I'm starting to lose faith in mankind at an alarming rate

Isis

I just got sent a link of a video involving pretty shocking footage of a pig farm in the US. I'm Afrikaans and I love my meat as much as the next guy, but I'm not sure whether or not I'll be able to carry on like this. I've always felt like I was supporting crap such as this by buying factory farmed meat. I've never seriously considered going vegan though.

On the one hand I'm aware of the fact that one consumer is not going to change the world, and whether I continue to eat meat or not is irrelevant. On the other hand I cannot help but feel that I'm the sort of person that stands up for what he believes in, even if I'm standing alone. I don't want to be the type of person that compromises his values because "everyone is doing it". Or it's "normal", we need protein.....bla bla bla. We pride ourselves on the fact that we are sentient beings that can put ourselves in another shoes. Why the hell do we insist on torturing animals for the sake of stuffing ourselves full of food that go way beyond our dietary requirements?
I'm so furious I could kill these assholes with my bare hands, but I'm afraid they're just the product of our wondrous and progressive society. I'm beginning to think that consumerism is not that great after all. I'm so ashamed of being human right now it's not even funny ☹

I'm sorry for posting this on the forum but I feel like I need to share this with someone.

vic

I have not watched the video and neither am I going to. Like you, many of us are very sensitive to this kind of thing....Is there any way you could just include a link to it rather than having the video actually in ones face ? I'm just thinking that many members could be traumatised by it, but I maybe wrong.
BTW I share your sentiments.....

You know people are also cruel to other people and I guess there are plenty youtube vids on that...but personally I would not like to see it on this forum.

Isis

I'm sorry Vic, I didn't mean to offend. I would have preferred posting the link without embedding it in the post, but alas it would seem that is not possible. I've removed the vid though. If you really want to view it you can search "Investigation Reveals Cruelty at Pig Factory Farm" on You Tube.

vic

Isis wrote I'm sorry Vic, I didn't mean to offend. I would have preferred posting the link without embedding it in the post, but alas it would seem that is not possible. I've removed the vid though. If you really want to view it you can search "Investigation Reveals Cruelty at Pig Factory Farm" on You Tube.

No apologies necessary Isis... ?....it's just that stuff like that is so damn shocking that it may upset a lot of members imho.

Seventhson

Nah I lost faith bec of the way most people "need a government to tell them how to live their lives."

People seem to accept slavery with open hands:-/

/end rant.

singemonkey

You don't need to go vegan to give up eating meat Isis. Becoming vegetarian is a choice a lot of people make and there's a lot of ethical, philosophical, practical reasons why that's a valid way to go. But as long as you're not harming animals, it doesn't mean you can't eat an egg from time to time ?

I think vegetarianism is the right choice for a lot of reasons but I'm not going there yet. Just living with the hypocrisy as many of us do. One day though. If this experience catalyses you into action, then you should use it.

Another thing to keep in mind is that when I was younger, a lot of people who turned veggie had no idea there was good vegetarian food to eat and used to eat the most appalling crap - which often put them, and everyone around them, off vegetarian food. Remember that there's a lot more to it than a pot of unflavoured lentils ?

G-Man

I hate animal cruelty, they say that you can judge a society by how they treat their animals. 'Nuff said.

Side note...

I think the dolphin hunters and whalers are disgusting, that stuff makes me really really angry.

21Fretter

@G-Man. Have you seen The Cove? All about dolphin and whale hunting (mostly dolphin). Mad and disgusting stuff as is this. I have no issues with eating meat as long as the animals are treated acceptably but when they are treated like this for our/my gain (not that i eat pork but i imagine there are beef processing farms like this), it does make me think twice.

Wizard

Maybe this is sounding idealistic, but I have been recently inspired by the (largely) passive and organised uprisings in Egypt etc; where a large, unignorable group of people have stuck together and said "enough".

We know that illegal and immoral capitalist "regimes" will continue to survive if the product is consumed off happy looking Tesco and Pick 'n Pay shelves; and it' the easily silenced and marginalised individual who are the only people who object.
Perhaps the power of social media is now getting strong enough that we can consume whatever we want, but which isn't produced by child labour, in appalling conditions and while giving the elite wealthy some form of mild pleasure at the (unknown) pain and sacrifice of others.

Don't assume the cruelty stops with the pigs.
That T-shirt you're wearing; those affordable guitars we play; and the good value veggies we eat are equally part of the same equation.

