What are farm animals thinking?

https://www.science.org/content/article/not-dumb-creatures-livestock-surprise-scientists-their-complex-emotional-minds/?src=longreads

by mooreds • 3 years ago

163 202 3 years ago

science.org

ggm• 3 years ago

I really hope the journals pick up the work. The article implies publication is proving difficult. If they don't, this field my become career limiting or give way to studies which directly improve yield rather than indirectly through well being.

andrewstuart• 3 years ago

I saw a YouTube video where cows were given music on speakers to listen to.

The cows would go listen to the music.

Apparently they also like having special scratching posts they can scratch themselves on.

crooked-v• 3 years ago

There are actually machines for that - giant rotating brushes that are time-activated when a cow pushes it upward. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Rlext8BDpE

kaikai8• 3 years ago

This article and the research it describes are so confusing to me, as someone who owns livestock and has been around a variety of farm animals. Of COURSE they have friends, can hold their pee, and have complex emotions. If people spent time with meat animals, there would be a lot more vegetarians.

I feel like the only reason we tell ourselves otherwise is because we want to be able to excuse terrible practices like battery cages and feed lots. If they’re dumb animals that can’t feel, it’s easier to allow that treatment. I didn’t think actual farmers or people who research farm animals would be surprised at these kinds of results.

browningstreet• 3 years ago

My son and I often joke that in the same way that some countries require a period of military service, we could require a period of agricultural and meat farm service. Maybe even garbage disposal service.

primax• 3 years ago

And service working as a hospitality worker.

No one would ever be rude to servers again.

c22• 3 years ago

Add customer service and janitorial to the list...

blackoil• 3 years ago

As per YouTube, in Japan student cleanup the classroom and manage school farm, that should give some perspective.

theultdev6• 3 years ago

If people spent time with meat animals, there would be a lot more vegetarians.

Having grown up on a ranch, yes I know cows are smart... chickens not so much. It does not change my views on eating beef at all.

Cows are treated very well in all the ranches I've been on. One because it makes them taste better, another because we about our livestock.

Your alternative is them not existing at all, they cannot survive in nature.

The cow does not know it's going to be slaughtered.

It lives a nice happy life roaming the fields, on the last few days it goes to processing to eat a massive last great meal.

It's the nicest form of us being eating our prey.

karterk• 3 years ago

Cows are treated very well in all the ranches I've been on.

Unfortunately the entire premise of your argument is based on a personal anecdote that's a gross generalization of vast number of cattle farms.

defrost• 3 years ago

Your alternative is them not existing at all, they cannot survive in nature.

That's flat out false - there are many examples of free range beef, the entire clean skin northern australian market for one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBpOiEfYk6A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B-zWxDJOZU

archon14103• 3 years ago

Every time there's an article posted somewhere stating the obvious (as the original post does), there's always someone in the comments referring to non-humans as if they are objects, insisting that of course it is okay to breed various animals into existence to exploit someone for life and then hang them by a hook when they're no longer useful, and slit their throats or shoot them or to dismember them alive (as is documented).

"Of course cows are treated well!", nevermind their children being taken away from them and slaughtered in childhood—love for your children must just be a human thing. Nevermind that the majority of cows, hundreds of millions of them, exist in factory farms. No, you should continue to eat flesh because "we treat them well in ranches".

Incredibly depraved behaviour that history will not look kindly upon. It should, and does, make anyone with a conscience nauseous and sick.

kaikai8• 3 years ago

I raise my own animals and eat them, and was also a vegetarian for a big chunk of my life. I have friends visit who have never been around livestock, never thought too hard about where their meat comes from, and don’t understand how I can kill animals that I also give scritches to and let nap in my lap.

For me, midwifing and raising and caring for animals so they have good lives and quick deaths is the better choice. For many people, the weight of the death is too much. That’s why I say there would be more vegetarians, not because I think vegetarianism is morally superior (or inferior!).

anonzzzies• 3 years ago

Happy lives… that’s not the case for most meat you buy in the $1 bonus packs in the supermarket. Those animals get tortured every day of their short and miserable lives. You have seen different but stimulating meat consumption while those factories exist is wrong imho as that will only grow as a result. But it is not fixable because there is no space to grow meat for all humans this way in a free range way, so better stop eating it at all (until it comes from labs or space or whatever).

