4 ms·

The vegan argument is definitely a legitimate one, and not something I was trying to refute. A lot of meat eaters have these strange ideas about what is and is

The vegan argument is definitely a legitimate one, and not something I was trying to refute. A lot of meat eaters have these strange ideas about what is and isn't cruel (the classic being "hunting is evil but eating farmed meat is totally OK"), ostensibly based on reducing unnecessary suffering but also completely devoid of hands-on understanding of what actually happens. I will disagree with you on this point, though: >innocent being I've kept yabbies in a tank before as pets. They're absolutely metal creatures and will do things like rip the legs off of live rivals one by one, then slowly tear them apart over the course of hours. I saw one spear a fish wish its claw and pull its guts out too (as if unreeling a spool), just because it could. They're supposed to be herbivorous but damn can they be cold-hearted killers. (Crabs are far more social, apparently, but I've not seen them interacting before).

chimpansteve 5y ago
As someone who grew up on a small beef farm in the UK but is also very picky about the source of the meat he eats, my personal anecdotal experience is that vegan or meat eater, the problem is that the vast majority of people have never been within 100m of livestock, and have zero comprehension of where their food actually comes from or how it arrives in their nice refrigerated trays. The cows on my dad's farm probably had a better life than the dogs. There's a definite argument to made that they had a better life than me, and I was from a very happy and loving household. The same could not be said for the large scale conglomerate farm up the road. It's a distinction most people are simply incapable of making, because they just aren't exposed to it.
- onion2k 5y ago
  Quality of life isn't the whole story though. Longevity matters too. When I was a child if someone had asked me "Would you like to live a life of opulent luxury but be killed when you're 20?" I'd have said no. There is no doubt that a good farm is better than a bad farm, but neither is particularly great if you're a cow.
  - Taywee 5y ago
    I think it really depends what the alternative is. If it's that vs living in the wilderness in a small family and no other support against the elements or vicious predators, that's not such as easy decision. Cows don't have a support system, society, government, or social welfare in their non-farm state. They just try to survive the elements and the environment.
    - jallen_dot_dev 5y ago
      > If it's that vs living in the wilderness That seems like a false dichotomy considering farmers aren't going out and rescuing cows from the wilderness and giving them the roof and food they didn't have on their own. An alternative is to not breed them in the first place.
      - cheese_goddess 5y ago
        Yes, farmers do go out and rescue cows (and sheep, and goats, and pigs, and chickens) from the wilderness all the time. More so, they protect those animals "from the wilderness" every single day. For example, in the farm I stay, we had some ten goats eaten by wild dogs in the last five years. The first time seven goats were attacked when they were alone in their enclosure. Now there's a guardian dog with them. The second time, a goat and her two kids were in another part of the farm, where the dog couldn't guard them and the wild dogs dug under the fence and killed them. I say "killed", not "ate" because they didn't eat them. They savaged them and let them dying with their guts spilled all over the place. Btw, what happens if we stop breeding farm animals? What's the plan at that point? Are we going to euthanise them all, release them into the wild to be eaten alive, keep them until they're all extinct? What does it mean to not breed them anymore, in practice?
        jallen_dot_dev 5y ago
        > Yes, farmers do go out and rescue cows (and sheep, and goats, and pigs, and chickens) from the wilderness all the time. Really? How many of the 70 billion land animals per year slaughtered for food were rescued from the wilderness, as opposed to bred in captivity? > Btw, what happens if we stop breeding farm animals? What's the plan at that point [for the ones alive]? The ones currently alive will be eaten by omnivores. Because we're not going to all switch over to veganism over night. Ideally there would be less demand as people stop buying animal products, so fewer are bred over time and livestock numbers dwindle. All the farm animals currently alive are goners, unfortunately. I'm suggesting stopping the cycle for the future ones. Btw I hear this argument all the time and it's really silly if you think about it honestly. "If we stop we'd have to euthanize all the farm animals. Better keep doing what we're doing, which is kill them anyway plus countless more each year forever."
- grozzle 5y ago
  (I'm also from a farming and farm-vet family) Don't forget about the 98% of male calves and 99% of male chicks. No matter how comfortable, even luxurious, a free-range eggs farm might be - all those hens' brothers were put in a shredder when they were newborns. Examine the whole system, not the the visibly "best" parts.
Karawebnetwork 5y ago
The thing is, crabs and lobsters don't live in buckets naturally. If you took two wild mammals and forced them to cohabit in a small area it would also very likely end in bloodshed. Lobsters are known for having seasons in which they migrate. Even sources that say that crabs don't move a lot will describe that lack of movement as "will not exit a one mile area".
cheese_goddess 5y ago
The important difference between hunting and farming is that hunting is done for sport and the people killing the animals derive pleasure from killign them. Farmed animals are killed to be eaten and no farmer derives pleasure from killing the animals they raised from babies. So when people say they ind hunting "evil" but farming not, that's the general idea.

