[citricsquid]

The intelligence argument is nonsense. Pigs are as intelligent as dogs. Describe the treatment of livestock (pigs, chickens, cows) but frame it as something that is happening to dogs and you'll drive hundreds of thousands of outraged meat eaters to signing a petition. The reason is cognitive dissonance, we're taught from the moment we can understand that it's okay to farm animals and very few people ever really think about the consequences of that. To be humane means "having or showing compassion or benevolence" which is about as far from how you can describe the treatment of livestock that you can get. To suggest that the the real problem with livestock farming is the slaughter demonstrates a clear misunderstanding of where the real problems lie, slaughter is one of the most humane parts of livestock farming.

Dairy cows spend more than half a decade being repeatedly raped and abused until they're slaughtered because their bodies have been destroyed by the milking process, and they spend that half a decade having their young snatched away from them over and over again. If having the emotional intelligence to mourn your stolen young isn't enough to justify ending the inhumane treatment then it's certainly not intelligence that humans care about.

If this research is unethical then learn about gestation crates, which immobilise pigs for months of their pregnancy.

[kbenson]

> To be humane means "having or showing compassion or benevolence" which is about as far from how you can describe the treatment of livestock that you can get.

The problem I have with this is that like in so many other subjects, a too general term has been used to describe a specific type of practice. Traditional farming is very different than factory farming (which seems to be what you are describing), and there are many levels between them. You may still have problems with how a traditional farm is run, and that's fine, you can present those. But presenting features of factory farming as problems with "livestock farming" implies that all livestock farming is like that, and that's untrue.

If you believe all livestock farming is immoral, please use, or at least add justification for the cases where it's not factory farming if you are going to call out all livestock farming. If you are instead specifically targeting factory farming, please endeavor to accurately label it.

[asciimo]

Considering that 99 percent of US meat comes from factory farms[1], there's little point in discussing other forms of farming.

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2010/12/why-free-r...

[kbenson]

> Considering that 99 percent of US meat comes from factory farms[1], there's little point in discussing other forms of farming.

First, that would only possibly be true if we constrained ourselves to meat production. The original comment I replied to specifically called out dairy, and it's partially what I was thinking of when I replied.

Second, that doesn't make sense because it's useful to discuss alternatives when discussing problems. Even if they aren't a feasible drop in replacement, that doesn't mean there aren't aspects that can possibly be encouraged. Also, it may help narrow the arguments and objections to the core problems people have. For example, is factory farming undesirable because animals are confined, animals are in pain, or because animals deserve a better lifestyle, where they can exist at least somewhat like they would in nature (i.e. do animals deserve not to be tortures in ways that are not just physical)? Focusing only on factory farming may yield reforms that address symptoms, not the problem.

Inaccurately aimed or qualified criticism leads to arguments from people who may agree in principle. It's counterproductive.

[anbende]

If there are ways of farming that are ethical that are already in use (the 1% in your argument), then we absolutely should discuss those. We would want to start increasing that number.

It changes things considerably whether livestock can be raised ethically. If they can, we can try to do that. If they can't, then the only ethical solution is to stop raising livestock. So discussing that 1% has practical implications.

[truth_sentinell]

You can't raise livestock for hundreds of millions of people "ethically" -whatever that means-. That's why people industrialized the process, and on most big factories there's little human intervention.

I can't picture the day where people stop eating meat. It just won't happen, not matter what arguments you present.

The best way to go is replacing it, and the perfect postulate is lab meat, which I hope, is going to be massively produced at low cost in the next ten years. And even if it doesn't ill people, tastes the same as natural meat, you will find resistence.

So, to summarise: lab meat at lower cost than natural meat, demands plunge, billions of animals are saved every year.

[mbfg]

once lab meat/lab milk can be produced at or below cost of farming, cows will likely go extinct, unfortunately.

A less vulgar correlary is that once horse racing is outlawed, horses will mostly go extinct as well, as the racing industry is responsible for being able to acquire feed/hay/veternary care for the average horse owner. Without it will be practically impossible to keep 'pleasure' horses.

We humans are nasty creatures.

