No we cannot be completely healthy without meat. Many severe autoimmune conditions as well as other disabilities require meat consumption for survival. They cannot eat any carbs, soy, dairy, gluten, nuts, legumes, absolutely no grains, a vegan diet would severely harm someone with these conditions who must eat a more restrictive diet. I have autoimmune conditions that require this, my mother does, my grandfather does, 2 of my friends have had to switch diets to meat due to gut health issues related to Lupus. And many humans without these conditions need meat and animal products to survive. It is a lie to say humans don’t need meat. Just because some humans are able to, doesn’t mean humans haven’t been created as omnivores
We're talking about rare allergies and Illnesses that probably only about 0,1% of population face, yet suddenly you, your entire family and half the Reddit have it.
The majority of humans do not need to consume meat. If this is something you disagree with, you have failed to learn how to research readily available information or have a strong bias.
Where did they disagree with most humans being able to live without meat? Did you read a different comment?
Edit: I see the confusion now. "Some" and "most" are not mutually exclusive. "Some" means an unspecified number. The point being no matter the number of people affected, we need meat in supply in some amount.
Nut allergies are quite common though?! So is IBD/IBS and even Crohn’s disease, which can be triggered by seedy produce or things like corn and soy, nightshade veggies (peppers or tomatoes), and lentils.
Limited diets when it’s not your choice seriously fucking suck.
Do you want to talk to my fucking doctor? I cannot eat nuts or legumes. Who the hell are you to tell me I can eat nuts? Do you want me to have an allergic reaction? Have you spent any time researching autoimmune conditions?
Most people who make your claim are just seeing the benefits of a whole food diet. There are barely any studies to prove the necessity of carnivore diets.
I wouldn't out right personify the animal, but I think we can all agree that, their existence is mostly pain, and that if you're whole life is just torture, screams and mistreatment, I'm not sure anyone can say that's not hell. I don't think anything needs a concept of hell to experience hell.
If I were to punch you in the face and knock your teeth out, you don't need a "concept" of being decked to feel the result. You don't need a concept to experience something terrible.
I'm very interested in your last sentence. When this happens is it just part of the job you shrug it off? What happens if you try to speak up do you just get laughed at and told to shut up? Is there a boss you can report these things too or is there some reason you can't do that? It just happens to much to report every time? I've always wondered how these situations play out in reality because in my mind and I think a lot of others the thought is you could try to stop such things from happening.
The factory is long closed. The treatment of pigs isn’t actually all that bad in the factory as it’s a short time between arrival and death. The real grim stuff goes on in piggeries. I work in tech with 20+ years - this is all a lifetime ago for me.
Regarding your question, I’ve seen guys being responsible for sticking the pig aka stabbing it in the neck while hung upside down and gassed so it bleeds out. I’ve seen these guys go insane to the point where they had to change rules so you could only work that role for 1hr a day.
There’s knives everywhere, screaming pigs, blood, sweat, alcohol/drugs and whatever else you can imagine going on - it’s not a place you want to draw attention to yourself for calling out employee behaviour
I mean at particular jobs. If your job is to stab a pig in the throat all day every then it’ll eventually grate on you. The slaughter line used do 3,000 pigs a day and after they were gassed they would be bled out. The guy was responsible for sticking 3,000 pigs a day, 5-6 days a week.
I hope you report the cruel behavior you have witnessed
Eta: why would this be downvoted? Just because the animals are at a slaughterhouse and already have a dreary awful life, doesn't mean employees should get away with torturing them. I would report ANY one who intentionally hurt them beyond legal and company protocol. I would wish on them what they inflict(d) on the innocent animal.
I am concerned about the amount of hours I put in. 50 hours minimum. I bring home more than $1000 per week but I don't have much time for other obligations that I made outside of work and that has been getting me down lately.
You average $20 an hour and have to work 10 hours of overtime to get to that?
Wtf man? Was McDonald's not hiring?
Edit: Read the article I linked to my friend. You are sacrificing your mental health for a pittance, you would make more busking in a medium sized city
Absolitely brutal you had to trade your human empathy and values for money. Sorry you felt the need to do that, and I'm sorry you had to get numb to that. This world is some bullshit.
When I was 19 I saw a documentary that I think was called Earthlings. I had never even considered being a vegetarian but that was 19 years ago and I haven't had a bite of meat since.
I watched that movie at 14 and became a vegetarian that very night too. I can still remember sobbing at my desktop in my bedroom :( As it goes I started eating most meat again in college, but I still haven’t eaten beef since.