(how do they produce a Fender Bullet retail, after all the middle men, for less than it costs me to buy the wood? And then we spend our lives in this forum moaning about how much Fender stuff costs)

/rant

Bob-Dubery

Wizard wrote Maybe this is sounding idealistic, but I have been recently inspired by the (largely) passive and organised uprisings in Egypt etc; where a large, unignorable group of people have stuck together and said "enough".

We know that illegal and immoral capitalist "regimes" will continue to survive if the product is consumed off happy looking Tesco and Pick 'n Pay shelves; and it' the easily silenced and marginalised individual who are the only people who object.
Perhaps the power of social media is now getting strong enough that we can consume whatever we want, but which isn't produced by child labour, in appalling conditions and while giving the elite wealthy some form of mild pleasure at the (unknown) pain and sacrifice of others.

Whoa! That's going a bit far. You're equating business with sadism there.

Business, and making a profit is not ipso facto sadistic and unethical.

There's nothing wrong with asking questions of retailers and manufacturers, but ask the question - don't just jump to conclusions. There are businesses that bind themselves to an ethical code and do their best to live up to that. They may, for example, require that all their factories, and those of their suppliers, pay a certain minimum wage, do not employ children under a certain age, have controls over exposure to harmful substances and so on. They may insist that their vegetables not be treated with certain chemicals. They may, and some do, insist that their meat comes from animals or fowls that, for example, have not had beaks or noses trimmed and that have been kept in pens of certain dimensions and where the premises are inspected by veterinarians.

Blanket emotive statements about business in general don't do much except annoy and unjustly malign those businesses that are taking pains to be ethical.

DonovanB

Wizard wrote(how do they produce a Fender Bullet retail, after all the middle men, for less than it costs me to buy the wood? And then we spend our lives in this forum moaning about how much Fender stuff costs)

Funny thing that. I was in purchasing for a bit and our aim was to reduce production costs. You'd be surprised at how much one can reduce operating costs by using strategic purchasing techniques or simple contracting procedures.

That all excludes Labour, in fact my motives were to reduce costs by a lot to protect workers and their salaries/increases. I think I did pretty well, in 2 months I managed to save twice my annual salary at the time.

Then to follow what Bob was saying, we put pressure on our suppliers to operate in certain ways wrt to safety and HR procedures. Even to the point of performing on site audits to make sure they complied. The result was happy employees for the suppliers, good supply at good prices for us and a working relationship to ensure good delivery to our customers.

Bob-Dubery

Donovan Banks wrote Then to follow what Bob was saying, we put pressure on our suppliers to operate in certain ways wrt to safety and HR procedures. Even to the point of performing on site audits to make sure they complied. The result was happy employees for the suppliers, good supply at good prices for us and a working relationship to ensure good delivery to our customers.

Exactly. The way to react to whatever it is that's bothering is you positively - don't just bemoan the behaviour that you don't like, but encourage and promote what you do like.

This is the power of one. Isis was saying earlier that one person doesn't make a difference. Which is right. But lots of ones do.

I have solar water heating for my house. Am I going to save the planet? No. But if enough people, none of whom can save the planet by themselves, take this option then the cumulative effect becomes significant.

vic

Cruelty to animals (what this thread is about) takes on many forms. From owners neglecting and abandoning their dogs and cats (especially during holiday periods such as this one), to chickens being kept under hot and appalling conditions, to the hawker overstreching his workhorse, to the poor lone chimp in private zoos, etc.
Fortunately there are authorities and organisations, even Carte Blanche ? which deal with these very effectively. I must say that I have huge respect for the SPCA and I contribute financially to its cause.
I am convinced that if that farm in the youtube video mentioned by the OP is reported to the relevant authority in the US, corrective steps will be taken in no time.

bENDER

☹ I detest the feeling of being powerless when the blood of the innocent is spilled…there are lots of things that happen every minute that would make most people freak out completely. Ek bid vir al daai mense en diere wat so moet lei en die bliksems wat dit aan hulle doen! >☹

vic

bENDER wrote ☹ I detest the feeling of being powerless when the blood of the innocent is spilled…there are lots of things that happen every minute that would make most people freak out completely. Ek bid vir al daai mense en diere wat so moet lei en die bliksems wat dit aan hulle doen! >☹

Die wereld is 'n wrede plek en ons IS deel daarvan ongelukkig......Homo sapiens sapiens is by all accounts the most cruel animal on this planet ☹ Educating the young is perhaps the only action that has a chance to succeed in changing mindset.

lindsmuse

Like wise Bender.

singemonkey

I think, re: Vic's point, that Isis's original issue is important here. I think that a lot of time we shield our ethical eyes from food animal production because we kinda know it's a bit nasty and don't like to think about it. We spend more time worrying about domestic and exotic animals (dogs, elephants, whales) where we have no interest in their killing (we're not eating them). The problem here is that producing animals for food will automatically cause cruelty as long as the animals are capable of feeling fear - which I suspect most more sophisticated than a mosquito - and certainly as sophisticated as a chicken - are.