So visit one of the horror pig farms and see how the bacon tastes after that I would say. In my view only actual psychopaths can eat it after seeing that.

PeterStuer• 3 years ago

Chickens are very affectionate though. They love to be patted, will run through the field with you, and sit down when they want you to take them to the coop to be locked in for the night (there's many foxes and marters where we live, and no matter how much you try, eventually your free range chickens will be taken by them).

callalex• 3 years ago

Cows are treated very well in all the ranches I've been on.

The ones with horrible practices do not allow visitors or even cameras. While it is possible to source all your meat from happy places, statistically almost nobody does.

ornornor6• 3 years ago

Your alternative is them not existing at all, they cannot survive in nature.

What’s wrong with not existing at all vs being exploited and eventually killed before your natural life is over? Statistically speaking, if you’re a cow or other animal we exploit, your chances are far greater to be born and exist in a factory farm. Is it really a life worth living at all?

gs17• 3 years ago

Cows are treated very well in all the ranches I've been on.

Unfortunately, that's the minority of cattle and AFAIK it's not really possible to replace all current meat production with the kind of treatment you're talking about, even if everyone was willing to stomach a big price increase.

odyssey7• 3 years ago

“I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm'd off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion consider'd, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc'd some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." So I din'd upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”

— Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography

ornornor6• 3 years ago

I’d say the difference is that we have the possibility to not eat them and still sustain ourselves well. Fishes don’t have canned beans and tofu factories, it’s either eat other fish or die, there is no choice. Unlike for humans, where eating animals is a choice not an obligation.

Dalewyn• 3 years ago

I feel like the only reason we tell ourselves otherwise is because we want to be able to excuse terrible practices like battery cages and feed lots.

No, the reason is simply a desire to feel superior; a desire to have unique properties not shared by other organisms. It's raw, undiluted human egoism; we desire to be gods of the universe.

raynr• 3 years ago

Most people I've talked to want farm animals to be treated "well", and whatever that word means in their heads, we all agree that it's some standard higher than industrial scale factory farming.

The problem is that meat and dairy from humanely treated free-range animals is generally more expensive, and most people aren't willing to pay extra or cut down on their meat consumption.

And so it goes.

strken3• 3 years ago

People use the word feedlot interchangeably to describe anything from an indoor shed where animals are so crammed in they're nearly immobilised, to an outdoor area with some shadecloth and troughs but no grass, to animals kept in exactly the same paddocks they're usually in but fed supplemental feed during a drought[1].

Yes, the weird American torture sheds are bad, but an outdoor feedlot with shade and space is really not that bad for the animals. It's a complicated tradeoff between different factors: cattle are much more protected from predators (dogs, usually) and random stressors, they have ample food and water at all times, they're better able to be monitored for disease and injury; however, they've got less space, it can be hot and dusty, and there's more random stuff going on around them[0]. People have this idea in their heads that a feedlot looks like a sow stall or a chicken cage when in actual fact it's a crowded paddock with all the grass trampled[1]. Not exactly nice, but not some insane torture device either.

[0] https://www.publish.csiro.au/an/Fulltext/AN19621

[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-03-15/feedlot-definit...

jmkr2• 3 years ago

One of the animals raises her head over her enclosure and gazes pensively at me, her widely spaced eyes and odd, rectangular pupils seeking to make contact—and perhaps even connection.

One time I did scuba, and I'm swimming in the water. There were fish, I have no idea what kind of fish, kinda small, maybe they size of an open hand. One fish swam in front of me, facing me, and stopped. It just chilled there. You can't speak under water, and even if you could you can't communicate with a fish. But there was some kind of connection we were making. I realized at that moment, in that moment, we were both experiencing something, and we were both inquisitive of each other. Me, a foreigner to the water, a tourist, and the fish, a local, wondering about this one biped that looks kinda funny.

After a few minutes I guess it decided that the "conversation" had come to a natural ending and swam away. Out of the many fish that were near me that day, that was the one to stop and say hi.

