Free Range FTW!

[miffy495]

Yeah, I think Nachimir is right. It means that the food is grown/produced to very strict out standards: No chemicals (like those nasty nitrates) or pesticides were involved at any point. Even the soil used to grow vegetables must be to a certain standard for several years before it can be used to grow certified organic vegetables.

I don't know about the US, but here in the UK it's extremely strict.

Basically: Organic food is how nature intended it to be. No modern chemicals are added at all.

They may or may not have this in the UK, but in North America, what you describe is called certified organic. There is a distinction between that and regular organic, which is a label that can pretty much be slapped on anything. A lot of food retailers prey on this, marketing everything they can as organic and fooling people who don't know the difference.

Is it even possible to accurately empathise with another species? What is it like to be a bat?

Incidentally, that article was the final push for me when I decided to switch my major to Philosophy 3 years ago.

[Roderick]

That's not what I meant at all. What I meant was that, if it could be engineered such that an animal could be slaughtered without any pain (including psychological pain, and including the time before the actual act), given that I, as an atheist, don't believe in any sort of eternal essence of a living being -- that the being that was once there, is there no longer -- no suffering has been produced. Death would have to be instantaneous, of course (unless you were going to mess around with drugs or something), but I don't think this is an impossibility. I don't know how animal slaughter is done at the moment, but swift-and-decisive application of metal to the brain should do the trick, I would have thought.

Whilst I don't presume to know in any significant detail what the conscious or semi-conscious experience of an animal is like, but I don't think it's a stretch of the imagination at all to suppose that some animals feel pain. What I was stating, rather, was that if this pain could be avoided, so too could the problem. Possibly.

Ah, that clarifies some things (though it didn't come across from your original post at all). I still have doubts though. You're still killing something that is alive in the same way that we are alive (as an atheist, there's really no reason to see yourself as being anything else but animals who specialized in brains instead of, say, elongated trunks to suck up water with). And there's something very nasty indeed about breeding beings who can't feel anything, just for the purpose of slaughtering them. It induces images of the Space Truckers movie, where pigs are bred to be square so they can be stacked in tiny cages and on top of each other. The involvement of pain is only one factor; there's also the whole inherent wrongness of killing something that lives on the same level as us that feels like something we shouldn't be doing. I know that if I would have to slaughter every piece of meat I ever ate, I wouldn't be able to do it.

Many animals are already killed by inserted metal rods into their brains almost instantaneously. It doesn't really help, because at that moment insane amounts of hormones are already directed through the entire body and meat. It's still a sickening sight to see the insides of a slaughterhouse/factory.

[syntheticgerbil]

They may or may not have this in the UK, but in North America, what you describe is called certified organic. There is a distinction between that and regular organic, which is a label that can pretty much be slapped on anything. A lot of food retailers prey on this, marketing everything they can as organic and fooling people who don't know the difference.

Yikes, but sounds typical.

I'd recommend the Michael Pollan books as well. I haven't gotten around to reading them, but I've heard him talk for a long time a few times here on the local station KPFT in the past year, and he seems to know what he's talking about and a lot of it seems to make sense in correlation to obesity rates and the way food is processed in the modern era.

And everything seems to be made of corn now for some reason.

[James]

Ah, that clarifies some things (though it didn't come across from your original post at all).

Sorry, I should have explained myself more clearly.

I still have doubts though. You're still killing something that is alive in the same way that we are alive (as an atheist, there's really no reason to see yourself as being anything else but animals who specialized in brains instead of, say, elongated trunks to suck up water with).

Well yes, that's what all the nonsense about murdering homeless people was in reference to.

I would say, though, that although I don't necessarily believe in some mysterious fundamental separation between us and the other animals, I do believe that the degree of consciousness a creature has falls on a scale, and the moral weight of extinguishing a consciousness depends on where it lies on the scale. I don't care a jot about some ants getting squashed, and I think it's probably worse for a chimpanzee to die than a mouse. Of course, the danger of this is that it could imply that the more intelligent a person is, the more they "matter" in moral matters, and conversely, those with some sort of mental impairment are somehow less valuable. These ideas are very distasteful and unpleasant, but is this for a justifiable reason, or simply because of the values instilled in us by our upbringing?

The involvement of pain is only one factor; there's also the whole inherent wrongness of killing something that lives on the same level as us that feels like something we shouldn't be doing.

I think one can make a reasonable argument that not all lives are "on the same level". Do you care as much about an gnat as a cow? Perhaps you do. I don't know if it's just a matter of being able to relate more to mammals?

I know that if I would have to slaughter every piece of meat I ever ate, I wouldn't be able to do it.

Me neither, I expect.

