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I heard as a child: "Indigenous people nobly found use for every part of the animal."
I hear as an adult: "Corporations greedily exploit every part of the animal."

Don't use exotic pelts or endangered seal pups, but I feel like we should maybe come back to the discussion of cow leather when we're finding tenderloin on the burn pile...
 
I hear as a child: "Indigenous people nobly found use for every part of the animal."
I hear as an adult: "Corporations greedily exploit every part of the animal."

Those are not mutually exclusive statements.
There is a massive difference between sustenance animal harvesting and industrial animal slaughter.
 
I grew up on a farm and this whole “cow pity” argument is misguided. My entire childhood was devoted to keeping these vile creatures in check, preventing them from escaping our gigantic Michigan barn at night, and keeping them from ripping through the electrified, 12-foot high, barbed-wire, double-row fences during the day. I would often suffer nightmares of them escaping…scenes of hearing them breathing just outside my window at night, pulling back the curtain to see their dead eyes staring at me, their wet noses smashing through the glass and seizing me, pulling me outside into the snow, making me do….unspeakable things. And we lost so many nameless ranch hands to cow violence, attacks, and mass mooings. We hired them in droves from outside closed auto factories a few hours south of the farm. I was told never to get attached to any of them.

So save your compassion for things that deserve it, and stop reading cow propaganda. There hasn’t been a cow eaten in this country for a hundred years that didn’t have the blood of innocent human beings smeared all over it’s inedible hooves. Just have a burger and sleep well at night. I still can’t.
“Mass mooings” 🤣
 
Those are not mutually exclusive statements.
There is a massive difference between sustenance animal harvesting and industrial animal slaughter.
What's different is that I was taught that using the whole animal was more respectful to the animal that gave its life for all those purposes, and now we're being told to throw parts of it away out of respect.

There's reasons it becomes unsustainable for the world to eat meat at western quantities, but the solution isn't to generate more waste in the mean time by disposing of one high quality material and create another through industrial processes.

As I said, when there's no longer demand for the meat, I can understand reducing demand for the hides but you're not going to change behaviors in the other order.
 
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now we're being told to throw parts of it away out of respect.
I don't think anyone says to throw something away out of respect.

Humankind is moving away from harming animals. This is out of respect for other sentient beings.
Every major motion picture has a message at the end that no animals were harmed in the making of the movie.
Zoos are under scrutiny, circuses are boycotted if they still show exotic animals.

Factory farming and slaughter is a very bad form of harming animals.
Something has to change for this to stop, and we should not think that "these animals would die anyway".
As mentioned before in the thread, only shrinking demand will produce a change.
IMO Apple is doing the right thing here by reducing their demand for leather.
 
Timothy, please just bring back these:

1459257695_1241449.jpg
People making up kiddie names for Tim Cook says more about the posters, than the post. It’s stupid, envious and possibly even homophobic… Some people are proud about having all of those qualities these days, go figure. 🙁
 
I don't think anyone says to throw something away out of respect.

Humankind is moving away from harming animals. This is out of respect for other sentient beings.
Every major motion picture has a message at the end that no animals were harmed in the making of the movie.
Zoos are under scrutiny, circuses are boycotted if they still show exotic animals.

Factory farming and slaughter is a very bad form of harming animals.
Something has to change for this to stop, and we should not think that "these animals would die anyway".
As mentioned before in the thread, only shrinking demand will produce a change.
IMO Apple is doing the right thing here by reducing their demand for leather.
A number of studies have shown that plants feel pain, and vegetables are picked and often eaten while still alive. Animal rights activists are often in the news, but has anyone ever protested for vegetable rights? 😉

Phil Cohen Sydney Australia
 
People making up kiddie names for Tim Cook says more about the posters, than the post. It’s stupid, envious and possibly even homophobic… Some people are proud about having all of those qualities these days, go figure. 🙁
Am I missing a point? Tim Cooks full name is Timothy Donald. Nothing about making up a name here...
 
A number of studies have shown that plants feel pain, and vegetables are picked and often eaten while still alive. Animal rights activists are often in the news, but has anyone ever protested for vegetable rights? 😉
If you believe this you should be happy that Apple is using more and more synthetic materials for their cases and watch bands. ;)

But seriously, these studies exist, but have long been debunked by many other studies, see (1).
They come up frequently to justify our industrialized slaughter of animals, but they are wrong anyway.

Plants don't have a nervous system or pain receptors and no brain similar to that of an animal.
It is proven that animals (especially those used for food and leather) feel pain pretty much the same way we humans do, but the same cannot be said for plants.
If you think plants feel pain, then every trimming of the lawn is a massacre.

(1) https://www.britannica.com/story/do-plants-feel-pain
(*) https://sentientmedia.org/do-plants-feel-pain
 
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so for everyone who’s mad about this, your position is that 0 animals are killed for leather production and 100% of all leather products come from byproducts of the meat industry? like you can disagree on the overall impact this will have, but get real.
 
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Whether or not Apple decides to discontinue specific watch bands, such as leather bands for the Apple Watch Series 9, would be subject to Apple's official announcements and decisions.

To find out the latest information regarding Apple Watch bands and their availability for the Apple Watch Series 9, I recommend checking Apple's official website or contacting Apple directly for the most up-to-date and accurate information regarding their product offerings and decisions.
Thanks, ChatGPT!
 
Who in their right mind was buying the Hermes bands anyways? Honestly completely insane pricing and product

Nonsense. The Hermes bands are handmade made by Hermes in France with the finest quality leather. That might not be important to you, but the pricing on them is certainly not insane.

