Accelerating Future

I didn’t know that.

Thank you Half Sigma.

Half Sigma believes veganism is indicative of Gaianism. Prominent vegans have to indicate that they dismiss Gaianism to be taken seriously.

Gaianism is a risk to this planet because it contains so much inconsistency and nonsense. Al Gore, who heats his huge house and flies around everywhere in a huge, fossil-fuel-powered metal tube, is the poster boy for Gaian hypocrisy.

My environmental vision, to increase the total biodiversity and biomass, has been described as “neo-Carboniferous” by Mitchell Porter.

The other part of my environmental vision centers around open ecology and resilient communities.

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The latest New Scientist features a horrifying article that tacitly encourages the practice of factory farming.

Under this scenario, the goal will have to be producing the most meat at the lowest environmental cost. That means fewer free-range cattle and sheep grazing in bucolic pastures and more animals, especially chickens, packed into feedlots or high-density enclosures. “If you’re going to keep some livestock systems, I think the ones you’ll want to keep are the intensive ones,” says Walter Falcon, an agricultural economist at Stanford University in California.

That’s because pasture grazing is inherently inefficient. Animals burn large amounts of energy roaming about the landscape feeding on relatively indigestible grasses. They grow more slowly than feedlot animals and, as a result, emit more methane over their lifetime. A beef cow in a US pasture, for example, emits 50 kilograms of methane per year, compared with just 26 kilograms in a feedlot, according to Livestock’s Long Shadow.

But even a feedlot cow is a much less efficient meat producer than an industrial pig or chicken. While these eat a largely grain-based diet and thus compete directly with humans for food, they are relatively good at converting feed into flesh while producing little or no methane. This keeps their environmental cost down: a kilogram of industrial chicken meat represents greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to just 3.6 kilograms of CO2; a kilogram of pork, 11.2 kilograms; and a kilogram of beef, 28.1 kilograms, according to an analysis by Bo Weidema of sustainable development consultancy 2.-0 LCA based in Aalborg, Denmark.

Of course, such intensive operations cause other problems as well, notably the disposal of large amounts of manure. In theory – and increasingly in practice – much of this manure could be used to generate biogas and subsequently electricity

I can understand arguing that vegetarianism is not as “environmental” as non-vegetarianism, sure. But I think this article crosses the line into active advocacy of this new “more pain, for the environment!” concept.

Save the environment by making animals’ lives miserable on a new and grander scale? Aren’t animals part of the environment, too? Isn’t factory farming incredibly terrible for animals?

This Abstruse Goose comes to mind.

Seriously, New Scientist. What is wrong with you?

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Wired Science has news on how mice show pain on their faces, just like humans… not really surprising. Here’s a quote from the article:

“It suits us to think that animals don’t have a real depth of feeling or emotion, so it’s OK to treat them badly,” Williams said. “Farming practices aren’t very sensitive to animals’ feelings. It’s convenient to just hope they aren’t feeling these things.”

Yes — “insensitive” is an understatement. However, conditions are far better for animals on small family farms than they are in industrial meat operations. If you’re going to eat meat, buy from a small supplier if you can.

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I recently received the below email, which concerns research advances in in vitro meat.
Since our last update, these papers became available:

Datar I, Betti M. 2010. Possibilities for an in vitro meat production system. Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies 11: 13-22.

Haagsman HP, Hellingwerf KJ, Roelen BAJ. Production of animal proteins by cell systems, Utrecht, 2009.

Best wishes,

Jason Matheny

New Harvest

http://www.new-harvest.org

info@new-harvest.org

http://feeds.feedburner.com/NewHarvestResources

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Meat and egg companies often try to sell their wares to unsuspecting SWPLs (“socially conscious” educated bourgeoisie Americans) by using the “free range” label. Unsurprisingly, this label is a lie. To quote the Wikipedia page on “free range”:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) requires that chickens raised for their meat have access to the outside in order to receive the free-range certification. There is no requirement for access to pasture, and there may be access to only dirt or gravel. Free-range chicken eggs, however, have no legal definition in the United States. Likewise, free-range egg producers have no common standard on what the term means. Many egg farmers sell their eggs as free range merely because their cages are two or three inches above average size, or because there is a window in the shed.

