This Is Just Sick

[atlanticat]

I don't read New Scientist but I find it rather telling that the moral objections to this article don't appear until the second page, which a majority of people won't actually bother reading because--hey, it's an extra click I have to make

Comments

[atlanticat]

Cows aren't sentient?? Maybe not to the level of humans, but they are indeed sentient. They can and do think and they're aware of their surroundings.

Whilst I agree that the life of a child is worth more than the life of an animal, just like a child that animal should be allowed an actual life. The analogy stands in the sense that it is as foolish to numb an animal as it is to numb a child due to the circumstances in which some people wish to keep that animal or that child. The ends do not justify the means.

Along the same line, the ends of feeding people cheaply does not justify the horrors that are factory farms. The damage they do not only to the animals but also the environment and our own health is simply not acceptable. Engineering numb animals is no more effective than putting a bandaid on a gaping wound. Factory farms are responsible for the E.coli outbreaks that we've had, they're responsible for our "obesity epidemic" (farmed animals are bred to be FAT not to be HEALTHY), they're responsible for the Swine Flu from which you are currently suffering. Furthermore there is a metric fuckton of evidence that Genetically Engineered foodstuffs are NOT safe for humans--they can cause ALL SORTS of allergic reactions and illnesses in people. Even the folks at the Monsanto office in England won't touch their own GE produce, which I consider a very telling point.

The only justification there is for these practices is GREED. I'm not one to stand in the way of technology, I'm ALL FOR working on genetics, but it must be done RESPOSNIBLY, it must be done with PROPER TESTING and not with fudged reports foisted on an unsuspecting public in order to use our own populace as guinea pigs.

Fertilizer is no longer in abundance? What part of your ass did you pull THAT out of?? Do you shit every day? So do animals. Fertilizer is free for the taking, all it requires is to be properly aged and re-introduced to the soil, where it normally would be in nature. With a little care, the soil could be easily returned to a proper balance and water would be much less of an issue. Synthetic chemicals are killing our planet and our lives. I know you're a technophile, but you have to realize that I'm not speaking from an anti-technology stance. I'm speaking from the stance of anti-technological ABUSE. There's a difference.

[samwize]

See, now you're arguing past nearly every point I brought up and not addressing them.

Fertilizer isn't made from shit, it's made from _oil_. Oil and the haber process, really, but without anhydrous ammonia, you need to _radically_ alter your farming practices and it remains to be seen how many people will starve when that happens.

And arguing about health and testing of GMF? Absolutely irrelevant. Of _course_ I wasn't suggesting "And don't test it before feeding it to us!". The whole discussion is within the assumed framework of some minimal level of compitantcy and responsibility. Hell, the US isn't even that important here: what will Europe and Asia accept as imports?

The fact is this would reduce suffering. That is the bottom line for me - there will be less pain in the world if we do this responsibly. As well, it seems economically and politically feasible to achieve. You aren't gonna convince half the world to starve itself to death or to quit fucking. You aren't gonna be able to overthrow entrenched multinational food-chain corporations and the way they do business most likely. But people _might_ be able to convince the farms that the "Pain Free Logo" is something worth putting on their packaging and it's something that would reduce suffering.

I'm not saying "This is The Answer!", I'm saying "This may be a useful step on the road to species-sanity.