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This sort of extreme cruel exploitation of living beings with brains & feelings will be thought of in the future similarly to how we think about chattel slavery

This sort of extreme cruel exploitation of living beings with brains & feelings will be thought of in the future similarly to how we think about chattel slavery.. At least the next step in the industrialisation of meat should be a huge improvement - just growing brain-less muscles..

testfoobar 6y ago
I agree. We are removing statutes of Confederate figures and slave holders now. Schools, buildings are being renamed. I expect this list of schools named after Barack Obama to grow larger: https://www.google.com/search?q=schools+named+after+barack+obama&oq=scho&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j69i60l2j69i65j69i61.2815j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=schools+named+after+barack+o... Here is Barack Obama ordering burgers at Five Guys burgers: https://www.google.com/search?q=barack+obama+five+guys&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwikp7XXjqvrAhVkFjQIHSnWAYwQ_AUoAXoECAsQAw&biw=1307&bih=690 https://www.google.com/search?q=barack+obama+five+guys&sourc... It is well within bounds to imagine future generations being absolutely incensed that schools are named after meat-eaters consuming the end product of industrialized slaughter. It is easy to imagine future generations seeing us as monsters. Are we monsters?
- axaxs 6y ago
  Not as individual meat consumers, no. In the same way we don't see Yanks who bought cotton clothes as evil. It's all we have the choice to buy, really. As a society that breeds living things that are disfigured, can't walk, live in hell, and die... sure, we are evil. I won't give up meat. I will however do everything in my personal power to vote to end such practices and buy local, even if it means paying more. I think we just need to show more people. The meat industries have done a great job of hiding their awful secrets, often at the legislative level.
  - Falling3 6y ago
    I won't deny that this is a systemic issue and we shouldn't place all the blame on individuals. But it's an absolutely ridiculous claim that it's our only choice. Don't waste you're money buying local because it really means nothing with respect to welfare of the animal. Instead try to reduce your consumption.
    - axaxs 6y ago
      Sure it does. If factory farms failed to exist, we'd all have to buy local. And costs are going to skyrocket, and consumption is going to go down. If everyone reduced consumption just to reduce it, factory farms would still exist, just less of them. You didn't solve the issue, you just made it slightly smaller.
      - Falling3 6y ago
        If the issue you're referring to are the ethical problems of farming, they are in no way limited to CAFOs. Some of the worst practices I've personally witnessed have been at small farms. Size is no guarantee of treatment and locality has absolutely no bearing on ethics. You're also underestimating the impact of modern animal breeds on the price of animal products. Broiler chickens are slaughtered at about a third of the age as chickens a century ago. All farms benefit from that kind of decrease and it's one of the things that turned chicken into a daily food. Without CAFOs, prices would certainly go up, but less dramatically than you thibk.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
BadassFractal 6y ago
The reality is that most people don't care, or don't know enough to care, or don't care enough to know. Switching to a meatless diet isn't an insurmountable hurdle, it's just inconvenient. And even that small inconvenience isn't something most people want to bother with. Similarly, on the human front, a Westerner deploying even a little cash in the poorest parts of the world can save hundreds of lives. But most people don't care. They have their lives to live, mouths to feed, their local homes and neighborhoods to take care of. Caring about the suffering of millions of strangers thousands of miles away, regardless of species, isn't something we're good at, or care much for. BOCTAOE
- naringas 6y ago
  don't forget all the people who cannot afford to care.
- ramraj07 6y ago
  While this is a fairly accurate explanation of why things are the way they are, it doesn't mean it can't ever change. We don't care in general sure, but the only hope we can have is that we care slightly more today than we did yesterday. Everyone in the spectrum of poverty hopefully has taken a positive step in this direction in the past few decades, and hopefully we continue and accelerate.
an_opabinia 6y ago
Yes, but it’s not going to be the reason why anyone here uses your particular rhetoric of “living beings.” If Silicon Valley Buddhism (SVB, where this rhetoric comes from) was so effective it would have broader appeal. It’s useful to dissect why it works for HN people though. SVB works because (1) Steve Jobs - it’s compatible with rich people crazy for whom limousine liberal is an insufficiently contrarian moral framework, and (2) it is a lot less partisan than all the other good reasons to not eat meat products, like your health and the environment. Indeed the bigger story here is that anti-intellectualism has made it hard to be a vegan for health or environmental reasons around your Republican venture capitalists. However “minimizing harm to as many beings as possible” (as one Silicon Valley billionaire supervillain once put it to me) doesn’t sound like something couched in science. It sounds almost like pseudoscience, much like the bulletproof coffee or blue light avoidance crazes, something which specifically appeals to Republican finance types and therefore is an acceptable moral framework for SV’s only real god, the almighty dollar. Fortunately the chickens could give less of a fuck why you stop eating them. So go “Buddhism.”