There are many tourists in this world. I have gone abroad and witnessed the tourists expecting something from the locals. I also see a lot of tourist and noticed they look at me, a local, like I'm a (non-human) animal. Over the years I like to think back to that specific individual fish, and realize that our differences aren't so great, and humans are the tourists that expect something from them, entire industries that capture a number of them every year that's so large many of us can't even comprehend.

I have a few stories similar to this fish with other animals, and because of that the above quote resonates with me. I hope more articles come out which are not about just "sciency things" void of the humans and non-human condition, but the self actualization and realization of the individual that we're not alone.

BelleOfTheBall• 3 years ago

I also see a lot of tourist and noticed they look at me, a local, like I'm a (non-human) animal.

How exactly is that expressed? I often gawk at things and people on the streets when I'm traveling (and at home), but not out of disrespect, the exact opposite - awe, interest, desire to spot the details. Such as seeing a local in cool clothes and trying to figure out if it's from a local brand that I could buy from. Does that come off as treating people like animals? How can one get better about not doing that?

jmkr2• 3 years ago

Sometimes I like to wave at people. On tour buses they will almost never wave back, off tour buses they will sometimes. In the latter case I'm not really making a judgement, but in the former case it feels like a safari kind of thing.

Of course it's a subjective feeling I have, but I think this is different than people watching which I suspect you're referring to.

In the your comment I've started asking people about their cool/interesting clothes. Some people are receptive others aren't. This is an aside from what I was saying but just want to mention I've started having fun and interesting conversations that way.

wrsh07• 3 years ago

Of course much of this seems obvious, but I think it's also required to pave the way for more complex research.

If you jump into research that does not show results because it's too complex, you don't learn anything. (That particular experiment didn't work, not "the species is too stupid to do X")

You have to build up to it both to provide a path of credibility (we know they can do A,B,C, but when we tried D or E those didn't work) and also to develop the facilities, tools, techniques to be able to ask and answer these questions.

It feels shameful because so many farmers or 4H students know all of this stuff. We shouldn't need to publish papers to know these animals are intelligent. This is referenced in the article, though - they publish both types of research (this animal can do that & treating your animals well in this way gives these specific benefits)

I'm excited for the future where we have a much finer-grained understanding and can probe more specific questions from individual animals though

zubairq• 3 years ago

Comments very interesting to me. Yes everyone should do farming service to understand where meat comes from!

zoklet-enjoyer3• 3 years ago

I understand where meat comes from. That's why I've been vegan since the age of 14.

Cockbrand3• 3 years ago

Genuinely curious questions, as I only know people who have made the decision to go vegan as adults: do you feel or know that this diet had any side effects on you growing up? How much attention did you pay to getting a diverse diet and all required nutrients? How long have you been vegan now?

rowyourboat• 3 years ago

I am surprised again and again that people are surprised that animals, and social ones at that, have thoughts and emotions and relationships. Have you never been around animals? Do you truly have believe humans are that special?

beebeepka• 3 years ago

Allowing other animals to be like glorious humans would mean they deserve better. Can't have that. Story as old as the world

ornornor6• 3 years ago

I’m surprised too. But I suspect it’s more because it’s a very inconvenient truth: what about factory farms, the suffering we make billions of animals go through so we can eat them cheaply, and having to change our habits to accommodate this reality? It’s way easier and socially accepted to ignore this entirely and assume animals are dumb so it’s ok to keep doing what we do to them.

threeseed• 3 years ago

9 million people die every year from hunger.

Humanity will do just fine ignoring the suffering of animals however smart they are.

peyton• 3 years ago

The broader context is a lot of the Western philosophy we rely on today formed around the same time we started building intricate machines, and those thinkers also wondered whether animals were just really intricate machines. Nothing nefarious. It’s probably fine if we express more gratitude towards these animals like we used to.

dotnet002• 3 years ago

It doesn't feel that surprising to me. I would've been in the same camp if I hadn't gone through a phase of being interested in random animal related trivia (eg wondering why so many mammals seem to enjoy being pet).

I just never really grew up with much interaction with animals, and what I did see was mostly stuff that could be passed off as just instincts without deeper thought.