The USDA has no specific definition for “free-range” beef, pork, and other non-poultry products. All USDA definitions of “free-range” refer specifically to poultry. No other criteria-such as the size of the range or the amount of space given to each animal-are required before beef, lamb, and pork can be called “free-range”. Claims and labeling using “free range” are therefore unregulated. The USDA relies “upon producer testimonials to support the accuracy of these claims.”

Basically, the label is a farce. It conjures up images of old time family farms, when the reality is the exact opposite. Factory farmed chickens are routinely debeaked, and starved to cause forced molting, which shocks them into entering another egg-laying cycle. They live in filthy, shit-strewn cages and suffer from respiratory diseases due to inhaling large quantities of nitrogen released by their feces. “Free range” chickens spend most of their time in cages.

Specifically regarding eggs, here’s another source, the Humane Society:

The vast number of consumer labels affixed to egg cartons can leave a shopper feeling dazed and confused. One carton may label its eggs “Natural.” Another carton may call them “Free Range,” while yet another may claim its eggs are “Certified Organic.” How are thoughtful consumers supposed to know what these labels and claims really mean?

The truth is that the majority of egg labels have little relevance to animal welfare or, if they do, they have no official standards or any mechanism to enforce them.

Here’s another, more detailed pro-animal rights source on the Free-Range Myth. This organization, the Peaceful Prarie Sanctuary, provides a safe haven for animals rescued from factory farming. After their miserable lives, “spent hens” are terminated immediately by the egg-laying operations themselves, as their meat has no market value. Easy methods of termination include gas chambers, woodchippers, or simply throwing them into a dumpster to die. In one case, an egg-laying operation was caught red-handed burying thousands of hens in large trenches because it was apparently too inconvenient to send them to the rendering plant. Anything to get the job done and home in time for dinner, you know?

Whether or not you care about the welfare of chickens, the misleading presentation that factory farmers use to sell their goods is designed to instill false beliefs in consumers, and it is a good case study in deception. People want to believe that cage-free actually means cage-free, so they can feel good, but the whole idea is merely a falsity perpetuated by gullible consumers and cynical ranch owners. Essentially, humans are completely comfortable inflicting the worst imaginable suffering on any number of pigs, cows, and chickens to satisfy our taste buds, yet we expect transhumans and posthumans to treat us with respect. Why? The tyrant that carelessly inflicts brutality on his subjects is liable to get his just desserts sooner or later.

Do understand that kindness to animals is not necessarily all-or-nothing. One person can have a tremendous impact simply by making an effort to lower the number of animal products they consume per week.

While I’m addressing the topic, I might as well point out that “what about the suffering of broccoli and other plants?” is one of the most intellectually pathetic comeback arguments I have ever heard to justify factory farming. Everyone knows that plants lack nerve cells, never mind brains. Only someone completely ignorant of the most basic biology could plausibly make sure an argument. The truth is that that argument is merely a pithy joke designed to mock pro-animal rights arguments through misdirection. Its common use only illustrates that a substantial number of people who consume animal products see no need to justify their actions, and make no pretense at devoting any thought to the issue.

My apologies, but I will leave comments off for this post, because 1) the most plausible comments are likely to be from people who regard animals as dirt and are just trying to eliminate guilt by providing a pithy comeback, and 2) I don’t want to start too much of a precedent for animal rights debates on this blog, because there are many other places around the Internet to have them, and as far as I am concerned, the “debate” is mostly a non-issue. Yes, perhaps I could “win some people over” by being polite and engaging them in the comments, but it doesn’t really matter, because I am extremely doubtful that anything less than in vitro meat will bring down factory farming. Factory farming operations are expanding at a massive rate as the world’s standard of living increases but its empathy for animals remains where it has been throughout most of history — in the toilet.

