[HN Gopher] New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in ge...
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New farm bill would condemn pigs to a lifetime in gestation crates
Author : bilsbie
Score : 167 points
Date : 2026-03-09 15:06 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| hansbo wrote:
| Gestation crates are up there among the most immoral things
| created by man.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| 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.
| hangonhn wrote:
| > A sow will absolutely lay down on her piglets and suffocate
| them.
|
| This makes me really curious because that behavior seems very
| maladaptive for a species. That leads me to wonder if
| something else, ie. the environment or domestication, is
| leading to this behavior rather than pigs being really,
| really prone to wiping out their own species. Does anyone
| know why they do this in a farm environment?
| jonah wrote:
| Both things you mentioned.
| barbazoo wrote:
| We're also genetically engineered them to be much heavier
| than they would be naturally.
| shakna wrote:
| Pigs are adapted to singular survival. A stressed sow will
| often eat the piglets. And that stress can be being a
| mother for the first time.
|
| There are a lot of environmental factors, like snuggling
| for warmth being unsafe.
|
| But by and large... Pigs give birth in numbers. They can
| afford for half to die, and still proliferate. They don't
| need to be 'good parents'.
| bayarearefugee wrote:
| 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.
| abound wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| itsanaccount wrote:
| Because that line of "enjoying your existence" making no
| mention of the monumental harm we cause to every biome on
| the planet is exactly the kind of selfishness that the
| button pushers would like to eradicate.
| greygoo222 wrote:
| Biomes are not moral subjects and don't deserve
| consideration. (Pigs are).
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| > Biomes are not moral subjects and don't deserve
| consideration. (Pigs are).
|
| Where do you think animals live?
| greygoo222 wrote:
| Causing harm to biomes is not the same thing as causing
| net harm to animals inside biomes. The base rate of harm
| done to animals inside biomes is immense and horrific.
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| You're doing crazy gymnastics right now. Eliminating
| biomes drives animals to extinction. In what world could
| you argue that doesn't deserve even a little moral
| consideration?
|
| I'm not going to argue with someone who works this hard
| to be a contrarian.
| greygoo222 wrote:
| It's not gymnastics, you just have no background on this
| topic.
|
| Species are not moral subjects. Individuals are.
|
| Killing an individual animal that could live a worthwhile
| life for longer is an individually bad act. Insofar as
| this happens in the process of species going extinct,
| that's bad. But it's also the default state of nature.
| Does replacing a forest with a city cause net harm to
| non-human animals? That's not clear. It might even be net
| good.
|
| Does that mean we should destroy wilderness on purpose to
| prevent wild animal suffering? Not yet, we don't have the
| technology to mitigate knock-on effects, and it should be
| done a way that does not harm individuals. But I can't
| get behind viewing biome destruction as some kind of
| atrocity against the animals within them, at least not as
| a whole. (Some species have better lives than others).
| namero999 wrote:
| Biome is just a fancy term that encompasses a set of
| moral subjects.
| wincy wrote:
| And I'd call entertaining thought experiments such as
| this "having such an open mind your brain falls out of
| the back of your head".
| stouset wrote:
| 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.
| trylfthsk wrote:
| Not entirely convinced that outside the torment nexuses
| used in industrial meat farming, natural suffering is any
| lesser sans humanity.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Estimated scale of the _torment nexuses_ :
| https://considerveganism.com/counter/
| SoftTalker wrote:
| What if the suffering is the point?
| hypeatei wrote:
| It is, because you can't have pleasure without suffering
| but I think these conversations should focus on _the
| amount_ (maybe as a percentage) of suffering that someone
| /something experiences.
|
| If you were locked in a room and being tortured, would
| you think it'd be appropriate for me to go: "they feed
| you at the end of each torture session, isn't it worth it
| to keep going for that?"
| greygoo222 wrote:
| "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 wrote:
| Humanity did not introduce evil, but we have absolutely
| industrialized and massively scaled it.
| quesera wrote:
| I think humanity _did_ introduce evil.
|
| It requires a sense of morality to divide good from evil,
| and I don't think that existed on Earth before humans.
| Digging into the Hominid tree might add some
| qualifications, but I don't see that as a meaningful
| distinction.