Many animals are already killed by inserted metal rods into their brains almost instantaneously. It doesn't really help, because at that moment insane amounts of hormones are already directed through the entire body and meat.

Maybe it needs to be less almost and more instantaneous? And how exactly does one multiply pain by time? It's always difficult to quantify these sorts of things. Still, I think I'd rather have a moment of extreme pain than an extended period of lesser pain.

Or are you referring to the stressful experience of being in the slaughterhouse, separate than the pain? I was intending to address this when I specified that the animal be spared both physical and psychological pain. I saw a programme about a woman who helped design slaughterhouses, and was talking about how she deliberately engineered things such that the cattle (supposedly) had minimal exposure to their surroundings, and were intended to be unaware of what was going on until the moment itself.

[brkl]

I know that if I would have to slaughter every piece of meat I ever ate, I wouldn't be able to do it.

I expect it becomes easy after the first few. Or do you think people who grow up on farms are simply born heartless? What might be true is that you probably couldn't slaughter and eat the animals that have been mistreated by factory farming. I doubt that would be a very appetizing experience.

[James]

I expect it becomes easy after the first few. Or do you think people who grow up on farms are simply born heartless?

Option 3: Being around it as a child gives one a strength of stomach unattainable for we pansy city folk.

In all honesty, I expect most people can become at least partially accustomed to most things, but I also think that growing up with a firm grasp of the reality and matter-of-factness of death leaves one uniquely equipped for that sort of thing. I'm just guessing, of course.

[Scrobbs]

You do get kind of used to it. Having to stick your pinky through a rabbits arse from the inside out before you cook it is about as gross as it gets. That's after sawing it's head off, of course. Then you give its innards to the dogs.

[Salka]

I would say, though, that although I don't necessarily believe in some mysterious fundamental separation between us and the other animals, I do believe that the degree of consciousness a creature has falls on a scale, and the moral weight of extinguishing a consciousness depends on where it lies on the scale. I don't care a jot about some ants getting squashed, and I think it's probably worse for a chimpanzee to die than a mouse. Of course, the danger of this is that it could imply that the more intelligent a person is, the more they "matter" in moral matters, and conversely, those with some sort of mental impairment are somehow less valuable. These ideas are very distasteful and unpleasant, but is this for a justifiable reason, or simply because of the values instilled in us by our upbringing?

I think one can make a reasonable argument that not all lives are "on the same level". Do you care as much about an gnat as a cow? Perhaps you do. I don't know if it's just a matter of being able to relate more to mammals?

I'm an atheist so I don't believe humans have some special purpose or anything like that. I don't believe my life is any more important in the grand scale of things, than the life of an ant. I don't think it's worth more, in fact with all the destruction and pollution etc that humans cause, I think it might be more advantageous to squish a human than an ant. But 'cos we're humans and empathise with each other more than we do an ant, my life is perceived to be more important by other humans, and I perceive other peoples lives to be more important than say, my lovely cat Raz even though I loveeee him. If an alien landed on earth tomorrow and he had to squish either a human or my cat, he would probably squish a human 'cos the cat looks cuter and makes a better pet. Humans would make rubbish pets... we are hairless (mostly). Hang on, what am I talking about?

If I had to choose between squishing a human or a chicken, I would choose to squish the chicken but only because I perceive other human lives to be more important. But really they're not. If there WAS some kind of god and he had to squish a human or a chicken he'd probably squish the human. The conversation would probably go a bit like this:

--

"Listen," said God, "Bad news. I'm afraid that I have to squish one of you. And since I rather like chickens, I suppose it will have to be you, human."

"No way!" The human protested, "My life is obviously worth more than a chicken!"

"To who?"

"Well to... my family and my friends. Who's going to care if the chicken dies?"

"Well, I like chickens," God replied, "they make far better pets than humans. I've never met a human who wasn't a bit of a twat."

"But I'm great! I have all kinds of complex emotions and things, I can empathise with other living creatures, feel love, and pain, and all sorts! Can the chicken do that?"

"Not that I'm aware of, but then, isn't it amazing that considering it doesn't have any empathy and you do, you're an utter cunt and the chicken is quite nice?" God said, "I mean, not even just to other animals that you supposedly feel empathy for, but to each other. Watching you guys fight and lie and cheat and kill and bully each other and other animals from heaven really fucks me off. So I'm afraid that, while you may think amongst yourselves that you're very important, I much prefer the chicken and so you'll have to be squished. Besides, the world could do with a few million less people, given how good you are at destroying everything. On the grand scale of things, I think it would be beneficial to have more chickens and less humans, don't you? Besides, I'm more closely related to chickens on the evolutionary scale than I am to humans, so I feel inclined to protect my winged friend as I perceive her life to be more important that yours."

