The Animal Holocaust

[ilja]

Nah it's good to give ego's ideas some opposition once in a while for it not to escape. We are not people pleasers. but that aside keep the thread about the animals!

Edited February 16, 2021 by ilja

[Arcangelo]

6 hours ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

creates a greater divide. It's counterproductive.

Told you.

But the video was moving TBH I saw the live chickens go into the grinder, and the difference looking at the pig all happy. I even felt something in my heart (physically) not good.

 

Arc

[intotheblack]

The worst part of the documentary is seeing the workers abusing the animals.  Why they gotta do that?! the animals are already in hell. It takes some type of person to be able to work in an abattoir.  Usually it’s out of desperation for a job. 

Edited February 16, 2021 by intotheblack

[Arcangelo]

On 2/15/2021 at 10:39 AM, Stomatopod said:

intelligent and knowledgeable can still engage in heinous devilry when their level of consciousness is at a low level.

I accept it I am at a low level of consciousness. I am at stage orange, but I had a SAE

[Arcangelo]

4 hours ago, datamonster said:

So, what's the difference?

I was thinking about animals the other day (I have a cat and my family has dogs) An animal is more than something but less than someone. That was my conclusion.

[Scholar]

16 minutes ago, intotheblack said:

The worst part of the documentary is the workers abusing the animals.  Why they gotta do that?! the animals are already in hell.  

It is inevitable. What is demanded of the workers is to treat individuals as objects, so you cannot continue to view them as individuals. If the workers did view them as individuals, they would be incapable of doing what they are doing. This should be quite obvious, any empathetic person who would work in a slaughterhouse will either psychologically disintegrate or adapt and start viewing these individuals as objects. And objects you cannot treat badly, they are just objects. There is nothing wrong with kicking or punching an object.

It is irrational to complain about the abuse when the entire industry is about killing these individuals. Each workers is killing hundreds of individuals every day, that itself is abuse no matter how you cut it. Imagine it was your job to kill children, hundreds every day. You had a few seconds to slice the throat of each child. What would this do to you? Even if you started out having empathy for these children, who would you be even after a single day of doing this job? This job demands that you have no empathy for these individuals.

 

Can you see how the consumers not only have no empathy for the animals, but also lack even the most basic empathy for these workers who are coerced by our society to do something that goes against their nature?

 

Watch this to get some good insight:

 

 

Can you see how this is an absurd contradiction:

"Slice this pigs throat against it's will, but treat it with respect!"

Edited February 16, 2021 by Scholar

[intotheblack]

Some articles about Abattoir life -   

working in a slaughterhouse:
https://www.lifewithoutmeat.com/articles/working-in-an-abattoir-extreme-psychological-effects/

https://www.google.de/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/stories-50986683

Coronavirus: 
https://www.google.de/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-slaughterhouse-abattoir-spread-infection-ptsd-mental-health-a9593511.html%3famp

Less People are wanting to do the job:

https://www.google.de/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/19/christmas-crisis-kill-dinner-work-abattoir-industry-psychological-physical-damage

[Scholar]

Just now, datamonster said:

I think I would arrive at the same conclusion. But even if animals are "less" than person, don't they still deserve at least the same basic rights to freedom and to not be harmed unnecessarily?

The question is, how do you arrive at that conclusion? What is the difference between a pig and a human that makes one worth less than the other? An intuitive justification is not sufficient, because otherwise you would have to accept the appeal to intuition that a racist would provide in his stance that some races are less an individual than others.

 

Think this through and apply any difference you find to humans. Peter Singer provided a good argument for this, called Argument from Marginal Cases. This means any trait other than humanity itself will reduce you to a position in which certain groups of humans are considered less worthy of life, or less worthy of being called an individual, than others. This would for example apply to the mentally disabled. Do you actually believe that the mentally disabled are less individuals, or less worthy of life, than other healthy humans, or that these individuals are only as much worth of life as we because of their genetic code?

If the trait is humanity, which is basically species, then you are not much different from a racist, who simply chooses race as that which we cares about.

 

Instead of looking at what is different between two beings, look at what you truly care about. Do you really value individuals with higher cognitive abilities more than others, or is it subjectivity itself that you value, and someones capacity to experience well being and suffer?

[intotheblack]

@Scholar I know and agree with everything you said. I actually watched that documentary over a year ago. But just pointing out how they are deliberately beating the animals.  it’s already horrific what is being done but to then add the beatings on top of that.  Isn’t killing the animal enough, why do the people in that video also have to beat them, as if there is some enjoyment to it.  And yes, it’s one of the worst jobs and lowest paid and the workers are fucked up from it. 
 

 

 

[Scholar]

5 minutes ago, datamonster said:

If I stranded on a lonely island with a pig and a person and nothing else to eat, I would kill the pig without hesitation any time.

Does this make me racist? - In a certain sense, kinda yes! In a survival situation I think it makes sense to prioritize your own species. So, I do see animals as "less" in that sense.