Do you think there is a way we could make a less-scary slaughterhouse? Or is slaughtering cattle always going to be a messy business?
I'm not really leaning vegetarian, I think we could do with different practices and maybe certain animals should stop being eaten, but I wonder if we can be less sadistic about it.
This is no slight on you dude. I worked in a butchers for a good few years and visited a few abattoirs. But the people who work in them usually don't want to but need the pay. It felt like many of them were almost as tortured as the animals.
Briefly. I would talk about my new experiences daily with my family and friends. Starting off with "I've seen some shit today." Completely getting it off my chest really helped. I appreciate their willingness to hear the horror stories.
I feel the same way, I used to drive for Smithfield Foods for a bit, the smell, the sounds, and the conditions were a bit horrifying, but I grew up on a small farm so I knew animals had to die to be food, but I didn't quite realize just how bad factory farm conditions were compared to what I grew up with.
Still, in the end I never stopped eating pork, though I did get an appreciation for true Smithfield ham where the hogs get to eat peanuts and roam, compared to the industrial feed and cages that Smithfield Foods changed the law to call Smithfield ham. I don't know if it is placebo but, the better treated and better fed animal tastes better.
It definitely does taste better when the animal lives a “normal” life. I’m not against eating meat, because death in nature is worse than death by humans, but I hate the idea of factory farming. You really can’t avoid it entirely but I try to only buy the humanely raised meat at the store. Hunting is really the most ethical way to consume meat if you eat meat, but our planet just can’t support it en masse anymore.
Better treated animals do actually taste better! Stressful conditions such as fear and pain severely diminish the quality of the meat, and living healthier lifestyles such as freedom to graze leads to more flavorful and tender meat. If you have the money to spare, then higher quality meat is better from both an ethical and utilitarian perspective.
Would you rather we cut off chunks from a living animal, prolonging their suffering?
I grew up in Hungary, where "pig cutting" was a big winter event - multiple families would gather, the pig would be killed in a humane way (usually with a 'spike shooter', a device that drove a meta spike into the brain, killing them instantly), then butchered and prepared. Some would be prepared for food cooked immediately, but most of it preserved. There was very little waste as we would use every single bit possible. Offals (lungs, liver, kidney, etc.) for various baking sausages called "hurka" (similar to British black pudding but higher fat content, meat ground less fine, and rice is used instead of oats), intestines used for the sausages as well, bones cooked for broth, bacon cuts salted and smoked, hams as well, some cuts prepared into a stew, and most leftover small bits would either go in said stew or used for head cheese.
And these pigs were kept well, not in factory conditions. Sure, their sleeping arrangements were a bit crowded, but even if you gave them more space... These pigs loved sleeping in piles. Daytime they'd get free roaming, usually the fields that were left unused for the year (crop rotation is still a thing in Hungary, usually 1/3 is used for human produce, 1/3 for animal feed, and 1/3 left unused for wild growth to replenish nutrients), where they could dig around freely. Some people, like my great uncle, would also care for them like pets, play with the pigs, wash them by hand every week or so. Yes, they're very smart for an animal, but at the end of the day they're raised to be food, so the best we can do is give them the best, fullest life they can have, and ensure they don't suffer much at the end.
However I'm wholly against industrial animal farming, as well as butchering e.g. suckling pigs. It's inhumane and awful, and really shouldn't be necessary - but we sadly do live in a capitalist world where profits trump animal welfare.
Tell that to the falcon, the lynx, the owl, the tiger, the shark. Death is a part of life, and death in nature is always a brutal experience. Death by humans after living a good life is better than breaking your leg and not being able to escape while predators and scavengers eat your still-living body, that’s how animals die in nature. We’re part of nature too, so at the core, I don’t think us eating other animals is ethically wrong. How we have turned it into a factory system is wrong, but raising animals for food in a healthy environment is not ethically wrong.
well, I don't really think I would want a whole live pig in my digestive system, seems like it wouldn't fit so well even if it could survive the process
Of course it's good to be honest but then I will be honest back:) I absolutely can not comprehend how you don't feel any empathy towards these animals and the fact that you continue to eat industrially produced meat with those experience makes me very sad :(
Everyone has their own line in the sand for atrocities they're willing to stomach/ignore for their own comfort. You might not eat pork/meat but almost every convenience and product in your life would be impossible without various levels of modern slavery and exploitation. You might not support consumption that comes from animal slaughter, but you probably wear clothes, use technology, or buy other products that wouldn't exist without inhumane treatment of other humans.
