Mastodawn

jeffw Nov 17, 2023

The US is normalizing the cruelest mass killing method to stop bird flu

The US is normalizing the cruelest mass killing method to stop bird flu - Lemmy.World

> Last year, I wrote a great deal about the rise of “ventilation shutdown plus” (VSD+), a method being used to mass kill poultry birds on factory farms by sealing off the airflow inside barns and pumping in extreme heat using industrial-scale heaters, so that the animals die of heatstroke over the course of hours. It is one of the worst forms of cruelty being inflicted on animals in the US food system — the equivalent of roasting animals to death — and it’s been used to kill tens of millions of poultry birds during the current avian flu outbreak. As of this summer, the most recent period for which data is available, more than 49 million birds, or over 80 percent of the depopulated total, were killed in culls that used VSD+ either alone or in combination with other methods, according to an analysis of USDA data by Gwendolen Reyes-Illg, a veterinary adviser to the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), an animal advocacy nonprofit. These mass killings, or “depopulations,” in the industry’s jargon, are paid for with public dollars through a USDA program that compensates livestock farmers for their losses.

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Hylactor Nov 18, 2023

If humans don’t commit suicide first through war or environmental abuse, I truly believe that future generations will look back on eating meat as a barbaric mistake. They’ll tell stories about how we caused epidemics and pandemics, wasted valuable resources and land, polluted air, land, and sea, and abided the suffering of billions of animals, all so we could feed our children dinosaur shaped meat nuggets and buy cheap hamburgers that we were too lazy to even get out of our cars to purchase.

“And then, evan ad global warming spiraled out of control, they wasted arable land and dwindling water supplies on subsidized corn to feed to the subsidized beef and poultry stock. The ones that didn’t get culled or spoil before even hitting a plate contributed to a dietary culture of heart disease. Also, the animals regularly suffered immensely, which they were aware of but preferred not to consider.”

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MooseBoys Nov 18, 2023

future generations will look back on eating meat as a barbaric mistake

Primates, including humans, evolved to be omnivorous. In the 200,000 year history of the homo sapiens species, only the most recent 3% have had the benefit of agriculture. Even then, only 0.1% have had the benefit of the industrial revolution which could in theory provide enough calories and nutrients for all humans with a purely herbivorous diet.

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starman2112 Nov 19, 2023

So what? We evolved to be able to eat a wide variety of diets. I don’t judge my homie erectus ancestors for doing what they needed to survive. It’s pretty plain that the person you’re replying to is referring to modern society’s obsession with producing as much meat as we do, not the concept of eating meat as a whole.

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willis936 Nov 19, 2023

It’s fairly apparent that the person you’re replying to is referring to modern society’s obsession with producing as much meat as we do, not the concept of eating meat as a whole.

Complete and utter bullshit. Don’t move goalposts because you don’t want to concede a point. They explicitly said:

I truly believe that future generations will look back on eating meat as a barbaric mistake

That doesn’t even remotely imply there is a quantity of meat consumption that is morally acceptable.

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starman2112

Right, that’s what they explicitly said, but speech also includes implications on occasion. That’s why we’re typically able to convey thoughts and opinions without writing hundreds of pages to account for every possible interpretation of what we say.

For example, killing people is wrong. I don’t need to include the idea that self defense is obviously exempt, and that euthanasia is a grey area for some people for you to assume that I already understand that in certain circumstances, a thing I’m against is morally allowable.