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Comment by alpineman | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, plus the ethical angle. It's a bit ridiculous that we have people researching the 'theoretical ethical treatment of LLMs' when we are doing such awful things to animals on a massive scale.

We have dogs and cats as pets and we eat cows and pigs (in Western countries). As if cows and pigs didn't also have personalities, memories, parental bonds, the ability to feel pain. It's a mass wilful ignorance.

What's the difference between us and animals? I would argue that it's our ability to take ethical decisions and not inflict suffering even if it goes against our base instincts.

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>What's the difference between us and animals?

I always find it incredible some people equating animals with people. How do you not see the difference in human range of emotions, ability to do science, technology, arts, etc. Do you perhaps live in the city and don't really have any real contact to animal?

Plenty of humans have have little ability in your mentioned fields, and animals can show an enormous range of emotions. If those were the only criteria, we'd have little trouble eating e.g. brain-dead people.

That's not to discount human lives, we all have worth aside from our abilities to create. But I don't think there's a sensible non-arbitrary hard line you can draw to separate humans from all other animals.

What kind of a line do you need to draw? Isn't it obvious how humans are different from animals for you? Normal humans are innately aware we are different from other animals and we are aware that not all other humans are fully functional and we take care of them and not try to eat them. It's really weird that some people are trying to equate animals with human. I love animals and I would have unhappy life without them, but I would not hesitate to sacrifice any of them if that meant saving your life, i.e. life of a human stranger.

Saving a human over an animal in a one-off emergency doesn't justify breeding and killing billions of animals for taste every single day, those aren't the same situation.

And if you agree we shouldn't eat humans who aren't fully functional, then the line is obviously not being drawn at capacity, it's being drawn at the fact we are members of the same species. In my view that's not an ethical argument, given animals share almost all of the same things (apart from capacity as mentioned), that make someone a human.

I used to think the same as you, btw actually. But in end it came down to 'because I'm human': when you start to break it down and engage with it that's not a very strong argument. Especially when we are killing animals ultimately for pleasure, not survival.

I can't eat the grass growing in the pastures on the hills around me, but some animals can. Then it's just a question who eats those animals, either us human or other predators. I think it's unhealthy when people start to anthropomorphize their pets and map that to every other animal in existence. It's very similar to when bored rich kids pretend to be representatives of the working class.

Sure, but the cold reality is that 99% of meat consumption in the US is from factory farms, not from animals roaming freely on grass. It's not like these animals are all roaming free, naturally reproducing, and we or other predators are hunting them.

We are breeding them, bringing them into existence to meet the demand for meat, keeping them in small cages, and then killing them.

It's not about anthropomorphizing. But if you love animals, it's hard to justify conditions where they can't even turn around, give birth in their own feces, and are then gassed. I'm sure, even without anthropomorphizing, you know that animals have emotions, memories, bonds, etc. They feel these horrible conditions intensely.

Ultimately consuming meat is causing those animals to be raised, kept in poor conditions, and killed. Those conditions are deliberately hidden from the public as the meat industry knows that demand would suffer massively if they weren't.

Anyway, thanks for engaging on the subject and for the discussion. That's much more than most people do and I appreciate it.

I'm happy our ancestors domesticated animals, therefore we don't really have to hunt them as savagely as other predators do and we can instead bread them for our consumption. I'm all for having better condition for factory farmed animals and I'm fine with closing down those that mistreat animals and even punish or jails people doing it, but that is a completely another kind of argument compared to the initial question how are animals and humans different. Trying to equate animals with people and blanket ban all meat consumption and trying make make people feel bad for eating the meet is not going to achieve a better world.

I agree with you on that. I wouldn't personally eat meat but I don't have a problem with someone eating meat if they are sure where it came from and the animal lived a good life (until the end, of course). The hard reality is that 99% of meat in the US and a similar amount in Europe comes from factory farms. Those Factory farms are not prosecuted for the way they mistreat animals. The meat industry is simply too economically important, and animals end up suffering.

Where do you draw the line though? Because plants themselves (DNA-beings) are also alive.

Unless you decide to go on a full mineral diet.

It's not about being alive, it's about having emotions and the ability to feel pain.

Plants don't cry out for days when their children are taken away from them. Plants don't remember your face, come up to you and want attention. Plants don't scream when they are killed (no matter what some edgy research shows).

Or to put it more simply, would you feel bad pulling a plant out the ground? I would imagine probably not. Would you feel bad pulling the lever and watching as a pig is lowered into a gas chamber? Or while slitting a cow's throat? I would imagine probably yes (hence why slaughterhouse employees have so many mental health issues and there is such high turnover).

> it's about having emotions and the ability to feel pain

That's just a random line you have drawn.

> Plants don't cry out for days when their children are taken away from them.

Plants do feel pain and react to their surrounding. They are more primitive creatures though.

> would you feel bad pulling a plant out the ground?

Yes, I wouldn't do it and I am from a country where pulling an olive tree is illegal (with a jail sentence).

Plants don't feel pain as pain is generally understood. They don't have neural circuits, nociceptors, or brains. We have all those things. Cats, cows, and pigs have all those things.

That said, plants do have defense mechanisms, of course. But that's not the same thing as pain or emotions.

In any case, generally strawberry pickers aren't traumatised in the same way as slaughterhouse workers.

Even if one were to view animal and plant lives as equivalent, around 40% of all crops are grown to feed animals.

Needless to say, it's a lossy conversion. Calorie-wise it's far less efficient for an animal to eat the food and for us to eat the animal, than for us to just eat the plant directly.

So if you really want to reduce un-necessary plant deaths/suffering, then ultimately eating less meat is the way to do it.

> Plants don't feel pain as pain is generally understood.

we don't know that for sure. just to be safe don't eat plants or plant based products too. Eat dirt, that's 100% safe and also feed your children dirt too. The evolution would do the rest and rid your genes from the gene pool

Absurd example, dig at my kids, no counterargument. That's the online equivalent of conceding the argument. Nice one.

that's actually an advice. Please don't hurt the plants and their emotions. Keep on eating dirt

>> that's actually an advice. Please don't hurt the plants and their emotions. Keep on eating dirt

Thank you Sajith Dilshan

You’re welcome Al Pine Man

Your argument sounds like the nirvana fallacy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

with most plants its more like were eating their eggs. Not many plants require eating the whole thing instead of the fruiting body. i think an argument to stop uprooting plants entirely makes sense but really the impact of going from beef to just vegetarian is much more drastic than cutting out plants which are destroyed by harvest

not accusing, but in case any commenter is going down a slippery slope: what produces the most harm? people! why dont we just kill ourselves instead of cutting out beef? vegetarian options have never been more accessible, and increasingly so

its certainly regional and cultural in the US. there are many towns and cities i visit where its quite difficult to find menu items without meat. i expect it will change over time

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