#Ethical Farming

[hailthecriticalthinking]

If you raise animals ethically and you kill animals ethically, that animal is given the best life it could possibly live given the inevitability of it's death. Quick, as painless as possible and when young arguably creates less suffering than by reaching old age/dying of many of the natural causes they could die from. How is this not an arguable point? The animal WILL die. The only other thing that contributes less to the amount of suffering accrued in an animal's life is if the animal were to not exist at all.

[carnival-cuts-co]

We’ve been selling to more distributors recently, and I was so happy to see our product actually in a physical store today! Our community is growing, and I’m happy Carnival Cuts can provide this service guilt-free 💕

[anarchistdoll]

When it comes to meat my thought process is, shit dies. we actively dont have a way of preventing that yet so we may as well make it as comfortable as possible. If I can put a pig down cleanly after theyve had a comfortable life I should be able to eat it. I also think its important to be thankful of your food. I am actively trying to cut more meat out of my diet however I think that shaming others for eating meat is cringe and ableist.

[lady-wildflower]

In all seriousness, my perspective on this is that you can't necessarily be an absolutist about things like it. It also strikes me as a very culturally Christian thing, 'thou shalt not kill' being extended to animals in the assumption that death is an absolute evil and a sin, etc etc, but that's not something I've given enough thought to to articulate properly.

Let's assume a decent farming situation, as is the intent of a lot of activism to ensure is universal - if that animal lived a content life and was slaughtered in the most painless way we can manage, I'm fine with eating it. In that situation, and hell even in many not-ideal farming situations, that animal had an exponentially better life than it would have had in the wild. It was fed and watered well, protected from predators and disease, and its death was hopefully peaceful, quick, and painless - in the wild, that animal would have lived in a state of constant stress trying to make sure it gets its next meal without becoming something else's next meal, not to mention the prevalence of disease and parasites, and it would likely have died violently or from sickness. Nature is not some uwu pretty Arcadian archetype like some people seem to think.

As far as I'm concerned, it's not unethical to eat that animal and use its hide, or indeed other parts of it. It's been extracted from the violence of nature to the point of having a downright idyllic lifestyle by humans, and I am perfectly okay with the humans in return getting food and clothing. I'm as much for reducing cruelty with lab-grown meat or plant-based fake meat as the next ethical human, but it's not unethical to eat meat. That's an absolutist stance that is fundamentally incompatible with, in my opinion, reality. Frankly, there are plenty of humans who need it - I know someone who actually is required by their dietician to eat meat because a plant-based alternative wouldn't sustain them and they'd become severely anaemic without it. I'm gluten free, a vegan diet would either leave severe deficiencies in my own diet or give me regular stomach issues. If I need meat, as many if not most humans do since we're omnivores, and I get that meat in the absolute least amount of cruelty-per-meat I can humanly manage, I'm cool with that.

This is of course why I am opposed to cruel farming practices, despite eating meat. That's not a contradiction.

And that's just the situations where slaughter is required. The takes I've seen on wool are asinine. Sheep need to be sheared. It is bad for them to just let them be. We have bred them over millennia to need shearing. The wool gets too heavy for them to survive falling in water, too warm and dense for them to survive hot weather or clean themselves, and it is a fucking breeding ground for parasites and shit when it gets dirty. You want the sheep to get flystrike? Stop shearing them and that's what happens. We don't dock lambs' tails for no reason, we do it because they get fuckin necrotic infection from flies if you don't. It would be cruel not to shear them. The only people who badly injure sheep when shearing them are incompetents nobody invites back, but a few nicks are inevitable because, funnily enough, sheep don't really understand the phrase "sit still please while I give you a glorified haircut."

But no, because PETA and shits like them are performative fucking absolutists who misrepresent shearing as skinning, wool is becoming so hard to sell that farmers are having to just dispose of it because it'd cost more to sell it than the money they'd make. And instead, people are making clothes out of FUCKING PLASTIC.