It took actually thinking about their behavior and realizing that "being social" as an instinct includes having some level of intelligent emotions and relationships, it isn't just some mechanistic urge to be in a group based on some hardcoded rules.

nine_k7• 3 years ago

Humans are special, but in more subtle ways than "thinking vs dumb". I think it's safe to assume that all higher mammals have some idea about the world around, themselves, their kin, etc, with a social structure of sorts, unless they are solitary. Many of them, like wolves, pass their learned experience to their progeny, that is, possess and sustain a culture. Some of them, like cetaceans, are officially considered conscious. (And there are comparably intellectual birds, too.)

Humans have unique achievements, like constructive syntax, or overcoming of the Dunbar number limitation in cooperative structures, or mathematics, but these stem from a really tall intellectual base humans share with other mammals.

frakrx5• 3 years ago

Dont forget the birds sone birds like corvids and parrots are roughly intellectualy equal to primates and cetaceans.

isoprophlex• 3 years ago

overcoming of the Dunbar number limitation in cooperative structures

... but only barely ;)

justanotherjoe• 3 years ago

I'm an atheist, but the book of genesis put it very well on this subject. There is one emotion that is unique to humans. It is not compassion, or sense of justice or fairness, aninals have those. It is shame. Which is unique to humans.

On a related note, I heard some interesting theory by Robin Hanson on Lex Fridman's podcast. The guy said that the ego is our brain's attempt at forming a story around the brain's decisions (which are made pre-thought). It's crazy to consider that what we are is just our brain attempt at storytelling to justify ourselves.

c0488• 3 years ago

I've lived around animals all my file, even my SO grew up on a farm. Why on earth do you (or anyone) think they experience thoughts, emotions and relationships in a human way?

Simply because we have similarities does not equate that animals experience things the same way. We know this because we have a better understanding of what goes on in a more limited human brain (be it a child or neurodivergent) compared to a healthy adult one.

I frankly compare this humanization of animals as a sign of not having sufficiently worked and lived with animals, with apophenia/pareidolia playing a large role.

callmeal• 3 years ago

Why on earth do you (or anyone) think they experience thoughts, emotions and relationships in a human way?

GP poster did not use the qualifier "in a human way". Take that away, and it's really hard to argue that animals do not experience thoughts, emotions and relationships. If you say otherwise, it makes it really hard to believe that you lived around animals all your life.

atoav2• 3 years ago

Maybe also depends on what the animals are used to. As someone who grew up in the alps with free roaming cows, these are some clever animals. They definitly know what they are allowed to and what not, they have character differences, etc. The frolicking they do when they are let out in spring is not something you would forget.

If you look at cows who never where outside you the same nuanced behavior isn't that easy to spot, they become much more dull and complacent.

I grew up with animals and I would definitely say they have feelings. Of course it is hard to say how deep those go, or how refined they are and whether they are comparable to human feelings, but there are clear similarities: cows get afraid in bad weather or when they see something they don't know, a mother cow will be proud and protective over their calf, some will be mischiefous and ashamed once you catch them doing something they shouldn't do. That is not nothing. Sure inside that cow could be a complex Rube Goldberg machine that makes it look like fear, pride or shame to us silly humans, but given that we are both mammals evolutionary more likely is that these emotions are at least somewhat similar because they served similar purposes. What cows think is a much harder question. They are surprisingly clever if they think no one is around (and they have a very, very good sense for that).

Edit: Obligatory reference to Gary Larson: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_tools

strken3• 3 years ago

I don't think people are surprised that animals have thoughts and emotions. No farmer I know of thinks cows aren't capable of being trained: the ones down the road from my parents line up in an orderly queue to go into the dairy every morning and afternoon, including leaving a gap across the road and giving way to cars.

On the other hand, a lot of people who claim animals have thoughts and emotions seem to think that cows have complicated human-level thoughts like "I am an oppressed cog; my owner will send me to the glue factory when I am too old to give milk, and yet I must queue up regardless, for my spirit is broken; my calf has been taken and I will never know if he got a college degree; life is pure suffering." This seems unlikely to be true.

tehjoker• 3 years ago

The part about "my calf has been taken" doesn't seem so far fetched though.

