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[Reelya]

Well there could be a debate about fantasy, since most fantasy has a Northern Europe traditional setting, that it's the choice of setting that's lacking in diversity, rather than casting decisions. The solution is to push for more Arabic, North African and non-traditional settings, rather than to make all settings match the USA's modern ethnic breakdown. We'll get more actual diversity that way, rather than the "designed by committee" feeling of shoehorning in every possible "hip" social cause into every game and movie. It's really only European settings where people scream about the lack of diversity. For a modern setting, sure that makes sense. For a historical setting, not so much sense. Nobody would ever complain that an Arabic period-drama (even a fantasy one) was too full of Arabs.

The Witcher was criticized for not having a "representative" number of people of color. But The Witcher is set in a fantasy setting heavily based on medieval Poland, and the ethnic breakdown is pretty close to what existed in medieval Poland, rather than the 20th century USA. Of course, everyone is telling off the Polish for making a game based on Polish folklore which features Polish people (because Poles are white), whereas nobody would dream of ticking of the Japanese for making games based on Japanese folklore which feature 100% Japanese people.

[Egan_BW]

..."We're already murdering them, no point in making sure they don't suffer"?
I don't understand, that's not how that works.

[Neonivek]

I think it's referring to media, especially fantasy, where, yeah, any non-hetero or non-white characters tend to be accused of being "shoehorned" in.

Basically.

Which is a shame.

[SOLDIER First]

Very especially in fantasy with magic and dragons and the like.

[Frumple]

..."We're already murdering them, no point in making sure they don't suffer"?
I don't understand, that's not how that works.

"We've already set ourselves up to make them suffer from birth to violent death, no point in changing directions at the end of it." Would be closer. Really, I just have a great deal of trouble buying at face value that people that don't give much of a shit about the animals for every point before they're offed suddenly claim a conscience at the end of it.

Though it's more not much point in going out of your way to do so. Shouldn't go out of your way to make it worse, either. Mostly it's just a matter of calling bullshit on the suddenly changing amount of concern. Perfectly fine with breeding them to be food, perfectly fine with all the shit that happens before that's varying degrees of bad for the entity (if not always outright overtly harmful, of course), perfectly fine with killing them en masse, but gods forbid they wiggle a little before the butchers start cutting. You're better off pointing to some other reason besides concern to reduce suffering*, because that's a helluva' lot more convincing :V

'Course, if you're one of the folks that actually do care about everything beforehand, more power to you, and a genuinely sincere wish of good luck. You're going to need it, and a double ration keeping the things existent afterwards if you actually pull it off.

*And there's totally other reasons for making them not suffer at various points of the process! It's better for the quality and cost, iirc, and if excess harm is causing psych problems for the folks processin' them, that's a definite issue.

[Flying Dice]

If I was going to be butchered, I'd much rather go out like that than in the typical slaughterhouse methods, if only because I'm damned well going to be dead dead dead before they start chopping me up.

I sorta' get the sentiment, FD, but... honestly, if I'm going to kill you and eat you, what you want matters to me strictly to the extent performing the action would effect the taste and cost of your meat. Maybe some concern regarding the psychological health of whoever butchers you, but... that's about it.

If we're already committed to a campaign of eugenics and butchery (and we're shoved up that further than an unharvested haggis casing), we're pretty far past the point of further concern for the morality of the situation, y'know? Time to start measuring cost efficiency. Y'can attempt to make the argument that at least you're not heaping excess suffering on top of things, but that falls kinda' flat considering what you're doing, heh.

That said, so far as I'm aware the optimal point regarding that sort of heuristic is somewhere (not entirely nailed down, yet -- iirc, there's some pretty big methodology arguments going on right now regarding livestock, not just in regards to best butchery practices) between throat-slitting and chucking them flailing into the grinder, so it's not like there's not still plenty of room to argue for better conditions. Especially if throwing them in live is making a difference regarding the taste or maintenance costs or whatev'.

IIRC stress before death makes meat tougher.

So factory slaughtering is not only less ethical, it also directly contributes to meat quality reduction.

[Orange Wizard]

IIRC stress before death makes meat tougher.

It's not just before death, either. If an animal has been living in a stressful environment for a long time (like factory pens) and fed improperly the meat is significantly less tender/tasty than free range animals.

Biggest exception would be factory hens, where (assuming the chickens are fed properly) the eggs can actually be of higher quality than free range, because they're not sitting around to collect bird poop on the shells.

[Reelya]

..."We're already murdering them, no point in making sure they don't suffer"?
I don't understand, that's not how that works.

"We've already set ourselves up to make them suffer from birth to violent death, no point in changing directions at the end of it." Would be closer. Really, I just have a great deal of trouble buying at face value that people that don't give much of a shit about the animals for every point before they're offed suddenly claim a conscience at the end of it.

Which is exactly why I think the daily mail-style halal butchery outrage is hypocritical and racially motivated.

I mean, Daily Mail also has stories of the same or worse happening in both English and American non-halal slaughter-houses, but very few people jump up and down about those.

One worker appears to be relish the horrific act of cruelty against the pigs, proudly commenting to one of his co-workers as the pigs move down the conveyor belt: 'That one was definitely alive.'

That was at one of the biggest slaughterhouses in the USA, that supplied Hormel, the makers of Spam. You heard it here: Spam is made from live pigs.

[flabort]

So I'm the only guy who likes tough meat/cooks it long enough that how tough or tender it was from stress doesn't matter?  Cruelty asside, though, I tend not to think of what goes on before it reaches the store shelves because it creeps me the heck out. My Aunt's boyfriend? Fiance? Housemate? Something or other, he works as a quality control guy for meat plants in Alberta, and as such... I dont know if its a placebo effect from knowing he works at those places, or if its an actual smell, but he smells like horror. I couldnt describe what horror smells like any more than any other pheromone, but being around him after hes done a day of work creeps me out. Which is partly why Im glad I dont live with them.

[Eric Blank]

Smells like blood, guts, and death in general. A reaction of revulsion or horror is to be expected, I'd be willing to bet it's simply automatic, or instinctive. He's probably completely oblivious, on the other hand. He spent hours in that environment paying attention to tasks he's assigned to do, his nose probably stopped checking in to remind him.

I probably smell like tobacco when I get off work.

[scriver]

Before we talk about whether <8 seconds of bleed to unconsciousness is inhumane, we should look at issues in the American system

The American system is irrelevant as the US do not ban inhumane slaughter practices.

since most fantasy has a Northern Europe traditional setting

England+France+KindaSortaGermany is not northern Europe. If your standard fantasy setting was actually based on north Europe we wouldn't have so many faux feudal settings, for example, because medieval Scandinavia never was, and the Baltics and Russia are their own messes of "these steteotropes does not apply".

[Reelya]

England is in Northern Europe according to this (United Nations), as is Northern Germany. If I said Western Europe, then apparently I would have excluded Germany (according to the CIA World Factbook). So there are at least three different official definitions (when adding EuroVoc), none of which agree over which countries are in Northern Europe.

I guess I should have said Western Europe, but out of the three main countries of England, France and Germany, the three definitions only agree on France as being in Western Europe.

[scriver]

Or maybe we could not put so much stock on "official definitions" (like why would the definition the cia uses be at all relevant?) which exist for bureaucratic purposes and use it by what actually lies in the direction of north.

[Orange Wizard]

"What part of Europ is Germany in?" has become the new "Is Russia in Europe or Asia?"

[Akura]

How new is that question? If I recall, for more than half a century the line splitting East and West Europe went right through the middle of Berlin.