| greygoo222 wrote:
| There probably are reasonable methods of estimation that
| would say suffering associated with factory farms
| currently outweighs suffering occurring in the wild,
| though I don't know if I agree. However, factory farms
| are both relatively recent and temporary. It's hard to
| defend the position that humanity vanishing tomorrow
| would reduce net suffering in the long run. If nothing
| else, another industrial species will eventually replace
| us, and there's little reason to believe they'll be any
| better.
|
| Of course, I personally have higher hopes for intelligent
| life than merely not causing massive suffering. That
| brings me to another tangent: Are you vegan?
|
| I am. You might be, but I'm estimating you probably
| aren't. You can go vegan, it's easier than you think, and
| if you don't think you can commit, being 90% vegan is 90%
| as good as being 100% vegan. All thought experiments
| aside, you can be a part of making a better world, right
| now.
|
| You can also make donations:
| https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/funds/animal-welfare
| aziaziazi wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| While I usually try to refrain from unsupported insults,
| I am comfortable calling people who support killing the
| entire world population "losers."
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| You really have nothing productive to say in this thread,
| you sound irrationally angry. This is a pretty
| milquetoast philosophical question. If someone asks
| whether humanity is a net negative environmentally and
| your only response is to call them whiny losers, maybe
| you'd be better off on Twitter.
|
| I mean I know you understand what an abstract argument,
| is but you've chosen to interpret it in the laziest way
| possible for maximum rage. There are better ways to spend
| your time.
|
| Extra points for calling yourself a vegan atheist to
| appeal to credibility.
| relaxing wrote:
| The only people who find the question of erasing humanity
| milquetoast are terminally online losers.
| greygoo222 wrote:
| I'm not angry, just disdainful. Some abstract
| philosophical positions are unworthy of respect.
| jancsika wrote:
| You should definitely watch the Black Mirror episode about
| the robot bees!
| hypeatei wrote:
| Well, some people _do_ choose suicide but I have a feeling
| that you 'd be uncomfortable discussing assisted suicide.
| These conversations around humanity and suffering typically
| end in thought terminating takes such as yours. Why even
| respond if you're effectively throwing your hands up in the
| air and ignoring nuance?
| greygoo222 wrote:
| The person you're responding to is explicitly saying they
| would be fine with suicide.
| hypeatei wrote:
| > is explicitly saying
|
| I don't think it's explicit, that's why I put the quip in
| there about assisted suicide. This thread is showing me
| that perhaps a lot of people _would be_ okay with the
| "complainers" offing themselves but I'm not sure... my
| gut feeling is that a lot of optimists hold conflicting
| beliefs around this.
| greygoo222 wrote:
| As a card-carrying optimist, I am strongly in favor of
| universal right to die. Maybe you should wait for the
| people in this thread to report their opinions before
| making assumptions?
|
| I don't want most "complainers" to kill themselves, nor
| would I recommend them to, but I support their right to.
| And if they showed me convincing evidence their life
| contains too much suffering to be worthwhile, I would
| agree with their decision.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| "optimism, where it is not merely the thoughtless talk of
| those who harbor nothing but words under their shallow
| foreheads, seems to me to be not merely an absurd, but also
| a really wicked, way of thinking, a bitter mockery of the
| most unspeakable sufferings of mankind" -- Thomas Ligotti,
| The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of
| Horror
| wincy wrote:
| That's wild to me. I'd hazard a guess that 0% of my friends
| would push the button (okay, lizardman tax, I'm sure I could
| find someone I know who would say yes). I think they'd also
| feel a need to go find whoever made said button and lock them
| in a cell for safekeeping.
| moribvndvs wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting your
| attitude towards it might be.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| "For better or worse, pessimism without compromise lacks
| public appeal. In all, the few who have gone to the pains
| of arguing for a sullen appraisal of life might as well
| never have been born. As history confirms, people will
| change their minds about almost anything, from which god
| they worship to how they style their hair. But when it
| comes to existential judgments, human beings in general
| have a unfalteringly good opinion of themselves and their
| condition in this world and are steadfastly confident
| they are not a collection of self-conscious nothings" --
| Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
| glenstein wrote:
| It's impossible to refute anecdotes purporting to represent
| populations based on what they might do in a hypothetical,
| and the people being described fade further out of tangible
| existence at every next layer of abstraction.
