this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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Edit: Surprised at all the vegans in this thread. I didn't think there were so many of you. I'm glad you care so much about animal rights, that you're willing to forego eating them and using products made from them. If you're not vegan and have moral objections for this, maybe you should look at yourself first and all the animal abuse you sanction by eating animals and using animal products. Did you know dairy cows have to be pregnant to produce milk? They're artificially inseminated throughout most of their lives. I hope everyone complaining about this also complains about ice cream and cheese. Or else they would be hypocrites who just want to blame others but never look at themselves.

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[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Am I the only one who thinks it's fucked up to experiment on animals who can't consent to this? We place so much emphasis on people being the most important thing in the world, we forgot that we are part of the ecosystem too.

[–] htrayl@lemmy.world 79 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This is and will always be small potatoes in terms of the suffering we put relatively intelligent animals through every day.

We would need to slaughter probably 100,000 animals yearly for the US organ demand (at ~50,000 transplants per year and a buffer).

We slaughter 125 MILLION pigs in the US for consumption a year.

Not to mention that "medical grade" pigs will probably be given a golden ticket in terms of care until they are slaughtered, compared to the extremely abysmal environment millions live in today.

If animal welfare is important to you, scientific research is a poor use of advocating resources while we still eat hundreds of pounds of meat yearly. If advocates reduce meat consumption by even a percent or two it would generally greatly outweigh banning animal based research entirely.

[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Sure, but the article isn't about the inhumane treatment of our industrial meat production facilities. I'm well aware of them. And I want those gone too.

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[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 41 points 1 year ago (13 children)

Animal testing isn’t ideal but for important medical advances, animal testing is the only way to demonstrate safety before human trials. At some point, you have to value the life of a human more than mice.

And some of the testing is fun. Like when they give them a buzzer to get more drugs. Lab rats definitely consent to more cocaine.

[–] Beefcyclone@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Confirmed, cocaine is lab rat approved.

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[–] bobman@unilem.org 27 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I mean, you're probably not the only one who thinks anything.

That said, do you eat meat? If so, the meat and dairy industries systematically do egregious things to millions of animals every day.

[–] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dude if I can preorder a whole pig with a replacement set of lungs too ….

Dinner and an upgrade?

[–] Cold_Brew_Enema@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Bacon and breathing

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[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We are, but being a part of the ecosystem doesn't really mean much. Ecosystems aren't obligations, authorities, sources of morality or subject to it. They're just systems of relationships between organisms in a particular place. Whatever humans do, as long as it involves other organisms, that is our role in the local ecosystem. If we start doing something else, we aren't forgetting our role in the ecosystem, no role was ever assigned to us, our "role" is merely descriptive of what impact we have.

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There are plenty of carnivores in the ecosystem. But I can’t think of another one that keeps prey suffering in a box from birth to death in order to feed itself.

It’s funny that we consider ourselves higher organisms because only we can even think about ethics or have ethics. But is it ethical to treat those incapable of ethics unethically?? If we are the only one in the picture with ethics, don’t we have a double responsibility to apply them for all?

[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If other predators were even capable of animal agriculture, I'd bet that there's a good chance that they would do it, but that's of course not really possible to know for sure. If we were going to apply ethics to things like animals that don't naturally have them, though, wouldn't we basically be obligated to destroy the natural ecosystem even more than we already do? The natural environment is, for something living it, absolutely horrendous. Not in the same way as things for a farm animal, but still, natural ecosystems tend to result in a situation where organisms must constantly fend of starvation, predation, parasites and infection, and few creatures live as long as they potentially could. If we really cared much about the well being of all the animals out there, we'd basically have to destroy the natural biosphere completely and keep all remaining animals in idealized captive conditions, like pets or zoo animals, to keep them free of predators and disease.

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

We can’t call other species unethical because they are either ethical nor unethical.

And so no, although nature is brutal, we are not obligated to destroy it (though some actually do hold this position on the grounds that it would reduce suffering).

The only creature we can judge ethically is ourselves. My point is that we ket ourselves off the hook on treatment of animals. Because they have no ethical function, they are like objects to us, and we do (vaguely gestures at this post) whatever to them. Our logic seems to be “until you’re capable ethics I don’t need to treat you with any, even though I’m capable.” It’s a neat little self-serving loophole we love to exploit.

[–] jackoneill@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

It’s just another version of the food chain

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (13 children)

Everyone is rushing in here to say it’s fine because we eat meat too. But I find this whole thing g very revealing of attitudes we usually just don’t think about. We’d never farm organs in human embryos because GASP consent and GASP sanctity of life. But we’ll farm organs cross species, which is surely more difficulty, because we’re so comfortable doing all that to animals.

You can take the perspective that it’s fine because meat. Or you can use this to take a second look at eating meat and suddenly it seems pretty fucked up.

I eat meat. Am not talking down to anyone. I just do actually think about the ethics.

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It's definitely fucked up. It reminds me of the WKUK breakfast pig sketch.

[–] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, but you see; the animals are useful in a new way so ethics doesn't matter. We'll worry about that in 50 years when we no longer need them to grow new organs for us

[–] SCB@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

We’ll worry about that in 50 years when we no longer need them to grow new organs for us

Yes that would be appropriate.

[–] Harrison@ttrpg.network 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I would see a million pigs die before one human.

[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's basically the attitude that is resulting in the 6th mass extinction right now.

[–] FlowVoid@midwest.social 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Pigs are in no danger of extinction.

And wanting to preserve natural ecosystems does not imply wanting to improve the treatment of livestock. Incidentally, the end of meat consumption would most likely lead to the extinction of multiple species of livestock.

[–] Harrison@ttrpg.network 5 points 1 year ago

We brought pigs into existence for the benefit of human conditions, we will take them out of it if and when it becomes necessary.

[–] ivanafterall@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

How many pigs would be too many? What is the precise pig to human exchange rate?

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