Help Ban Horrifying Animal Abuse Videos in the Philippines

  On 7/18/2013 at 7:20 PM, lumpenprol said:

Although living in China is another good incentive, everything meat-ish is tainted...

I've always wondered about the difference between actual Chinese food and the kind we get in the west. Can you explain more about how the meat is tainted?

  On 7/20/2013 at 9:59 PM, luke viia said:

My mom raises chickens (about a dozen of them) and they are very well taken care of, and seem healthy as they run around outside the coop during the day. My parents collect eggs every day. So yeah, I think you can raise them ethically.

i also kinda think so, i mean you do offer chickens a safe environment and good food in exchange for some of its fetuses, so it is exploitation but in a mild form, like capitalists who pay decent wages to the employees . but imagine the actual physical space needed if everyone switched to this mode of extracting eggs.

Err yeah 'free range' and 'organic' are a whole other conversation.

I think in the US the minimum requirement for calling something 'free range' is that the animal was allowed outdoors for 10 or 20 minutes (i'm not certain of the exact timespan but it is very short and very contrary to the ideas most people have about 'free range').

'Organic' is equally un-sexy. FDA sucks, obviously.

  On 7/20/2013 at 10:03 PM, eugene said:

 

  On 7/20/2013 at 9:59 PM, luke viia said:

My mom raises chickens (about a dozen of them) and they are very well taken care of, and seem healthy as they run around outside the coop during the day. My parents collect eggs every day. So yeah, I think you can raise them ethically.

i also kinda think so, i mean you do offer chickens a safe environment and good food in exchange for some of its fetuses, so it is exploitation but in a mild form, like capitalists who pay decent wages to the employees . but imagine the actual physical space needed if everyone switched to this mode of extracting eggs.

 

yeah there would be chicken rapists everywhere

"extracting eggs," lol. "to draw or pull out" is not exactly how i'd describe the process. they do most of the pushing themselves and they're pretty proud when it's over, usually making a self-congratulatory racket.

It doesn't take too much space tbh. People do it in their backyards here in Seattle (it's legal, and there are pretty comprehensive rules about raising them). Crowding them in industrial facilities actually makes things way harder - they sit in their own filth and fight each other, get sick often and turn the ground into dust. I think more people raising livestock is a way better solution personally!

  On 7/20/2013 at 10:09 PM, luke viia said:

It doesn't take too much space tbh. People do it in their backyards here in Seattle (it's legal, and there are pretty comprehensive rules about raising them). Crowding them in industrial facilities actually makes things way harder - they sit in their own filth and fight each other, get sick often and turn the ground into dust. I think more people raising livestock is a way better solution personally!

Definitely

  On 7/20/2013 at 10:03 PM, eugene said:

 

  On 7/20/2013 at 9:59 PM, luke viia said:

My mom raises chickens (about a dozen of them) and they are very well taken care of, and seem healthy as they run around outside the coop during the day. My parents collect eggs every day. So yeah, I think you can raise them ethically.

i also kinda think so, i mean you do offer chickens a safe environment and good food in exchange for some of its fetuses, so it is exploitation but in a mild form, like capitalists who pay decent wages to the employees . but imagine the actual physical space needed if everyone switched to this mode of extracting eggs.

 

lol, they aren't fetuses. the eggs we eat (factory style) are unfertilized. free range eggs can be fertilized, but no one is really eating fetuses. we scoop em up right after they're laid, way before that happens.

theft.

we are speaking in terms of the same emotional connection that an aspiring human mother would have for her eggs, fertilized or not, if they were to be taken from her by force. of course it would be a more invasive process, but the emotional attachment remains the same. the same theft and uncomfortable circumstances are taking place when a mother is kept from her young to harvest her milk or her lactation is artificially sustained for harvesting purposes, not to mention the grotesque metal gear being hooked to her titties. if one denies that animals feel emotion then just grab one and squeeze the life out of it; the sound u hear is emotion and it is pain.

  On 7/20/2013 at 10:11 PM, luke viia said:

  On 7/20/2013 at 10:03 PM, eugene said:

  On 7/20/2013 at 9:59 PM, luke viia said:

My mom raises chickens (about a dozen of them) and they are very well taken care of, and seem healthy as they run around outside the coop during the day. My parents collect eggs every day. So yeah, I think you can raise them ethically.

i also kinda think so, i mean you do offer chickens a safe environment and good food in exchange for some of its fetuses, so it is exploitation but in a mild form, like capitalists who pay decent wages to the employees . but imagine the actual physical space needed if everyone switched to this mode of extracting eggs.

lol, they aren't fetuses. the eggs we eat (factory style) are unfertilized. free range eggs can be fertilized, but no one is really eating fetuses. we scoop em up right after they're laid, way before that happens.

hah, good point. but still it is somewhat a byproduct of human intervention, the separation of hens and cocks. im thinking in ideal terms here, if those eggs were a complete waste/byproduct of chicken's life from chicken's pov then it would have merit, but it's still kinda far from that.

regarding the space needed you really need to look at the big picture, i mean every human being who eats eggs regularly (once a day for example) would need a personal chicken which would require another pretty large room.

if we could make insects as big as people would it be cruel to put them in an arena and watch them battle

i mean of course its kinda mean

but would peta care?

