This is a bigger deal than it might sound. Despite lots of consensus that the horse carriages are bad, it has taken years to get this done. It infamously stalled during De Blasio's mayoralty too, for example.
This is also an L for the TWU, and I suspect there will be more of those to come in the following months.
It seems kind of strange that the entire meat industry exists and is tolerated, yet a few horses in Central Park are making people so angry. Surely these horses have far better lives than the cows did that everyone's tucking into over lunch?
They're in proximity to people that run on a progressive threadmill.
When it became socially opportune to so i've seen city folk elsewhere shift their animal rights stance to defend halal slaughter laws deeming it to be progressive because it's tied to a group lower on the proverbial ladder.
Animal welfare laws don't give atheist butchers the option to be cruel. They're required to stun the animal first. Why give halal/kosher butchers the option to be cruel? Especially if you claim "most do" choose to stun.
Be kinder to animals, change "most do" to "all do" by removing the religious exception.
...and then come the progressive types to defend 1000+ year old ritual slaughter customs.
> Presumably any and every religious tradition on slaughter is better than max-capitalism factory farming style?
It's really not. You're mixing two things, "max-capitalism factory farming" alludes to how the animal is treated while it's alive, e.g. caged hens vs free-range hens, while what we're talking about here is animal suffering during slaughter.
Kosher and halal slaughter are not animal-friendly. They mandate cutting the animal's throat but preserving its spinal cord so it feels every possible pain in its last moments alive as the blood drains out.
Stunning it before death and/or putting a bolt through its brain would be a lot more humane, but those methods didn't exist when those religions came up their rules, so of course not one iota of progress can be added.
You'll see that authorities in e.g. the UK have been asked to regulate kosher/halal butchers, require them to at least stun the animal before doing their ritual slaughter... and the authorities chose not to, and let them keep their religious exemption to animal cruelty laws. Kosher and halal slaughterers can choose to stun the animal first, which would be humane, but they don't have to.
I don't normally talk about downvotes but whomever downvoted the informative comment above should not have, it was very interesting and as such in line with hacker news spirit.
Try reading the comment you replied to. It was not commenting on the killing of animals, but rather on the horrific ways animals are abused while they live. The killing is the least odious part of the meat industry.
Fascinating, thanks. Sounds to like they must not have tried hard enough if that's the case. Surely they could enforce it through audits/inspections/fines/etc. if they really wanted to?
They probably were unwilling to impose penalties that would be strong enough because they would also put them out of business, and until they were willing to ban it outright they were uncomfortable with that outcome.
I do not know. I have not looked into this issue on the merits. I have just observed the gridlock and status-quo bias around it.
I suspect though that mandating better conditions would have the same effect --- the horse tourism business probably stops penciling out if they have to make the required changes. And given that, TWU would fight it just as hard --- a de jure or de facto ban has the same effect as far as they are concerned.
He's doing this because an Indian tourist was killed by a horse - they are quite notorious for being hit by trains, jagannatha etc.
Some people say that it's because forcing horses to work in a dense, heavily polluted urban environment is cruel, but I don't see these rules being applied to Sarah Jessica Parker.
In the meantime, another city with iconic horse-drawn carriages, Vienna (where the carriages, unlike in New York, actually use city streets), is debating whether the horses should get a day off if temperatures rise above 30° C (currently it's 35°), and only a few officials are meekly suggesting that a complete ban might be considered at some point in the future.
Wrong. Florida has fairly large cattle industry and it dates back a long time and also has a unique cowboy culture distinct from that of the American West (crackers).
I'm saying they aren't regularly working their horses for hours and hours in that type of heat, day in day out. I'm not saying people don't ride them at all.
But it does seriously take a good bit of hosing them down to lower their internal temp to a safe point after being worked hard. You can't just get them wet and call it good, you need to sit there and keep it flowing over them.
Viennese Fiaker horses are limited to 18 working days per month and there's already temperature limits. Whether those should be lowered further is up for discussion. the current limits for horses are already lower than for outdoor laborers in Vienna.
IMO completely banning horse carriages in Vienna is overshooting.
You overlooked the sentient-omnivore-who-leaves-makeshift-toilet-paper disgust multiplier.
If that factor is set to 100 (consider how inoffensive horse pucky is vs finding a soiled diaper) then we're talking 0.01% of 115K humans matches the horses.
That's only 11.5. Did 12 people drop one in Central Park today? That's one duece for every 70 acres.
Good. We (Montreal) did that some years ago and nobody misses it - tourists, operator, citizen and very likely the horses too. You think it's a staple until it's gone, then you realize it was just animal abuse for profit.
Humans adapt. Even if people miss them they get over it quickly. You get a lot of (social)media articles for a couple of months but after that everyone moves on.
Did the locals realise before or after tucking into their burgers?
Banning something just because kids 'might' (would love to see a % chance on this) die on the streets is alarmist nonsense. Should we ban trains and cars, too?
