I grew up on a (very) small farm - so I knew where all the meat we ate (and eggs, apple, plums and jam) came from.
One of the things I find most disconcerting as an adult is the disconnect with the food I eat. Even the local 'farmer butcher' - I don't actually know if the meat they sell me is what they say it is.
I buy a lot of deer from a friend of a friend as it feels slightly more known to me - even if I have no idea about what the deer actually ate in it's life.
I grew up similarly and it's part of the reason I've cut back on my meat.
Shoving 100 cattle into a 1 acre feed lot for their entire lives is unfortunately how a lot of beef is produced. They spend their lives covered in shit, sleeping in shit, and trapped with no where to roam.
And instead of addressing this problem, my state (Idaho) made it illegal to take photos of the issue. [1]
I keep seeing people make this claim that cattle spend their entire lives on feed lots, but I've never seen this anywhere and I've been all over cattle country. Where do they do this? Because around here feedlots are only for finishing cattle and typically only spend about 2-3 months there after having very happy lives as calves on a ranch.
> I keep seeing people make this claim that cattle spend their entire lives on feed lots, but I've never seen this anywhere and I've been all over cattle country. Where do they do this?
Nobody does that, it’d be way too expensive. People here on HN have absolutely zero knowledge of how industrial cattle farming operates and have some really bizarre beliefs about the process. Largely because their only experience with it is the supermarket meat section and passing those massive stinky feedlots along the CA I5.
For everyone else: After a calf is raised and weaned from their mother, they are sent to “background” on pasture and the last few months a cow spends packed in a feedlot is just to fatten it up for human consumption. These are usually steps done by different companies altogether. The whole point of beef is utilizing marginal land that can’t grow human food. It converts tons of grassland to usable farmland, and that pasture makes up 2/3 of the total agricultural land in the US.
>"The whole point of beef is utilizing marginal land that can’t grow human food."
FYI: 36% of corn is grown just to feed cattle/livestock. I'm trying to breed chickens that are less dependent on commercial foods, so I'm somewhat familiar with the topic.
That's also very misleading because the vast majority of the corn we feed cows isn't fed to them fresh. It's distillers grains, an industrial waste from ethanol production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains
It's a cheap type of corn [1] only grown on marginal farmland that is one step above pasture land.
I'm not here to police tone, but it sounded like you were disagreeing with the parent comment but your factual claims do not appear to disagree.
>> typically only spend about 2-3 months there after having very happy lives as calves on a ranch.
> After a calf is raised and weaned from their mother, they are sent to “background” on pasture and the last few months a cow spends packed in a feedlot is just to fatten it up for human consumption.
The only difference is the introduction of "sent to “background” on pasture" which arguably is not different from "happy lives as calves on a ranch" given different interpretations of calf to distinguish between baby and adolescent cattle.
There is no hypocrisy in cattle farming. No species on earth other than humans care about another species existence other than how it will benefit their own species.
I'm not saying humans shouldn't be different, but there is no hypocrisy in keeping in line with every other species in the known universe.
I don't disagree with you, but I'm unaware (naive?) of any other species farming/enslaving/capturing hordes of another species and effectively torturing them the way humans do
Being suddenly killed by a lion is a rather short torture/cruel experience compared to what humans do at larger and larger scales. I think animals even have a mechanism that I forget the name of that spares them a lot of the pain involved in such a situation (adrenaline, "going into shock", etc)
I really do wish I/we could do something to be less cruel but everything seems driven by profit margins and that makes it rather difficult/impossible. They're outlawing 'lab grown' meat! :|
(I eat meat, but I don't feel good about it when I think about it)
Humans didn't care either until very recently, when it became apparant just how much capacity we have to drive other animals to extinction. Our ability to destroy is many orders of magnitude beyond any other animal, so having at least a little more restraint is basically a requirement for a sustainable society.
Yes. Fundamentally, most people, including myself, believe that it's fine to kill animals and eat them.
There's no hypocrisy here, disgusting or otherwise. You have your own concept of morality, I have mine, yours is considered extreme by society at large, mine is a shared moral belief of the great majority.
most people also do not care about factory farming. think the claim is that it is hypocrisy if you care about the animal suffering when you will just kill it at the end
It's not hypocrisy to believe that a) animals can be killed for their meat, but also b) they should be treated humanely until then and killed as humanely as feasible.
That's the great thing about human intelligence; we can ensure a humane kill of our prey as opposed to ripping it apart with fangs and claws like other predators.
I guess my threshold for care is if it is sufficient to motivate any action to be taken at all, whether that is eating slightly less meat or switching to non-factory farmed. The vast majority of people don’t do that, so their revealed “care” is very little.
Frankly, I don’t really care which type they eat, meat is meat and has pretty much the same environmental (and ethics of killing) issues.