"Alright." agreed the human reluctantly, "I guess that makes sense. And I admit, I really am a bit of a shite."

--

I don't care about gnats as much because I find them harder to emphasise with than your average cow, 'cos I've witnessed behaviours in cows that have more in common with humans (fear, curiousity, pleasure, contentedness... the pleased look they have when they manage to scratch an itch real good, etc). The only time I've ever met a gnat he's just come off as being a bit of a twat really.

But I still think the life of a gnat is no more or less important than my own life really to anybody except other people, and maybe Raz because if I die then he might not have his dinner on time every day. If aliens came to inspect the planet earth, I'm sure they'd be fascinated with humans and our bizarre little habits and our funny little obsession with cleanliness in the same way that I was fascinated with how my pet hamster only went to the toilet in one corner of his cage, or how my cat lines her own litter tray with my clothes if it becomes too dirty. They'd be all like, "Look at these funny little people and how they dress themselves in funny different-coloured clothes!" in the same way that I am amused at how my cat only plays with toys that are orange and shaped like carrots. Then they'd realise that we don't make very good pets for the same reasons that some people don't like having chimpanzees as pets - we have attitude problems and little opposable thumbs that enable us to cause more trouble than say, a fluffy little cat or a round little hamster. We're too big for most alien households, we're difficult and slow to breed, we suffer from all kinds of complex emotional problems and we're louder than a Siamese fucking cat. Not to mention all the dietary requirements. So they'd probably keep a few of us in a zoo, use some of us for laboratory testing for their new medicines and cosmetics, and the rest to intensive farms to fatten up to make food for the cats. Isn't it amazing, they'll say, that we saved this planet Earth from these horrid little rats that were running rampant all over it. And all the other animals will say "Yes! Well done you guys! Though we'd like to point out that rats are actually really cool and only humans think that they're shit, and they only think that for teh same reason they hate seagulls and pigeons - their own slovenly, dirty and wasteful behaviour encouraged these animals to live in the human towns where they became pests and spread disease because of the gross conditions that humans created. So as we were saying, rats are awesome, don't hate rats!" And the rats will say SQUEAK SQUEAK and all the animals will be really pleased, except for Raz and Lili who will be sad because they'll have to eat me.

I don't know what I'm talking about, btw.

Edited January 13, 2009 by Yufster

[Roderick]

James, some good answers there. I agree with basically everything you said =) I also think that people can get accustomed to just about everything, which is precisely why it might be such a luxury to not have to kill, either animals or each other. The killing instinct isn't in us very much, we've left that to an increasingly tinier group of people who will take that burden for us.

I have no problem killing a mosquito of course. And there's a real gradient of animals lined up that we empathise less and less with. Monkeys and mammals are, to our feelings, very familiar. After that come fish and birds, then insects and anything from Attenborough's undergrowth. What Yufster explains is the philosophical ideal: we are no better or worse than any other creature. But that doesn't hold true for our feelings, which do uphold a hierarchy. Every creature has one, and it starts with himself.

[Salka]

I'd just like to point out that I can't remember the last time I purposely killed a gnat or a spider or a fly or anything... I always catch them and release them outside. I can't even kills wasps even though I hate those fuckers. Fuck those guys. Seriously. I don't think there is any killing instinct left in me, and you'd think this would have gained me some serious karma points and that my life would currently be fantastic, but it's fucking not, it's shite.

Edited January 13, 2009 by Yufster

[Scrobbs]

I'm an atheist...

...you'd think this would have gained me some serious karma points...

Aren't these two things exclusive?

[James]

I don't think we can reach any fundamental truth here, unfortunately, as is so often the case. Yufster's position is consistent, and I think mine is as well. As far as I see it, "importance" is a fabrication. I'd say it was a human creation, but all conscious beings must assign some sort of degree of importance to the things around them in order to determine what to give priority. I would contend that the increased mental activity in certain animals means that there is more of the "stuff of life", if you will, going on. The main problem with Yufster's approach is that the edge cases become difficult to classify. Are bacteria alive? Does each cell of bacteria have the same importance as an animal? How about fungi? Or plants?

For me, the deciding factor is consciousness, and it's my assumption that the level of consciousness of a beast is very roughly proportional to the size of its brain (allowing for a fair amount of variance, depending on the structure of the brain). It would probably be more accurate to judge it by the actual contents of the brain, but I'm no neuroscientist, so I can't really get into any of that.

Also, I contend that animals would be just as cuntly as humans, given half the chance. I don't mean to do them down, but I'm not going to let misanthropy elevate the other animals, as though they're on the other side of a set of scales. We're just more capable of up-fuckery. Animals are, on the whole, just as opportunistic and selfish as us.