|
| But Most Vegans I Know (tm) regard human life as valuabe,
| speak in terms of harm reduction, and tend not to fantasize
| about making Vault Tec real.
| gowld wrote:
| If human life is net harmful, then harm reduction means
| targeting 0 humans.
| bayarearefugee wrote:
| FWIW I wouldn't push the button.
|
| I just think we are going to absolutely deserve the outcome
| as we collectively and metaphorically push that button...
| which we continue to do and are regressing on stopping
| ourselves from doing so a handful of super wealthy can watch
| gamified number go up.
| gowld wrote:
| What makes you think that we we collectively and
| metaphorically are pushing the _painless_ button?
| bayarearefugee wrote:
| Well you're right, the real world isn't so simple and the
| button we are pushing certainly isn't going to be
| painless.
| hrimfaxi wrote:
| Are you in silicon valley by any chance?
| relaxing wrote:
| Even more, Xoogler.
| pmarreck wrote:
| If I were to implement such a button, I'd make it so that
| only the people who said "yes" would disappear.
|
| Life is a gift. A painless life has no value. In fact, if you
| are genetically immune to pain, your lifetime survival rate
| is something like the teens.
| pmarreck wrote:
| We have examples of how that actually plays out (in a limited
| form).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525
| tengbretson wrote:
| Ehhh no they wouldn't.
| varispeed wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| If you can't find anything worthwhile here what makes you
| think you'll find it out there?
| epgui wrote:
| It's a meaningless question, there is no "out there".
| varispeed wrote:
| Not saying it is not worthwhile. As nature equipped us with
| feelings to make existence more pleasant. Enjoy the brief
| blip of consciousness.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I am thanks.
| HoldOnAMinute wrote:
| The suffering is mainly because of overcrowding
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Well, social stratification isn't helping anything.
| smarf wrote:
| 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
| dylan604 wrote:
| > there is no point in humanity to exist
|
| Did any one ever state that there was? Religious types will
| argue, but my counter is just humanity came up with religion
| as a stop gap in knowledge.
| digitalsushi wrote:
| > This used to really bother me, but lately I'm thinking it is
| probably for the best.
|
| The older I get, the more careful I am to remember there's
| young people left in my wake and I get to decide whether I owe
| them anything or not - and, I make a personal belief that I do,
| a very great deal in fact. So getting comfortable that the
| whole system is damned and worth tossing is very convenient but
| too cavalier for me to find comfort in
| bayarearefugee wrote:
| > The older I get, the more careful I am to remember there's
| young people left in my wake and I get to decide whether I
| owe them anything or not - and, I make a personal belief that
| I do, a very great deal in fact.
|
| I don't disagree with this at all, and on a personal level I
| do everything I can to reasonably leave things as good or
| better than I found them. I just no longer believe anything I
| do is going to pull humanity as a whole back from the edge.
| sethammons wrote:
| no single raindrop feels it is to be blamed for the flood.
|
| I've always enjoyed that line. I also find it interesting
| how people interpret it. I take it to mean that each
| raindrop should still try to not cause a flood, and at some
| point, the flood will be prevented. Others take it to say
| there are simply too many other raindrops and they won't
| try, so there is no point in any drop trying. I don't care
| for that version.
| greygoo222 wrote:
| Unlikely. See some expert analysis here:
| https://forecastingresearch.org/xpt
| nekusar wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Ractopamine is authorized in Canada per the article you linked.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| Let's not let that pesky detail get in the way of the USA bad
| narrative he has going.
| enaaem wrote:
| Still banned China, Russia and the EU...
| Insanity wrote:
| 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.
| jonah wrote:
| I generally think that as well and so was surprised to
| read that they're planning to not label CRISPER fruits as
| such.
|
| "European Union's Parliament and Council, the bloc's
| governing body, reached a provisional deal in December to
| "simplify" the process for marketing plants bred through
| new genomic techniques, such as by scrapping the need to
| label them any differently from conventional ones."
