Pain-free animals could take suffering out of farming!

[Glen Lambert]

Oh dear!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...html?full=true

[Sarah_]

WHYYYYYY WHYYY must we think of ways to continue our jerkwad ways instead of not being jerkwads anymore?!

"No, Sir, it's okay. Your son was killed humanely. You shouldn't be sad."
WHAT

[beanstew]

"A very wise choice, I'll just nip off and shoot myself. Don't worry, I'll be very humane."

[whalespace]

I can almost hear people saying
"Eating animal flesh is O.K. because in fifty years time ALL food flesh will be grown in tanks."

[Stu]

WHYYYYYY WHYYY must we think of ways to continue our jerkwad ways instead of not being jerkwads anymore?!

"No, Sir, it's okay. Your son was killed humanely. You shouldn't be sad."
WHAT

Best post ever.

[gogs67]

Ignoring the problem of worldwide meat consumption doubling in the next 30 years wont make it go away, i wish it would, but it wont.
People have to talk about solutions, however much we personally may disagree!
The editorial makes an interesting point, but then, it mirrors what Shriver himself says "if someone can prove that we really are on the verge of moving to that kind of society, "then I would be happy to jettison my idea".

[harpy]

That's true gogs, but I can't see that the "pain-free animals" idea is going to solve the main problems of intensive meat production really - not the environmental impact, not the stress that farmed animals are put under when separated from their young or taken for slaughter, not the fact that they aren't able to follow their instinctive behaviours.

I tend to agree with what Peter Singer says near the end of the article. "The meat-in-vats" idea, unappealing as it is, would solve more of the problems.

[VeganMonkey]

This makes me feel so depressed. If factory animals don't feel pain they move another step closer to being nothing but peices of machinery in that disgusting system - a venture which is presented in that article as being compassionate is actually moving animals further away from the right to compassionate treatment. Can they stop them feeling loneliness and fear too? I doubt it. And yet if painless animals become a reality I don't see how factory farming will ever be abolished. Feeling very bleak having read that...

[Sloth]

It's weird, and I think you see it quite often, omni people only deciding that

"...we have an ethical duty..."

when something arises that they believe will sufficiently ease their consciences.

[gogs67]

^^
Dont feel depressed, it's just a theory put forward by someone for future food production. It won't happen.
We are far more likely to see meat grown in vats than GM animals who 'feel no pain'!

[Prawnil]

Blah blah blah, this only comes even remotely close to an improvement if you take the brutal & ludicrous view of animals as bundles of reflex arcs, that just so happen to have some bare-minimum sense of mechanical pain to-the-self magically tucked in there among the useful meat. I would say, being also an enduring, sensate creature, that mechanical pain is the most minor component of a farmed animal's suffering. Given the general population's stance on animals, it's almost a nice gesture, though.

It goes, at least in the new scientist re-telling, into no detail on thoughts on potential terrible consequences to the animal-mind of engineering out one element of one mode of sense. It also means making the assumption that meddling with transmission, by genetic means that are bound to be far-reaching & interdependent in countless ways, will not have abysmal consequences on the animal mind.
It aaalso means making the assumption that the behaviour of some knockout mice is truly indicative of the effects of those genes on the animal's sensations & state of the animal's world!

He's an academic philosopher though, so holding up a piece of paper occasionally and asking "So... what do you think of this, then?!" is near enough his job. That's honesly not scorn, either - I think that's a brilliant thing to be paid to do. He's into some extremely interesting things (& it must lose an awful lot when converted into a magasine article).

[BlackCats]

This makes me feel so depressed. If factory animals don't feel pain they move another step closer to being nothing but peices of machinery in that disgusting system - a venture which is presented in that article as being compassionate is actually moving animals further away from the right to compassionate treatment. Can they stop them feeling loneliness and fear too? I doubt it. And yet if painless animals become a reality I don't see how factory farming will ever be abolished. Feeling very bleak having read that...

I know. Some of the comments at the bottom are completely moronic as well.

I read an article a while back about breeding cows that produce less methane so they are better for the environment.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...o-be-bred.html You think there might be an even better solution to this problem, hmmm.

[VeganMonkey]

^^
Dont feel depressed, it's just a theory put forward by someone for future food production. It won't happen.
We are far more likely to see meat grown in vats than GM animals who 'feel no pain'!

Yeah, I think you're right. The idea of lab grown meat did freak me out to start with but it seems vastly preferable to this option...

[whalespace]

... thoughts on potential terrible consequences to the animal-mind of engineering out one element of one mode of sense. ...meddling with transmission, by genetic means that are bound to be far-reaching & interdependent... abysmal consequences on the animal mind.

At least animals born insane will not suffer gradual loss of sanity in hellish incarceration.
I wonder what the frustrated stockmen will do when their 'gentle prods' are no longer effective... and I don't mean let's try it.

[Glen Lambert]

Meat grown in vats! That brings back memories of The Day Today and the report on the meat fields of Kent.

*apologies to anyone who never watched it*

[fiamma]

Meat fields of Kent? Were those like the April Fools spaghetti trees?

[emzy1985]

Truely twisted shit!