Illegal farming practices

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mental vagrant
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Illegal farming practices

Post by mental vagrant »

This video is extremely unpleasant, it has a 18+ age recommendation. It's videos of animal abuse, often resulting in what looks like a scene from a SAW film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3DbHdBr ... verified=1

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http://action.ciwf.org.uk/ea-action/act ... arget_id=0
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Lexi
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Re: Illegal farming practices

Post by Lexi »

Everyone who consumes animal products as part of their diet should be made to look at that. I think as long as animals are traded as commodities, to be bought and sold, this will never change.

It is an innate tendency of humans to ignore or repress inconvenient and uncomfortable truths. People like to eat meat, and hence most will want to ignore this sort of video.

Given that a fairly high level of brain development was achieved before human evolutionary divergence from the species we consume, one can reasonably infer that their experiences are not so different from ours. But by all means, let us all avoid such uncomfortable truths, lest we be forced to give up the trivial pleasure of animal consumption!
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mental vagrant
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Re: Illegal farming practices

Post by mental vagrant »

What's wrong with cheese and milk. I rarely eat meat these days, none of it comes from the locations listed in the video. I can imagine the only way to protest this emphatically would be to have 3 volunteers slaughter you violently in the public eye. 1970s it out everywhere.
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Lexi
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Re: Illegal farming practices

Post by Lexi »

I'm not sure that there is anything "wrong" with it, per se. But the consumption of milk and cheese also contributes to tremendous animal suffering, even if we only consider the surplus calves that are sent for slaughter.

My point is that most people are rightly horrified when they see the sort of video that you posted, but rarely consider how their own actions and choices might contribute to the violence portrayed. Large factory farms are in the business of squeezing out as much profit as they can, without consideration for animal welfare. This will never change. Even if everything you consume is from a local farm, the larger question of whether animals ought to be consumed at all is still on the table. Is it really that much more "humane" to use traditional slaughter practices as opposed to the modern methods?

As for your last point, if I agreed to this arrangement, would you be one of the volunteers? :-p
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mental vagrant
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Re: Illegal farming practices

Post by mental vagrant »

http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/CAMPAIG ... m/ALL/477/

If this information is accurate, more horror. The photo near the article's end brings to mind Siberian labour camps.
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Lexi
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Re: Illegal farming practices

Post by Lexi »

Indeed, that appears consistent with what I have come across in the past. If you haven't seen enough charnel house horrors yet, you could always watch Earthlings:

http://www.earthlings.com/

Some people might assume that, since they regard themselves are reasonable people, they don't need to watch revolting videos such as these. They believe that they can come to a sound moral judgement on the issue simply by unemotionally reflecting on it. Researchers on the cutting edge of moral psychology have actually found that, at least most of the time, we tend to follow our emotional intuitions in making moral judgments, rationalizing our decisions after the fact. By viewing graphic videos, we are exposed to scenes that might provoke a greater empathy for non-human life. Refer to the work of Joshua Greene of Harvard University as an example of this. I don't think he specifically studies our moral views in regard to animals, but his work applies to it in any case.

I also believe that most people do not naturally have much empathy for animals, especially as we have been socialized to believe that certain kinds of animals are only valuable as food. A more cerebral approach, weighing the triviality of the pleasure of consuming animal products against the unfathomable suffering of these animals, can also be useful. Simply put, the animal's interest in continuing to live, and to live without the torture of the factory farm system, vastly exceeds our interest in consuming it for food. Refer to the philosopher Peter Singer's work for more along these lines.
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