That's what your fucking vegan leather is. Plastic. Polyester is a kind of plastic. None of this shit will be good for the environment when it inevitably breaks down, and it breaks down exponentially faster than actual leather, wool, etc. Leather and wool are better materials and better for the environment especially when they're farmed ethically, but because it doesn't suit a pretentious fucking performative absolutism about using animal products, people think it's evil. Even that fucking supposedly good pineapple leather, Piñatex, is plastic. I was so fucking disappointed to learn that when I googled it. But because people hear "pineapple leather" they think it's a good vegan alternative to leather, when it just isn't, and you really don't need an alternative to leather. If you're slaughtering a cow who's lived a content and happy life ethically, there's no reason not to use the skin aside from it not being economically viable, which it is becoming because this performative bullshit sells the idea that leather is evil, despite the fact it's better for the environment and you need less of it because it doesn't break down into unbiodegradable bits into nature where it can fuck up anything it gets into and doesn't deteriorate as quickly. An actual leather jacket will last decades. Plastic leather, that won't be worth wearing in less than one decade.

I would much rather wear the wool of a few healthily-shorn sheep and the leather of maybe half a cow and have that last half a lifetime or longer than keep buying more and more shitty plastic clothes that release microplastics into the ocean and soil for just as long. But because of Vimes' Boots Theory, I kinda have to wear the shitty plastic for now, at least until I get to a point in making my own clothes where I've made them all out of better materials... read, wool, leather, and natural textiles like cotton and linen.

And then there's the shits who think it's inherently cruel because of consent or whatever. That's insane. If you try to anthropomorphise animals to the point of trying to apply consent to them you end up classifying nearly all of them as serial fucking rapists. You can't apply that argument to animals who fundamentally don't understand the concept. Have you met sheep. There is absolutely nothing behind those eyes. Categorically stupid animals. Especially when, as before, they've been bred to need our help. You can harangue over the ethicality of doing that millennia ago, but it's a pointless thought experiment when the best thing to do is just take care of the damn sheep and cows and whatever. Plus, if we stopped taking care of them, where the hell are they supposed to go? Go free and wreak havoc on the ecosystem? Wild deer and goats and shit are already damaging the environment, we don't need to add a bajillion cows and sheep and everything to that. Better to just keep taking care of 'em and harvesting what we get from them as ethically as possible.

All of this stemming I think from a (largely USAmerican, in my experience) complete detachment from and ignorance to the actual processes of farming and where food and textiles come from when combined with a puerile pseudo-Christian obsession with absolutist concepts of sin. It's not a sin to eat a steak. It's unethical to treat the cow that steak came from like shit. Long as that meat is coming from a cow that had a good life and as painless a death as possible, I'm fine eating it and wearing its leather.

I love leather and I love fur and I don’t mind arguing about it.

[adalidda]

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[mulberryfox]

Next up in farm chat is picking your hold back stock!

TW: Animal death, meat animal, animal farming

This is Arizona, an 8 week old satin x silver doe. She is my hold back doe out of her litter of 5, and I want to talk about some of the reasons why she’s staying!

The traits I am looking for:

1. Nice, smooth shoulders. I don’t want to see low shoulders, or any pronounced semi-arch type.

2. Nice width throughout. I don’t want thin, narrow rabbits who lack muscling over their topline, or appear to be long and lean.

3. Large size. Because silvers are a slightly smaller breed, I want to make sure I am retaining the heaviest, fastest growing offspring. This doe is the largest by several ounces, and is almost a full pound larger than the smallest littermate.

4. Handleable. I am okay if a rabbit is a little bit squirrely, but I do not tolerate extreme fear or aggression. This whole litter is a little squirrely, but not bad.

5. Color, fur, and sex. I knew i would be retaining a doe from this litter, with the potential of retaining a buck. The only buck in litter is the smallest, and so it was easy to pick based on sex. The four does are all the same shade of fawn, with one being a booted broken and therefore less useful in my program right now as my bucks are both broken and I don’t want charlies. The buck is a better shade of red, but thats okay. All five have identical fur.

In the end, her size is what won her a longer term cage because this litter was surprisingly consistent on type. The other four will go on to help provide food for my family in about a month, and anything left over will go into our garden as fertilizer to bring us abundance in the summer.

[insufferablefirehazard]

[responsiblelemon]

"Vegans have clearly never been to a farm because the animals are taken care of and all their needs are met! They don't know what they're talking about!"

I don't care!

Veganism is a completely different way of viewing animals. It's not about "let's treat them nicely."

Veganism is the belief that humans should not use the bodies of animals when they don't need to do so to survive.