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I am subscribed to the New Harvest mailing list, where I get email updates from Jason Matheny, the founder of the organization. For those not familiar with New Harvest, here is the summary:

New Harvest is a nonprofit research organization working to develop new meat substitutes, including cultured meat — meat produced in vitro, in a cell culture, rather than from an animal.

Because meat substitutes are produced under controlled conditions impossible to maintain in traditional animal farms, they can be safer, more nutritious, less polluting, and more humane than conventional meat.

Here is the recent email I received from New Harvest:

Since our last update, these stories appeared:

Scientists turn stem cells into pork (Associated Press)
Meet the new meat: Tissue engineered skeletal muscle (Trends in Food Science & Technology)
In vitro meat’s evolution (LA Times)
Culturing Meat For The Future
Why Kill-Free Meat Will Rock Your World (Huffington Post)
Is Vat-Grown Meat Kosher? (io9)

Best wishes,
Jason Matheny

You’ll notice that one of the stories is by Jason Silva, a transhumanist/immortalist with a show on Current TV with his co-host Max. It is transhumanists’ obligation to demonstrate compassion for other animals. After all, most of us expect compassion from posthumans, don’t we? Supporting the cause of in vitro meat is a powerful way to demonstrate that compassion.

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Here they are: the pigs, cows, and chickens.

But wait! An earlier commenter here on Accelerating Future had a different view on this…

HITLER WAS A VEGETARIAN! Oppps, there goes another simplistic, Left Wing Marxist utopian dreamy wish for a perfect world using one simple idea.

Darwin was right, and by the way, the reason human beings have big brains is because we ate meat. Lots of it. It takes 22 cups of flour to get some of the same needed nutrients in 4 ounces of RED MEAT.

Now if you Vegetarians wish to retard yourself and your offspring, please do so, but don’t think that us aggressive, intelligent, predatory meat eaters are going to let you just pass by and go on your way.

No, we Predatory Meat Eaters will make good little slaves out of you vegetarians. And, you will be cheap to feed and do as you are told. Why? Because you won’t have the strength or the brain power to resist domination by us Predatory Meat Eaters.

Yes, please promote Vegetarianism and Passivity. It makes it easier for us Predatory Meat Eaters to round you up and Eat You!

LOL

Be a vegetarian, become a slave to meat-eaters! Witness how such a simple trigger causes such controversy — the reaction is even more intense than that to atheism. Repeat it again and again for maximum effect!

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A New Atlantis blogger, Charles Rubin, has chided me on my support of reprogramming predators.

I responded that eliminating predation begins at home with vegetarianism, and that the point is not to get there all at once, but to remove the worst instances of suffering in nature, like predators eating their prey alive.

It’s not about telling people a false “story” like Santa Claus, because I openly admit that we are nowhere near a pain-free world. All I am saying is that such a world would be a good thing.

Historically and contemporarily, our world contains so much suffering that it almost seems like a suffering-centered joke-world. I identify with a post-suffering world at the expense of my identification with the current world. I consider a post-suffering world to be a “natural” state and our present world to be “unnatural”.

Most Westerners do not really understand how terrible it is to live in many places around the world. There are concentration camps in North Korea where people are tortured and chemical weapons are tested on them. You can be put away for 20 years just for listening to South Korean radio. Your entire family may go to the concentration camps if you commit a political crime.

Rape, torture, and sexual slavery are common in most parts of the world. It would take a military campaign with tens of millions of occupying soldiers and police to even make progress towards stopping it, and you’d have to count the soldiers and police to not commit crimes themselves.

When you see how messed up the human world is, it makes sense to then look at the animal world and see how fucked up that is. Again, it’s a joke. If a god made this world, that god is a wicked being and should be forsaken.

Refusing to participate in the cycle of violence is as easy as becoming vegetarian, or preferably vegan. Start with quitting pork, because pigs are the most intelligent, then move on to beef and chicken. Vegetarianism has become more fashionable in recent years, and that is a good thing. Developments in in vitro meat will alleviate much animal suffering as well.