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47271338
| shakna wrote:
| Likely due to trade agreement, with a geological neighbour.
| jedberg wrote:
| This is fascinating to me. I am allergic to pork (or I would
| say intolerant, when I eat it I get a headache and/or stomach
| ache). But I did try a piece of wild boar once, and was fine
| after that. I will have to look into this!
| Aurornis wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Ractopamine is used in Canada.
|
| This sounds like a possible case of the nocebo effect: Someone
| experiences symptoms based on a belief that an ingredient is
| bad for them. When they consume the same thing without the
| belief that the ingredient is present, the effects are absent
| even though the ingredient is present.
|
| This happens with people who believe they have WiFi sensitivity
| disorders, too. If you put them next to a WiFi router with
| blinking lights they will experience the pain of their
| condition. If you turn off the lights on the router but leave
| the WiFi transmitting, they stop feeling the effects.
| imjonse wrote:
| > 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 .
| akramachamarei wrote:
| Capitalism precludes slavery.
| quesera wrote:
| > _Capitalism precludes slavery._
|
| Hmm? Capitalism neither precludes nor predates slavery.
| akramachamarei wrote:
| 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.
| grimblee wrote:
| Go ask kids forced to work for years in cocoa plants or
| coltan mins in africa what they think of your little
| explaination
| em-bee wrote:
| you assume that capitalism implies that everyone gets to
| participate. but that is not a necessary condition. you
| can have a capitalist system where not everyone
| participates. slaves did not participate in capitalism,
| but their owners did. one might even argue that employees
| do not participate in capitalism either (i am not
| familiar enough with the specific definitions to state
| that with certainty however).
| Havoc wrote:
| The sooner we get to true lab grown meat the better
|
| Meat is nice but would be better if we can skip the whole
| suffering thing
| okokwhatever wrote:
| I'll be pleased to let you eat that for me.
| Havoc wrote:
| I mean if it's functionally identical then I would.
|
| Not super interested in pink slime style concoctions either
| globular-toast wrote:
| 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.
| snowe2010 wrote:
| Your comment makes no sense. If plants weren't around for
| humans to eat then how did the animals humans eat survive?
|
| Humans eat animals because they are a denser faster nutrition
| than plants. More bang for your buck. Trying to act like
| humans "only eat animals because" is ignoring reality.
| pmarreck wrote:
| The Alaskan word for "vegetables" is literally "boring food"
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| Do you live in Alaska?
| dehrmann wrote:
| In Swedish, it's "green things."
| globular-toast wrote:
| Mmm yeah, Alaska being well known for culinary excellence,
| of course.
| anonym29 wrote:
| 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
| globular-toast wrote:
| Anything tastes good in butter. Try some okra or cabbage if
| you're ready for some flavour.
| anonym29 wrote:
| Keep in mind, there are more people who have a medical
| necessity to avoid cruciferous vegetables (like cabbage),
| gluten, nuts, and other types of plants than there are
| people who have a medical necessity to avoid meat.
|
| As a whole, more humans are medically biologically
| incompatible with plant consumption than animal
| consumption.
|
| Note that I'm talking about adverse medical reactions
| that range from worsening of chronic disease to acute
| death, not merely gastric discomfort, like with lactose
| intolerance.
|
| Not everyone has the privilege of enjoying buttered
| cabbage.
| khazhoux wrote:
| Anything tastes good in butter, but especially steak!
| noosphr wrote:
| Lab grown mean doesn't work.
|
| But debrained animals are certainly more plausible.
|
| You just need a miminum interface to keep their bodies running.
| Cruelty free meat.
| pmarreck wrote:
| I understand that at least chicken works.
|
| also, you misspelled "meat" as "mean"
| dehrmann wrote:
| Oysters don't have a central nervous system.
| sosodev wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Any kind of domination of one species over another raises
| serious ethical questions. Avoiding suffering on the
| dominated side is nearly impossible.
| sosodev wrote:
| Are all pets suffering?
| diacritical wrote:
| I think what GP meant is that when it involves money,
| suffering is nearly impossible to prevent. That's why you
| have puppy mills, for example. Most people don't know how
| the puppies are raised, they just see the cute puppy in
| the shop. The same way people see a pretty piece of meat
| in the supermarket and don't know its history.