Veganism means that because an animal can suffer and enjoy things, they deserve autonomy. Using that animal's body for your own gain, even if you try to do so in a way that's sensitive to their happiness and health, is exploitation.

Veganism acknowledges that not every aspect is accessible to every person in the very definition of the word: not partaking in the use of animals as much as possible. It's not erasing the need for systemic change, it's just people trying to live out their ethics consistently to the best of their ability.

You don't have to tell me about how nice the animals are treated. That's usually not true anyway but even when it is, I simply do not care.

If your idea of animal rights does not include the idea that animals should have autonomy then I'm not expecting this post to convince you, but if you talk about how nicely animals are treated or about how veganism isn't accessible to everyone, you're not "owning the vegans," you're just proving that you have no idea what veganism actually is.

[rhapsoddity]

What are some of the more rare hybrids in your au? You said before Warden Hybrids are of legends and myths. What about others? Are there some that still are around but make up a low percentage of the population?

Most nether / end hybrids! Warden hybrids, wither hybrids and Ender Dragon hybrids are myths by this point, but ghasts, blazes, magma slimes ect are rare!

This is mainly as they've been hunted to almost extinction, as nether hybrids are the only way to get pure ingredients for potions, the synthetic alternatives aren't nearly as potent. Generally if you're a rare hybrid you hide your hybrid features at all costs, lest you end up in a resource farm, trapped being tortured for mob drops but not being allowed to die.

The only mobs from those two places that haven't been hunted are shulker hybrids, piglin hybrids, strider hybrids since they have nothing to do with potion ingredients

[charlataninred]

Maybe it’s just cuz i have experience w farm animals but I do not get the hate people have for certain types of meat (dog, cat, Guinea pig). Like yeah it’s a pet for some but it’s good for others? And sometimes it’s both? I love the cows and sheep and goats at my farm but I still love beef and lamb and goat yknow

Genuinely, is there another reason people don’t like cat/dog/etc meat or is just bc it’s strange to them?

[flavoracle]

Alternative to Societal Collapse: Village Cybersteading

OK, imaging the homesteading movement of self-sustained living. Building your own cabin, growing your own food, making your own stuff, and so on.

But now imagine combining two other elements to that movement that are growing rapidly: Automation and polyamory. (I know this probably sounds crazy, but hear me out.)

When I say “automation” I’m talking about both artificial intelligence and general purpose robotics. And both of those are accelerating at an unpredictable pace. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to imagine a future in the next decade for a personal assistant robot to be affordable for the average adult, and for those robotic assistants to be essentially experts in nearly any and every skill set.

And if you have that kind of utility that simply requires a power source, your options for homesteading basically become limited by access to a power source and water.

Then imagine if instead of just you and your robotic assistant to manage the homestead, it was you and a best friend and/or significant other. Wouldn’t that be amazing?!

But wait, what if you have several friends? Or what if you are polyamorous and many of your friends are also partners of yours? And your friends and partners likely have their own friends and partners!

And while it’s possible for this to continue indefinitely, I find that most social groups kind of have core groups with lots of connections that then taper off around the edges.

So imagine a social group of about eight or so friends who decide to go claim a spot of land out in the woods that has a connection to a power supply, and build a self-sustained community out there. And over time they invite more of their friends or family or partners from outside the community to join the community until it eventually grows to the size of a small village.

And normally the very idea of all this would be absolutely ridiculous and idyllic, but keep in mind that in this scenario there is about a 1:1 ratio of adult humans to robotic assistants who are each experts at virtually any skill imaginable and don’t get tired or need vacations. So it’s not so crazy to imagine it being that simple to establish a village somewhere, if there were ever some kind of collapse of the United States or some other huge country.

And I feel like that’s kind of comforting to me. How about you? ☺️

[carnival-cuts-co]

Some people might get upset about the implications of our business.

But clown farming doesn’t have to be an inherently evil thing.

People eat chickens, cows, pigs, and more, all while those animals suffer immensely to reach your plate. You might think that we operate just as those industries do, but I assure you this is not correct.

Here at Carnival Cuts Company, we value the lives of clowns of all shapes and sizes. They’re truly magnificent creatures. We breed them here on our own farm, we feed them only the highest quality, and they get plenty of exercise. Our clowns are free range, with 672 acres to roam at their leisure, but we also provide cozy barns throughout the property for our clowns that require some more structure.

