Saturated Fat Controversy

[The Grand Nudger]

If we were genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of livestock, we would insist on models and methods that improve their QOL and reduce stress at slaughter. Not argue against those models and methods..while floating a genocidal scheme.

No amount of arguing about macbooks or economic freedom or socialism or free markets or abortion can touch that reality.

[FlatAssembler]

If we were genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of livestock, we would insist on models and methods that improve their QOL and reduce stress at slaughter.  Not argue against those models and methods..while floating a genocidal scheme.  

No amount of arguing about macbooks or economic freedom or socialism or free markets or abortion can touch that reality.

Denying the scientific fact that CO2 poisoning is painful and adhering to the hypothesis that beheading is painful, which is believed by basically no neuroscientist, doesn't help us either.

[The Grand Nudger]

You could certainly shop your thesis around to any of the boards or advocacy groups that work towards making humane practices uniform. You'd be dismissed as a crank, but I'm sensing that this isn't a problem for you.

The concentration of CO2 determines it's effects (as do differences in biology)..but, in general, low concentrations are not capable of killing an animal, though they are capable of rendering it..first, disoriented, and then, unconscious. You could, if you wanted to, use CO2 to kill the livestock outright...but here again the process for doing so humanely is to first expose them to a low concentration, rendering them unconscious, then....-and only then- rapidly backfill the chamber.

No matter what the method used may be (and no matter how we kill) the goal is to render the animal insensate and immobile -before- you do anything that would cause pain or death. So...if you wanted to behead an animal, for example...you would still want them unconscious beforehand. Working with fish, I could very easily behead them....and this is not the case with a pig, but go ahead and find a pig to behead if you doubt that. Thing is, there's no need, since I use a spike to do the same job just that much more simply...leading to a more humane process for the fish and a better product for sale.

As someone who works in a slaughterhouse has already explained to you...beheading is just making more work for yourself than necessary....and, fwiw, animals tend to notice when the one in front of them has their head cut off.

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It is alright to have been wrong about something, man. Most people don't kill animals for a living, so it's not as if you'd be expected to understand how any of this shit works. I didn't know how it worked, I had to get trained. I've mentioned before that there's no shortage of things to be concerned about when it comes to conventionals. You don't have to die on this hill in order to take the prevailing model to task for actual and potential abuse of livestock. Especially when it comes to pigs and cattle.

How they're kept is a much larger problem than how they die. That's when they suffer. Farmed fish often live in what amounts to sewage. That's why it tastes like shit. Cattle have severe issues with confinement and a grain based diet...and pigs...fuck, don't even get me started. Those poor little fuckers live in a lightless hole if they're not being kept in a body fitting cage and it drives them nuts..to the point of violent cannibalism being a thing that the producers have to keep in check. Then..there are the beak-less chickens.......

All of these things are problems with a specific model, though. We don't have to keep livestock this way anymore than we have to kill them some specific way. That's what free range stuff is all about - though that classification is routinely gamed, particularly in the case of chickens. It's an issue of a very well worded access provision that actually was, unlike food safety regs, the product of a corporate conspiracy, lol.

[FlatAssembler]

You could certainly shop your thesis around to any of the boards or advocacy groups that work towards making humane practices uniform. You'd be dismissed as a crank, but I'm sensing that this isn't a problem for you.

The concentration of CO2 determines it's effects (as do differences in biology)..but, in general, low concentrations are not capable of killing an animal, though they are capable of rendering it..first, disoriented, and then, unconscious. You could, if you wanted to, use CO2 to kill the livestock outright...but here again the process for doing so humanely is to first expose them to a low concentration, rendering them unconscious, then....-and only then- rapidly backfill the chamber.

No matter what the method used may be (and no matter how we kill) the goal is to render the animal insensate and immobile -before- you do anything that would cause pain or death. So...if you wanted to behead an animal, for example...you would still want them unconscious beforehand. Working with fish, I could very easily behead them....and this is not the case with a pig, but go ahead and find a pig to behead if you doubt that. Thing is, there's no need, since I use a spike to do the same job just that much more simply...leading to a more humane process for the fish and a better product for sale.

As someone who works in a slaughterhouse has already explained to you...beheading is just making more work for yourself than necessary....and, fwiw, animals tend to notice when the one in front of them has their head cut off.

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It is alright to have been wrong about something, man. Most people don't kill animals for a living, so it's not as if you'd be expected to understand how any of this shit works. I didn't know how it worked, I had to get trained. I've mentioned before that there's no shortage of things to be concerned about when it comes to conventionals. You don't have to die on this hill in order to take the prevailing model to task for actual and potential abuse of livestock. Especially when it comes to pigs and cattle.

How they're kept is a much larger problem than how they die. That's when they suffer. Farmed fish often live in what amounts to sewage. That's why it tastes like shit. Cattle have severe issues with confinement and a grain based diet...and pigs...fuck, don't even get me started. Those poor little fuckers live in a lightless hole if they're not being kept in a body fitting cage and it drives them nuts..to the point of violent cannibalism being a thing that the producers have to keep in check. Then..there are the beak-less chickens.......