What is the "disgusting hypocrisy of cattle farming?" The term "happiness" is an anthropomorphic emotion term to describe animals not living in the distress so well characterized by Temple Grandin. The theory is growing the animal in a low stress environment leads to a higher quality product. Given the scary prions which spread in part by feeding cows to themselves, it makes sense to avoid some of the conditions humans often find aesthetically or morally objectionable.
Many western states have much stricter views on property rights and trespassing than the coasts. The penalties are generally higher even if not dealing with this specific scenario. Even regular ID trespassing law can carry 6mo-1y jail time depending on the circumstances, etc.
One often overlooked thing that isn't particularly applicable in this case is the biosecurity aspect involved in agricultural trespassing. Even trespassing in agricultural areas without taking pictures can carry higher penalties in many states.
in other states, these penalties only exist for slaughterhouses, if you broke into a Beyond meat factory and filmed you wouldn’t be eligible for same penalties
I'm not sure what you're talking about. Most of the agricultural trespassing, disruption, etc laws don't just apply to slaughterhouses, but also include the farms and such. Many states have general secret recording that apply to nearly all scenarios if you're referring to recording. If you're talking about just trespass, if you "broke" into a beyond meat facility you would in fact face similar penalties in other western states with similar property rights culture. I believe even the ID law would result in 6-12mo maximum jail if you broke into the factory (might even qualify as burglary with higher penalties depending on specifics).
Do you have the law that prevents the recording in UT? I only see the tresspassing law. Which by the way, would appear to be a class B misdemeanor if it was agricultural land or if it was a building (same for both your examples).
I wasn't trying to distinguish between land and building, mostly just that they are about recording and specifically animal operations.
I'm almost certain Utah is not the only state that specifically has laws around recording and specifically for animal operations that go beyond just generic trespass, but I don't have time right now to dive in.
Ok, thanks for the link. Based on that information it seems generic tresspass and the agricultural interference laws carry similar penalties depending on the circumstances. Both are either class A or class B misdemeanors.
but penalties stack :) and not all agricultural recording would fall under trespass - many times it is people who are employed there who are doing the recording
Not sure why you're putting these here. These are not relevant to discussion we're having. We're talking about the sentencing phase and the rules determining concurrent sentences.
How are you going to get concurrent sentences for two things you can’t get convicted for — or sentenced for — simultaneously? My point is that what you are contemplating would not be possible. Obviously I’m missing something. What is it?
So why can't you get sentenced for trespassing and agricultural interference if you trespassed into a facility and recorded animals? I didn't see anything in UT laws preventing concurrent sentences for those. Why do you think those can't be sentenced together?
Now we will see why my previous comment was relevant.
A lesser included offense is an offense which itself constitutes one element of another offense. Under the doctrine of multiplicity, you may either be tried for the lesser included or the offense for which the lesser included is an element — but not both. To be charged with both would run afoul of the constitutional provisions limiting double jeopardy.
This is not part of any Utah statute, it’s a general constitutional principle under US law.
I didn't make you say anything. It looks like you replied to the wrong person, and in a unconstructive way. Seems you should have replied to the person about stacking penalties. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40310758
You could have been constructive and said that criminal trespass was a lesser included offense under section 2d. Or should I just reply to you using a few semirandom words? Relevant search terms include: conversation, context, sentences, convey complete ideas
The principle is well understood. You could have pointed out how that principle applied - that the lesser included offense of criminal trespass existed under 2d. Researching principles does nothing if there is a missing fact. Or are you referring to yourself as "Computer Guy"?
If it's too much work for you to engage in a thoughful conversation (per the guidelines), just don't engage at all next time. We don't need low effort "search terms..." comments on here.
Do you have the law on that? It seems your example in Utah would be class B misdemeanors for trespass in either scenario. I didn't see any law specifically about recording slaughterhouses.
I personally empathize more with the concerns of poor humans than I do mistreated animals and increasing food costs seems likely to increase their pain. I'll gladly wait for technology to improve the lives of animals, but I think it's important our legislation focuses entirely on improving the life of people, exclusively.
Beef is incredibly expensive in terms of costs of food, land, and water -- and in high density situations - rapid disease spread (and post consumption disease spread via cancer, metabolic, and heart disease)
By promoting sustainable diets, mostly vegetarian with optional beef splurges
> but I think it's important our legislation focuses entirely on improving the life of people, exclusively
What about the activists who are motivated by a genuine belief that this is wrong and believe it's their life's work to raise awareness of the issue? Throwing them in jail isn't improving their lives - what framework are you using to pick losers & winners of the people you help vs hurt?
"Throwing them in jail isn't improving their lives - what framework are you using to pick losers & winners of the people you help vs hurt?"