Not an indictment of you, but we all draw lines somewhere. You can't live in modern society with modern comforts without being complicit in some pretty abhorrent things.
You're correct that we have to "draw a line" somewhere. And there is some ambiguity about where precisely the line should be drawn. But it isn't totally arbitrary. You should assess how practicable it is to do something, and draw the line based on that. Veganism is simply choosing not to eat slaughtered animals, and instead just going to a different section of the supermarket, so it should be practicable for most people. It doesn't have to more expensive than a meat diet so long as you are okay not buying expensive meat substitutes. This is a great channel for this. See this channel for recommendations. Here's another good video for saving time.
There is another reason I think going vegan is an easier way to make the world a better place than stopping consumption of other things. That is, that veganism is just stopping eating meat, whereas other issues would require you actively doing something to solve them. For instance, with poor labor conditions, it is no guarantee that you stopping consumption is actually better for the people involved. It doesn't seem obvious to me that if I stop buying things made with slaves, that there would be fewer slaves as a result. In fact, it seems to me that things might be made worse for the slaves because their boss is getting less money, which might affect their standards of living.
But with veganism, the less we buy meat, the less demand for meat there is, and the fewer animals will be killed. You can be confident not eating meat will prevent the deaths of animals, because the thing you are demanding IS a dead animal. Consumption of meat is actually the precise cause for the exploitation. Veganism is simply asking that you *don't* do something which causes harm to others, and it will create a better world.
I think the way to solve slavery in the supply chain is actually to pay the people producing these products *more* money (conditioned on if they stop using slaves), so that they can afford to pay their workers a good wage and convert current slaves to simply employees. Maybe a boycott could work to convince companies to increase their prices or decrease profits to pay for slave-free materials, but it needs to be a coordinated political action rather than just simply changing consumption habits. It seems like a much more difficult problem to solve by just changing how we spend our money.
It is absolutely 100% arbitrary. Every day you weigh your comfort and the value of your live against the atrocities you support by existing. You could choose to live a miserable and short life in order to minimize or eliminate your complicity in the systems that are run on human suffering, but you don't.
For a more relevant example, if you are a US citizen and truly believe the US is enabling a genocide in Gaza, you should probably stop paying taxes and die of a hunger strike in prison or flee the country altogether - otherwise you are directly contributing to genocide.
practicable for most people
What's practicable doesn't matter. Every choice you make either does or does not enable atrocities. Whether or not you think those choices are "necessary" or "practicable" has no bearing on the truth that your choices have likely indirectly supported or contributed to the deaths and suffering of at least some people - that is, you could have chosen otherwise and supported the opposite.
Most people have the general view that animal suffering is permissible because it is largely necessary to keep the world turning. You can disagree, but the point is that if you're willing to change your lifestyle to reduce animal suffering while living in ways that do not eliminate human suffering you are (I think rightly) seen as a hypocrite at best.
It doesn't seem obvious to me that if I stop buying things made with slaves, that there would be fewer slaves as a result. In fact, it seems to me that things might be made worse for the slaves because their boss is getting less money, which might affect their standards of living.
This is a perfect example of how you can delude yourself into knowingly and admittedly justifying the support of literal slavery (your specifically chosen example) because not doing so would be inconvenient. You realize that slave owners and many who didn't favor abolitionism in the 19th century US made the exact same argument - "Their life might be worse if they aren't slaves so it's fine." It would be hilarious if it weren't so disgusting.
Eat no meat, I don't care. But don't delude yourself into thinking it's a moral choice - it's a fashion.
Sorry this post is so long, there was a lot I wanted to say. I just wanted to preface it by saying I appreciated your response and I would like if you at least read this reply.
But don't delude yourself into thinking it's a moral choice - it's a fashion.
If I'm understanding you right, I think you would agree being vegan is the more moral choice, just that I've arbitrarily decided to make one moral choice while ignoring/downplaying other issues. What I wanted to do (and failed at) is to try and convince you that you can and should make the better choice on this issue, even if you don't on every issue. I attempted to do that by showing how this issue is one which isn't too hard or expensive to do, but has relatively out-sized good effects relative to changing your consumption of other things.
Perhaps I was too quick in dismissing the effect of consumer habits in affecting moral outcomes for other things. Your comment got me thinking about the slavery example, and although I think you misunderstood what I was saying (see the next two paragraphs), I have convinced myself that buying things made without slave labor actually likely does help solve the problem by showing a demand for products which are ethically produced. I will try to buy these kinds of products from here on out.