There's ways to mitigate cruelty and exploitation, just like we do for humans.
What's the difference between this and people keeping pets couped up indoors and exploiting them as 'emotional support', etc? If animals are meant to be wild and not exploited, people should at least be consistent.
As a second lapalissade (I'm in a pretentious mood today), it's also interesting that we continue to use the horse as a unit:
Horsepower is a unit of power that is approximately how much work one horse can do. It is equal to 746 watts. The idea of horsepower was originated by James Watt, who invented the steam engine. Because people used horses to pull carts, it was an amount of energy that could be understood by most people at that time
Horses only know a human world and removing them from it is wrong, very very wrong, if they have any right, it is to stay.
Horses KNOW there purpose , and ENJOY there work and those who are part of that also know and enjoy there co joined lives, which at times is as close to magic as to be found.
But let me fuck right off, and may the sterilisation bring you some sort of shiny
comfortable pristine experience.
Even if you think this is true generally of horses and humans, I can't understand feeling that it remains true regardless of setting and conditions for the horse? Like, they're overworked, never ever leave cement and heavy traffic and loud city noises and small confined spaces.
In other words, people will lose jobs with no off ramp, horses will get dumped somewhere (because they can't be used for any work, or slaughtered), city will lose one more tradition and get a bit more bland.
They are mentioned as things the union is unhappy with. The city has said they’ll come up with a transition plan by next year, but there are no details and that doesn’t mean people won’t lose jobs. The bill prohibits the horses from being sold to slaughter or other rides, but doesn’t say where they’d go instead.
I think it’s reasonable to raise concerns about both.
Sure, but the things you describe losing aren't overwhelmingly unpopular. But the people who live in New York want this. Overwhelmingly.
Do you live in New York? If not, why should you have any say -- especially in keeping a performative tourist amusement around? "Dance for me, New Yorkers!"
If you are from New York, your neighbors overwhelmingly want this. Are you against losing this because it's genuinely good? Or some more abstract philosophical reason? If it's the latter, do you apply that evenly?
I don't think that's the argument. Slavery was overwhelmingly popular in the American South. Nevertheless it would be appropriate to massacre slaveholders and all their defenders to stop it.
Holy false equivalency, Batman. We're discussing an attraction. One that residents believe is cruel. The people are trying to end cruelty.
Yes, sometimes democracy produces bad outcomes in the name of preventing cruelty. But I don't think you can compare it to instances where humans are the target. We cannot ask the horses, "what would you prefer?"
Diversity is good when it means people are free to be themselves. Diversity is bad when it means people get away with evil because no one is allowed to call them out. I am a liberal, not a relativist.
Im not one to take a horse drawn carriage except in maybe two instances, but i see the appeal as a "general tourist", the horse ride around central park is one of those touristy things that seems like you do, because youre there. That being said, i agree that its not great for the horses, and unfortunately i can understand the want for it gone.
It's a shame we live in a social studies world, where endless debates and committees boil everything down to bland, corporate soup.
It's almost as if anything which has got us here, and which makes us human, is being eroded away as competing groups look for clout and want to show off they're the most ideologically purest.
If horses aren't being looked after, or drivers aren't playing by the rules, you can design for that. City centres should be designed for people first and foremost, and be a celebration of our achievements and histories, not glorified carparks.
Having horses around cities is beautiful, and is a reminder of our histories and who we are. I love seeing the horses in my city trotting around with their beautiful carriages, it's part of the fabric of the city.
It's the same thing with bullfighting, horse racing, greyhounds, etc. It's performative as fuck to whinge endlessly about this shit when there's literal factory-scale slaughterhouses operating.
Levy all animal-related industries and pump that money into animal welfare, and let the animal rights activists make engineering solutions to issues with this money rather than endlessly cry, ban, whinge, cancel, shitpost, etc.
> City centres should be designed for people first and foremost, and be a celebration of our achievements and histories, not glorified carparks.
I think a poll of local residents would find a large majority view horse drawn carriages for hire as an irritating tourist trap that if anything detracts from a "people first" city center designed for human enjoyment.
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[ 0.27 ms ] story [ 21.7 ms ] threadThis is also an L for the TWU, and I suspect there will be more of those to come in the following months.
Animal welfare laws don't give atheist butchers the option to be cruel. They're required to stun the animal first. Why give halal/kosher butchers the option to be cruel? Especially if you claim "most do" choose to stun.
Be kinder to animals, change "most do" to "all do" by removing the religious exception.
...and then come the progressive types to defend 1000+ year old ritual slaughter customs.
What's objectionable about halal?
It's really not. You're mixing two things, "max-capitalism factory farming" alludes to how the animal is treated while it's alive, e.g. caged hens vs free-range hens, while what we're talking about here is animal suffering during slaughter.
Kosher and halal slaughter are not animal-friendly. They mandate cutting the animal's throat but preserving its spinal cord so it feels every possible pain in its last moments alive as the blood drains out.