Redruth, you're entitled to your opinion, and I think you should avoid eating eggs if you feel that way, but I think you're putting a lot of non-existent emotional baggage onto these chickens. I'm going to keep eating good eggs, and I don't think I'm a theif for doing so. I'd have to take it even further and say I'm a thief for stealing the fruits of a tree, yeah? When done right, we have meaningful relationships with these plants and animals, and it isn't theft. You're essentially projecting your own morals onto the natural world, which is unfortunately unethical. As a similar example: a woman came in to a pet store that my gf worked at, asking how she could heal her very sick labrador. She had been feeding it a vegan diet. The dog was naturally not doing well. The woman refused to take my gf's advice that the dog needed to eat meat: it is a carnivore. The woman wouldn't have it, and left. She thinks that eating meat - by any animal - is immoral. I believe she was treating her dog unethically by being idealistic and unrealistic, and if she didn't wise up, it's probably dead now.

Eugene: Not everyone would need to raise chickens to get eggs to a town, and yeah, I agree: people need to stop eating so many animal products in general if we're ever going to apporach a steady-state food system.

the solution is in genetic engineering i guess, scientists should crossbreed a chicken and a cat somehow. basically an animal with all of the features of a typical apartment cat that eats hay and poops a tasty egg once a day.

Back on topic, I'm on board with Limpy here:

  On 7/19/2013 at 8:10 AM, LimpyLoo said:

Just to reiterate: it really irks me that this in particular bothers people.

 

The irony is that outrage over these videos actually weakens my faith in the future of animal rights.

Emotional stories are good to get us all feeling moral from time to time, but the real problem of animal rights abuse is systemic and we're all part of it, IMO.

  On 7/20/2013 at 10:47 PM, eugene said:

the solution is in genetic engineering i guess, scientists should crossbreed a chicken and a cat somehow. basically an animal with all of the features of a typical apartment cat that eats hay and poops a tasty egg once a day.

If eggs came out of my cats mouth instead of meows, I'd be one happy bastard.

  On 7/20/2013 at 10:37 PM, RadarJammer said:

if we could make insects as big as people would it be cruel to put them in an arena and watch them battle

i mean of course its kinda mean

 

but would peta care?

lol

Couldn't you just film normal-sized insects and just put them up on a jumbotron?

  On 7/20/2013 at 10:43 PM, luke viia said:

Redruth, you're entitled to your opinion, and I think you should avoid eating eggs if you feel that way, but I think you're putting a lot of non-existent emotional baggage onto these chickens. I'm going to keep eating good eggs, and I don't think I'm a theif for doing so. I'd have to take it even further and say I'm a thief for stealing the fruits of a tree, yeah? When done right, we have meaningful relationships with these plants and animals, and it isn't theft. You're essentially projecting your own morals onto the natural world, which is unfortunately unethical. As a similar example: a woman came in to a pet store that my gf worked at, asking how she could heal her very sick labrador. She had been feeding it a vegan diet. The dog was naturally not doing well. The woman refused to take my gf's advice that the dog needed to eat meat: it is a carnivore. The woman wouldn't have it, and left. She thinks that eating meat - by any animal - is immoral. I believe she was treating her dog unethically by being idealistic and unrealistic, and if she didn't wise up, it's probably dead now.

 

you are only able to say this because we cannot have a conversation with the chicken, although all the proper signs are clearly present. have you ever tried to take the eggs from a chicken directly? it brings out a fowl mood; she will peck yr prick off friend and blow your ears off with her thundering cock-a-doodle-doo sounds. if she were bigger she would likely do the same damage a human mother or father would do when attempts r made to steal offspring or potential offspring.

she is doing it wrong. chia is one of many secrets to allowing dogs the ability to thrive on the vegan diet, but a dog will suffer if we do not know how to take its needs properly into consideration. there are literally thousands of dogs in perfect health eating no meat at all. they have a much easier time doing this then cats however. even so, in india, many tigers eat almost exclusively from durian trees during the fruits long season.

  On 7/20/2013 at 10:43 PM, luke viia said:

I'd have to take it even further and say I'm a thief for stealing the fruits of a tree, yeah?

stealing fruit from a tree? wat? have u ever tried to plant a seed of fruit under a tree? they don't grow very well. other creatures are designed to help; to spread the seeds of the trees. this is not stealing, this is symbiosis; it is the tree giving the gift of colorful, sweet parts in exchange for a service. many creatures, including humans r perfectly designed to do this work with all the plants in the earth. in fact, this is our job, it is our responsibility, that is, if we were not so distracted, strangling chickens and shopping at morrisons

I'm not strangling chickens, lol.

I've definitely collected eggs, and didn't go through what you apparently did. Sorry to hear it was so traumatizing.

