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Not that this is really relevant to the topic at hand, but are you actually drawing an equivalency between people who get paid to write code for a living and an animal being slaughtered? I don't think the analogy works at all.

No. I'm saying people who do not understand technology could be lead to believe such things if people started reporting it. Nobody is going to take the time to realize that people actually enjoy writing software using programming languages.

And I'm not suggesting animals enjoy being slaughtered, but if it is going to happen, do you not support doing it the most humane way possible?

I apologize for making my point in the form of a rhetorical question. What I should have said is that, based on the construction of your comment, your comment draws an equivalency between programmers and these animals being slaughtered.

Not at all. I only drew an illustration of something people in this demographic understand to show how people react to biased reporting.

If you want people, who have never stepped foot in an office and have never turned on a computer, to believe that programmers are treated horribly because they have to type "gobilty-gook" all day long, it would be a pretty easy sell. Likewise, you can easily make the optimum care we can give an animal given our current understanding look like the worst treatment possible to an outsider without domain-specific understanding.

And I wasn't really referring to slaughter specifically, or even at all. There are a lot of care issues too, which are more interesting to me having a farming background and not an abattoir background.

  | biased reporting

Animal rights activists may be biased towards their cause, but it's not like farmers aren't biased towards their livelihood. If they were to admit that what they were doing was wrong, they would have to own up to everything they had done up to that point, in addition to changing professions.

My livelihood comes from being a software developer, but have spent enough time in barns to understand how they function, so hopefully I can come as unbiased as possible. I'm curious to know more about what you think that is being done is wrong?

I guess a better example of what I'm saying is that a plantation owner in the Confederate South wouldn't have been unbiased about slavery. You can't claim that bias only works in one direction (i.e. AR activists are biased, but farmers are not).

Which is why I'm trying to argue down the middle, free of as much bias as possible. The video ban is ridiculous, just as the videos that we will lose due to the ban were ridiculous. We should be looking for real education, not petty fights between interest groups.

> If you want people, who have never stepped foot in an office and have never turned on a computer, to believe that programmers are treated horribly because they have to type "gobilty-gook" all day long, it would be a pretty easy sell. Likewise, you can easily make the optimum care we can give an animal given our current understanding look like the worst treatment possible to an outsider without domain-specific understanding.

Not that it really matters, but I think this is a bad analogy. Code looks technical and mysterious to most people, not inane. You might be able to quote, say, code style guides that impose rigorous rules about formatting and make people think that the owners of those guides have rigid practices, but that would be nowhere near enough to convince people that programmers themselves are treated horribly, especially since you would have a hard time getting any of the programmers in question to agree.

(Now, if you look at working conditions, unpaid overtime, and the like, in environments like the game industry, you might be able to convince people quite correctly that some programmers are treated horribly...)

Fuck, no.

Why would you assume mass-slaughter of living beings is going to continue happening?

Because demand for meat has only risen over time? Most people only seek quality care while the animal is alive, not a complete end to eating meat.

I realize technology is on the horizon that could change things in the future, but we are talking about today.

  | Most people only seek quality care while
  | the animal is alive

This is impossible at current levels of demand, and the push to keep meat, which historically was only hyper-available to the rich, cheap so that people can all afford to have turducken[1] wrapped in bacon for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turducken

Care to elaborate? I assume you mean because owners are increasingly reliant on external labour to fulfill the demand, and, like with any business, labour does not always care about the level of quality in operation that the stakeholders, that have traditionally supplied the products, do?

If you also want to talk about the quality of life of the animal, it gets more complicated. Even "free range"/"cage free"/etc animals live in stressful and crowded environments, just less stressful and crowded then other farms animals that are not <insert label here>.

I once took an animal rights activist friend to another friend's farm, which is on the larger size – one of the largest in my area – and he was quite surprised by and happy to see the level of care the animals received. The animals were calm, friendly, and not at all what I would imagine a stressed animal would look like. What we observed there was pretty typical of the other barns I have been in as well.

That doesn't make you wrong, of course, but it leaves me wondering that if the barns/pastures you have spent time in are equally representative, perhaps you just come with a different metric for what is quality care? If so, who gets to decide what is acceptable? What is good for one animal rights activist isn't necessarily good for another, so who gets to be right when striving for the same goal?

What does "large" in this case mean? Are we talking about factory farm style CAFO? What I've read, which may admittedly be outdated, is that these kinds of farms are where the majority of meat, dairy and eggs comes from (in the US).

We're talking hundreds, possibly thousands, heads of cattle, but it wouldn't fit my definition of a factory farm. Those aren't really a thing around here. There is only one a wide radius I would even begin to consider a factory farm.

But we weren't talking about factory farms anyway, we were talking about typical farms, free range, cage free, etc. and whether they are still providing a comfortable environment for animals, or not.