|
| Raising animals for meat is theoretically doable with no
| suffering (not sure about milk), but it's not happening
| in practice. With pets the situation is better - a lot of
| people adopt and some care about how their pet was raised
| if they buy it from a breeder.
| mperham wrote:
| Don't strawman other people's comments.
| sosodev wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| JungleGymSam wrote:
| nah.
| diacritical wrote:
| 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.
| sosodev wrote:
| 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.
| diacritical wrote:
| 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.
| kelipso wrote:
| I think a lot of people will be suspicious of lab grown
| meat after years of fake meats marketing of substances
| filled with some unholy combination of seed oils and
| chemicals (in before some nerd pipes up with a comment
| about how water is a chemical too kekeke) specifically
| designed to poison our bodies. Well maybe I exaggerate
| about specifically designed but fake meats are certainly
| not healthy for us.
| delecti wrote:
| 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.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| Sure you could, just don't tell them. The fast food
| burgers are already part soy and no one is yelling. If
| they replaced that with lab meat people would probably
| like it better.
| Insanity wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
|
| This does not seem more "humane" than the human
| equivalent of meat farming, where all human offspring
| would be harvested at age ~15.
| Insanity wrote:
| Yup exactly. And when animals are bred specifically for
| milk, they aren't treated well even before they are
| killed. Dairy cows need to be kept continuously pregnant
| / in lactation state through artificial insemination.
| They don't magically produce milk all-year round.
|
| And pregnancy is _hard_ on animals (including humans), it
| changes your physiology and psychology. Even if we take
| for granted that a cow isn't as conscious as a human (IMO
| consciousness is a sliding scale, not a binary), then
| they are still being primed for giving birth and taking
| care of offspring which never comes. Imagine doing that
| to a human - it's a definite form of cruelty.
| blks wrote:
| What do you think happens to a cow, when she stops
| producing milk? She is kept constantly pregnant, what do
| you think happens to most of her male offsprings? In the
| end, almost every single cow's life ends in violence.
| danaris wrote:
| Many, many people disagree with you.
|
| It is not at all a logical, ethical, or emotional
| contradiction to say that we should have humanely-raised
| livestock whose purpose is to be slaughtered for meat. We
| can ensure that they are kept in healthy, safe, and humane
| ways during their lifetimes, and are killed as quickly,
| cleanly, and painlessly as we can reasonably manage.
|
| And, um, the meaning of "humane" is only loosely related to
| "treat like a human." It means "treat well, view with
| compassion", and similar. We talk of things being "humane"
| or "inhumane" in how we treat _each other_ , too. [0]
|
| Humans have been raising meat animals with compassion and
| treating them well during their lifetimes for longer than
| we have had written language. Veganism/vegetarianism is not
| even _physically_ an option for many people, excludes many
| cultures ' traditional practices, and very, _very_ often
| requires (or at least tends toward) supplementing with
| foods that are at least as unethical as factory farming
| practices.
|
| [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/humane
| aziaziazi wrote:
| > supplementing with foods that are at least as unethical
| as factory farming practices
|
| That's the first time I ear about supplement being
| unethical, let alone "compared to factory farming".
| Stretching the usual arguments, it may be almonds' water
| or soy in brazil ? I'd be glad you clarify your point.
| danaris wrote:
| The harvesting of a number of the common foods used to
| supplement vegetarian and vegan diets--eg, soy, agave,
| quinoa--are variously destructive to the environment and
| based on labor practices exploitative enough that they
| sometimes verge on slavery.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Oh I understand the confusion: soy, quinoa and agave are
| not supplements but food. I guess we might agree on
| "alternative" but the word choice isn't your point.
|
| Soy is a strange pick at it's mostly cultivated to feed
| livestock (77%) and using it instead for humans instead
| would require substantially less crops.
|
| https://www.deforestationimportee.ecologie.gouv.fr/en/aff
| ect...
|
| Agave... is mostly water and glucose, without much
| minerals or protein. How does vegs _requires_ or _tends
| toward_ that aliment more than other?