My point is that usually we don't find ourselves in extreme survival situations, and we can go to the grocery store and choose from an abundance of food options. So, it's completely unnecessary to harm an animal to get your belly full.

Hence, even if I don't value an animal life and a human life equally, I think animals still deserve at least not to be harmed unnecessarily and have basic freedom as long as I have other options.

Yes but in a survival situation you would eat me too, that doesn't answer whether or not pigs are less individuals than humans. You gave an account that you value one over the other, but not why. Do you think just because someone is born with different DNA they are worth less?

 

People have the intuition that other races are worth less, or are somehow an inferior form of individuals, than their own race. And in a survival context that made complete sense. But this is not the question, the question is how do we justify these positions under rational inquiry. It is precisely because we have deconstructed our irrational beliefs about other individuals that we came to value all races equally.

Edited February 16, 2021 by Scholar

[DocWatts]

I've been transitioning to a plant based diet over the course of the past few years for ethical reasons, but I also get the sense that is a structural issue endemic to Industrial Societies, and something that won't be solved until several generations pass and countries like the US are roughly at SD-Stage Green. Either that or because Climate Change literally forces our hand, with how unsustainable meat heavy diets are.

Of course there's a possibility that synthetic lab grown meat could perhaps be part of a move away from factory farming, but it's not something I'm holding my breath about.

My intuitive sense is that as long as large portions of society are having trouble meeting their basic needs, worrying about animal suffering is sadly going to be something of a luxury for privileged people to worry about.

Hell, in the US we haven't even fully transitioned away from what can arguably be considered Human Slave Labor, when you consider the state of the US Prison system and how inmates are paid pennies for manual labor.

Edited February 16, 2021 by DocWatts

[intotheblack]

Or what happens when it becomes extremely difficult to find someone willing to do the job of working in the abattoir.  I assume they would start to offer high salaries, but at a certain point once enough people are against it how will the system continue? It will be the job nobody wants so what then? 

[Scholar]

50 minutes ago, datamonster said:

Pigs are certainly highly intelligent and deserve to live as much as humans, but when I have to choose I'd always prioritize a human's life. Lucky I don't have to make that call ?

I can't tell you why. I guess, for the same reason that you'd prioritize the life of a family member over a random stranger.

There's no objective, rational reason for why one's family members is more important than a random person, yet this is what each of us would do. 

Yes, this however is different from moral worth. We can view all humans as equal, yet recognize that our duty towards certain individuals is greater than others.

My duty to a family member is higher than my duty towards a stranger. However this idea is more of useful in structuring a societies behavior to maximize harmony, it does not really tell us about the worth of each individual being.

 

This is why I think we shouldn't say that pigs are worth less than humans, but rather that our duty towards the pig is different from our duty towards humans. When we talk about decisions that make us choose over one individual than another, then this decision will be made in relationship to extrinsic factors, not intrinsic ones. For example, as you showed, an individuals relationship to you or others.

You might for example save an ant over Adolf Hitler, because of the extrinsic factors, not because the subjectivity of Adolf Hitler is worth less than that of the ant or vice verca.

Equally you could save your own cat over a stranger (human), because your duty towards your cat is viewed by you higher than the duty towards the stranger and so forth.

Edited February 16, 2021 by Scholar

[ilja]

@Arcangelo arc, stop playing devils advocat

[ilja]

1 hour ago, datamonster said:

@datamonster

if you had to make a call, would you let an adult or a child die?

[ilja]

@datamonster in any random context, if you had to decide before the context is revealed to you.

[trenton]

@ilja

2 hours ago, ilja said:

@datamonster in any random context, if you had to decide before the context is revealed to you.

If I were considering and random context, I would save the adult.  The reasoning is that the adult should be more useful for survival.  For example, a man is stronger than a boy. 

This is the same logic I use for saving a human instead of an ant.  The ant is not useful for me, but the human is.  Saving the human's life is good for my social survival.  The human is not actually more valuable than the ant.

In the event of child or adult, there is an interesting scenario.  I would choose to kill the adult if he raped or murdered children.  That would be considered justice.  The problem is that he could have murdered a child because the adult was more useful for his survival.  I can't really kill adults for child abuse anymore because the utilitarian argument for saving the adult demonstrates my hypocrisy.

I can't really choose what being should live or die without a bias.  This bias is used to assign values which are fundamentally false.  The ant is not really less valuable than the human unless you are biased toward a specific quality or only considering human survival.  These biases come out in the form of sadism in slaughter houses.

[ilja]

@trenton allright

[trenton]

@ilja I did finish the documentary.  I found it very educational.  This is an easily ignored issue because humans feel deeply ashamed when thinking about the cruelty toward animals.  Humans feel happier avoiding the issue possibly thinking of it as a necessary evil.  This is how people felt about slavery when they were in denial of how cruel the actions were.

[ilja]

@trenton good point. Thank you for watching.