You've got a good point that we just can't know how chickens feel about this treatment. That seems to be the way of the world, unfortunately. I like feeding my parents chickens, collecting their eggs (they've never attacked me), and guarding them from natural predators - like those crazy weasels - at night. It does feel like I'm helping them, and I'm helping people around me to eat food that they can sustain indefinitely, despite the chickens maybe not being 100% happy with this setup. I'd love it if there was a way to make them entirely pleased, but I don't know how, and I don't think that they'd have better lives if I bought their eggs from somewhere else.

Not gonna stop the world from eating eggs, so I guess my position is one of practicality and self-sustainability. I would like the world to stop eating so much goddamn beef, though.

luke, let's build a commune together.

I'd actually be quite tempted to join some kind of commune thing, as long as the people involved weren't animal-rights extremists/new-age nutters/luddites.

So, I guess that means a nude camp is out of the question?

you'll want to reconsider that one

  On 7/20/2013 at 10:03 PM, rumbo said:

 

  On 7/18/2013 at 7:20 PM, lumpenprol said:

Although living in China is another good incentive, everything meat-ish is tainted...

 

I've always wondered about the difference between actual Chinese food and the kind we get in the west. Can you explain more about how the meat is tainted?

 

well first of all meat in the west is also quite tainted apparently, with hormones and antibiotics. And I've heard the same issues in China. There also may be some further complications you don't find in the US, to whit: I've heard human birth control pills are fed to farm fish to increase their size, which leads to among other things lower sperm count in Chinese men. Pigs are apparently fed human waste and sewage (not necessarily toxic to you, but GIGO). Fruits, veggies, and rice are sprayed with whatever, including the widespread use of DDT (banned in the West as you probably know). This has to get into the "meat food chain" as well.

On the other hand, there are plenty of small farmers who probably don't give hormones and antibiotics to their livestock/animals. The trick is finding them...

I grew up in the country near a diary farm plus knew farmers and from what I saw the industry isn't as bad as some people say.

The cows are allowed to roam free all day in the fields eating grass and are milked either in the morning or when they come in (can't remember which). The milking process is not painful (done correctly) and in fact can be a relief as its uncomfortable to carry the milk around.

The calfs are not taken away straight away but will be separated when they reach a certain age and yes I admit sold on to either another diary or sold for meat.

In terms of eggs I disagree that a hen becomes attached to an unfertilised egg as it does not contain a foetus and they can tell.

I did try and become a vegan once (and lasted several months), however it did make me very weak and ill. Kudos to people who keep it up long term.

I think (as others have probably said) that all guilt and harm can be avoided if you simply eat local. Find a good farm, get to know the owners, their methods etc. I rarely eat any kind of meat, eggs or fish from the supermarket anymore. I have a local farm/butcher near me that i get 99% of my meat from.

I actually agree that the widespread factory farm murder of animals is nearly if not equally horrifying as crush films. I have a friend who did extensive research into this, and the results were beyond shocking, past even what I had read in some articles and seen in some documentaries. Supermarket meat is something to stay away from, hell, it's even unhealthy for you. Nobody wins.

Locally, the farmer continues to make a living, and you are rewarded with delicious local meats and poultry from animals that actually got to live their life in the country free from pain and torture. Everybody wins.

Unfortunately, not everyone lives in the country or near a good local source.

  On 7/20/2013 at 10:32 PM, Redruth said:

theft.

 

we are speaking in terms of the same emotional connection that an aspiring human mother would have for her eggs, fertilized or not, if they were to be taken from her by force. of course it would be a more invasive process, but the emotional attachment remains the same. the same theft and uncomfortable circumstances are taking place when a mother is kept from her young to harvest her milk or her lactation is artificially sustained for harvesting purposes, not to mention the grotesque metal gear being hooked to her titties. if one denies that animals feel emotion then just grab one and squeeze the life out of it; the sound u hear is emotion and it is pain.

Buttock

  On 7/22/2013 at 1:54 AM, MadameChaos said:

I grew up in the country near a diary farm

i bet you got loads of gossip

  On 7/20/2013 at 10:32 PM, Redruth said:

theft.

 

we are speaking in terms of the same emotional connection that an aspiring human mother would have for her eggs, fertilized or not, if they were to be taken from her by force. of course it would be a more invasive process, but the emotional attachment remains the same. the same theft and uncomfortable circumstances are taking place when a mother is kept from her young to harvest her milk or her lactation is artificially sustained for harvesting purposes, not to mention the grotesque metal gear being hooked to her titties. if one denies that animals feel emotion then just grab one and squeeze the life out of it; the sound u hear is emotion and it is pain.

Does this apply to seeds, bacteria, yeast, mycelium and other non furry/feathery things, cause if so its all fucked by that standard.

Breed a plant for seeds, you're stealing its babies? Bake a loaf of bread, you just went holocaust on a bunch of live yeast? Eat yoghurt and you destroy active cultures?

I agree that most of our meat farming (or most mass farming) practices are grotesque and unstable, but the line is drawn by different people at different places, I guess.

I for one am a level five vegan, and don't eat anything that casts a shadow