THES has an essay about chickens “and the psychopathic nature of modern ‘efficiency'”, by Peter Lennox, senior lecturer in spatial perception in artificial environments and director of the Signal Processing and Applications Group, University of Derby:
In today’s economic climate, efficiency and competitiveness are the guiding principles of business, of life; more product faster, while taking up less space. But are these concepts in our interests at all? Efficiency without ethics is psychopathic. And how much cleverer than chickens are we, ultimately?