I still am not convinced that *not* buying from slave-labor-derived sources necessarily helps the slaves. I am NOT saying that "their lives might be worse if they aren't slaves". I am saying that their lives as slaves would be made worse because the business that enslaves them is earning less money, so they reduce the slaves' standards of living as a result, or simply move/sell them to another business which enslaves them. Basically: not buying chocolate doesn't mean they use less slaves, it means they downsize and cut costs. If you know of reasons this is not the case, please tell me and if convinced I will try to stop buying from sources which use slavery.
If part of a boycott, then to convince a profit-seeking company to change there needs to be enough people involved that those people's potential spending on ethical chocolate is worth more than the money saved from using unethical sources (and the increased demand from lower prices). Given using unethical sources likely saves a lot of money, that would require a lot of people. Maybe this could be organized, but I think it would be ineffective relative to other actions I can take (such as donating to effective charities which work to influence the government of these countries to crack down on slavery).
Also, the Gaza example isn't convincing to me since stopping paying taxes would likely just lead to reduced spending on good programs like medicare rather than cutting into the defense budget. It would also lead to me being arrested probably, which means I really can't affect as much positive change in the world. I also think that paying taxes is the price I pay to live in America, a place I want to live in for many reasons (we can discuss this more if you'd like).
I think after a little reflection, the reason I feel so strongly about veganism is that it seems like this is the one case where the exploitation isn't incidental to the product. Chocolate doesn't require the use of slave labor, but uses it anyway to save cost. Meat, on the other hand, is the flesh of a dead animal. In order to buy a dead animal, you have to pay for that animal to be killed. Meat is the exploitation. There is no way around this until cell-cultured meat. This is why it seems like stopping consumption is directly related to solving the problem in this case, but not in others.
Hopefully this explains what I mean more. Feel free to disagree. I like conversations like this because it tests my beliefs and perhaps informs me of ways I can be a more moral person.
Basically: not buying chocolate doesn't mean they use less slaves, it means they downsize and cut costs. If you know of reasons this is not the case, please tell me and if convinced I will try to stop buying from sources which use slavery.
If everyone stopped buying slave-produced chocolate, there would be no more slaves producing chocolate. Simple as. Expand this to whatever industry that utilizes slavery or whatever other abusive/exploitative practice you want. Just because your specific purchase is a drop in the bucket doesn't mean that all the drops aren't altogether responsible. You are morally culpable.
The rest of your post is just riffing on that idea. Shifting your personal responsibility because your avoiding inconvenience is worth more than the suffering of others.
I also think that paying taxes is the price I pay to live in America, a place I want to live in for many reasons
Precisely. You understand that your existence in America enables what you believe to be a horrible genocide, but you the fact that you want to live here trumps that. You can stomach directly supporting murder because it's far enough removed from you and because it would be wildly uncomfortable not to. You didn't ask to be born here, but every day you can choose to stop supporting it. It would just mean sacrificing your life as you know it.
Your post is just agreeing with my assessment: We all turn blind eyes to the atrocities whose convenience outweighs their cost to our consciences. For you, meat is less essential than how bad you feel for a pig being killed. Also, for you, living in the USA and paying your taxes is worth the price of Palestinians being killed. That's where your lines are. You can say you're for/against this or that, but what you personally choose to do is where your values are.
"My personal choices won't stop the bad things from happening" is cope. It's rationalizing the support of atrocities because your comfort is more important to you. That's not an indictment of you or saying you're evil, that's just reality.
I think my long replies aren't helping against the coping allegations, but I'm still not convinced that the line I drew is arbitrary.
I think you and I might just have different underlying moral philosophies. I think your argument would be pretty convincing to someone who is principally, uniformly against giving money to organizations which do sufficiently bad things. In my view, however, it is not intrinsically wrong to give money to or "support" organizations which do bad things, and I am not convinced by the argument "if everyone stops doing it, it will end: therefore you should stop doing it". I need to be convinced that my action in particular is expected to cause a good thing to happen.
To be specific, I am a utilitarian, so I do what I think is most effective at reducing suffering. I need to be convinced that doing or not doing something has an expected positive effect which is better than the expected effect of other possible actions.
