Discussion

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bayarearefugee: Humanity is almost definitely going to wipe itself out in the not too distant future through an avoidable (if not for the selfish greed of many of us) climate change resource war Great Filter event.This used to really bother me, but lately I'm thinking it is probably for the best.

nekusar: Farming practices are already absolutely terrible.And for reasons of arbitrary weight increase, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ractopamine is used in the USA. Doesnt degrade when cooked, so humans also get fat from it amongst other bad side effects. Banned in most countries, but not the USA. This is also why pork export is banned in most countries.I know 1 person who is "allergic to pork". But European pork is fine. Even Canadian pork is fine. But what's different with US pork? Ractopamine.To me, this is yet another reason why capitalism initially was great at making an economy, but profit-seeking behavior gets legally and ethically worse and one trades ethics for money.

bananalychee: Ractopamine is authorized in Canada per the article you linked.

varispeed: We live in a sandbox. Unless we decide to work together to escape it, then there is no point in humanity to exist. All we essentially do is produce rubbish, poo and suffering.

giraffe_lady: If you can’t find anything worthwhile here what makes you think you’ll find it out there?

HoldOnAMinute: The suffering is mainly because of overcrowding

smarf: the suffering is mainly because of extreme wealth hoarding and profoundly selfish use of resources; overcrowding could be easily solved for all people if we as a species decided it was important

imjonse: > To me, this is yet another reason why capitalism initially was great at making an economy,Initially it wasn't that great either if you were a slave or worked 14 hours a day .

jagged-chisel: Well, social stratification isn’t helping anything.

Havoc: The sooner we get to true lab grown meat the betterMeat is nice but would be better if we can skip the whole suffering thing

globular-toast: It's not even nice. People ate meat because fresh fruit and vegetables weren't available all year round or even at all. All good food has plants to make it taste nice. You can easily just skip the meat and go straight for the flavour.

megabless123: https://xcancel.com/Lewis_Bollard/status/2030985704902099335...

varispeed: Not saying it is not worthwhile. As nature equipped us with feelings to make existence more pleasant. Enjoy the brief blip of consciousness.

okokwhatever: I'll be pleased to let you eat that for me.

SunshineTheCat: Does anyone else ever find it odd that in posts like this the person posts a sad picture of a pig instead of a screenshot of the page of the bill they're talking about?I think "a provision that would condemn millions of pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates" is in fact horrific, however, outrage is the currency on places like X.Posting a page number sounds specific, but then why not post the page (or quote it)? Particularly in any even remotely political environment where the default is "vote for (or oppose) this bill or you want [insert cute animal, baby, person, minority group] to die."Just a tiny bit of source referencing could go a long way to help people better understand what you want them to support (or oppose).

jagged-chisel: Whoa there - can’t shape public sentiment if you let people go read it for themselves.

sosodev: This is a false dichotomy. The choice is not lab grown or suffering. Farmed animals could live happy, healthy lives and then be culled in a humane way.The problem is that it costs slightly more and our society is more concerned with cost than animal suffering.

block_dagger: Any kind of domination of one species over another raises serious ethical questions. Avoiding suffering on the dominated side is nearly impossible.

sosodev: Are all pets suffering?

diacritical: That's exactly why lab grown meat is the best way to solve the issue.Society is only concerned with cost, regulations are weak and rarely enforced and companies are operating in a capitalistic market where they can't compete unless they squeeze every last cent out of each animal. That's hard to change as lots of people have an interest in keeping the status quo and the citizens who vote don't have the time to read everything that comes their way. We can't expect that society will wake up, that people will start voting with more conscience or that everyone will go vegan.Lab grown meat (or growing brainless animals or something similar) is a technological solution. When it becomes cheaper than normally-grown meat and similar in quality, the atrocities committed in the farms would cease to exist as the farms themselves would cease to exist. The same market forces that are responsible for what's happening to the animals now would prevent any future torture.

anonym29: Yeah, I hate being stuck with a luscious rare filet mignon basked in clarified butter, it's so flavorless that I have to chase it with celery, cucumbers, and lettuce just to stomach it... /s

gowld: Ashley Hinson, sponsor of Save Our Bacon Act, endorses bombing people thought to be dangerous. Pig-torturers are dangerous.https://www.kcrg.com/2026/03/06/rep-hinson-speaks-iran-confl...

greygoo222: Unlikely. See some expert analysis here: https://forecastingresearch.org/xpt

1234letshaveatw: Let's not let that pesky detail get in the way of the USA bad narrative he has going.

enaaem: Still banned China, Russia and the EU...

pmarreck: The Alaskan word for "vegetables" is literally "boring food"

dehrmann: In Swedish, it's "green things."

giraffe_lady: I am thanks.

pmarreck: In nature, animals are routinely torn apart and devoured while still breathing.In a proper rending facility, a captive bolt pneumatic/hydraulic pistol punctures their skull and sends a shockwave through their brains, killing them like Tony in the last scene of the Sopranos.

hansbo: Gestation crates are up there among the most immoral things created by man.