|
| Quinoa original region doesn't have the same working
| standards as un US/UE but I'm not aware of a difference
| with banana, coffee, avocado, cacao, vanilla, coconut,
| palm oil (or soy)... however Quinoa also grow in other
| regions: here in France you can find _local_ quinoa at
| the same price as the one from Bolivia: around 8EUR /kg
| (organic). It's super healthy but not very popular
| through.
|
| Beans and lentils are more popular I think (self non-
| scientific estimation) but yeah soy is great and tasty.
| blks wrote:
| As unethical as purposefully murdering animals?
|
| I don't think you can call it a compassion when you own
| an animal with sole purpose of efficiently growing it and
| then killing it so its body can be dismembered and sold
| off. This is treating animals as property, that produces
| profit.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| > I doubt we'd do this to humans. So the only way to be
| okay with this is adhering to a form of specieism.
|
| The obvious historical pointer to the Holocaust as a well
| covered example of people being treated like that - and a
| fact often swept under the rug: people are being treated
| essentially like that in North Korea, today.
|
| An older interview but still good to watch
|
| https://youtu.be/ZGJm4bjRaaE?is=E2hFWYi-ynPnWGfm
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Worse. We were told we couldn't have happy, cruelty free meat
| because it would be expensive. We were told we couldn't have
| clean meat because it would be expensive. We couldn't have
| sustainable meat because it's too expensive. We couldn't
| reduce the environmental harms of meat because it's too
| expensive. We couldn't have locally produced meat because
| it's too expensive.
|
| Well we got none of those things. But beef steak is still $25
| a pound. I don't really care if it gets more expensive
| because at current prices I can't eat it regularly anyway and
| rich assholes will have no problems eating their steaks every
| day even at $100 a pound so why don't we just have a
| sustainable, clean, less cruel industry?
|
| Countries reduced their demand of our meat, because of
| horseshit tradewar games, and yet the price went up. Demand
| for American industrial crops like soybeans, which is used
| significantly as a cattle feed, cratered, to the point we
| will have to hand the farms tens of billions of dollars, yet
| somehow beef still got more expensive. Meat processing uses
| illegal immigrant labor, sometimes even child labor, and all
| regulation of those facilities has dramatically curtailed
| under Trump administrations, and yet beef still gets more
| expensive.
|
| Here's what beef producers say:
|
| >"It's hard as a beef producer to necessarily say that beef
| prices are too high. I mean, if people are paying $6 for a
| latte at Starbucks, but then they're paying $6 for a pound of
| beef, they're able to feed a family for a family of three
| with that pound of beef," said Taylon Lienemann, co-owner of
| Linetics Ranch in Princeton, Nebraksa.
|
| In other words, fuck you pay me. "Starbucks makes great
| profit so we should make more". The reason for the price
| increase is a "very small herd", which producers have been
| reducing because of droughts and otherwise because they don't
| think the profit is high enough to invest in future
| production.
| trymas wrote:
| 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.
| diacritical wrote:
| > being a vegetarian/vegan is more expensive than being
| omnivore.
|
| Being vegan is cheaper where I live regardless of whether
| we factor in the subsidies or not. Beans, chickpeas,
| lentils and sometimes soy (examples of protein sources) are
| pretty inexpensive. Peanuts, some other nuts (in the
| culinary sense of the word) and some of the vegetable oils
| are also inexpensive.
|
| If you factor in foods meant to replace or replicate the
| taste of a carnivore diet like vegan yogurt, milk or
| cheese, or things like Beyond Meat burgers, it might become
| expensive, but you don't have to limit yourself by trying
| to replicate what you used to eat - you can make lots of
| things from 10-20 basic ingredients.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| > being a vegetarian/vegan is more expensive than being
| omnivore.
|
| I read this often but the long term vegs usually says the
| opposite as does the studies [0]. Bonus point: The veg
| options are often the cheapest in the non-vegan restaurants
| (although not the tastiest). I have some hypothesis where
| it comes from:
|
| - Meat substitues are seen as a necessary replacement. They
| are transformed, which require more work - and therefore
| more expensive. However they are as (un)necessary as a
| fined-prepared piece of charcuterie, which isn't cheap
| neither.