Besides, humanity isn't all bad. After all, we invented podcasts. Podcasts are pretty awesome, right? I don't see any lions podcasting at each other. Or horses podcasting to tapirs, or whatever. Animals are rubbish.

[Salka]

Okay here's a cute little story. Last week I stopped Spaff from vacuuming up about 30 little money spiders that were living on our ceiling, presumably after coming off our Christmas tree. I promised that I'd catch them all in a jar and release them outside, because I didn't want them to lose their tiny little lives.

Well I was reading this thread and just remembered that I'd said I'd do it, so I went downstairs and fished out a jar and a ladder. On closer inspection I discovered that the 30 money spiders had turned into 1 money spider with 29 little dead money spiders hanging in the web around it. Oh, I guess this story isn't so cute after all.

I now have the one living money spider in a jar. I feel like I should avenge the others by killing it, but I don't know. I don't know which would be worse for my karma - killing a little spider or letting this tiny war criminal go free. Thoughts?

[Roderick]

Of course bacteria are alive. They are made up of cells just like we are. I do agree that the level of consciousness is a good measuring tool, if we must have one. But to decide what? Why not measure the suffering you cause at the hand of how developed the nervous system of the animal is, which ultimately dictates their capacity to feel pain?

Consciousness is a tricky point of discussion. It's a by-product of our evolved brain, but does that make us better? Cheetahs are a hell of a lot faster than humans. Elephants have longer noses. They are better in that respect. In the 'nose' department. So classifications are a bit old-fashioned class-based thinking.

Also, the karma police is out the get me!

[gdf]

Okay here's a cute little story. Last week I stopped Spaff from vacuuming up about 30 little money spiders that were living on our ceiling, presumably after coming off our Christmas tree. I promised that I'd catch them all in a jar and release them outside, because I didn't want them to lose their tiny little lives.

Well I was reading this thread and just remembered that I'd said I'd do it, so I went downstairs and fished out a jar and a ladder. On closer inspection I discovered that the 30 money spiders had turned into 1 money spider with 29 little dead money spiders hanging in the web around it. Oh, I guess this story isn't so cute after all.

I now have the one living money spider in a jar. I feel like I should avenge the others by killing it, but I don't know. I don't know which would be worse for my karma - killing a little spider or letting this tiny war criminal go free. Thoughts?

Spiders are awesome, so yeah, should have let him go. They go ion instinct, don't they; and how do you know he killed them in the first place?

[Salka]

Yeah I don't know for certain. He could have been the only one who refused to go to war, and the others slaughtered each other in a pointless and bloody battle... and then the last one alive went mad with all the horrors he had witnessed during the war, spun himself up and ate himself.

I let the lil war criminal go earlier, so he is safe.

[gdf]

That's good.

I always have to deal with every spider in the house, my sister screams when she comes within five feet of one and can't sleep if there's one knocking around.

[miffy495]

My girlfriend stopped me from killing a spider in the bathroom. She named it Terry. It still lives here...

[syntheticgerbil]

Yep...

[Roderick]

Wait, that's not a real spider... It only has seven legs. I feel that spiders wouldn't make such an elementary mistake.

[gdf]

Yep...

I remember seeing that! It was part of an fairly hilarious email exchange.

It might have been here actually. Either that or /b/ (not saying this place is remotely like /b/).

[Nappi]

http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6085

For those who might have missed it.

[gdf]

http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6085

For those who might have missed it.

OK, it was definitely /b/ I first saw it, but I've never actually seen the original before, thanks

[Nick]

Thursday 8pm Channel 4

http://www.channel4.com/food/on-tv/the-big-food-fight/the-true-cost-of-cheap-food-09-01-15_p_1.html

[twmac]

But having made the decision to be vegetarian your mother has had to be aware about balancing food groups so that her children don't become malnourished (not all vegetarians are good at this even so - hence the stereotype about them being ill and pasty) . Most low-income families don't know how to do this, and that is what I meant by education. Before they give up meat, they have to be utterly confidant that they can make meals that won't give them nutrient-deficiency diseases in the long run.

What should I be looking out for? I've been a vegetatian for 2 decades, I will admit that I'm definitely on the skinny side but I just put that down to not eating a lot of meat. Protein can be a problem, and I believe iron isn't abundant in a lot of what I eat...

I thought I was fine... Should I be taking vitamin supplements or Omega 5 or something. Is this deficiency like cancer where it catches off guard after years and years of neglect? Damn you Dan I'm off to scour the Internets

Edit: Apparently I'm only not getting enough B12 and iodine. B12 is responsible for mental well being, DOH!

Edited January 16, 2009 by twmac