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A few weeks ago Paul Raven at Futurismic picked up my link to David Pearce’s essay “Reprogramming Predators”, which throws out some ideas for preventing things like, oh, I don’t know, hyenas eating off the face and trunk of a living baby elephant stuck in a mud pond. I thought a couple comments on Futurismic were funny.

Chad said:

I couldn’t disagree with this guy more. In fact, I think it is rather ludicrous we could make a change this large and not see disastrous effects on every aspect these creatures lives and ours.

James said:

I couldn’t agree with this guy more. In fact, I think it ludicrous we don’t immediately start working for this change so that we can prevent the disastrous effects the status quo has on these creatures lives and ours.

Funny! The fact of the matter is that wildlife documentaries have brainwashed most of the planet into admiring the powerful grace of predators that Darwinian selection made into ruthless serial killers and torturers. Besides those documentaries, many humans identify with predators because a lot of history has been a zero-sum game where your loss is my gain, and predators are the archetypical example of a winner of a zero-sum game.

As we begin to enter into a positive-sum world (hopefully!), zero sum games will become old. At the risk of being cliche, I will invoke Paul 13:11:

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Our species is childish. We laugh at suffering. But given increased intelligence and compassion, this will not endure forever. If someone is poor and hungry, their morals may be lax, but the well-fed may have enough additional resources to contribute to others. As our economic productivity improves with the assistance of machines, our society will have such great wealth and health that we will begin turning our attention to the “fringe concerns” of today, such as the ongoing slaughter of prey animals by predators. In vitro meat will eliminate the need for the mass murder of animals for food, and genetic reprogramming and advanced robotics will help us transition predators away from consuming sentient beings. Perhaps they can be directed to consume artificially engineered non-conscious meat-animals that are periodically airdropped across large areas of the Canadian Arctic and Amazon Rainforest. Perhaps we can engineer meat-plants that protect their tasty insides from bacteria but can be torn open by tigers.

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David Pearce on reprogramming predators. Thanks to Franz Fuchs for the pointer.

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There’s a news item on work towards the mass production of artificial skin from May that I missed. The Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology is working on the process. They expect to finish their “skin factory” about two years from when the article was published, so approximately May 2011. Good luck! Artificial skin could have a particularly pleasant utilitarian impact because it might free animals from some forms of chemical testing.

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New Harvest are the in vitro meat people, who got coverage in CNN and other major media outlets for their conference last year. I received these two recent updates from their mailing list.

Why in vitro meat is good for you (SEED Magazine)

From petri dish to dinner plate (New Scientist)

Everyone knows deep down that factory farming can only be justified if you put the value of animal life at zero (which many people do, remarkably), so they’re willing to accept alternatives, as long as it tastes the same. Thankfully, the flavor part is easy to emulate, so the main challenge of in vitro meat is giving it the appropriate texture.

As with all posts here on animal rights, commenting is forbidden, because I believe that 99% of people who eat meat are fundamentally unable to think clearly on the ethics of meat-eating, and their opinion is worthless. (Note how any mainstream, non-blogging journalist or even opinion column writer would be completely forbidden to ever say such a thing in a public forum, but because I am fearless of being hated by thousands of people for insulting them, and none of the people who pay me are the type of people to try and control me intellectually, I can say this sort of thing whenever I want.)

People who eat meat are often so emotionally invested in the exercise that they see it as part of their identity, and an attack on meat-eating as an attack on their way of life and very essence as a human being. Yes, I know that many people who eat meat aren’t this way, but an astounding majority are. Especially many men, who see a connection between meat-eating and masculinity/virility, and see vegetarians as pussies. In the long run, this attitude will evaporate, because it is already known that red meat is unhealthy, it is no longer nutritionally necessary to kill animals for food, and a more economically and medically favorable alternative (in vitro meat) will be developed within a few decades at most. The connection between virility and the consumption of meat is sympathetic magical thinking akin to the idea that consuming the body of an adversary during war allows you to absorb his powers. Like other forms of superstition, it has a limited shelf life.

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