|
| - Cost is evaluated at the supermarket shelf but as you
| noted the animal products are extremely subsidised. Vegs
| pays for them but don't use it. Infrastructures like
| airport, rails, road and urban amenities are not free
| either even if you don't pay for them. How you evaluate the
| price is at your own discretion.
|
| - Fancy products are placed in the most visible shelf and
| thats the people see first, but they compare it with the
| cheapest animal alternative. I'm an engineer and by my
| fancy organic tofu 7-20EUR/kg but used to buy chicken at
| 25-35EUR/kg in the same fancy segment. If I'd be on a
| budget I'll probably buy the bottom shelf one at 3.5EUR/kg,
| next to the 5EUR/kg chicken.
|
| - Cost of change: changing habits require to re-create the
| optimization you build during the previous years: where to
| find the best price for the product X, what quantity should
| you get or what daily stable you can add in the routine for
| cheap (fake meat and fancy milk aren't).
|
| 0:
|
| > Main findings suggest that food expenditure negatively
| relates to vegetarian food self-identity, and unemployment
| status mediates the link between vegetarianism and food
| expenditure.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-025-06353-y
|
| Vegan diet is always the cheapest - but not in the lower
| income countries. However it _is_ when including costs of
| climate change and health care.
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-
| 5...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_vegetarianism
| ritlo wrote:
| > 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.
| penguin_booze wrote:
| It's not like chickens chose this way of life. Such breeds
| were developed for the specific purpose of meat, with no
| regard for their wellbeing. Don't shame the chickens for
| what human bastards do.
| ritlo wrote:
| Oh, sure, our fault, but fact remains that modern meat-
| chicken breeds are so incredibly fucked up that it's not
| really _possible_ to humanely farm them. They're like
| that because of what we did, yes, but step one toward
| comprehensive humane-farming for chickens would have to
| be "let those breeds entirely die out" regardless of
| who's at fault (and it ain't the chickens).
| philistine wrote:
| At the scale to feed the world, and at the prices we require,
| absolutely not. Eating meat means making another creature
| suffer. Don't delude yourself.
| blks wrote:
| This is whitewashing to make consumers happy and less
| concern. Nothing is humane about murdering an animal to sell
| its body parts for profit. Thats just marketing.
| Hammershaft wrote:
| Cost is not a minor thing considering the suffering that
| poverty creates.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I actually had some this weekend.
|
| If you support this, visit one of the handful of restaurants
| selling it to show interest and support the companies. The
| salmon I had was ready for prime time in the right context, and
| if you didn't know, you probably wouldn't have noticed.
| delecti wrote:
| I'm surprised to hear that it works with fish in particular.
| I wouldn't have thought it could replicate the flakiness of
| real fish. That's great to hear honestly.
|
| I'd assumed it would mostly be limited to cultured ground
| beef and chicken nuggets.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| What a weird compromise.
| pmarreck wrote:
| 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.
| JungleGymSam wrote:
| what a disgusting idea.
| clickety_clack wrote:
| At least the thing with live animals is that they have to be
| kept within some kind of parameters to survive, with those
| parameters hopefully also leading to some level of food
| standards for us. I can't even conceive of the kind of
| chemicals and processes that would be required to keep random
| meat-like cells alive without the rest of the body.
| flowerbreeze wrote:
| I think not so long from now the exotic meal experience for the
| young ones will be real grilled chicken that looks like a
| chicken. Like zebra or crocodile meat was for us northerners.
|
| From my own little box I think that that if lab grown meat was
| available and affordable, I would never eat a bit of real
| chicken, pork or beef again. I know veganism is an option too,
| but... I grew up with meat and it's very difficult to give up.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Have you tried tempeh? It solves 95% of my chicken craving
| since I found the right recipe and spices. It's also cheaper,
| nutritious, faster to cook and almost no processed.
|
| https://tempeh.info/
| znpy wrote:
| Lab meat is essentially proprietary food.
|
| I hope that never takes off. I'm not eating that shit for sure.