Stunning it before death and/or putting a bolt through its brain would be a lot more humane, but those methods didn't exist when those religions came up their rules, so of course not one iota of progress can be added.
Read more about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhabihah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_aspects_of_ritual_slaugh...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronarcosis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_bolt_pistol
You'll see that authorities in e.g. the UK have been asked to regulate kosher/halal butchers, require them to at least stun the animal before doing their ritual slaughter... and the authorities chose not to, and let them keep their religious exemption to animal cruelty laws. Kosher and halal slaughterers can choose to stun the animal first, which would be humane, but they don't have to.
The fact that kosher/halal are very similar is a hilarious wrinkle for the culture war aspect that OP was pushing.
The dairy industry is worse.
I suspect though that mandating better conditions would have the same effect --- the horse tourism business probably stops penciling out if they have to make the required changes. And given that, TWU would fight it just as hard --- a de jure or de facto ban has the same effect as far as they are concerned.
Some people say that it's because forcing horses to work in a dense, heavily polluted urban environment is cruel, but I don't see these rules being applied to Sarah Jessica Parker.
I'll get my coat
https://www-ganz--wien-at.translate.goog/wien/news/pro-contr...
Reminds me of the Vaqueros in Hawaii for whatever reason.
But it does seriously take a good bit of hosing them down to lower their internal temp to a safe point after being worked hard. You can't just get them wet and call it good, you need to sit there and keep it flowing over them.
IMO completely banning horse carriages in Vienna is overshooting.
If you want to prioritize removing one type of Central Park shit, the list is probably human then dog then pigeon then horse.
30 horses in the park, 6h per horse per day, uniform pooping
Call it 14 kg of feces per day per horse
Humans shit ~100g/day
115k park visitors a day
For humans to match that horse output, nearly 1% of all daily visitors would have to be pooping on the ground…
Granted, the horses have waste catchers, but even under a 90% efficiency regime it’s still 10kg of horseshit spread over the lower loop
You overlooked the sentient-omnivore-who-leaves-makeshift-toilet-paper disgust multiplier.
If that factor is set to 100 (consider how inoffensive horse pucky is vs finding a soiled diaper) then we're talking 0.01% of 115K humans matches the horses.
That's only 11.5. Did 12 people drop one in Central Park today? That's one duece for every 70 acres.
Banning something just because kids 'might' (would love to see a % chance on this) die on the streets is alarmist nonsense. Should we ban trains and cars, too?
There's ways to mitigate cruelty and exploitation, just like we do for humans.
What's the difference between this and people keeping pets couped up indoors and exploiting them as 'emotional support', etc? If animals are meant to be wild and not exploited, people should at least be consistent.
https://youtu.be/NLxRoDuwaeY London traffic circa 1900
They are mentioned as things the union is unhappy with. The city has said they’ll come up with a transition plan by next year, but there are no details and that doesn’t mean people won’t lose jobs. The bill prohibits the horses from being sold to slaughter or other rides, but doesn’t say where they’d go instead.
I think it’s reasonable to raise concerns about both.
Meat, cars, religious practices, schools, military, anything which pollutes...
Be careful what you're thrilled for! Diversity is good for a reason.
Do you live in New York? If not, why should you have any say -- especially in keeping a performative tourist amusement around? "Dance for me, New Yorkers!"
If you are from New York, your neighbors overwhelmingly want this. Are you against losing this because it's genuinely good? Or some more abstract philosophical reason? If it's the latter, do you apply that evenly?
Yes, sometimes democracy produces bad outcomes in the name of preventing cruelty. But I don't think you can compare it to instances where humans are the target. We cannot ask the horses, "what would you prefer?"
Diversity is good when it means people are free to be themselves. Diversity is bad when it means people get away with evil because no one is allowed to call them out. I am a liberal, not a relativist.
It's almost as if anything which has got us here, and which makes us human, is being eroded away as competing groups look for clout and want to show off they're the most ideologically purest.
If horses aren't being looked after, or drivers aren't playing by the rules, you can design for that. City centres should be designed for people first and foremost, and be a celebration of our achievements and histories, not glorified carparks.
Having horses around cities is beautiful, and is a reminder of our histories and who we are. I love seeing the horses in my city trotting around with their beautiful carriages, it's part of the fabric of the city.
It's the same thing with bullfighting, horse racing, greyhounds, etc. It's performative as fuck to whinge endlessly about this shit when there's literal factory-scale slaughterhouses operating.
Levy all animal-related industries and pump that money into animal welfare, and let the animal rights activists make engineering solutions to issues with this money rather than endlessly cry, ban, whinge, cancel, shitpost, etc.
Eventually, we will decide that all uses of animals for entertainment are unethical.
This is another nail in the coffin of these unnecessary actions which aren't helpful to animals.
Outlawing cetacean shows, roadside zoos, and horse and dog racing are other terrific aspects of this trend!