Ancapistani: In their current implementation, yeah, they’re pretty bad.There is a need for something like it, though. A sow will absolutely lay down on her piglets and suffocate them.

metalman: crates are wastefull , gestation tubes, amputate there irrelevant legs, and keep them in nice cozy tubes.

Insanity: Looking at the stuff China puts in their food (like the actual instant noodles), definitely a red flag if even they ban it.Generally I look at EU for what's good/bad to consume though. It's scary how much stuff is banned there that's in everyday US products.

abound: One of my favorite questions to ask people is something like: "Imagine a button appears in front of you. Pressing it will snap all human beings painlessly out of existence. Do you push the button?"Some people get caught in minutiae about downstream effects, I tell them it can go however they want (house pets are free or gone too, planes land harmlessly, etc)In my circles, I've found it's about 50/50 button pushers to non-button pushers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, vegetarians are more likely to be button pushers.

mock-possum: God what an awful prospect. How about when you push the button it only removes the button pushers, so the rest of us are free to continue enjoying our existence.

stouset: The point is that continuing to enjoy your existence is inflicting a massive toll of suffering around the world, to both others humans as well as non-humans.I’m not saying I’d be one to push the button, but I think it’s worth trying to understand the mindset of someone who would. It’s very arguable that pushing it would be the ethical thing to do.

greygoo222: "Someone who would" is a terminally online loser who's confused the symptoms of their mental illness for philosophical insights.Speaking as a lifelong atheist, I cannot stand this genre of nihilistic post-Christianity, all questionable moral baggage with none of the guidance. Here's a tip for you: humanity did not introduce evil to the world. If you don't understand this, find a church, it'll be better for us all.

stouset: Humanity did not introduce evil, but we have absolutely industrialized and massively scaled it.

trylfthsk: Not entirely convinced that outside the torment nexuses used in industrial meat farming, natural suffering is any lesser sans humanity.

aziaziazi: Estimated scale of the torment nexuses: https://considerveganism.com/counter/

sosodev: I'm skeptical of this claim because there's clearly a growing population that hates the idea of putting anything they don't understand in their bodies. Genetically modified vegetables, food dyes, vaccines, etc.I find it hard to believe you could convince a large portion of Americans to eat lab grown meat just to save a buck.

delecti: Not to be glib, but the shelves of most American grocery stores do a pretty good job demonstrating that that segment of the population isn't dominant yet. There's a glut of processed food full of ingredients much harder to pronounce than an ingredient list that would read "Ingredients: Beef (cultured)".And to be glib, I'm not thrilled about the idea of catering to the bar set by "things they don't understand" from that group in particular.

diacritical: I think that population is shrinking, not growing. They're surely vocal, though.But if lab grown meat is cheaper, some part of the population would buy it. The farms would lose part of their business so economy of scale would help lab grown meat and hurt the farms. I think it would lead to a feedback loop where lab grown meat will get even cheaper and farm meat would get more expensive.With lab grown meat you also have the option not only for a perfect piece of meat, but for different kinds of tastes, textures and compositions that haven't existed before. Just like people eat processed meat (think ham or nuggets or deep fried pieces), they would love to try the new tastes. I know I would.

Insanity: > Farmed animals could live happy, healthy lives and then be culled in a humane way.Breeding animals _specifically for killing them_, no matter how they are killed, is not what I'd consider humane. If we take 'humane' literally, it means to be treated as you would treat a human. I doubt we'd do this to humans. So the only way to be okay with this is adhering to a form of specieism.

anonym29: Many farm animals aren't bred specifically for killing them. Think egg-laying hens and ducks, milk-producing cows and goats, etc.Not too different from humans in that respect; humans are bred systematically (we have dedicated hormonal supplements, birth facilities, documented birthing procedures, standardized post-birth checklists of forms of vaccination regiments, standardized mass schooling, government-subsidized feeding programs, etc) and most are used machinistically by society exclusively for productive output, regardless of whether the society is corporatist, capitalist, socialist, communist, etc.

quesera: I think you misinterpreted GP's emphasis.But still, egg and dairy animals are culled when productivity drops. The human equivalent would be killing all male babies, and females after age ~40.

hermannj314: Pigs outnumber the humans 7-to-1 in Iowa, but they don't vote so here we are.As an Iowan, it is obligatory to show love for Herbert Hoover and our pig population when called upon.

jpfromlondon: some pigs vote

moribvndvs: My first serious programming job was at a start up and the owner asked me this question. I was caught off guard, of course I wouldn’t! I couldn’t really explain why at the time, but it essentially revolved around the fact that I was young and optimistic. 25 years later, I’m not so sure. Now, said optimism has almost vanished and there are days pushing seems like the path to least suffering, but I also feel it’s unethical for one person to decide for everyone else.