All of these things are problems with a specific model, though. We don't have to keep livestock this way anymore than we have to kill them some specific way. That's what free range stuff is all about - though that classification is routinely gamed, particularly in the case of chickens. It's an issue of a very well worded access provision that actually was, unlike food safety regs, the product of a corporate conspiracy, lol.

About CO2 suffocating, please have a look at this video, you can start somewhere from the middle:
https://youtu.be/HwxcKqXNRsM
This is footage from inside of the CO2 chamber. Are you telling me those pigs aren't in extreme pain? Are you a conspiracy theorist who will claim that footage is fake? Are you telling me pigs are pretending to be in pain? It would be hilarious if we weren't talking about something that happens again and again... because of people eating meat.

As for the rest of your post, it seems to me like a giant unicorn fallacy. You can imagine meat is produced humanely, so the criticism of the actual meat production seems besides the point to you.

[The Grand Nudger]

Why would I need to watch a video to tell me what I already know? What I -just- explained to you, in the post you quoted..and replied to? You're barking up the wrong tree with me, with a video like that, anyway. I'm thoroughly comfortable killing animals in ways that aren't at all humane. I've been doing that for a whole lot longer than I've concerned myself with best practices, which has also, already, been explained to you.

You seem to be missing the thread, entirely. It's not that I can imagine meat being produced humanely, I do it, and it's done. That doesn't mean that every system or operator is humane. For some people, the whole thing is irrelevant, it doesn't matter whether or not the meat is humanely produced..because...at the end of the day, you're still killing and eating the animal. That being the ultimate cruelty.

I don't begrudge anyone their dietary choices. We all have to eat. We all decide what we're comfortable eating. I've only tried to correct your very common misunderstandings of production and hunger. That's not likely to change what you are and aren't comfortable with, but I would hope that it changes how and what you argue for as it relates to production and hunger.

[FlatAssembler]

Why would I need to watch a video to tell me what I already know?

Because I assume you haven't seen the footage of how pigs that are being poisoned with CO2 behave. If you had, you wouldn't claim it's painless.

I'm thoroughly comfortable killing animals in ways that aren't at all humane.

If by that you mean killing fish, I agree with you. "Humanely" killing fish doesn't mean much when they demonstrably don't feel pain the way we do: they have little or no C-type neurofibres which humans need to feel pain, and they continue swimming normally when there is a hole in their fin.
If by that you mean killing birds and mammals... then do you also think harming humans is ethical?

For some people, the whole thing is irrelevant, it doesn't matter whether or not the meat is humanely produced..because...at the end of the day, you're still killing and eating the animal. That being the ultimate cruelty.

Well, yes, but if the farmed animals are already being killed, then we should at least ensure it's done humanely.

[The Grand Nudger]

A poor implementation of an effective form of anesthesia isn't going to produce the intended effects. This is going to be the case regardless of the method we use.

No animal feels pain "the way we do", as far as we can tell. Not fish, but not pigs or cattle either. Nevertheless, all three feel pain.The goal of humane slaughter is to minimize or eliminate what pain they feel, not what pain you or I might. That said, you're still barking up the wrong tree with all of these irrelevant sidelines. I'm not exactly a bleeding heart, not with livestock or with people.

That's the idea - that if we're going to kill them, we don't have to be assholes about it. This is more done for our benefit than theirs, in truth. They're going to die no matter how sweetly we plunge the knife. We may want to soften their end, but we're the ones who make that decision from start to finish and, if they could speak..they'd probably tell us they'd rather be alive than die a gentler death.

Here's the thing, though..as interesting as this conversation may be, as before, I'm not handing out any moral condemnation. I'm explaining why, and how, the two arguments you gave for veganism fail. It wouldn't help a single iota to address hunger in the world, and it doesn't have to be cruel. I'm sure that there are great arguments for veganism, that many people would find compelling. Neither of those is one. Whatever your position on livestock production may be, do you understand that much, now?

[FlatAssembler]

A poor implementation of an effective form of anesthesia isn't going to produce the intended effects. This is going to be the case regardless of the method we use.

Well, see, this is the Unicorn Fallacy.
First, what makes you think CO2 poisoning would be painless if it were done "properly"? I only see quite a few reasons to think otherwise.
Second, how is that relevant to whether it's ethical to eat meat today? That video shows how it usually happens today, and by buying meat, you are supporting that, not some imaginary slaughterhouses that kill animals painlessly.

I mean, you position is basically that you realize that meat, as is currently produced, causes a lot of environmental damage and a lot of animal suffering... but you have been convinced by some saturated fat denier and anti-GMO quack that meat can be produced in a way that doesn't do that... and that the laws which recommend non-science-based methods of "anesthesing" animals somehow make sense... and that it's therefore somehow ethical to eat meat today. Sorry, but that's the Unicorn Fallacy.

Would you use the MergeSort algorithm in your program just because, in theory, it always does n*log(n) operations, while QuickSort in theory can do up to n^2 operations, despite the empirical measurements showing that QuickSort is, on actual computers, significantly faster in the vast majority of cases? And eating meat is even worse that that, because there is no proof it actually can be produced efficiently, even in hypothetical scenarios.