Mandelmus2• 3 years ago

On the other hand, a lot of people who claim animals have thoughts and emotions seem to think that cows have complicated human-level thoughts like "I am an oppressed cog; my owner will send me to the glue factory when I am too old to give milk, and yet I must queue up regardless, for my spirit is broken; my calf has been taken and I will never know if he got a college degree; life is pure suffering." This seems unlikely to be true.

That straw man could fatten a whole cow.

mo_422• 3 years ago

Your second description involves many aspects of human culture. No matter how smart cows are, they'll never think this way.

Then, a big difference of humans compared to other animals is accumulation. We create stuff (buildings, language, knowledge, ...) that further generations will use. To really compare, I'd say, we have to take that away.

Let's assume some people decide to go back into the forest. They go there with nothing and teach their children only the necessary skills to live in the forest. After some generations, a scientist discovers them.

How would we compare them to humans and other animals like the great apes? How would they score on common IQ tests?

whoknowsidont• 3 years ago

To be fair, large swaths of the human population don't really come to the second realization either.

lm284693• 3 years ago

Not so long ago we had surgery on babies without anesthesia because people somehow thought they didn't feel pain

I imagine it's a mental safety mechanism, involving various degrees of mental gymnastic depending on the individual, otherwise everyone would be vegetarian/vegan after watching a single industrial farm/slaughter house video

c0488• 3 years ago

I doubt you've seen industrial slaughterhouse videos that aren't meant to sensationalize. I've even walked around in some, where all rules and guidelines are followed, and I can still eat meat just fine. The animals don't realize what happens and death is instantaneous.

How do I rationalize it? Animals are being eaten in nature too, we at least don't eat them while they're often still alive (like in nature). Plants are living organisms too, and everyone eats those without a second thought. It's just that they don't pass a self-determined bar for many.

The environmental impact is a completely different question, unrelated to this.

pvaldes2• 3 years ago

because people somehow thought they didn't feel pain

The boring alternative explanation would be that doctors knew that anesthesia can kill a baby, because babies have a not fully formed lung system; and pain is temporal but death is permanent.

But this explanation does not inflame a social warrior heart in the same way. The rush of outrageine is much lower and less satisfying. Repeating the same arguments since 1820 without thinking a second about it, is much better.

PaulHoule• 3 years ago

Over the break I was thinking a lot about C.S. Lewis an his issekai Christianity as well as the alternate-world Christmas of Terry Prachett’s Hogfather so I was really in the right mood when Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my door.

They led with the question of “Do you think God made a mistake when he created the world?”. I thought about it really hard and answered “I could make the case either way.”

Where does evil come from? My answer is that “Well you try to push a fluid in a certain direction and it goes sideways and swirls…” (must have been a dynamicist in a past life)

Where we really differed from them the most I think was their insistence that humans are completely different from a spiritual viewpoint than animals which I’d reject completely because my experience with cats and dogs and horses is that animals seem very much to have a moral sense and to feel bad when they fail to match expectations. The first time I fell off a horse it seemed the horse felt a lot worse about it than I did and she seemed exceptionally contrite.

Sure people do have languages, beavers are never going to figure out that they could make much bigger dams with concrete, but animals do appear to have moral feelings which is consistent with the Buddhist idea that animals are subject to the law of karma, you can reincarnate as animal, etc.

avodonosov2• 3 years ago

https://www.google.com/search?q=elephant+paints+a+picture&tb...

Cockbrand3• 3 years ago

If it looks too good to be true, it probably isn't - two links from further down the same Google results page:

Painting Elephants? Here’s Why Making an Elephant Paint For Entertainment is Cruel, Not Cute - https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/why-making-a...

Does a Video Show an Elephant Painting a Picture of an Elephant? - https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elephant-painting/

avodonosov2• 3 years ago

Thank you. I suspected something like that actually, but didn't have time to check.

lgkk3• 3 years ago

This is why I try to be as vegan as possible. Obviously not always possible. But I try. At home I don’t eat meat or use animal products.

Outside if my friends want to go Korean or something it almost always has eggs or beef broth but what can I do? Sucks but I get the tofu options.

