The possible future of Chicken Farms

[Krynn72]

Given the broilers' uncomfortable living conditions and the ever-growing demand for poultry, Royal College of Art architecture student André Ford has proposed that we instead turn to vertical chicken farms, where lobotomized birds are obliviously raised by the thousand. Explains Ford of these vast Matrix-like structures:

I think it is time we stopped using the term 'animal' when referring to the precursor of the meat that ends up on our plates. Animals are things we keep in our homes and watch on David Attenborough programs. 'Animals' bred for consumption are crops and agricultural products like any other. We do not, and cannot, provide adequate welfare for these agricultural products and therefore welfare should be removed entirely.

Earlier in the project I was proposing the chickens would be rendered unconscious, or desensitized by complete removal of the head but this has since been revised. Desensitisation will be achieved by a surgical incision that separates the animal's neocortex, responsible for sensory perceptions, and its brain stem which controls its homeostatic functions. The head remains intact.

http://io9.com/5885510/holy-crap-its-the-matrix-for-chickens

What say you?

 

[Vegeta897]

I fully support this.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

Would it work in practice and be cost effective? Could be a good way to meet poultry demand. Free range chickens would get a boost too by the amount of people icked out by it (still a small percentage of poultry users, but enough to sustain free range as its own industry even more than it is now)

 

[Bad^Hat]

This makes me severely uncomfortable, not least because of the attitude that this kind of sentiment engenders:

I think it is time we stopped using the term 'animal' when referring to the precursor of the meat that ends up on our plates. Animals are things we keep in our homes and watch on David Attenborough programs.

Does anyone else find the second sentence just as unsettling as the first? It's not just that he's saying we should completely depersonalize an animal, not only once it's dead meat but while it's still ostensibly "alive" (that's a whole other can of worms that I don't want to open), but also that animals don't even matter in the first place unless they're a) owned by a person, or b) being watched for the enjoyment of a person. Just... ugh.

I don't know. All I can really say is that I'm not okay with it, but I can't really find a way to put that into an actual moral argument as yet that doesn't break down into airy fairy shit like "we should respect the animals' right to life, man."

 

[Vegeta897]

I don't think he was implying that with the David Attenborough thing. I think he just meant animals in the wild.

Like there's 3 groups:
Wild Animals
Domesticated Animals
Livestock

 

[Bad^Hat]

"Animals are things we keep in our homes and watch on David Attenborough programs."

If he didn't mean to imply that, then his wording there is pretty ****ing unfortunate. Why would he chose to say it that way instead of stating that there are animals in the wild? Did he not think people would understand the concept without referring to TV?

 

[Krynn72]

I'm pretty sure he just said that as a "witty" way of saying "Wild Animals" and the joke just fell flat. Probably because it was a shitty joke.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Wasn't there some genetically "grown" meat shown before? I think it was for some 'beef substitute.'

 

[Remus]

It didn't help that I was listening to this while reading the article: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgHylFxMef0

Anyways, no I don't support this but I do support cloned meat. With cloned meat you completely sidestep the moral/ethical problems of harming other animals for food.

The problem is that as far as I know things aren't exacly going too smoothly in the cloned meat department. Not to mention that the only person that has ever tasted the stuff (a crazy russian jurnalist) said it was hard and tasteless.

 

[Krynn72]

Wasn't there some genetically "grown" meat shown before? I think it was for some 'beef substitute.'

Yep, and I support that without hesitation. This one is a little hazier, what with the whole lobotomizing fully functional living creatures for the purpose of growing them to eat. The notion that we should stop thinking of them as living creatures and as crops is far more unsettling, and harder to sell to me than test-tube grown meat that never had a nervous system/brain to begin with.

But this does sound better to me than the current state of affairs, and I guess thats what really counts? Would I rather have matrix chickens, or stuck with how its done today? I gotta say Matrix chickens.

 

[Krynn72]

and quite frankly detached and sociopathic.

 

[Dinnesch]

One of the good solutions to factory farming, but I don't think it's going to be possible anytime soon.

The other is just banning it, our economies also didn't collapse when it became illegal to use black people as slaves(sorry if this comparison sounds offensive but you get the point).

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

Our economy did collapse, though. The South became a ruin until technology and flight towards urban development from governmental assistance took hold.

 

[Maestro]

Our economy did collapse, though. The South became a ruin until technology and flight towards urban development from governmental assistance took hold.

It also started a war. Banning factory farming is a terrible solution to the problem. That will only create a black market with nonexistent regulation.

 

[KiplingsCat]

I don't know. Seems kind of Soylent Green-ish.

Spoiler

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!

 

[Stigmata]

Yeah this makes me really uncomfortable for all the reasons stated by BadHat and ZT and Krynn. I guess 'Murica needs its KFC for national security purposes or something.