A few comments up thread pyre suggested that it is not possible to meet the demands of cheap, plentiful meat while providing animals reasonable quality of life. This seems to be born out by the fact the factory farms are the norm, and smaller farms like the one you mentioned are the exception (note that I'm specifically talking about in the US, where meat consumptions is ultra high, and from what I've read factory farms are the norm).

Factory farms are most certainly not the norm by any stretch, but their scale does naturally allow them to provide more product than everyone else, as your previous post indicates. A "factory farm" with 10,000 cows is obviously going to supply more milk than 999 other farms with 100 cows, if we can assume, for argument's sake, a constant output from each animal. The farms with 100 cows in that example are much more prevalent by a wide margin though. If I recall correctly, the average herd size for a dairy farm is somewhere around 40 cows.

pyre, in the post I responded to, suggested that even free range farms that put focus on animal care were not providing sufficient care for animals, leaving them still tightly packed and stressed. And maybe that is true, but I am still left wondering how we measure which farms are providing sufficient care? If we want to strive towards a better life for animals, we need to start setting definitions and targets to work towards. Otherwise, every change towards the better will be met with equal criticism by somebody.

Sorry, you're right, by "the norm" I meant that the majority of meat etc consumed comes from factory farms.

I agree with you that setting unreasonable or unrealistic goals is problematic. Although I personally stick to a 99% vegan diet, I've never been an abolitionist and I think setting reasonable goals and working towards them within the system is probably more productive, such as Temple Grandin's work.

Pushing for legislation like this doesn't make me very sympathetic towards the industry though.

Most people will do whatever they are told, and eat whatever they are sold. I will believe human beings are truly interested in eating meat once they carry out the necessary steps themselves, instead of importing workers from other countries to commit these atrocities in their name (Fast Food Nation is a recommended movie to watch in this regard.)

If we are talking about today we should recognize that mass enslavement and slaughter of animals, mechanized and automated, is immoral and wrong, and act to bring an end to it.

Why? Why is being an ethical omnivore wrong? If a pig is raised in a nice surrounding, not separated from it's kids, and slaughtered in a way that is significantly more painless than dying of disease or natural causes, why is that actually bad?

Let's worry about that case after we've handled the 99% of cases where omnivorance is not supported by ethical practices.

This is not true in the United States. Per capita meat consumption in the United States dropped by 6% between 2006 and 2010 (http://www.voanews.com/content/as_world_meat_consumption_gro...). The USDA predicts that this decline will continue. (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/01/americans-ar...)

I support free information. If "best practices" in animal slaughter gross people out, then maybe we need better "best practices" or maybe we need to rethink our agriculture system. Just because something has been decided upon by a group of experts does not make it socially just or appropriate. The treatment of slaves was, I'm sure, generally done according to what, at that time, would have been considered "best practices", and people wanted cotton. But that doesn't mean that slavery should have been ignored and "left to the professionals".

I am sure agriculture would love to work with the people concerned about current best practices to find new and better best practices. Agribusiness is always at the forefront of technology and is quick to adopt better ways.

The problem is that the people who come with concern tend to not take time to understand the situation. I recall a recent incident with a celebrity suggesting dairy farmers should breed their calves to not have horns. Great idea in theory. The genes do exist in some living cattle, but it is quite rare. Anyone with even a basic understanding of biology can see how that isn't going to work out so well, but we cannot even seem to find that level of understanding out there.

They demonstrate this by lobbying to suppress freedom of speech? Weird. You haven't justified restricting free speech. I am willing (happy) to admit that some animal-rights people are uninformed blowhards. But that doesn't justify punching holes in the first amendment.

According to the article, the law intends to prevent animal rights activists, who show some intent to harm the operation, from conducting their business on private property without permission. That is a lot closer, if anything, to being a trespassing matter, not one of free speech.

I'm not sure that still justifies it, and I am not in favour of it myself, but I don't think we want to go down the road of misguided analogies like comparing copyright to theft. Surely people should have some say over what happens on their private property, and if they are being prevented from doing so for whatever reason, perhaps a law of some kind (not necessarily this one) is needed?

Granted, I haven't read the actual wording of the law yet, or have any understanding who is behind it and what their motivation is, so perhaps the article is off base.

Unless you switch everyone to a meat substitute, killing will be required for eating meat.

I've eaten: cow, chicken, pig, turkey, duck, frog, octopus, salmon, tuna, and I'm sure other meats too. All of them required to be killed, for processing.

Don't get me wrong. I eat meat. I've also done slaughtering as well and know what goes on when you do kill. I also strongly prefer eating humanely treated animals, before and during slaughter.

"humane slaughter"

Look at the way we treat prisoners who have been found guilty of a capital crime: lethal injection.

