jeffwNov 17, 2023

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

https://lemmy.world/post/8401294

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.

Show threadghostdoggtvNov 18, 2023
Hello aliens I’m a vegan and condemn this bullshit
Show threadSippy CupNov 18, 2023
I’m not and I condemn this bullshit.
Show threaddangblingusNov 18, 2023
So you’ll put your money where your mouth is and stop buying chicken then right? That’s how condemnation works.
Show threadMycoBroNov 18, 2023
I raise my own chickens. I love them very much. Some of them get eaten. I am very grateful to those. You don’t have to be a vegan to be a good person.
Show threadstarman2112Nov 19, 2023

“I love my chickens so much that I kill and eat them sometimes”

Remind me not to let you watch my dogs

Show threadMycoBroNov 19, 2023
Wow. I’m really fucking floored by y’all’s response. Where do you think your food comes from man? Seriously. I’m not being ugly, like you are, im trying to understand how you feel like you have less impact than I do. I am just able to take the responsibility for my own food
Show threadstarman2112Nov 19, 2023
My food comes primarily from farms. I’m not saying I necessarily have less of an impact on anything than you, all I’m saying is that I don’t kill animals for food and I don’t pay for them to be killed.
Show threadMycoBroNov 19, 2023
You mocked me, man. It only hurts in the super small space that internet strangers can reach but it exists, regardless of how small. So. Bullshit.
Show threadstarman2112Nov 19, 2023
I pointed out some cognitive dissonance. I care a little bit more about random animals’ lives than I do about random internet strangers’ feelings.
Show threadDrusasNov 19, 2023
You should consider that the only way you will convince people to care more about random animals lives is if you care about strangers' feelings. You don't change minds by attacking someone, whether it be a personal attack or a lifestyle one.
Show threadstarman2112Nov 19, 2023
If it makes you feel bad when people tell you that killing animals is wrong, then you should look into not killing animals. How am I supposed to try to convince you to stop eating meat if I have to set my morals aside and say “actually there’s nothing really wrong with eating meat, and you shouldn’t feel bad at all about it?”
Show threaddaltotron

How am I supposed to try to convince you to stop eating meat if I have to set my morals aside and say insert opposing opinion

You have to do this basically every time you want to convince someone, occupying their position better than they can occupy it themselves and still coming out with the correct opinion is part of being empathetic and mature. There’s not really any inherent or objective morality to whether or not raising and then killing your own chickens is good or not. Someone who’s really invested in the concept of ownership as a specific right is really not going to care about your own moral code of infringing on the chicken’s right to not be killed randomly. They’re just going to say that it’s their right to kill their chicken, and that’s that. It obviously has to become bigger than that, you have to give alternatives, spell out why their ideological position doesn’t really work out at scale, give out alternative perspectives, you have to be intellectually honest and give them ground when they push back.

If you just kind of, resorting to occupying your own position forever, and then calling out other people that violate that position, then you’re just gonna be kind of blindly hitting other people for reasons that they don’t fully understand, like what happens on the internet constantly. It’s maybe more self-affirming to be someone else’s ideological landmine, but I think it’s probably harmful overall, because it’s a selfish short-term gain that doesn’t see the bigger picture. It prioritizes your own self-affirmation over someone else’s ability to be emotionally vulnerable and open to new ideas. Your own morals should probably not preclude you from being nice to people that you see as bad or evil or dicks. But then that’s just my two cents, I dunno.

Nov 19, 2023 at 5:02amWeb