[RehnoLindeque]

From what I've heard most land-use in the world goes towards animal agriculture - mainly for growing feed. Don't quote me, but I think it's over 40% of all land use in the USA. On balance I'd be far more concerned about the destruction of habitat for already endangered wildlife.

[Ericson2314]

Billions of animals won't be brought into existence, you mean.

[Benjamin_Dobell]

Just to be clear, I haven't at all expressed that I think the treatment of livestock for slaughter is acceptable/ethical.

The intelligence remark I made was with regard to why society might perceive these differently. I'm not suggesting that logic is necessarily valid.

[sandworm101]

The desire to protect dogs/cats/horses over other animals isn't cognitive dissonance. Our relationship to certain species goes deeper than intellectual debates. We have evolved dogs from wolves, and so to have we evolved alongside them, to see value beyond meat. We have an instinct that protects dogs and cats because they are more valuable than food. They gather and protect our food. Pigs may be more intelligent, but they don't guard our doors at night and so we lack the same protective instincts. This isn't simple cognitive dissonance, but dissonance between modern intellectual values re intelligence and evolved survival instincts.

[lostlogin]

I wonder if this is slowly changing as values change. In NZ there is a growing movement to eradicate pests to help protect native species. Cats fall on the wrong side of this goal. There have been public calls by high profile individuals to eradicate cats. Maybe someday birds will be seen to greater value than cats down here.

http://nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10...

[sandworm101]

That's a very modern trend. Even if they did 'ban' cats I really doubt anyone would look to eradicate them. We aren't going to see cops raiding people's houses to kill their pets. It will probably take the form of mandatory spay/neuter programs to wipe out the population over a period of several years. The feral cats will be trapped and similarly treated until there are only a very few that need to be actually killed.

I do wonder whether a place like NZ might then have a rat problem. Rats also do real damage to native species, including birds as they eat eggs. Removing a key rat predator inside cities might have repercussions.

[lostlogin]

We do have a rat problem. There are quite a few predator free areas in NZ which are islands or fenced inland areas. With fenced off areas, more problematic than rats are mice, which can get though truely tiny holes in fences, jump quite high and are hard to control. At least rats can be fenced out more easily. In terms of killing pests, some great equipment has been developed recently. A homegrown CO2 powered ", self resetting trap has impressive functionality and ongoing testing is really promising.

www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/313828/self-resetting-rat-traps-20-times-better-than-standard-traps-study

[Asooka]

Society has flip-flopped on treating cats as pets or as pests, or even as witch familiars. Call me when people agree to kill dogs, who can wreck native populations a lot worse than cats, if left to breed unchecked on streets.

[nostromo]

We're talking about monkeys here - humanity's closest relatives.

If we want AI to treat us well in the far future, we should treat monkeys and apes with dignity and respect today.

[lostlogin]

Why just them though? We don't treat humans that well a lot of the time, and if AI looked to us for an example, things are going to be rough.

[nostromo]

I see it as a continuum not as a black and white situation. The higher an animal is on the Encephalization quotient, the more respect they deserve.

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

This is why I think it's ok to swat a mosquito that's being annoying, but not to euthanize a monkey that's being annoying.

[_audakel]

From the wiki article. Never heard about a eq score before.

Mean EQ for mammals is around 1, with carnivorans, cetaceans and primates above 1, and insectivores and herbivores below. This reflects two major trends. One is that brain matter is extremely costly in terms of energy needed to sustain it.[19] Animals which live on relatively nutrient poor diets (plants, insects) have relatively little energy to spare for a large brain, while animals living from energy-rich food (meat, fish, fruit) can grow larger brains. The other factor is the brain power needed to catch food. Carnivores generally need to find and kill their prey, which presumably requires more cognitive power than browsing or grazing.[20][21] The brain size of a wolf is about 30% larger than a similarily sized domestic dog, again reflecting different needs in their respective way of life.[22]

[kpil]

I think average neuron count in the cerebral cortex is good if not better. Some really large animals are outliers, but the EQ score is probably misleading in smaller animals.

(Except for birds and fish, but hey...)

