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0 pointsnicoburns3y ago0 comments

> Few other predators take the same trouble to ensure their prey is beyond suffering before beginning to eat.

I'd argue human factory farming practices are far worse than anything other predators do. Even cats that play with their food are better. At least that's relatively quick (a few hours at most). Humans frequently cause their prey to live their entire lives in tortuous conditions. The fact that the act of death itself is relatively painless is rather besides the point.

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6 comments · 3 top-level

chasil3y ago· 2 in thread

May I suggest that you acquire a dracunculiasis parasite to verify your perpsective?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis

anigbrowl3y ago

I think there's a scale issue here. For such a parasite, the host body is an environment rather than prey. It's analogous to our species' depressingly poor record of considering negative externalities.

chasil3y ago

If that's the case, then you should be able to easily manage the scale of this event in your life.

By all means, demonstrate it for us!

"Around a year later, the adult worm migrates to an exit site – usually a lower limb – and induces an intensely painful blister on the skin. The blister eventually bursts to form an intensely painful open wound, from which the worm slowly crawls over several weeks. The wound remains painful throughout the worm's emergence, disabling the infected person for the three to ten weeks it takes the worm to emerge."

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nerdponx3y ago· 1 in thread

It's probably worth separating slaughter and processing from raising.

In the USA, my understanding is that even small farms, using humane and environmentally friendly practices, still generally need to send the animals to a larger commercial facility for slaughter and processing. According to what I've read, this is largely due to USDA and/or FDA regulations that are cost-prohibitive to implement at a smaller scale.

jessaustin3y ago

This is a perfect example of how American capitalism abhors competition. I have used smaller, non-approved slaughterhouses and there's nothing wrong with them. If enough small slaughterhouses prospered to make the market for meat competitive, our masters would change the regulations again. Both farmers and consumers are at the mercy of Smithfield, Tyson, JBS, Cargill. While regulators refuse to enforce the law, we will remain so.

ethanbond3y ago

Not to mention that humans induce the creation of these lifelong sufferers. Animals in the wild do no such thing (or at least nowhere near the scale that humans do and certainly with nothing close to the cognitive abilities of the animals we do it to).

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