Get Custom Shoes Made From Genetically-Engineered Stingrays

[DestinyCall]

This is the sort of technological mis-use that a science-fiction author would think up as a way of showing that his imaginary future is a soulless dystopia populated by giant corporations with no compassion or value for life.

I weep for humanity.

 

[Eamar]

I'm disappointed by how few people have called bullshit on this. This is clearly a hoax/scam, and until someone links me to the scientific paper behind this I won't be convinced otherwise.

Assuming this company actually exists and takes orders, they'll be tattooing the rays to get these patterns (yes, tattooing fish is a thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painted_fish ).

As a hypothetical situation it's interesting to see people's moral reactions to it though. I get that personal ethics are a very individual thing and there's no real logic to it besides what feels right for you, but watching people trying to justify other practices they (explicitly or implicitly) endorse, leather, selective breeding, farming etc, while condemning this is amusing.

 

[scw55]

What happens to the meat of the Stingrays?

I don't mind animals being grown especially for fashion as long as none of their corpse is wasted for vanity. At least cow leather comes from an animal with tasty muscle mass.


I think on a moral level it's difficult to justify "Murder to Order" animal to be made into footwear. Normally, when the normal humans wears animal product or eat it, it's already been slain. They didn't have to do to the slaughter house and directly request an execution of one of the animals. We are comfortably isolated from that.

This business destroys that barrier. I wonder how many people would be 'OK' with that? It would be comparable as to going to a restaurant and being taken to a tank of live lobsters, and being asked which one you want to to eat.

People who live a rural life, live on farms for example, won't have this moral dilemma. But I am sure they will still be concerned what will happen to the rest of the Sting-Ray when its skin has been harvested. It's a waste to kill an animal only for the skin or meat.