Another time, for some reason, we had to put a bird down in the colony (which was in another building). This was probably the worst killing. They didn't have anesthetic available at the colony, and there were no tools for a quick death available.
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Replying to @eigenrobot @cunningcorvid
What they *did* have was a machine that generates carbon dioxide in a sealed chamber. The thing about carbon dioxide is that (contra carbon monoxide) is that it doesn't put you to sleep; it just suffocates you. There are horrible stories of slave indigenous miners . . .
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Replying to @eigenrobot @cunningcorvid
in the Andes falling into low spots in silver and mercury mines (full of CO2, because no air circulation, and CO2 is dense) and everyone standing at the side watching them suffocate. And this was the initial approach to killing Jews et al in Poland, but the executioners . . .
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Replying to @eigenrobot @cunningcorvid
all just quit on the spot after listening to people dying in the back of cars they were driving around. Anyway, it was like that. Watching this little bird desperately trying to breathe and thrashing around for 45s while it suffocated in a plastic box.
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Replying to @eigenrobot @cunningcorvid
The piece de resistance was that the research was basically garbage. I mean--the research was fine, we learned some things about auditory learning in songbirds. But the research--I read the fucking grants--was funded on the grounds that songbird vocal learning was a model . . .
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Replying to @eigenrobot @cunningcorvid
for human auditory learning. SURPRISE. It is not a good model for humans. Songbirds have two discrete brain regions that are core for vocal learning. Neither are present in human brains.
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Replying to @eigenrobot @cunningcorvid
Anyway, that's the story of how I tortured and killed birds and burned god knows how much taxpayer money for a bit of knowledge with no appreciable gain in health or utility for humans. Sigh. Home. Drink. /fin
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Replying to @cunningcorvid
yeah I mean I am miserable remembering but mostly I feel bad for the birds, you know? I dont know enough about factory farming to have a strong opinion--wife's view is that they're often more humane than alternatives--but I think people consume meat more directly than research,
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and so they have an easier time thinking about farm operation. Would be my guess anyway. :/ Anyway it's fucked up. We really are not developed enough in . . . I don't know. Something. To have this much power over others, but here we are.
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Replying to @cunningcorvid
Research grants--are you in academia? Forgive me if I am / have been talking down, not my intent at all. Research grants are allocated pretty badly, and you know. If you're a PI, and your grant doesn't go through, you're basically out of work.
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