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> Tellingly...the scale of animal cruelty today absolutely dwarfs that of any bygone era. "Tellingly"? What does it tell? The scale of X (for almost all X) tod

> Tellingly...the scale of animal cruelty today absolutely dwarfs that of any bygone era. "Tellingly"? What does it tell? The scale of X (for almost all X) today absolutely dwarfs that of any bygone era. I wish when people say something is telling, they'd say what it tells them, but they usually don't. (It's like saying "Of course" or "Obviously". Rhetorically effective maybe, but doesn't help communication. They are a kind of bluff.) > I see the modest gains in the population of vegetarians as a pyrrhic victory that would not have been possible with, perversely, the common knowledge of the current scale and scope of modern animal cruelty. Sorry, I really tried, but can't work out what you are trying to say here. (It feels like at least a triple-layered negative.) Could you put it more simply? Seems like you're maybe saying "If more people knew the horrors of modern animal cruelty there would be less vegetarians", but that reading makes no sense to me. It's a very confusing, unclear sentence anyway.

DangitBobby 5y ago
I should have said "scope", because I don't mean just by pure numbers. I mean that our current treatment of billions of animals is worse than it has ever been due to factory farming. As in, it's not just the sheer number of animals, we have somehow regressed and are more cruel to each individual animal in the name of efficiency. I think the only reason there is a higher percentage of vegetarians now is how widely publicized that information is, not because the average human has evolved and can be expected to have a moral framework which incoporates non-humans. There wouldn't be as many vegetarians if some people weren't currently being so obviously needlessly cruel. And then there's the impact that our activities have on wildlife that we aren't intending to harm. We know we are causing harm, though, so much so that we regularly drive animals to extinction. We also know we are currently driving a mass extinction event but that seems to barely register on our list of concerns. I don't see any meaningful action right now towards addressing this. I honestly hear so, so little about it, even when we are discussing the impacts of climate change. I kind of forgot about it myself during this discussion. So in summary, I see us as being willfully cruel to some and fully indifferent to others and ultimately I think we have gotten worse over the years, not better. If I were an animal, I would much rather have shared the planet with humans from 1000 or even 100 years ago than with humans from today, and I believe the trend continues. Hope that clears things up.
- yesenadam 5y ago
  Yeah thanks, sadly that all seems true. Not to mention fishing the oceans to exhaustion. (Vegan here for 30 years)

DangitBobby 5y ago

I should have said "scope", because I don't mean just by pure numbers. I mean that our current treatment of billions of animals is worse than it has ever been due to factory farming. As in, it's not just the sheer number of animals, we have somehow regressed and are more cruel to each individual animal in the name of efficiency. I think the only reason there is a higher percentage of vegetarians now is how widely publicized that information is, not because the average human has evolved and can be expected to have a moral framework which incoporates non-humans. There wouldn't be as many vegetarians if some people weren't currently being so obviously needlessly cruel. And then there's the impact that our activities have on wildlife that we aren't intending to harm. We know we are causing harm, though, so much so that we regularly drive animals to extinction. We also know we are currently driving a mass extinction event but that seems to barely register on our list of concerns. I don't see any meaningful action right now towards addressing this. I honestly hear so, so little about it, even when we are discussing the impacts of climate change. I kind of forgot about it myself during this discussion. So in summary, I see us as being willfully cruel to some and fully indifferent to others and ultimately I think we have gotten worse over the years, not better. If I were an animal, I would much rather have shared the planet with humans from 1000 or even 100 years ago than with humans from today, and I believe the trend continues. Hope that clears things up.

yesenadam 5y ago
Yeah thanks, sadly that all seems true. Not to mention fishing the oceans to exhaustion. (Vegan here for 30 years)