I first tasted clown in 2008. My grandfather’s harlequin, who had lived to an incredibly old age for the species, passed. And he did something most peculiar. He cooked him for me. The taste was immaculate. It can’t be compared to another flesh. At first, I felt guilt in the pleasure I had from this meal. But then I felt grateful. This clown had lived a beautiful life, and it was giving us one last gift. The very essence of its being.

We try to honor this idea within Carnival Cuts Co.

Farming clowns is not evil. It’s natural. They are beasts and so are we. It is the order of things, and it doesn’t have to be cruel.

Thank you for reading.

See you soon,

Carnival Cuts.

[biblioflyer]

X-Men: Trust is Cheap When You Have a Trust Fund

Personal experiences can bestow a fundamentally sunny disposition about Mutant assimilation in Human society. They can also inspire the bleakest despair and a level of skepticism about unilateral disarmament.

Previously I discussed why X-Men as a setting is fundamentally pessimistic as a necessity according to the creative choices made. It is an essay in 5 parts:

1,2,3,4,5

This is a new series analyzing how experience and social status influences Mutant outlooks on the assimilation vs separatism/supremacy question.

It should not surprise us at all that the Morlocks and Magneto have very different opinions from Xavier about who should regulate their behavior and how. Once he’s confronted with how little protection his wealth affords him, even Sunspot becomes a convert to Magneto’s way of thinking.

When you’ve had a bad experience with someone claiming to be on your side and then contradicting literally every value you thought you shared, it makes a person calloused against appeals to a shared set of values or the innate goodness of humanity. 

For a real life example, George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” is a repudiation of the Soviet Union under Stalin, even though Orwell was no fan of extreme inequality and the violence used by elites to protect that inequality in market driven societies. Orwell was motivated to revisit the idea of whether the USSR was a true reflection of his values due to his personal sense of betrayal when the Soviet Union declined to intervene in the Spanish civil war against the Nazi allied regime.

We ought not to be surprised when impoverished visible Mutants find it difficult to imagine having a seat at the table when they can’t even get a seat at the table masquerading as Sapiens. 

Xavier’s access to power is always depicted as somewhat tenuous and his relationships with Presidents are transactional. Regardless of their personal feelings and long term visions, the leaders Charles interacts with are primarily focused on day to day crisis management. These leaders are ultimately accountable to the overwhelming majority of the population that does not have special abilities and those who are fearful of Mutants and those who are supportive of Mutants vote and contribute to political campaigns.

Xavier isn’t even visibly mutated. The tendency for Humans to perceive Morlocks as hideously disfigured denies them any comfort in mainstream society. Their very appearance reminds Humans that something has gone amiss in the gene pool and that something may not bode well for baselines in the long run.

Magneto’s experiences as a Sapien minority on the wrong side of the boot has made him deeply skeptical of power beyond his own. A Holocaust survivor, Magneto doesn’t need to imagine what the worst case scenario is for Human - Mutant relations.

Like Orwell, he is not easily swayed by appeals to common values or shared interest. For Magneto, trust is earned and the tests to earn it are not easy. As a consequence of his experiences, Magneto has adopted an attitude that only the people that are imminently facing the same type of threats can truly understand each other and be relied upon. 

To the extent that this is a fair and accurate sentiment, taken to an extreme it can be very isolating and leave one with few allies and even fewer people whose insights might be trusted when they contradict Magneto’s own instincts. This becomes a serious problem when Cortez worms his way into Magneto’s inner circle or Magneto rationalizes the fate of Mutants trapped on an Earth incapable of using modern technology as expediting evolution.

Yet, cynic that he is, life as an island is hard and even Magneto is not immune to the occasional savvy operator figuring out how to earn and abuse his trust, like Cortez.

Next up: Power level as privilege. What happens when a cranky Omega isn’t trapped in here with you, you are trapped with them….

[skitter-smack]

Yk what. Not as controversial as I remember. But like. We really have to start breaking down the whole ‘hunting is ok so long as it’s a necessity!’ BS. What constitutes as a necessity to you? What constitutes as ‘unneeded’ to you?

Is a cultural practice passed down from generations to generations considered unnecessary?

Idk. Falconers and other people who do hunting as a sport / practice get behind me.

[fatedroses]

A bit of community service work to repay his third chance leads to Hien witnessing Zenos' own special brand of weird.