Jennifer Hatcher | Daisy Cooper
14:02, 26 May 2093 | Updated: 14:02, 26 May 2093
What Came First? The Chicken, the Egg…or the Milk?
Above: Infinitech’s ‘InfiniMilk’
How ethical are the large corporations in the farming industry? What’s going on with these Big Tech farmland takeovers? And what is the truth behind CEOs like Rosemary Barbara Thomspon?
Companies, like Infinitech, are eggs-cellent at selling us lies:
“Our free-range chickens are ethically sourced from the Infini-Zone”
Sound Familiar? You may recall this description from Infintech’s travel menus, accompanying an image of their popular £17.99 Rotisserie Chicken. ‘Free range’, why would we doubt it? Why would we question the idyllic image we want to believe? Chickens frolicking in the fields, chomping on grass, feeling the sun on their backs, and living a full life before they’re harvested and sold?
There must be consequences, right? George Mulch and Dawson Shears are ex-workers from one of the Farms in the Infini-Zone. Here they reflect on their time working for Infinitech:
Life on the Infini-Farm was not your daily walk in the park I’ll tell you that. I was lured in by the mystique of it all because you see, no one really talked about any of the work in detail prior to my first shift. Yeah, I was pretty excited to be a part of the Infini community and do something I love: working with animals and providing for my family. Ensuring sustainable and ethically produced food for the planet was an upside too. According to the job description, my role involved ‘ensuring stock was produced to the highest possible standard’. 2 years later I’d find out what it truly meant to work for a large corporation like Infinitech.
George Mulch
Infinitech is a multi-billion-dollar company ran by founder and CEO Rosemary Barbara Thompson. Thompson began her legacy producing and selling Foot Files, anti-anxiety Moon Pods, AirDomes, and then in 2067, the renowned Infinitech Transportal.
Above: Rosemary Barbara Thompson, Infinitech CEO
I remember my first shift like it was yesterday. I was a little puzzled by Infinitech’s process in farming the chickens, but I quickly became accustomed to it when everyone just did what they were told. I was put in the chicken sector where there were a quarter of a million chickens and only two of us on duty to monitor them. The lad I was shadowing, instructed me to walk up and down the lanes and fish up any dead chicks with a net and put them in a bucket. Most farms I’ve worked at before, had mortality rates of about 0.3% but here at Infinitech, the mortality rate must’ve been about 10%. It was really awful; the weak chicks would get picked on due to the overcrowding and the stronger ones would just see the blood and target them.
George Mulch
Above: George Mulch, Ex-Infinitech Farmer
This unethical farming must be stopped. As Elisabeth De Fontenay states in ‘Without Offending Humans: A Critique of Animal rights’, it is “industrial production of living beings overfed and slaughtered solely for consummation”. More than 70 billion land animals are being killed for food every year universally. The butchering of these sentient beings raises questions: What distinguishes human from animal? And why are we in charge of the fate of the animals who came before us?
For Descartes, animals are seen as automata. Kelly Oliver describes the notion as: “machines that react to stimuli but do not have any true responses; because they don’t have language, they don’t have souls.” But, how can we say that animals don’t have true responses when a cow sheds tears when they are distressed, just as humans do? According to Aristotle, human is “the rational animal”, what distinguishes human from animal is in the fact that humans are autonomous and makes civil laws for themself, therefore giving them dominion over animal. But what gives us the right to have power over animals when ‘man’ entered the world after them? In the bible, Genesis 1:26, it states:
“Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth”.
In Genesis, God gave mankind the command to rule over the earth with the expectation to do so in a way that reflected God’s character. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that God gave us permission to eat or to treat animal as less than us. For instance, in Genesis 24:19: “man has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked are cruel”. It is suggested here that there are those who are righteous and fair to animal, and those who are cruel to the creatures under their care. And Infinitech is a prime example of those who are ‘wicked’.
I remember another day I was told to head over to the Poultry Parlour and um... I don’t know how else to put it, I was kind of amazed in discovering that Infinitech had managed to produce, what they sell as, ‘Infinimilk’ from the chicken’s wattles, (the red funny, wobbly bit on their necks). And chickens are birds, they don’t have mammary glands, so I was like, how on earth has Infinitech done this? I asked one of the other lads and he was all like ‘I dunno, something to do with the genetic modification or the hormones that they’re pumped with’. I’m tellin’ you, the chickens there are overflowing with oestrogen. Infinitech talk (if you’ll pardon the farm pun) absolute horseshit with their ‘free-range’ and their moral this, and their moral that.
George Mulch
Multiple reports in England from 2079 surfaced, concerning a Sheffield bred man who grew breasts due to the hormones in his chicken. 27-year-old Ben Critton, who loved eating rotisserie chickens went for medical advice after his chest began to grow noticeably larger. He detected the significant change after a few journeys onboard the Infinitech Transportal, where they serve their celebrated rotisserie chickens which are sourced from the Infini-Zone. The correlation between the consumption of chickens onboard Infinitech and Gynecomastia is yet to be assessed. Infinitech founder Rosemary Thompson is also yet to comment.