Everything else Hermes sells is, including their other non-leather Apple Watch bands, but not the Apple Watch leather bands.
 
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A number of studies have shown that plants feel pain, and vegetables are picked and often eaten while still alive. Animal rights activists are often in the news, but has anyone ever protested for vegetable rights? 😉

Phil Cohen Sydney Australia

These studies have been debunked or at best are misunderstood

Plants are reactive and perhaps have cognition but are likely not conscious

The Journal of Consciousness studies had an entire special issue on plant consciousness. It’s quite interesting.
 
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As I said, when there's no longer demand for the meat, I can understand reducing demand for the hides but you're not going to change behaviors in the other order.

Why not?

It can be part of a larger process of denormalizing the industrial slaughter of animals for human use, food or otherwise, and all of the ethical and environmental problems that entails.
 
Nonsense. The Hermes bands are handmade made by Hermes in France with the finest quality leather. That might not be important to you, but the pricing on them is certainly not insane.

Everything else Hermes sells is, including their other non-leather Apple Watch bands, but not the Apple Watch leather bands.
does being handmade in France mean a boring watch band should be worth $800+ ? I have a handmade rockstar leatherworks band that was $250 and at least looks cool and was fully custom.🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂
 
Nonsense. The Hermes bands are handmade made by Hermes in France with the finest quality leather. That might not be important to you, but the pricing on them is certainly not insane.
I agree that the intrinsic value of a handmade item made from the finest materials is a lot higher than mass-produced items from Chinese production lines.
However, let’s face it, a lot of the MSRP price is the luxury markup induced by the Hermes brand.
Similar to Apple’s watch bands, that admittedly have a better quality than Chinese knock-offs, but are not "worth" 25x the price.
 
I don't think anyone says to throw something away out of respect.
[...]
This is out of respect for other sentient beings.

Uh...

Humankind is moving away from harming animals. This is out of respect for other sentient beings.
Every major motion picture has a message at the end that no animals were harmed in the making of the movie.
Zoos are under scrutiny, circuses are boycotted if they still show exotic animals.

Humankind, or a kind of human? I'm not sure this is what I'd call a broad global movement right now. We're having a hard enough time convincing humans to stop harming humans.

Factory farming and slaughter is a very bad form of harming animals.
Something has to change for this to stop, and we should not think that "these animals would die anyway".
As mentioned before in the thread, only shrinking demand will produce a change.
IMO Apple is doing the right thing here by reducing their demand for leather.

I agree we can do a lot to improve how we farm, and I agree ever larger scale farming of food animals is not environmentally sustainable. I don't think these animals would die anyway, I think they wouldn't exist otherwise.

And as I've mentioned before in the thread, I don't think you're going to change any of that by reducing demand for leather, only by reducing demand for meat which will be a challenge for an ever growing omnivorous species. That in turn leads me to believe the best way to reduce the demand for meat is to reduce the demand for humans. Until we do that, every part of the food supply will be under pressure to grow.
 
does being handmade in France mean a boring watch band should be worth $800+ ? I have a handmade rockstar leatherworks band that was $250 and at least looks cool and was fully custom.🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂

It's some of the finest leather in the world, and other third party leather watch bands don't come close, which is obvious when you compare them directly.

Again, I'm not saying that has to be important to everyone, but if quality is important, they're probably the only reasonably priced thing that company has ever sold.

Boring is subjective - I think it's tasteful and classic in a way no other Apple Watch band is.

Edit: $800+? Even the deployment buckle ones are around $500 USD.
 
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I agree that the intrinsic value of a handmade item made from the finest materials is a lot higher than mass-produced items from Chinese production lines.
However, let’s face it, a lot of the MSRP price is the luxury markup induced by the Hermes brand.
Similar to Apple’s watch bands, that admittedly have a better quality than Chinese knock-offs, but are not "worth" 25x the price.

Show me an Apple Watch leather band that's higher quality at a lower price and you might change my mind. There isn't one, so I'm not sure how you can make that comparison that you did between the Apple ones and the Chinese knock-offs.
 
Show me an Apple Watch leather band that's higher quality at a lower price and you might change my mind. There isn't one, so I'm not sure how you can make that comparison that you did between the Apple ones and the Chinese knock-offs.
I don't wear leather, so I don't know any.
However, my point was that Apple's bands are more expensive _and_ have better quality,
just like Hermes bands have higher quality and command a higher price.
My argument is that the high price includes quite some markup induced by the brand / luxury value,
in addition to the better quality.
 
Humankind, or a kind of human? I'm not sure this is what I'd call a broad global movement right now. We're having a hard enough time convincing humans to stop harming humans.
I think it's humankind.
From the times of Rene Descartes, who saw animals as some reactive automaton, we have evolved our view on other species to understand that animals share a lot of the characteristics humans have. Especially the pain receptors and nervous system, and the general functions of the brain.

This led to laws prohibiting people from harming and torturing animals, and a general awareness that it is not ok to treat animals badly. I think is is universal knowledge, just as _most_ people know that it's not OK to harm or kill your neighbor.

So I think it's a global movement for animal rights and humane treatment of other species.

What's interesting is that for some weird reason this does not apply to some animals.
If you kick your pet or even forget to feed it, that's bad and get fined.
If you use the cattle prod to make a frightened animal move to the slaughter box, that's normal business.
And don't get me started on animal testing...
 
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