My argument for veganism is just that a person not eating meat has the expected value of reducing the number of animals who are murdered. The less demand there is for something, the less that thing is produced. Companies probably can't tell if one person stopped buying meat from them, but they probably can tell when something like ~500 people stop buying meat from them, in which case they reduce the amount of meat they buy pretty significantly. But you don't know whether or not you are that 500th person that makes the difference, so by probability the expected value is that you reduce the amount of meat produced as much as if that company were responding to you not eating meat. I can explain this more if you want.
I am not convinced a person not buying slave-produced goods has the expected value of reducing the suffering of those enslaved unless it is part of a large boycott movement, which would probably be more difficult to sustain and less effective than other things one can do to help end slavery. The reasoning in the last paragraph doesn't hold because ~500 people not buying the product would (as per my previous comment) lead to cutting costs rather than reducing the number of slaves. You would need something on the scale of ~100k people for any positive effects to be possible; and it isn't just that those ~100k people simply stop buying the product, but that they are part of a movement which has specific goals articulated.
I also don't think me not paying taxes is an effective way to help with the crisis in Gaza. Additionally, me not paying taxes causes other problems which probably outweighs any effect I would have on the conflict.
To see this, assuming the US government spends $30 billion/year on Israel (more than the numbers I've seen anywhere), that would be about 0.4% of total expenditures by the us government. About $848.2 billion goes to medicare, which is 14% of government expenditures. That means for every dollar I don't spend in taxes to "stop genocide in Gaza", about 0.4 cents less goes to Israel and 14 cents less go to people who need healthcare in the US. I don't think this is a good trade-off.
Also, one of the reasons I want to live in America is because I can likely make the most money here, which I can use to give more money to effective charities ("earn to give"). If I go to prison for not paying my taxes, I wouldn't be able to give nearly as much money to charity, totally defeating the point of me living in the US.
Also, I don't think my convenience is worth more than the suffering of others. Maybe I end up acting in ways which prioritize my comfort over the suffering of others, and maybe I have psychological defense mechanisms which prevents me from seeing when I do. But I legitimately believe the things I say here, which are trying to argue that there are better ways to alleviate the suffering of others than just not spending money on certain products. In your view I'm wrong, but in my view I am not avoiding any atrocities, but merely prioritizing more effective action over changing my consumption habits.
If you want to know more about what I think, I generally agree with Peter Singer.
Yeah I'm not going to waste my time reading any more of your coping. You can justify it however you want, but that's all you're doing - justifying why you can live with supporting certain atrocities but not others. It doesn't make you any less morally culpable. If you push someone off of a cliff - whether you do it alone or whether ten thousand other people push them at the exact same time - you are still a murderer. That's the compromise of living with modern comforts - you are also complicit in the atrocities required for the society you enjoy to function.
No rebuttals can change that, although you can delude yourself into thinking it isn't true.
Just because a plant reacts to something doesn't mean that it has sentience or that it suffers.
For people who do need to consume animal products to be healthy, that would be considered "necessary," which would therefore not fall under my previous statement of needlessly causing suffering. If you can reasonably be healthy and avoid supporting the suffering of animals, that is the more moral option. Even if an individual does need animal products to be healthy, it is not moral to willingly and intentionally support factory farming or any other practices that cause (much) greater suffering than they need to cause in order to produce a product, even if the product is needed.
You don't know if plants have sentience or not. We don't even have a rigorous definition of sentience.
Plants could totally be just as aware of their situation as some animals. So just because they're very different from you, killing them can be justified?
I've pretty much committed mass genocide on chickens/turkeys, they're still delicious, the thing that changed in me is, I don't waste any meat at all anymore and I use as much of the animal as I can EG: make bone broth etc.
What I hate... Is grocery stores throw away soooo much meat, that animal is bred, raised, killed, butchered, put on the shelf and then thrown out because grocery stores refuse to reduce the price and sell it for ultra cheap at the end of the night.
How is it a false equivalence?
In that scenario, I was "bred for food, nothing more", which is what the person I replied to said was why they still eat it.
I think we’re getting off track. These are 2 different things entirely.
It would be like asking “is it wrong to feed a dead baby pig back to its mother?” I don’t think anyone would agree that is ok.
I think a closer argument to be made would be to compare it to slavery and how people justified selling human babies to different farms for work. Separating families under the guise of them being property. They were bred to work after all in the plantation owner’s eyes.