Mandelmus2• 3 years ago

Same for me. I've been mostly vegan for over ten years now. I "downgrade" to only vegetarian when it really cannot be avoided – which, luckily, has been only when I've travelled to countries where there really weren't any vegan options.

c0488• 3 years ago

Why would you be against eating animals products? Many produce them naturally themselves. For example, chickens lay eggs if we want them to or not. If humans don't take the eggs, chickens would eat them themselves or leave them to rot. If you're against industrial farming of them, fine, but there are plenty of eggs you can buy from certified ethical farms. Or even better, you can keep them yourself! They are great to get rid of food scraps.

Same with bees and honey. The only times you hear it mentioned that it harms the bees is when no sources are provided or the study turns out to be garbage (and waylaid by multiple other studies that are tiptoed around).

jhanschoo5• 3 years ago

If you're against industrial farming of them, fine, but there are plenty of eggs you can buy from certified ethical farms.

The parent notes that they are willing to compromise on being vegan for convenience, so presumably they are not against ethically produced animal products, but would forgo animal products altogether as a matter of convenience as well. Ethically produced animal products may not be verifiably accessible for someone for many reasons.

lgkk3• 3 years ago

I’m against industrial farming because of the horrific conditions.

Also stuff drinking the milk of another animal, something that’s reserved for its child, is kind of horrible. All those cows are lined up and pumped and then what? Probably killed. At least to me it is fuckin brutal.

The only thing you can legitimately call me out on is that I don’t go to the doctor or engage much in modern medicine. Seeing monkeys with their brains exposed or puppies and cats suffering “for science” is also wack to me. When it’s my time I’ll go. Hopefully not too much pain.

Obscurity4340• 3 years ago

Its pretty brutal and ghastly how they alledgedly dispose of male chicks...

efitz• 3 years ago

When you spend a lot of time around a mammal, you will start to see that it has a personality, particularly if you’ve spent time around other individuals of similar species.

Humans have very similar neurological equipment to other mammals. I don’t see why anyone finds it surprising that mammals have intelligence or even consciousness.

Consciousness in others is a leap of faith. We have no unambiguous way to measure it. Most people take it for granted that other people are conscious, if they communicate in certain ways. Animals lack those manners of communication; that doesn’t mean they aren’t conscious; it means we don’t have a common language.

I’m happy that people are doing this research; I hope it leads to more kind treatment of livestock.

No, I won’t stop eating meat regardless of the results, but I would choose to support both regulation and private efforts to reduce stress and discomfort when harvesting animals.

berkes• 3 years ago

I've once spent a summer herding cows in Switzerland. Mostly bringing the to and from pastures in de morning and evening. I've had farm animals and pets most of my life, but here I learned something new.

I quickly learned that cows have personality. Multidimensional. E.g. one (older one) was mischievous but also ver sweet. Another one mischievous and aloof. One was lazy and easily frightened.

It was one herd and I presume they were well adjusted to another until I came along and ruined their balance. It took us about a week to get used to another.

Moenie,the bull, challenged me twice and had to stay home even, I could not assert dominance.

Cows, I learned, are complex, deep, and above all very sweet animals.

Needles to say that it strenghtened my vegetarianism. When media and people make me think of animals as production units I think back at this herd I got to know some 27 years ago and realize that no: they are not ever "units of production"

noobly• 3 years ago

I have farm animals and am a farmer. I raise these animals as a hobby to get cheaper high quality meat. Veganism bothers me because it places animal life on a pedastool over plant life. Plants suffer upon death too.

Scarblac• 3 years ago

But if you eat animals, then they first eat the plants, much more than you do, and then you eat the animals. Veganism doesn't "put animal life on a pedestal", it just uses fewer resources.

iosnoob2• 3 years ago

An interesting read on the relative likelihood of consciousness of various lifeforms on earth: https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/opinion-estimatin...

Long story short, relative chance of plant consciousness is a lot lower than that of members of animal species.