Oh yeah, we used to pump the chickens with all sorts. And because being healthy and building muscle is a huge trend nowadays, the demand for chicken as a source of protein has increased massively. Back at Infinifarm, if the chickens hadn’t reached the market weight within the correct time frame, we’d pump them with water. These big industrial farms all say that they’re ‘injected with a solution of saltwater to keep them juicier and more flavourful’, but that’s just not true, it’s pumped with water and growth hormones so we could cut costs.
Dawson Shears
What gives Infinitech the right to artificially ‘feed’ its livestock with hormones without their consent? Infinitech and other industrial farms aren’t taking animal welfare into account. According to the RSPCA, Hormonal implants interact with the animal’s natural hormones and side effects may include “aggressiveness difficulty in handling, nervousness, rectal prolapse, ventral oedema and elevated tail heads.” These animals are being manipulated for the benefit of cutting costs, speeding up growth and mass production which is causing more waste and death of animals due to their overpopulation.
Do I eat the chicken sourced from Infinitech? Nah, after seeing what goes on behind closed doors, I would never eat anything from there. I’ve heard of a few people that developed that Gynecomastia disorder from all the oestrogen in the chickens. Hearing that is what made me start supporting my local farms. I don’t trust any of the stuff that’s coming out of those bloody InfiniFarms. And I can’t believe the scandals that get away with just because they’re a large corporation that aided to the development of technology or whatever.
Dawson Shears
Above: Dawson Shears, Retired Infinitech Farmer
In 2080, samples of the chicken sold in shops and onboard Infinitech, were taken to a lab for testing. It was discovered that 102% of the sample contained Bestiola Volucris Morbus – AKA: BVM Disease – this is a sign that the chicken may, very likely, have been exposed to the parasitic disease. Due to the overcrowding of the chicks from a young age, disease and bacteria spread at an exponential rate amongst the livestock at InfiniFarms. three thirds of the samples were also confirmed to contain antibiotic-resistant bacteria which can be detrimental to human health, as Doctor Quièn, from the SSHSO (Solar System Health and Safety Organisation), stated:
“If someone has an infection and a doctor advises them to take antibiotics to treat it. These antibiotics will fail to work due to the antibiotic resistant bacteria we are consuming from eating this chicken. And this dangerous, chicken farming is a major menace to human health right now.”
In 2082, an outbreak of PoultryPox cursed the Infini-Zone, along with Tol Borwen, Pinas Mirith, Renus and planet Earth. With its first confirmed case in New Yolk city, the disease spread like wildfire. Common symptoms of PoultryPox can include a low temperature, nausea, jaundice, and a red rash or bumps usually appearing along the neck, that may take the shape and form like that of a chicken’s wattle. This rash will later blister in the fifth stage of the illness. Conspiracies concerning the outbreak report that it leaked from an InfiniLab in sector 3, in the Infini-Zone, where they were testing the poultry from the farms for parasites. Other reports surfaced that it began its mass spread due to an illegal sex rave in Worcester, as PoultryPox can be spread through close contact and the sharing of bodily fluids.
Yeah I’ve been to sector 3 alright. I actually culdn’t believe what I saw there. The buildings that hold the labs there are huge and tower over you. The sky there is a sort of brown murky colour and it’s hard to see past the thick fog that covers it. Everyone there wears gas masks attached to oxygen tanks that they must carry with them. They wear these rubber suits that cover every inch of the body. One time, I had to deliver some chickens there. And I dunno, I think I must’ve gone to the wrong area or something ‘cause when I entered one of the labs to find someone to collect the chickens, I stumbled on something I definitely was not meant to see. Rows and rows of coops stacked next to and on top of one another, and guess what they were filled with? People! I mean, they looked like people on the outside but whatever was inside those incubators was not human. They were absolutely permeated with disease and skin conditions: PoultryPox, BVM, Meacles, FPV, Arthroses, Dermatosid, Sclerodermatosis, Watiligo, Eczema, you name it. I’m tellin’ you, these ‘people’ had been bred just for the benefit of science. And when I tried to tell my colleagues back at the farm, they would just tell me to keep my head down and get on with my job. I just can’t believe how no one there cares enough to question it.
George Mulch
CEO, Rosemary Barbara Thompson states on the Infinitech website:
“At Infinitech, the work we do is for the benefit of mankind. The testing we are operating now involves the use of prototypes that have been specifically bred to be tested on. We breed the livestock in the incubators where they are injected with hormones, ensuring that they are Noncerebrum Invertebrates (without brain or nervous system) before they are born and thereby effacing any moral grey area. At Infintech, we strive to ethically produce and provide comestibles for public consumption. We also ensure that any scientific experiments we perform consistently consider the moral, ethical, and sustainable well-being of any variables involved.”