greygoo222: I mean this sincerely, not as an insult: consider that the problem is with your mind or personal life, not with the world, and you should look for a way to address that if you haven't already.

moribvndvs: Suggesting that the wholesale suffering wrought by humanity unto itself and all other life on this planet throughout its entire history is merely in my mind or a problem with my personal life is actually incredibly insulting on top of being willfully ignorant.

greygoo222: That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting your attitude towards it might be.

aziaziazi: Here's a tip for you: describe what you find questionable and why, otherwise reader will understand: "I don't like that, you're [loser / mentally hill / nihilist]".I you don't like the conversation you're also free to ignore it.

greygoo222: While I usually try to refrain from unsupported insults, I am comfortable calling people who support killing the entire world population "losers."

Capricorn2481: You really have nothing productive to say in this thread, and if anything, you're unintentionally proving the point. If someone asks whether humanity is a net negative environmentally and your only response is to call then whiny losers, maybe you'd be better off on Twitter.

trymas: I am too lazy to do the math, but I somehow think it would cost _multiple times_ more: https://www.farmtransparency.org/kb/food/abattoirs/age-anima...> society is more concerned with cost than animal suffering.Yes, and it's politically very hard to change. I totally understand price sensitivity around food. At least where I live milk and meat is extremely subsidised. How can you have chicken that is grown, slaughtered, cleaned, packaged, distributed, kept cold all the way, etc. and sell it for 5eur/kg (and cheaper on discounts). There's s much human work, resources, fuel used - I cannot understand.Also - being a vegetarian/vegan is more expensive than being omnivore.

globular-toast: Anything tastes good in butter. Try some okra or cabbage if you're ready for some flavour.

globular-toast: Mmm yeah, Alaska being well known for culinary excellence, of course.

mperham: Don't strawman other people's comments.

sosodev: I didn't intend to. I think that domesticated animals have long had a harmonious relationship with humans so I find it a bit difficult to believe that it's always an ethical dilemma. Pets are just the most obvious lens to identify that.I also think we need to be careful with the idea that we should entirely avoid suffering because it's impossible to do.

constantius: I think that it is what you know of the history of animal domestication and of pets that makes you think that there is an acceptable and low amount of suffering.I think most people are aware of animal cruelty in factory farms (the chicken in cages, the pigs in cages, etc.), which represents 90% of all farm animals globally (https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/global-animal-farming-est...).For pets, I don't think you understood what GP was saying: pet breeding involves massive amounts of death of puppies/kittens that aren't pretty enough or don't manage to survive infancy, the female breeders are basically confined to cages and "producing" all their life, some short-nosed breeds of dogs and cats are even illegal in some countries because they spend their life unable to breathe properly, pets are abandoned and killed, etc. The happy pets you see in the street are not representative of what it is to be a pet. But yes, these ones are not suffering.As for long and harmonious, as much as we tend to see anything in the distant past as innocent, I'd remind you that the systematic killing of male chicks, the killing of veals to avoid them drinking all the milk, the killing of all animals as soon as productivity drops beyond a threshold, are not new practices. No animal wants to be enslaved. Same as no human wants to be enslaved.I'm not attacking you, just attempting to give you an idea of why other commenters believe animal domestication is not ethical.

ritlo: > Farmed animals could live happy, healthy lives and then be culled in a humane way.> The problem is that it costs slightly more and our society is more concerned with cost than animal suffering.IDK about other livestock, but this definitely doesn't hold for chickens, one of the cheaper meat sources in the US. Switching to breeds that could live more than a very-few weeks(!) before getting too overweight to walk, would increase price by far more than "slightly more", and there's no hope of anything fitting any sane definition of "humane chicken farming" without that step.I suspect it's also true for pigs, not necessarily the "we bred them so wrong that their very existence is a crime against god and nature" part but that the price increase from a "healthy, happy life" would be a lot larger than "slightly more". Maybe also cows, dunno about that one.

aristofun: I can understand and respect no meat people’s position (vegans etc), because it is consistent. Even if I disagree generally.But how can I comprehend people who eat meat and okay with killing animals, but get outraged by so and so practices of growing them? Isn’t it a textbook definition of inconsistency and hypocrisy?

akramachamarei: Capitalism precludes slavery.

quesera: > Capitalism precludes slavery.Hmm? Capitalism neither precludes nor predates slavery.

akramachamarei: Capitalism precisely precludes slavery. One of the most important and foundational of its principles is private property. The first, most natural, and universal instance of private property is the ownership of one's own body. Heck, we even have the phrase "private parts." Slavery requires the most basic violation of bodily autonomy. In other words, to permit slavery is to permit the violation of the most basic property right. I struggle to see how slavery could be compatible with capitalism.