[TheSpiceIsLife]

Yes, it is troubling that the two societies most like to create AGI are the USA and China.

Although I'm probably not being critical enough. All of the cultures that have survived to this stage are fairly aggressive and generally destructive.

[nihonde]

In that case, why not start with human subjects?

[stinos]

start is incorrect since human subjects are already being used from time to time. Way less than animals though, and often (e.g. electrical stimulation to fight epilepsy/tinitus) though not always (e.g. recording from electrodes in malicious brain tissue which is going to be removed anyway) they benefit so much it would be almost unhuman not to help them.

[lostlogin]

The times that has been done have raised complicated ethical questions beyond the obvious. Many have refused to use the data gathered despite some of the it being potentially helpful as the use of the 'tainted' data gives a validity to the method of gathering. http://bioethics.as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/30171/Steinberg.HumanRes...

[fsloth]

Economic reasons? Humans are worth a lot more than monkeys. I know it's a cruel reason and hardly the only one.

[GFischer]

Unfortunately not entirely true, depending on where you live.

Americans would be astounded to learn the usual settlements awarded for deaths due to traffic accidents (as an example I'm familiar with) in South America.

Payments of 25.000 dollars aren't uncommon. Colombia and Uruguay pay around U$ 150.000 per death. Heck, even first world countries like Spain can pay less than that.

So, an expensive monkey pet can be more expensive than a human.

http://www.therichest.com/luxury/most-expensive/10-most-expe...

https://www.scoopwhoop.com/Most-Expensive-Pets/

(Spanish) http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2014/04/08/actualidad/13...

[digler999]

Probably because many treatment options can cause harm. So no researcher wants to take the very real risk of harming another human. If you harm an animal unintentionally, and in the name of trying to do something good, not many people will question it. But if you kill a paralyzed patient, or make him suffer excruciating pain, you're likely going to feel remorse and his family is going to demand an answer.

[nihonde]

I think the social taboo is self-reinforcing argument. Animals have the same rights as humans. Indeed, we are animals. Those who draw categorical lines to justify their morose experimentation ought to be judged in the same light as someone who would cage a human boy and deliberately sever his spinal cord in the name of a higher good. It's the same. I don't condemn the science, but I do condemn the hypocrisy.

[ricree]

>Animals have the same rights as humans. Indeed, we are animals

By that reasoning, oughtn't we grant the same rights to a sea sponge?

It's not clear to me that animals, as a general class, deserve any particular care or rights beyond what we might extend to living creatures in general. So far as we grants rights to animals, the clear criteria seems to be complexity (especially of the intellectual sort) and closeness to humanity.

[robohamburger]

My wife is in vet school and when I learned all of what you describe from her I have been phasing out dairy as best as I can. Still can't kick the butter cheese and icecream though :(

[sdfin]

You may be interested in watching the documentary 'Earthlings' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358456/

[coygui]

When I search for "gestation crates", Wikipedia tells me this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestation_crate#/media/File:So...

I'm sure you don't explicitly mean this, :)

[perseusprime11]

This is great comment! I always wondered why people were ok eating cows and pigs and not cats and dogs. It's got to be how we are conditioned from childhood to obey conventional thinking. Dogs are faithful to humans so we cannot eat them....

[imaginenore]

It's not nonsense. Monkeys are smarter than dogs, pigs, cows, chickens.

[oxide]

Are you saying comparing apples and oranges is the only way to effectively make your point?

Dogs and livestock are quite different. We keep them around for entirely different reasons.

[Falling3]

Certainly not an apples and oranges comparison. The distinction you've pointed to is in no way relevant to the point that was being made.

[azag0]

There is a difference between inherent difference, and difference in the meaning we assign to things.

[honkhonkpants]

It doesn't have anything to do with cognitive dissonance. We allow ourselves to slaughter farm animals because we've benefit their species tremendously. The perpetual existence of domestic animal species is virtually assured. By contrast, we have done nothing for monkeys other than relentlessly destroy their habitats.

[Falling3]

There is no ethical argument to be made for actions to benefit the species at the expense of the individuals it comprises.

[honkhonkpants]

Sure there is.