Regardless, the point is moot - if plants are sentient, that's even more an argument to consume less of them, directly, vs a lot more of them, via animals.

timeon2• 3 years ago

animal life on a pedastool

Humans are animals too.

iosnoob2• 3 years ago

Growing up always thought about the thought experiment of how aliens would treat us compared with how we treat our fellow sentient beings in the animal kingdom (I couldn't find a good answer and stopped consuming animals). Now with a potential for AGI and perhaps sentient AI in coming years or decades, those philosophical questions suddenly become a lot more pressing

frakrx5• 3 years ago

As AIs can only be trained on datasets of colected human experiences if/when one day a superintelligent AI comes about I am sure it will only percieve us as inferior, unrational and dangerous beigns.

frakrx5• 3 years ago

Not caring about animals leads to not caring about nature in general and that is leading towards us destroying earth ecosystem and making our planet not be able to sustain human civilization.

timeon2• 3 years ago

There are some philosophies which teaches that everything was created for human. It was and is good excuse for exploitation of nature. No wonder we have climate change now.

frakrx5• 3 years ago

It does not help that those philosophies are also very closedminded and very agressive towards any new ideas or any changes to their worldview and lifestyle.

akkad332• 3 years ago

I know Christian philosophy teaches that, because it's in the Bible. What others?

ggpsv• 3 years ago

"The very notion of the domination of nature by man stems from the very real domination of human by human."

- Murray Bookchin

PakG1• 3 years ago

Remember the scene in the first avatar movie where Jake is learning how to be like the Na'vi and he gives a solemn speech to the animal as he kills it, thanking it for its sacrifice and showing it respect?

I wonder, if we took indigenous perspectives for animal life, would it be more acceptable to take the life of animals for consumption? Minimize suffering, use the whole animal, don't overconsume so that the species can sustainably live on, let them live life more free range, not in prisons, etc. Or would it still be just as bad because the animal still can suffer? Indigenous thinking is something that is being promoted by certain sustainability movements, and I wonder if it applies here and would make animal consumption more ethical, or would it just be whitewashing?

globular-toast• 3 years ago

For me it comes down to choice. I don't think it's right to kill anything if you don't have to. It's trivially easy to live well on a vegetarian or vegan diet. People don't kill animals because they are hungry. They kill them because they want to.

giantg29• 3 years ago

"overturn the idea that livestock are dumb and unworthy of scientific attention."

Where's this idea? Most of the farmers I know don't believe this. They know their animals have some level of intelligence. There is a huge amount of scientific attention given to livestock - from genetics and breeding, to disease, management practices, etc.

Maybe this is just what people who have never been around livestock believe?

worldvoyageur• 3 years ago

Fully agree. I grew up on a farm. The animals included cows, sheep, goats, chickens and donkeys. You quickly learned their distinct personalities. You could tell when they were stressed and when they were content. It sure felt a lot better when they were content and you went out of your way to achieve that, both short term in what you did that day and longer term as you structured the farm to better fit what the animals wanted.

The animals learned about the humans as well. For instance, walking to the back edge of the farm in the fall to fix fencing, the cows would change their routine to follow - especially the part were you might route through the field full of apple trees.

Sure enough, you'd see that the cows had eaten all the apples they could reach but there were vast quantities of ripe apples higher up. So you climbed the tree and used your legs to shake branches, causing bushels of apples to thunder down. The cows that had followed would call loudly to summon their herd mates, who would come at the run.

If the sheep saw me on the same trip, I'd be ignored...unless I was carrying a bucket, which meant it probably had oats, at which point I'd have a herd of sheep converging on my position.

stubish• 3 years ago

I thought it well known that pigs were considered as smart as dogs. Pigs might be a special case, as they are kept as pets much as a dog would be in a few countries.

astrostl• 3 years ago

This seems like one of the bigger potential use cases for LLM interpretation of EEG, FMRI, etc. data to me: decoding animal thoughts (inc. pets).

fuzzfactor• 3 years ago

When it's breakfast time and the chicken complains about having her eggs stolen before they have a chance to hatch, the pig says "you think you've got it bad, I'm in whole hog!"

neontomo• 3 years ago

I've had conversations with people who are entirely convinced that animals like cats, dogs, birds, have no conscious experience and therefore are not aware of our presence or feel any pain. They think the pain is simply a signal to make the animal act in different ways, like a robot would. It actually made me speechless to hear that people believe this, and I wonder if it's an effect of being too distanced from the animal world so we start to think of animals as being there for our benefit and nothing else.

tim333• 3 years ago

Maybe now they can use MRI scans to see what people are thinking they could do something similar with animals? https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a27102/read-...

What are farm animals thinking?

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