Spoiler

Soylent Green tastes like chicken

 

[mechanicallizard]

This is ****ed up, and I think part of the reason I find it so uncomfortable is that I can see this becoming the norm, whether its tomorrow or in 20 years.

 

[dfc05]

I don't know. All I can really say is that I'm not okay with it, but I can't really find a way to put that into an actual moral argument as yet that doesn't break down into airy fairy shit like "we should respect the animals' right to life, man."

This. I mean, if the animal is going to live horribly and die anyways, maybe it's not that much worse to lobotomize it first. At this point though, it still seems weird. Maybe the chickens would rather have social functions than a painless "life", I dunno. I tend to avoid these issues because I'm not a vegetarian and don't buy free-range meat even though I know it's bad. But I have been eating less meat now.

I do think raising chickens this way would turn off more people from meat, just because they have ethical hang-ups on the "purity" of their food (see GMO crops -- not actually hazardous but public opinion has screwed that industry over). So I doubt it will actually be done.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

You guys are ridiculous. I'd rather eat chicken from this system than ones today where chickens are crammed together and stressed the hell out. Stress releases stress hormones over their entire life and effects their growth and taste. Nasty. I'd rather have either the matrix chickens or free range chickens than current factory farm chickens.

 

[Dandan]

I for one am becoming a vegetarian....once a month. I think I can handle it

 

[Krynn72]

You guys are ridiculous. I'd rather eat chicken from this system than ones today where chickens are crammed together and stressed the hell out. Stress releases stress hormones over their entire life and effects their growth and taste. Nasty. I'd rather have either the matrix chickens or free range chickens than current factory farm chickens.

Thats my stance as well. We all would like the perfect solution, but really the question here is; would you rather have today's factory farms, or this new matrix system?

 

[Vegeta897]

For some reason this concept feels like it fits in perfectly with my idea of a futuristic world like in Blade Runner, so I like it.

 

[Remus]

would you rather have today's factory farms, or this new matrix system?

Neither. Cloned meat, damn it.

 

[Stylo]

PETA are going to go f*cking nuts.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

I'm sure there's a fiery place in hell for folks like me, but I genuinely don't care about the suffering endured by the animals I consume. Even if they are smarter than my housecats or dog. I'm sure they wouldn't taste nearly as good.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

I'm sure there's a fiery place in hell for folks like me, but I genuinely don't care about the suffering endured by the animals I consume. Even if they are smarter than my housecats or dog. I'm sure they wouldn't taste nearly as good.

I would think the fiery place in hell would be for people that make animals suffer. The matrix system's whole point is no suffering.

 

[Maestro]

In Blade Runner the majority of animals are extinct due to the war's radiation and now only android animals remain unless you are incredibly rich. So this would not fit into the Blade Runner Universe, noob.

Is that mentioned in Blade Runner? I thought that was just in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It's been forever since I've seen the movie/read the book.

I should go re-read those...

 

[mechanicallizard]

In Blade Runner the majority of animals are extinct due to the war's radiation and now only android animals remain unless you are incredibly rich. So this would not fit into the Blade Runner Universe, noob.

So, just out of curiosity, what do they eat?

 

[Remus]

So, just out of curiosity, what do they eat?

They are all really androids, they just don't know it!

*head explodes*

 

[mechanicallizard]

Chinese noodles apparently!

I see....

 

[Bad^Hat]

I would think the fiery place in hell would be for people that make animals suffer. The matrix system's whole point is no suffering.

Phew, good thing they have no souls.

 

[Vegeta897]

In Blade Runner the majority of animals are extinct due to the war's radiation and now only android animals remain unless you are incredibly rich. So this would not fit into the Blade Runner Universe, noob.

Yeah those animals aren't used for eating, which is part of the point of the thread. This is like growing meat in a field. I wouldn't consider them animals, more like plants with a heartbeat.

 

[Bad^Hat]

I am still genuinely conflicted about this. My egalitarianism is clashing with my materialism/nihilism. :v

 

[15357]

Well, I think this is a way better idea than the current farms. I mean, put yourself in the chicken's position: would you rather spend your whole life inside a crammed cage or rather not live at all?

 

[Mr Stabby]

I think I just became a vegetarian.

 

[Tagaziel]

Welcome to the club.

On the subject of food in Blade Runner: unless my BR-sense fails me, it's typically artifically grown meat, soya and other easy to mass produce things.

 

[Vegeta897]

artifically grown meat

That's what I'd call this.

 

[Stigmata]

This is more artificially-sustained, though.

 

[Vegeta897]

If you want to get into semantics, you could say the exact same thing about regular plant crops. All farmers really do is sustain them so they can grow. Hell, it's probably even less maintenance to grow plants than to grow chickens, so if any of the two deserves a more active word, it'd be this.

 

[Stylo]

Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this is actually a pretty neat idea.