation with violence, understandably. They also clearly took great care to control for factors like low-income employment in general, etc. The short answer seems to be that there is some correlation with violent crime, which depends a lot on the size and type of facility. It’s a small effect on an individual basis, but living in a community with a large slaughterhouse would produce a noticeable cumulative effect (a couple of percent) in excess of what you would expect for similar low-income industries not involving slaughtering animals. So there is something there. On the other hand, “zoosadism” not being part of employment seems to be a pretty strong predictor of a propensity to violence. So it seems like there’s more than enough worry to go around here.

What’s the situation in Taiwan regarding factory farming? As bad as anywhere?

2 Likes

I don’t think it’s as bad as the US simply because the conditions are different. There are no big open spaces where you can hide a million-litre lake of pig poo. Farming of (say) pigs is probably better. Food scraps are sterilized and used for pig food, and pig manure is used as a valuable resource on farms. There’s also a general move, supported by the government, towards more ecologically-sound animal rearing practices.

Taiwan’s official slaughterhouse policies are very similar to the US. Whether corruption and mismanagement is on the same scale is anybody’s guess - I can’t find any online information about it.

The point of the game, though, was to avoid ‘buzzing’ the patient. Hypothetically, do you see any philosophical issues with a lifelike toy which is designed to be tortured? We have the technology to do it. You could probably make it cheap enough to be disposable. If your neighbour had a yard full of dismembered robot corpses in the backyard and you could hear the robotic screaming every night, would you call the police? What would they charge him with?

I’m just exploring the idea that our reaction to cruelty is as much about the debasement of the human involved as the subject of that cruelty.

Listen, I loved The Office and Extras as much as the next guy. I even mostly enjoyed Life’s Too Short.
But see, I grew up around people who didn’t eat cow meat. And people who didn’t eat pig meat. I grew up around people who only ate fish on Fridays. And yes, there were people who didn’t eat animals at all. And a lot, or most, of them had a system of belief that motivated them to do so. Big deal, nobody cared. Eat what you want to eat, believe what you want to believe.
To go onto a public forum and belittle or denigrate a particular segment of society simply because one didn’t agree with their dietary practices.or personal beliefs would have been pretty widely recognized as the behaviour of a certified Asshole.
As far as I’m concerned, it still does.

This is an interesting article on that topic. For the US the fraction for animal feed ranges between 4 and 100%. According to their stats.