Morally or immorally, Infinitech are breeding for death. This decimation of animal or other (As Derrida describes in ‘The Animal that Therefore I Am’) “through the organization and exploitation of an artificial, infernal, virtually interminable survival, in conditions that previous generations would have judged as monstrous”. Infinitech labs and farms have been likened to that of Nazi camps, as Derrida continues, “animals that are thus exterminated by means of their continued existence or even their overpopulation”. Elisabeth De Fontenay compares it in ‘Without Offending Humans’: “the overproduction and overgeneration of certain men would have been organised through artificial insemination, more and more numerous and well-fed men who would have been destined (…) for extermination”. If the mortality rate of chickens is 10% in the chickens at Infinifarms, then Infinitech are breeding over 25,000 chickens every 6-8 weeks that get killed and die due to overpopulation and lack of space.
Nietzsche once said, “Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman--a rope over an abyss” and Rosemary Barbara Thompson is leaning towards the ‘superman’ end of the spectrum and inevitably allowing her hunger for power takeover. She is playing a dangerous game at imitating God and “parroting his power of creation is an enormous risk that can plunge men into a barbarity” Mogavero told newspaper La Stampa in a conversation about the ethics of ‘playing God’. Thompson is choosing a risky path in her chase for knowledge and power and her unorthodox experimenting. She should pay penance as Victor Frankenstein did:
“You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.”
Or similarly, like the ancient mariner, will Thompson eventually pay an eternity in transience, preaching love for all creatures? Humanity has been a disruption to nature due to our demand for power and our curiosity for the unknown. We have caused overpopulation, pollution and deforestation, all triggering climate change. In the words of William James, our “impulse towards better cognition” has led us to choose potentially painful and unpleasant outcomes. Prometheus is a prime example of this disruption when he stole fire from the sun which consequently continued humanity and led to the production of Pandora who, despite being warned not to open the box, let her curiosity get the better of her, and let evils enter the world. What might happen if Infinitech’s ‘prototypes’ gain consciousness and potentially “cross through fences erected to keep them out” and “bite the metaphysical hand that feeds them”? (Oliver, K. Animal Lessons) These ‘prototypes’ appear human, yet have the otherness of an animal. Are we living in the presence of what Guattari and Deleuze imagined as human-animal hybrids?
This takeover of Big Tech companies, along with the way they treat their workers, and the fate of the livestock is one of the most pressing questions of our time. Infinitech has managed to get their hands on rare farm animals. With the advantage of the Infinitech Transportal, Thompson unlocked the Infini-Zone, allowing Infinitech to take over masses of farmland. Here, Infinitech claimed the rare Friesian Pigs and the Redface Dartmoor as their own and began farming the livestock. Instead of being cooped up and used for their dairy and poultry in an unethical manner, these animals should be living freely and reproducing naturally, especially when they are the last of their kind. As the ‘Buddhist Declaration of Nature’ states: Buddhism “attaches great importance to wildlife and the protection of the environment on which every being in this world depends for survival”. We should be showing metta to all creatures and avoid any purposeful harm to any living thing. The fact that we, as humans, are “equipped with the ability to judge between wrong and right” (Dalai Lama) means that we should know that this unnatural, mass production in the unethical conditions is wrong.
Science is being used in the manipulation of these animals and Thompson is taking technology too far. Scientists have used their growing knowledge of animals to manipulate their lives more efficiently in the service of the food and farming industry, yet the same scientists have demonstrated that these animals have emotion and feel pain, loneliness, and happiness. In Peter Singer’s ‘Animal Liberation’, Singer claims that more pain and misery has been felt than all the wars of history added up. We hope Thompson’s fate will be like that of Frankenstein’s in his pursuit of knowledge and she will pay penance or at least improve the way she is farming animals, especially when she has the funds to do it ethically.
References
BeyondBreaking.com. 2083. If It’s Not For The Climate Why Is Rosemary Thompson Buying So Much Farmland? [Online] Available at: https://www.beyond-breaking.com/article/news/if-its-not-for-the-climate-why-is-rosemary-thompson-buying-so-much-farmland [Accessed 23 May 2083]
Mulch, George. Interview. Conducted by Daisy Cooper. 2093.
Jones, Abrahen. 2081. Infinitech Owner Rosemary Thomspon Threatens to turn Big Ben into Infinitech Offices.The Sunday Report [iNews Article]
PhemeNews.co.uk. 2082 PoultryPox Cases Rise to 83 in the Uk. [online]
PhemeNews.co.uk. 2079. Sheffield-Born Man Grows Titties after Eating Chicken [online] Available at: https://www.pheme-news.co.uk/article/news/sheffield-born-man-grows-titties-after-eating-chicken [Accessed 23 May 2083]
Shears, Dawson. Interview. Conducted by Daisy Cooper. 2093.
Thompson, Rosemary. 2080. [Quote] Available at: https://www.Infinitech.co.uk/our-work
/our-work
TheAlpha.com. 2082. Rosemary Thompson’s 345,000 Acres of Farmland Could Be Split in Divorce. [online] Available at: https://www.the-alpha.com/article/news/rosemary-thompsons-345,000-acres-of-farmland-could-be-split-in-divorce [Accessed 23 May 2083]
Quartermaine, Victor. 2022. PoultryPox Spread Among Gay Men Worldwide. Beyond Breaking News, pp.1-3. [iNews Article]