Seems to be the combined wishes of the constituents. Same theory applies to most topics. You can see this in how different states poll on firearms (or abortion, etc) and the types of laws they have on that topic. As an extreme example, the same person can carry the same gun in two different states and be lawful in one and committing a felony in another without causing any damage simply because the values and beliefs expressed by the populations results in different laws. They might even qualify to carry lawfully in both states but are missing a piece of paper confirming it. That's how the laws works - break it and suffer consequences. Maybe it's worth it depeding on your moral convictions. Don't like it, then change the law. In the case of agricultural tresspass, the law is not likely to change in ID based on the current views of the population there.
In a representative democracy, the will of the population isn't so directly represented in the laws that are held. Given the role money and lobbying have in politics, there's no way to conclude that any given law has the broad support of the people vs "this isn't important enough for me to get worked up over vs issues that are more immediately pressing to me" or even "powerful economic powers are acting to sway the opinion of the general population". There's even [1] which adds credence to the idea that laws are passed by the will of the wealthy, not by the will of the constituents. Also immoral laws can be passed when the people in power are immoral. Immoral people can gain power through alternate ways than following the will of the constituents.
More importantly, we have ideals and principles that supersede the will of the public. Arguably the most sacred ideal in America is the First Amendment with respect to protections about speech & this is pretty adjacent in that the law is criminalizing speech for something that should arguably be a civil matter at best. Laws like this are not dissimilar to passing a law protecting employers from employees trying to document unsafe working conditions.
So the idea that the law is purely an expression of the wishes of the constituents is nice but not borne out in the structure of modern democratic governments, not borne out in practice because of how power & money intermix, & invalidated by the idea that we have principles that supersede the wishes of those constituents.
"Given the role money and lobbying have in politics, there's no way to conclude that any given law has the broad support of the people"
That's why I mentioned polling and gave generally verifiable examples.
Yes, money can sway the legislature or even the views of constituents. And yes, most topics have a large number of people who don't care because they don't know or the topic doesn't affect them. However, polling and other research can show how the population views the topic pertaining to the law and the culture in general.
"criminalizing speech for something that should arguably be a civil matter at best."
This is factually incorrect. The speech portion of this would be the sharing of the picture. The part that is criminalized is trespassing and recording to get that picture. The civil part would be stuff like libel or slander.
"So the idea that the law is purely an expression of the wishes of the constituents is nice but not borne out in the structure of modern democratic governments"
I never said it was a pure expression. You can clearly see that property rights are a part of the culture of most western states. Yes, those laws were influenced by the wealthy over generations, but it's now become part of the culture.
Improving the lives of animals directly improves the lives of humans. Who do you think is eating them? Feeding them? Building their shelters and living near them? Slaughtering them and butchering them? Animal welfare is a public health issue. People have caught bird flu and died!
A picture is worth a thousand words, so the voice of the industry would become too expensive (bribes, oh excuse me, lobbying and consulting) if the public can use pictures. Hence, pictures are forbidden.
Unless my understanding of 'misrepresentation' is incorrect, and I'm neither a lawyer nor an American, but I find the law to outlaw basic journalism, including and especially the below section which seems to specifically outlaw undercover journalism. What's reasonable about that?
> (c) Obtains employment with an agricultural production facility by force, threat, or misrepresentation with the intent to cause economic or other injury to the facility’s operations, livestock, crops, owners, personnel, equipment, buildings, premises, business interests or customers;
If the definition of undercover journalism is simply lying about ones identity in order to publish secrets with the intent to cause injury to another party, then yes, absolutely, I'm in favor of outlawing it, and a 1 year max seems generous.
Divulging someone's secrets isn't intrinsically unethical. If I reveal the secret that you've murdered someone that's not a secret that you ever had any right to keep.
Likewise these "secrets" aren't something valuable like an algorithm that's in the interest of society to protect. The secret is their monstrous and unethical practices which lower their sales when their prospective consumers learn about them. Keeping it secret doesn't protect competition, it just hides something from consumers that would allow them to make a more informed choice.
Muckraker journalism like this is one of the main reasons the US has regulations for things like food safety and working conditions. Should a journalist go to jail for revealing that a slaughterhouse is hiring 8 year olds, or that there is a mass contamination of a food product that the company still intends to sell? Those can be "secrets" too.
I think what they're saying there is "I was just taking pictures... noooo, you will break my camera!!! you evil brute!" when you say GTFO is no defense.
Not saying there aren't weird laws. Check the notions of boxed squares (miles) and airspace. Some of these need addressing at the federal level.
> Shoving 100 cattle into a 1 acre feed lot for their entire lives is unfortunately how a lot of beef is produced. They spend their lives covered in shit, sleeping in shit, and trapped with no where to roam.
