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mom0nga67 karma
I love the work you guys do, especially your recent victory in getting United Egg Producers to end chick culling. I honestly believe it's one of the biggest victories for animal welfare in decades. Which brings me to my question: How do we break down the stereotypes surrounding animal welfare and those who advocate for improvements? (i.e. reforms are unrealistic, activists are "crazy" and "don't know what they're talking about", they're "pushing a radical agenda", etc.) One of the biggest challenges for me as an animal welfare advocate is the immediate pushback from people who reflexively assume that even the most modest welfare suggestions are somehow the result of extremist animal rights "propaganda".
mom0nga59 karma
It's called hooding, an interrogation technique which causes "disorientation, isolation, and dread" through sensory deprivation:
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, hooding is used to prevent people from seeing and to disorient them, and also to prevent them from breathing freely. Hooding is sometimes used in conjunction with beatings to increase anxiety as to when and where the blows will fall. Hooding also allows the interrogators to remain anonymous and thus to act with impunity. Moreover, if a group of prisoners is hooded, the interrogator can play them off against each other by pretending, for instance, that some of them are cooperating, which the prisoners will be unable to verify.
Even though hooding has long been considered a form of torture by the United Nations and likely violates the Geneva Convention, it was widely used by U.S. and British forces on Iraqi prisoners of war:
Hooding was discovered to have been applied in 2003 and 2004 to Iraqi prisoners who were held by American troops and questioned by intelligence officers from the British Secret Intelligence Service. Baha Mousa, an Iraqi civilian, died in British custody after being hooded and beaten.
mom0nga23 karma
In other words, now there's genetic testing that can help doctors identify which medications are likely to work best for you, and which to avoid.
mom0nga67 karma
This excellent op-ed by Manuel Maqueda, cofounder of the Plastic Pollution Coalition, explains why "ocean cleanup" ideas may actually be counterproductive in the long term. Some relevant excerpts:
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