They may not feel as much as a human - a being which can project into the future and anticipate suffering - but even the lesser amount they feel should be weighed up against what we're causing it for: we like to eat them even though we don't strictly need to. Certainly not in the quantities we do.

Combine this basic problem of ethics with food production techniques that are actually worse than the animal feeling a bit of fear for a few instants before it's death and you have a pretty irresolvable ethical crisis.

It's also complicated by killing animals with greater cognitive powers. Part of the outrage against the killing of dolphins and whales is the sympathy we feel for them because we know that they are intelligent enough to be able to anticipate more about their fates and therefore perhaps suffer more than say, a sheep would from a simple instinctive fight of flight response. Unfortunately pigs are also among the more savvy creatures on the planet - capable of some quite amazing feats of intelligence. In fact, my girlfriend just gave up eating pork for this very reason.

But Wizard's point is important too. Given humans' extraordinary ability to project their welfare into the future, treatment of people well short of violence, and the dimming of their potential, can be viewed as an even greater wrong (for myself, I think that the frequently violent repression of hundreds of millions of women in Arabia, Pakistan, and India (it ain't all about Islam) is the single largest scale evil being perpetrated in the world today). But as Bob says, you have to judge businesses on a case by case basis without jumping to conclusions.

Problem comes down to this: The more information is out there, the harder it is to perceive yourself as good if you look at your actions critically. When you know more of what's going on, you find that you are complicit in a wide range of evils that would require some major changes to extricate yourself from - in some cases - and would be impossible in others.

Bob-Dubery

vic wrote
bENDER wrote ☹ I detest the feeling of being powerless when the blood of the innocent is spilled…there are lots of things that happen every minute that would make most people freak out completely. Ek bid vir al daai mense en diere wat so moet lei en die bliksems wat dit aan hulle doen! >☹
Die wereld is 'n wrede plek en ons IS deel daarvan ongelukkig......Homo sapiens sapiens is by all accounts the most cruel animal on this planet ☹

I totally disagree. The natural world is full of harshness and behaviour that could be considered cruel if it had a motive beyond survival.

Without mankind around animals would still die unpleasant deaths as a result of injuries suffered in battle or whilst fleeing, fire, starvation, disease and plain old bad luck.

If you want to complain about how nasty man is then think first about the Ichneumonid family of wasps. They sting a living prey, leaving it paralysed but alive, then inject their eggs into what is now a living larder. The eggs hatch and then then the larvae start to consume the paralysed host from the inside out.

Cuckoo hatchlings will remove all other young and their eggs from a nest to ensure that they get all the food.

The female praying mantis will kill the male, starting with ripping his head off, and then eat him after they mate.

Eagles will take the young of other birds and animals and will not be troubled by the shrieks.

There is nothing noble or saintly in nature, and kindness is usually reserved for the young of your own species and even then it's not a given. Male infants of some species can have a short life span because the dominant male adult will eliminate all threats to his position.

vic

I agree...Isis' post is indeed a wake-up call and a harsh reminder of what we as humans, and not so instinctively btw, are capable of doing.
To compare the suffering that some humans inflict on others and the animals of this world with the instinctive behaviour of certain other classes and orders in the animal kingdom, is totally out of context I'm affraid.

Bob-Dubery

vic wrote I agree...Isis' post is indeed a wake-up call and a harsh reminder of what we as humans, and not so instinctively btw, are capable of doing.
To compare the suffering that some humans inflict on others and the animals of this world with the instinctive behaviour of certain other classes and orders in the animal kingdom, is totally out of context I'm affraid.

One person's 5c worth is worth as much as another's. Folks are entitled to their own opinions and to go off on tangents and as long as we're all being nice and not contravening the forum rules there's no need to have an arbitrator on what is and isn't permissible. Well... there is in some boards - EG classifieds - but not here in the OT lounge.