That was because drowned, hung, shot, or electrocuted was considered inhumane. Even the first of 3 of the cocktail puts the prisoner to go unconscious.

Now, treat the animals that we eat similar. Nitrogen gas suffocation is known to be the least traumatic death yet. Some executing prisons are going to that as well.

Fine, that's perfectly fine with me. But nothing you said suggests that recording slaughter practices should be some sort of special "first amendment black hole". If it grosses people out, then maybe we'll just end up with more vegetarians, oh well.

I'm not sure it is quite that simple. The article seems to indicate that it isn't about hiding information per-say, but to keep the people, who come with the specific intent of destroying the farm, away. You will notice it is not just about videos.

I think most farmers respect, and even often agree with, with normal animal rights activists, but they also have a real fear towards the "crazy PETA types", and with good reason. I think you'd find any industry trying to push for similar laws in the presence of similar activists, and we do have laws for similar cases that have come up.

Its unfortunate that those who have a real concern for the well-being of animals, and actually want to work with farmers to see improvements, get wrapped up in the spectacle that others bring.

And the harsh fact: for you to live, something else must die.

We only focus on factory farm operations and the possible illegality of filming illegal actions. Yes, there are horrible practices in many parts of industry (I would say more horrible than not).

I just got done watching a documentary about plant communication on Nature (PBS). They also seem to be able to identify self, relative, and non-self. They communicate across species about predator information. They initiate active chemical defenses against organisms that attack them. They also respond to negative stimuli (pain). All things considered, they seem to be able to think and feel similarly to the animals.

Now.. I say this why? Most people would have no compunction about killing a plant for food, yet many I know would strongly object in killing a cow or chicken to eat meat.

My point is this: plants and animals seem to feel pain and seek to minimize it. Plants and animals are both living. I would not say that any specific plant is any more or less important than an animal (including us). However, for us to live, something must, inevitably die.

I make a thanks to the beings, plant and animal, I consume before each meal.

I have noticed a growing trend of reporting best practices, that attempt to minimize animal suffering as much as possible, as animal cruelty.

I am reminded of Mike Rowe's discussion about castration and docking of lambs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-udsIV4Hmc

Governments and large corporations, simply because of the size of their budgets, seem to be the biggest victims of bad practices in software development. If the public understood these boondoggles better, compared with, say, cost overruns on construction projects, taxpayers and shareholders might be better off.

I really don't see the downside to greater transparency in most endeavors. Either there isn't an analogy here, or livestock farming is somehow special, which I'm also not seeing how that is.

The analogy is that software companies would react the same way, if faced with the same problem. I'd love to walk into a large software company and document all of their inefficiencies to share with everyone, but I suspect I'd quickly end up in legal hot water, even as the law is written today.

I don't think text files should have the same rights as animals. Yet.

> I'd love to walk into a large software company and document all of their inefficiencies to share with everyone

Many large software companies develop some of their software in the open, recognizing the benefits of such transparency. You only have to peruse Github and other repo sites. The idea of developing software in the open is widely adopted, and practically a requirement for some kinds of software, like cryptography and other security software.

It seems more natural to draw the exact opposite analogy: If proper handling of livestock and meat is critical to one's safety, meat production should be as easy to monitor as "git log" for a repo of crypto software.

To be fair, I haven't met many farmers that wouldn't love to have you come tour their operation. In fact, its pretty common, at least where I reside, for farmers to host open houses so people can do exactly that. Certain species are prone to illness by human exposure, so there are some limitations on certain farms, but generally farmers are proud about what they are producing and love to show it off.

If you feel there is a lack of transparency, I would suggest it is primarily due to distance. When the nearest metropolitan area is hours away, you get a disconnect on several levels. If you don't already have connections to farmers, its difficult to find the connections to build the opportunities to learn more, granted. Especially when you consider that only 2-3% of the population are farming to begin with.

As someone who actually owns a few cows, many chickens, and a horse, my main complaint about the legal situation is how I am kept from selling a gallon of milk to a "close" customer: one that actually walks on to my land, hands me $16, sees the cow that I milked and comes again next week. Now that is transparency.

Although in many cases I can get away with selling the milk, if I were to butcher a cow an sell the meat (outside of a USDA approved slaughter house, etc) that would be pure unadulterated evil.

I would love to see a change in perspective that emphasized "local and small" = more self regulated, "farther and bigger" = more state oversight... oddly enough, in practice, it is the other way around.

Just let the small guys have more freedoms, and people will vote with their dollars.

This results in the rather brutal net result of "uncaring people will pay the least and demand the most abusive practices". But, honestly, I don't think we can get around this with legislation.

I have noticed a growing trend of reporting best practices, that attempt to minimize animal suffering as much as possible, as animal cruelty.

What are these best practices, and how do they get reported? I noticed the article said the same thing, but didn't give any examples.