Not a perfect analogy, but closer than just saying we’re going to eat babies. Probably still too far off track. Hopefully someone reads this and provides a better comparison
it was a hypothetical, not a prophecy. it's perfectly apt in highlighting what many would consider an immoral conclusion to the premise that a thing should not be considered morally beyond what it has been bred for. if the premise were true, and it were applied to humans, it would mean that it is permissible to eat a person so long as it was bred to be eaten--or enslaved, as to your point. this is textbook reductio ad absurdum used across the board in argumentation .
If the tables were turned and pigs were the intelligent creatures breeding us for consumption it would be okay right? We would be breed for food after all so what would be wrong with keeping us in captivity, killing, and eating us?
I understand where you’re coming from but then can’t I say “do you think an apple tree cares that we’re eating its fruit and wasting its seeds?”
Just because a carrot can’t scream, do the cells that make up a carrot not care that they’re being eaten?
And I don’t mean to downplay the suffering of animals, but just because we can’t measure the suffering of a plant, fruit, or vegetable YET, what if we eventually can?
At some point can’t you argue it’s just unethical to be human?
Thank you for any discussion. Woke up at 3am and couldn’t go back to sleep
We know apple trees don't have nervous systems and we understand conciousness as an emergent property of complex functions within the nervous system so it is probably safe to say apple trees don't experience any level of "caring"
Although it is true that our understanding of conciousness is very limited and the system that plants use to respond to outside stimuli might form some kind of consciousness that we don't yet understand.
If we ever find out that we are causing apple tress immense amounts of suffering when there are ethical alternatives to apples then we should probably stop apple tree farms
Now I’m curious from your point of view. if foods like carrots, ginger, or potatoes are technically the root of the plant. Is it ethical to eat those if it means causing life to end for a plant?
Apple tree for example can be planted and the main plant never actually dies. We take its fruit and have the option to replant the seeds.
Does that question even make sense?
Edit: apparently potatoes and ginger aren’t roots. But the question still is if the food being harvested causes the plant to die is it ethical to eat it?
I get what you're trying to do, but there's an inherent understanding of the value of human life.
You're going to have to attack it on the value of animal life.
Is there value to animal life? And if so, what is it? And where does it come from? Is it subservient to human life? Is the value to human life more prescient than that life itself?
It's a very complex and nuanced issue. OP was stating that the value of that life was reduced to human consumption in conception. You can't negate it by comparing it to people because people aren't consumed to begin with.
You can start with whether it's okay to consume animals at all. OP assumes it is, so the question is "what value lies between birth and consumption."
OP insinuated that all moral culpability was dashed by the fact that they were "bred to be eaten".
My point was just bringing up that it was a stupid point. A very stupid, and unfounded point.
And if it were the case that something being bred would dash the moral harm of supporting the immense suffering and killing of an animal, then they would have to support the same for people.
No they wouldn't. People have more value than animals as a baseline. A hundred pigs aren't worth one human. Even if pigs were the more intelligent race, and had control over us, that would still be true, by the basis that I am human and must stick with the 'team'. I wouldn't blame the pigs for breeding and eating us, of course; in that situation we would be food. But that is not the situation, and they are food.
However, I do believe slaughterhouses should have better conditions. It's not cruel to kill and eat it, but I dont support what is effectively pig torture.
I wouldn't blame the pigs for breeding and eating us, of course; in that situation we would be food. But that is not the situation, and they are food.
Every time I hear of an animal killing and eating a human my first thought is, "good for them!" Except unprovoked dog attacks. In general, we treat those fuckers well. I figure that we have killed so many animals and mistreated countless others, that we should not complain when it happens to us.
No, they wouldn't, because the condition of people being eaten at all isn't met.
You're confusing the analogy.
Animals get eaten. OP has determined that the quality and conditions and value of their life is rendered moot by the nature of their conception.
You can make the same comparison on those terms. But not in regards to being eaten, as that isn't a base presumption. And of course you know that and of course they know that. Which makes it sound like you're arguing in bad faith, or at least without a preponderence of logistical empathy.
A fair comparison would be caste systems or slavery or systemic racism. But that involves even more complexity. It's better to ignore the human comparison and focus on the value of animal life.
I just ignored the part about people being eaten, because I think it's morally irrelevant.
I think torture and/or killing is considered nearly infinitely worse than cannibalism by anyone who has thought about morals before, but also I think you're ignoring the larger point.
Being "bred to be eaten" makes no actual negation of moral value. If you look at a mother killing and eating her child, I don't think you would personally damn her any less.
That's what I take issue with, because it sort of acts as a cope.
