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 d

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.