No animal feels pain "the way we do", as far as we can tell. Not fish, but not pigs or cattle either. Nevertheless, all three feel pain.

What makes you think that's the case? You've been reading a lot about neuroscience from people who know less than nothing about it, right?
Scientists can easily determine which beings feel pain and which ones don't. There are mammals that demonstrably don't feel pain, such as naked mole rats. And, much like for naked mole rats, the only way to claim that fish feel pain is to make complicated ad-hoc hypotheses about how their nerve system functions. And claiming that crayfish (or bees, or any such animal) feel pain also requires claiming that much of what we know about neuroscience is false (a possible exception being octopuses, which have quite complicated nerve systems, but entirely different from humans). And claiming that sponges or non-animal creatures feel pain is an insane assertion.
So, please, let's direct our attention to what really matters. We shouldn't care about whether we are using a natural sponge for bathing or a synthetic one. We shouldn't care much if people have bought into the myth that omega-3s protect against heart disease and are eating expensive fish because of that, fish which is probably not killed "humanely". What we should care about is how farmed birds and mammals are being treated because of people eating meat.

It wouldn't help a single iota to address hunger in the world

Abaddon_ire claimed that the developed world eating vegan diets would hurt the poor countries, because many people there would lose their jobs. I explained why I think that's not a valid argument, and how people in the developed world going vegan might, for all we know, help the world's poor. Of course, it won't do much, it won't address the causes of poverty. It might just slightly decrease the prices of food. And I still think it actually would, because, as my math shows, more than half of human-edible grains are currently given to farmed animals.

and it doesn't have to be cruel

Maybe. But it currently is. And I don't see it's becoming less and less cruel over time. If anything, the cruelty is becoming less and less visible to humans, since people don't necessarily see the animals struggling to breathe in agony as they are being poisoned with CO2. And that's insane.

[The Grand Nudger]

-unto the end of days, lol.

So, lets recap.

CO2, at appropriate concentrations, is known to produce disorientation, and then unconsciousness. Done properly, the animal doesn't even know that it's happening. If rendering livestock unconscious before you slaughter it is not "humane enough" for you, then you're not actually making any argument about humane slaughter. A disingenuous objection is no objection at all.

Any drawdown in production would, invariably, hurt those people employed by that industry. Human beings don't compete with cattle for food. They compete with other human beings for food. The majority of grain fed to livestock is not grown for or fit for human consumption, and the majority of land used to produce feed grain is not suitable for the production of alternatives -for- human consumption. Further, if the grain were not grown to feed livestock..it simply would not be grown at all, full stop. No one would continue to grow a crop with no market, and the producers of the world aren't running some sort of redistributive charity to save the starving masses.

Finally, and this draws both topics together, criticism of a poor model is not criticism of livestock production as a whole. It doesn't have to be done in that particular way, and, in fact, there is no end to alternative models designed specifically to address those concerns. If you're uncomfortable with the way that animals live or meet their end, or with the environmental effects of production...then buy the product from someone who is similarly concerned, or not at all. Ethical producers would love to have your business. It's not easy to compete with the battery model.

[FlatAssembler]

CO2, at appropriate concentrations, is known to produce disorientation, and then unconsciousness. Done properly, the animal doesn't even know that it's happening.

Dude, I am almost certain you are wrong about this. Look, in humans, the airway starts to hurt when the concentration of CO2 in air gets to around 5%. Yet, only when it gets to around 40% do people lose consciousness. While there is a big difference in the concentrations causing death and ones causing unconsciousness (death occurs at around 70%), the concentrations needed to cause pain are many times lower than those needed to cause unconsciousness.
And I am not going to research this much further, I have mental health issues, and reading and watching vivid descriptions of what happens in slaughterhouses certainly isn't helping.

the majority of land used to produce feed grain is not suitable for the production of alternatives -for- human consumption.

Majority? Do you have some statistics about that?

Further, if the grain were not grown to feed livestock..it simply would not be grown at all, full stop.

Less grain is produced with the same resources, therefore, grain costs less.

Finally, and this draws both topics together, criticism of a poor model is not criticism of livestock production as a whole.

Dude... this sounds just so silly, and if you don't understand why, maybe you are a lost case.
Let's try this way. You are against death penalty, right? You think that the fact that around 4% of the people on the death row are innocent is a good argument against death penalty, right? Well, what if somebody told you "Well, it doesn't have to be done that way, there are tons of ways to improve that. We don't need to abolish death penalty altogether."? You see how stupid that is? That is how you sound to me.
Or what if somebody, in a debate about whether antivirus programs are useful, said something like "Well, yes, most of the antivirus programs today have a track record of having many false positives, some of them being as destructive as the actual malware. But there are tons of ways of improving those things. That's not a good reason not to use an antivirus software."? Yes, that's how you sound.
Also, if you are asking me to count the unnecessary suffering caused by imperfect plant food production today, you ought to also look at the much greater amount of unnecessary suffering caused by the way meat is produced today.