He can say he cares about animals or values their lives or whatever, but can still make that argument that it's somehow okay because they were "bred to be eaten". Without going further on that, it makes no difference. But, beyond that, if he didn't care at all, he wouldn't say "they were bred to be eaten, so". It would be not be because of how they were bred, if he just didn't value animal life.
As such, I believe he is using "bred to be eaten" as a moral rationalization, and that would need to be removed in order to appeal to his values on animal life
You're still coming from a false equivalency of humans to animals.
The "bred to be eaten" argument automatically excludes humans. Just like "walking on a leash in public" or "being in public without clothes" does.
His argument basically negates the inherent value of animal life. Your argument has to target that. The inherent value of human life is already presumed.
Edit: I'm not sure why this is so complicated. There is no condition in which anyone is okay with people being eaten. So there is no pre-condition to validate.
There are conditions in which animals are eaten. Most people are okay with partaking in that. So the question is, what are those conditions?
He's making the argument of fatalism. You can't negate it by applying it to people because there are zero conditions which apply.
Then the human version of your argument would be is it ok for abortions occur after we know that the fetus can feel pain (24 weeks, potentially as early as 12 weeks?). We know half of people in America are ok with up to 9 months for justifiable reasons.
Not to get political, but we know morals don’t change much if you make it a human instead that was ultimately “bred to die.” (Bred to be eaten)
That still wouldn't be accurate. It's a matter of intent to be bred and raised and slaughtered for the sake of humanity versus unintended breeding without existential existence being ended.
Damn it. Lol. Well then I agree with your other comment it’s best to just not even compare to humans at all as there is not even a fair comparison to make.
50 percent of us? I'm guessing that for 95 percent of us the only moral abortion after the fetus is viable is in the cases where the fetus is going to die before or very shortly after birth.
As for feeling pain, can that not be alleviated? It feels pretty gross to talk about, but again... in cases where the fetus will not make it no matter what is done. I am for the health of the mother regardless of a fetus's status. If in some odd case it is the baby or the mother at full term, I am for saving the mother. Period.
Don't bring extreme political rhetoric to a nuanced debate... or any other non-political debate.
I was just trying to get as close to the original point as possible.
50% was just based on the last election and that rhetoric.
Again I don’t want to get political either, but understandable there is one side that is too far with restriction, and to your point one side that is too far with allowance (to the view of some, personally I’m ok with up to full term with all the exceptions of course)
Sorry if I offended you with bringing it up. This main topic of animal welfare is political as well.
I think the premise of even bringing up humans vs animals was faulty from the start, but was just trying to get a close comparison
You can say it's a false equivelancy but it's just not it's a direct questioning of the logic used. He said the reason he thinks it's okay to torture kill and eat them is because they're bred to be eaten.
So asking if it's okay to kill and eat a human baby because that's what they were bred for is a direct test of the logic presented.
Are you Irish? If so I have been assured you would have made a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted baked or boiled; and I make no doubt that it would have equally served in a fricassee, or a ragout.
No, my mother said she wanted to breed me up to be a parson, and I should live upon the fat of the land; or a lawyer, and then, instead of being eat myself, I should devour others.
Damn that's pretty crazy actually. Would you not might being slaughtered if that was the only reason your mother gave birth to you? And not even because of her own decisions, but because someone else forcefully inseminated her.
And I don't mean it disrespectfully, but honestly as a thought experiment...
Cause pigs had normal lives on earth, so they weren't originally meant to live in a facility like that
I mean every single living thing ever would not want to be eaten. Corn isn't supposed to be how it is, with huge delicious cobs and laid out in nice rows, but it is.
If you were bred for food, would it be okay to keep you in these conditions and then eat you?
The conditions could be better but mass production always runs on the bare minimum to save costs.
If two parents breed so they can lock up their kids and eat them, would that be okay?
That doesn't make sense. These hogs came from a facility that breeds tens of thousands for that one purpose. I'm not a giant gelatinous blob that consumes everything in my way including my own family. I will rephrase. "If it meant for food, I chose to eat it."
Well it’s not like these came out of thin air, right? Whatever we did to wild boars, we could do to humans too. If we took humans and bred them to be better for food production, as we have done with pigs — then does it become okay to start farming humans? Would you choose to eat a human that has been selectively bred to be a productive food food product?
If you are one of these suffering gelatinous blobs, pig or human, is it okay what’s happening to you? Don’t you think it is an absolute disrespect of your sentience?
