People for Ethical Technologies for Animals

Posted by tomo at 05:01 PM in technology . | 1 Comments

We eat animals because they taste great and because we need to to survive. While the former is still true the latter less so. As we will be continuing to harvest fairly mentally complex and developped fellow creatures for the foreseeable future (until the day comes when we can grow chicken breasts from the ground up), do we not owe it to these beings to at least find ways, including technological, to lessen their suffering, from life to death? This could also be a way for agricorps to compete with one another in the "ethical eating" market and for the industry as a whole to greenwash their image. From the article:

Future technologies, though, could yield fruit. For example, some theorists have floated a Matrix-like scenario that would use direct stimulation of the brain to fool livestock about the reality of their living conditions.

"To offset the cruelty of factory-farming, routine implants of smart microchips in the pleasure centers may be feasible," says David Pearce, associate editor of the Journal of Evolution and Technology. "Since there is no physiological tolerance to pure pleasure, factory-farmed animals could lead a lifetime of pure bliss instead of misery. Unnatural? Yes, but so is factory farming. Immoral? No, certainly not compared to the terrible suffering we inflict on factory-farmed animals today."