Re: vegetarianism and transhumanism

From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Wed Jun 13 2001 - 08:28:54 MDT


Samantha Atkins wrote:
> Protecting food from insects and other poachers on it is not the

> same thing as killing animals directly for food in an
> unnecessarily barbaric manner.

Ah, Samantha, you know not what you say. Rat poison, and other poisons, are truly
barbaric means of killing animals (which is why the Geneva Conventions prohibit
their use in war on humans as chemical weapons). As an experienced hunter, I can
tell you that a shot from a high powered rifle to the heart or major blood vessel
results in unconciousness within seconds, with any remaining twitching being
adrenaline triggered unconcious flight reaction (i.e. not concious activity). In a
slaughterhouse, animals are typically killed either by a rifle shot to the head,
which causes instant death, or else a taser shot to the head, which results in
instant unconciousness, at which point the throat is cut and painless death
results in seconds.

Death from poison takes many minutes or hours of suffering, if not days or weeks.
At the very least, a respiratory poison will cause the animals lungs to be
dissolved very painfully, with the victim choking and drowning in their own blood.
Longer term poisons cause the animal to crave the consumption of water so much
that they drink until their lungs fill and they drown. Then you have nerve toxins
which cause body wracking seizures and pain for many minutes or hours until the
toxins reach the brain. There are also poisons that induce hydrophobia, a fear of
water, where the pest dies from thirst.

You are right that poisoning animals that parasitize on plant agriculture is
different from harvesting animals for food, but your reasoning is completely
backwards.



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