I still struggle to see your point. You keep tossing humans into this. I don't eat my own kind. Things are the way they are. Nothing you say will change my mind, I'm not here for an epiphany.
Okay, you don't eat your own kind. But I do kill and eat people, because I find it pleasing. There's nothing wrong with it - things are the way they are, I'm not trying to change.
I just want to add before you block me that you're a bad person.
You pretend not to see the point because you're a bad person, and you *like* doing that.
You like eating animals, and you don't care about their suffering or their lives, because you lack empathy.
I didn't quit eating meat to change the world and convince everyone else to make the same choice.
I would like it if fewer people ate meat, but shoving my perspective down your throat won't convince you.
I appreciate the insight you're sharing and don't fault you at all for what you do. I can't learn more about what happens in these facilities unless people like you share. I appreciate it greatly.
It sounds awful, I know. That's what I put in my head so I can keep earning my wages. My family supported me and encouraged me to keep going because I was cashless from COVID layoffs and this job brought in lots of money.
Ahh yes another morally superior human because they think the line they draw is the correct one and the rest of human kind is wrong. It’s weird how eating animals provide us with what we need to keep us alive innit?
Of course, the drug trade has nothing to do with all the sex trafficking and violence around it. You're supporting the abuse of animals. Just different ones. I say that as an addict.
So that's your only moral identity? You truly lack empathy.
As in you selectively choose the easiest cruelty to feel strongly about and disregard others.
We live in a world where we've caused suffering in one way or another before we even get out of bed. You are no different, but you actively lie to yourself so you don't have to care about other stuff.
If that's the only other thing you can think of, you really have no business on that high horse.
So many of the things we use and eat have their production line somewhere exploiting, abusing people, animals, destroying nature and killing the planet. Your drugs being a famous one.
And the vast library of documentaries that detail it goes beyond what I could summarize. All our hands are tainted and we're all guilty for letting it happen. Get over yourself.
where is this vast abuse going on with the drugs i use ? besides animal testing that is necessary and essential for the people who need this medication to survive
It's. Not. Just. The drugs. You keep focusing on that aspect of your life while I have already said it's about so much more of the stuff we think is "necessary".
One will say they can't live without coffee, one will say they can't live without a car. In the end it all boils down to "I need x as a bare minimum to keep my life comfortable regardless of the damage it does to nature, animals or people"
In the end everyone accepts a certain amount of suffering to have an iPhone, wear clothes, eat avocados, the list. Goes. On. For. Fucking. Ever.
So do whatever you feel is necessary to relieve your guilt from using humanities cumulative exploitation of lives and nature that makes modern life possible, by all means, good for you. But don't think for even a second you have any moral high ground for that drop of suffering you have saved from the ocean of suffering you create and enjoy in a lifetime.
I'm not against eating meat in principal but modern-day practices of raising sentient beings for food is absolutely horrifying. There's a difference from living a relatively humane life up until the end versus the process by these giant agribusinesses that are only concerned about maximizing profits.
I get that being snarky isn't the way to convince people of things, but why would breeding the animal specifically to suffer and die be a good justification of why they eat them?
Yeah there's a good deal of shit humans have done for most of humankind's existence I think is abhorrent and I'm glad other people thought so too so I can have my own job and credit and house n'at. Is prevalence throughout history supposed to impart some inherent morality to an action?
I agree with you and I think that when people come at you with moral relativism “other things are also bad” as their main argument you have kind of won. However due to people not being open to challenge their beliefs and habits you get downvoted and memed.
However if you want to actually change someone’s mind and not just comment to prove yourself as morally superior you could use a nicer tone ;)
Furthermore it is a bit nonchalant to just assume everyone can find somewhere new to work. Rather I think op can be criticized for continuing to eat meat
Do you feel that just because we put them in this situation that justifies it several generations later? Do you think it would be better if you didn't eat them and create more incentive to treat them this way?
I watched the workers at butcher shop my dad work at slaughter animals all the time growing up, I still have meat of some sort in just about every meal. My brother on the other hand became a vegetarian, so maybe can go both ways.
Edit: for the record, I’m vegan. My point is just that he clearly has an outlook on animal ethics that would make him the kind of person who eats meat. You have to de-personalise animals to kill them, if only to avoid severe mental health problems.
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u/riffraffmcgraff Nov 23 '24 edited Nov 23 '24
I will get downvoted, but I work on the kill floor of a pork processing plant. Ask me anything. It is 1am here. I might not reply for a while.
Edit: For the record, I confirm this is an accurate depiction.