testfoobar 6y ago

I agree. We are removing statutes of Confederate figures and slave holders now. Schools, buildings are being renamed. I expect this list of schools named after Barack Obama to grow larger: https://www.google.com/search?q=schools+named+after+barack+obama&oq=scho&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j69i60l2j69i65j69i61.2815j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=schools+named+after+barack+o... Here is Barack Obama ordering burgers at Five Guys burgers: https://www.google.com/search?q=barack+obama+five+guys&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwikp7XXjqvrAhVkFjQIHSnWAYwQ_AUoAXoECAsQAw&biw=1307&bih=690 https://www.google.com/search?q=barack+obama+five+guys&sourc... It is well within bounds to imagine future generations being absolutely incensed that schools are named after meat-eaters consuming the end product of industrialized slaughter. It is easy to imagine future generations seeing us as monsters. Are we monsters?

axaxs 6y ago
Not as individual meat consumers, no. In the same way we don't see Yanks who bought cotton clothes as evil. It's all we have the choice to buy, really. As a society that breeds living things that are disfigured, can't walk, live in hell, and die... sure, we are evil. I won't give up meat. I will however do everything in my personal power to vote to end such practices and buy local, even if it means paying more. I think we just need to show more people. The meat industries have done a great job of hiding their awful secrets, often at the legislative level.
- Falling3 6y ago
  I won't deny that this is a systemic issue and we shouldn't place all the blame on individuals. But it's an absolutely ridiculous claim that it's our only choice. Don't waste you're money buying local because it really means nothing with respect to welfare of the animal. Instead try to reduce your consumption.
  - axaxs 6y ago
    Sure it does. If factory farms failed to exist, we'd all have to buy local. And costs are going to skyrocket, and consumption is going to go down. If everyone reduced consumption just to reduce it, factory farms would still exist, just less of them. You didn't solve the issue, you just made it slightly smaller.
    - Falling3 6y ago
      If the issue you're referring to are the ethical problems of farming, they are in no way limited to CAFOs. Some of the worst practices I've personally witnessed have been at small farms. Size is no guarantee of treatment and locality has absolutely no bearing on ethics. You're also underestimating the impact of modern animal breeds on the price of animal products. Broiler chickens are slaughtered at about a third of the age as chickens a century ago. All farms benefit from that kind of decrease and it's one of the things that turned chicken into a daily food. Without CAFOs, prices would certainly go up, but less dramatically than you thibk.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

BadassFractal 6y ago

The reality is that most people don't care, or don't know enough to care, or don't care enough to know. Switching to a meatless diet isn't an insurmountable hurdle, it's just inconvenient. And even that small inconvenience isn't something most people want to bother with. Similarly, on the human front, a Westerner deploying even a little cash in the poorest parts of the world can save hundreds of lives. But most people don't care. They have their lives to live, mouths to feed, their local homes and neighborhoods to take care of. Caring about the suffering of millions of strangers thousands of miles away, regardless of species, isn't something we're good at, or care much for. BOCTAOE

naringas 6y ago
don't forget all the people who cannot afford to care.
ramraj07 6y ago
While this is a fairly accurate explanation of why things are the way they are, it doesn't mean it can't ever change. We don't care in general sure, but the only hope we can have is that we care slightly more today than we did yesterday. Everyone in the spectrum of poverty hopefully has taken a positive step in this direction in the past few decades, and hopefully we continue and accelerate.

an_opabinia 6y ago

Yes, but it’s not going to be the reason why anyone here uses your particular rhetoric of “living beings.” If Silicon Valley Buddhism (SVB, where this rhetoric comes from) was so effective it would have broader appeal. It’s useful to dissect why it works for HN people though. SVB works because (1) Steve Jobs - it’s compatible with rich people crazy for whom limousine liberal is an insufficiently contrarian moral framework, and (2) it is a lot less partisan than all the other good reasons to not eat meat products, like your health and the environment. Indeed the bigger story here is that anti-intellectualism has made it hard to be a vegan for health or environmental reasons around your Republican venture capitalists. However “minimizing harm to as many beings as possible” (as one Silicon Valley billionaire supervillain once put it to me) doesn’t sound like something couched in science. It sounds almost like pseudoscience, much like the bulletproof coffee or blue light avoidance crazes, something which specifically appeals to Republican finance types and therefore is an acceptable moral framework for SV’s only real god, the almighty dollar. Fortunately the chickens could give less of a fuck why you stop eating them. So go “Buddhism.”