And then being shoved into a truck, shipped who knows how many thousand miles to a butchering facility that does it for 3c cheaper and then end up in a line with all your peers to be killed in a horribly industrialized way.
When I lived in central Europe there was a story about pigs or cows, I don't remember, being shipped to Morocco for butchering, imagine that!
People would be vegetarians in a heartbeat if they saw how meat is produced.
> And instead of addressing this problem, my state (Idaho) made it illegal to take photos of the issue. [1]
I agree with you--feedlots are disgusting and cruel.
However, cattle do not spend their "entire lives" at a feedlot. Usually only the last few months (or less) before slaughter. Prior to that, that majority of cattle live in very open and pleasant conditions.
I'm in the UK - but yes he's a registered 'pest controller' - he gets paid by local farmers to keep the invasive deer population low (muncjac and Chinese water deer), and is also licenced to sell the meat. You can get either a whole/half skinned and basically butchered deer from him, or any selected cuts, for £9 a kg - which pretty damn cheap really!
That is a fantastic deal for meat you can feel good about! I pay that much for pork at the big organic grocery chain in Germany (ebl) that I can only hope they’re telling the truth about, and far more for the occasional beef steak there.
I live in America. I buy half-beef from a farmer down the road. His cows are pastured all the time, grass-fed and grass-finished. It costs me $3.50/lb to do this and that includes dozens of steaks - all cuts and ground beef etc. are the same flat rate.
This isn't a special deal either, this is how the guy makes his living, along with some other farm products.
Depends which jurisdiction. It’s legal in the UK if you have a license and I think it has to be professionally butchered and labelled at a registered slaughterhouse.
That should be the last concern of any decent human being. If they outlaw breathing, will you stop? Hunting is something our species has done for over a billion years by this point.
1) equivocating hunting with breathing? One is necessary for life, the other is done by less than a quarter of people, and for most of them it’s just a hobby.
2) slavery has also been done probably since humanity began millions of years ago, so that clearly is not sufficient for something shoulding be legal.
Hunting is just as necessary for life as breathing. Domestication of animals and agriculture are the unnatural ways that man has invented. So banning it is banning the most natural human behaviour. All other predators do nothing except hunt, breathe, drink, sleep and mate. And they don't keep slaves.
There's a lot of people who never drink water, but drinking water is still essential and shouldn't be outlawed.
That doesn't make any sense. What makes hunting any more natural than agriculture? Isn't exerting control over our environment one of the defining characteristics of humanity?
It is more natural because creatures in nature do it. Together with mating, hunting is one of the foundations of life itself for the predator or omnivore class of animals.
All the behaviours that we have in common with other mammals are natural and eternal. They can never be legislated away, even though many have tried and they have died. Including kings trying to ban hunting certain game for commoners and having them for themselves.
> It is more natural because creatures in nature do it. All the behaviours that we have in common with other mammals are natural and eternal. They can never be legislated away
We outlaw all sorts of things that can be found in nature.
Additionally, “natural” =/= “necessary to life”. Millions if not billions of people have the means to hunt if they wanted to, yet choose not to. And they are just fine.
>> Hunting is something our species has done for over a billion years by this point.
Sustenance hunting yes, but the rules about selling wild meat are to prevent market hunting. There are more humans by weight than any other land animal. If the general population started eating hunted meat, any wild population would be wiped out. So we have careful rules to ensure hunters do not hunt simply to sell the meat.
I agree that there is a difference, but a very small difference. Even animals share their prey with those who didn't participate in the hunt.
If the general population started eating hunted meat, vast agricultural areas would be returned to nature, giving a slight offset to that problem.
But jumping back to reality, those people who actually hunt and purchase hunted meat right now are people who care about nature and shepherd it with responsibility. They can safely ignore any hacker that starts yapping about some law written by unnatural people.
> If the general population started eating hunted meat, vast agricultural areas would be returned to nature, giving a slight offset to that problem.
I don't think the math works here. There isn't enough agricultural area on the planet to sustainably generate enough hunted Calories for the general population.
It’s simple… harvesting more than the population you are hunting can sustain. A lot of animals outside or deer are regulated through a lottery system, if everyone who wanted to hunt a bear, mountain goat, or cougar did every year, we’d have none.
We have deer seasons for a reason. Lots of times you can only hunt the male bucks to keep populations in check. People have decimated populations. Look at the Goliath Grouper ban in Florida and how the species has recovered.
One of the things I find most disconcerting as an adult is the disconnect with the food I eat. Even the local 'farmer butcher' - I don't actually know if the meat they sell me is what they say it is.
I buy a lot of deer from a friend of a friend as it feels slightly more known to me - even if I have no idea about what the deer actually ate in it's life.