| aquir wrote:
| Anyone who's ever looked after and cared for pigs knows that this
| is very-very cruel. I would do the same with those humans(?) who
| wants this. Greed over everything. Disgusting
| SunshineTheCat wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Whoa there - can't shape public sentiment if you let people go
| read it for themselves.
| gowld wrote:
| 2 seconds on Google leads you the sponsor of the bill bragging
| about doing what the OP is complaining about: :
| https://hinson.house.gov/media/press-releases/hinson-introdu...
|
| The insane language in the sponsor's own press release tells me
| all I need to know about who the evil side on this bill is.
|
| California prop 12: https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/fd/mb-
| fdp-03-2022-a.asp
| djcannabiz wrote:
| fwiw, i found it helpful, i had no idea what a gestation crate
| is. i don't think the photo is sad or manipulative, the sad
| part is what is being done to the pigs! and seeing a photo of
| what is done to the pigs is all i needed to make up my mind.
| it's like the difference between posting a document that
| references "enhanced interrogation techniques" vs seeing a
| photo of what was actually done, it has a very different
| impact. i agree some kind of a citation would be nice though,
| so i don't have to go digging about what to say when i contact
| my representative about.
| lux-lux-lux wrote:
| Yeah, why would someone trying to drum up opposition to the
| measure show the real-world impacts of it instead of the
| (easily Googlable) dry legalese? Real thinker, there.
| megabless123 wrote:
| https://xcancel.com/Lewis_Bollard/status/2030985704902099335...
| criddell wrote:
| Here's a link to the bill if you are interested in who sponsored
| and cosponsored it. It's a total of 24 people, so it had a fair
| bit of support.
|
| If you live in the district of one of these people you might
| consider contacting them to let them know your opinion.
|
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4673...
| diacritical wrote:
| The "R-" after their names means they're all Republicans,
| right?
| evan_ wrote:
| Yes, [R-IA-4] means Republican from Iowa's 4th Congressional
| District.
| butILoveLife wrote:
| I find it odd we need legislation to prevent this.
|
| There are not enough consumers to care? Or maybe with legislation
| we get better outcomes due to scaling effects?
|
| If we are willing to use legislation, could we tax such gestation
| crates, and use that tax revenue to breed unconscious pigs? Or
| find a way to disable consciousness in their brain? Or fund lab
| meat? I'm sure small labs are doing this, but if we are at the
| point of legislation, I imagine there is enough willpower to
| solve this problem rather than bandaids.
| stetrain wrote:
| Consumers probably don't know all of the conditions involved in
| making any of the products they buy. That information is
| generally not on the label, and even environmental and
| conditions based labels are often vague and hard to interpret.
|
| Also in an economy of rising costs, people are going to choose
| affordable options even if they might be vaguely aware of worse
| conditions happening somewhere else, far away from the grocery
| store aisle where they are making that choice for their family.
| post-it wrote:
| > If we are willing to use legislation, could we tax such
| gestation crates, and use that tax revenue to breed unconscious
| pigs? Or find a way to disable consciousness in their brain? Or
| fund lab meat?
|
| This is the kind of "big government libertarian" thinking that
| you only find on HN. It's like virtue signalling but the virtue
| is contrarianism. What you've suggested is more complicated,
| less ethical, less effective, and likely to be opposed by just
| about everyone across the political spectrum.
| butILoveLife wrote:
| Lmao, you did describe me so hard.
|
| But I think I'd push back that this is less ethical.
|
| All sorts of things are unpopular, but the masses can't logic
| their way through it.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| Everything you suggested are bandaids
| Spivak wrote:
| Voters do care, in both blue and red states, they already
| passed laws in their state to this effect. This is the federal
| government invalidating those laws.
| ryandrake wrote:
| If the billionaires in power thought that they could grow their
| wealth 1% more by forcing the rest of us _humans_ into gestation
| crates, they would do it in a heartbeat.
| hermannj314 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| some pigs vote
| metalman wrote:
| crates are wastefull , gestation tubes, amputate there irrelevant
| legs, and keep them in nice cozy tubes.
| gowld wrote:
| 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...
| aristofun wrote:
| 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?
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Where is the inconsistency in being ok with killing an animal
| and eating it and wanting the time leading up to their death to
| not be misery?
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