chimpansteve 5y ago

As someone who grew up on a small beef farm in the UK but is also very picky about the source of the meat he eats, my personal anecdotal experience is that vegan or meat eater, the problem is that the vast majority of people have never been within 100m of livestock, and have zero comprehension of where their food actually comes from or how it arrives in their nice refrigerated trays. The cows on my dad's farm probably had a better life than the dogs. There's a definite argument to made that they had a better life than me, and I was from a very happy and loving household. The same could not be said for the large scale conglomerate farm up the road. It's a distinction most people are simply incapable of making, because they just aren't exposed to it.

onion2k 5y ago
Quality of life isn't the whole story though. Longevity matters too. When I was a child if someone had asked me "Would you like to live a life of opulent luxury but be killed when you're 20?" I'd have said no. There is no doubt that a good farm is better than a bad farm, but neither is particularly great if you're a cow.
- Taywee 5y ago
  I think it really depends what the alternative is. If it's that vs living in the wilderness in a small family and no other support against the elements or vicious predators, that's not such as easy decision. Cows don't have a support system, society, government, or social welfare in their non-farm state. They just try to survive the elements and the environment.
  - jallen_dot_dev 5y ago
    > If it's that vs living in the wilderness That seems like a false dichotomy considering farmers aren't going out and rescuing cows from the wilderness and giving them the roof and food they didn't have on their own. An alternative is to not breed them in the first place.
    - cheese_goddess 5y ago
      Yes, farmers do go out and rescue cows (and sheep, and goats, and pigs, and chickens) from the wilderness all the time. More so, they protect those animals "from the wilderness" every single day. For example, in the farm I stay, we had some ten goats eaten by wild dogs in the last five years. The first time seven goats were attacked when they were alone in their enclosure. Now there's a guardian dog with them. The second time, a goat and her two kids were in another part of the farm, where the dog couldn't guard them and the wild dogs dug under the fence and killed them. I say "killed", not "ate" because they didn't eat them. They savaged them and let them dying with their guts spilled all over the place. Btw, what happens if we stop breeding farm animals? What's the plan at that point? Are we going to euthanise them all, release them into the wild to be eaten alive, keep them until they're all extinct? What does it mean to not breed them anymore, in practice?
      - jallen_dot_dev 5y ago
        > Yes, farmers do go out and rescue cows (and sheep, and goats, and pigs, and chickens) from the wilderness all the time. Really? How many of the 70 billion land animals per year slaughtered for food were rescued from the wilderness, as opposed to bred in captivity? > Btw, what happens if we stop breeding farm animals? What's the plan at that point [for the ones alive]? The ones currently alive will be eaten by omnivores. Because we're not going to all switch over to veganism over night. Ideally there would be less demand as people stop buying animal products, so fewer are bred over time and livestock numbers dwindle. All the farm animals currently alive are goners, unfortunately. I'm suggesting stopping the cycle for the future ones. Btw I hear this argument all the time and it's really silly if you think about it honestly. "If we stop we'd have to euthanize all the farm animals. Better keep doing what we're doing, which is kill them anyway plus countless more each year forever."
grozzle 5y ago
(I'm also from a farming and farm-vet family) Don't forget about the 98% of male calves and 99% of male chicks. No matter how comfortable, even luxurious, a free-range eggs farm might be - all those hens' brothers were put in a shredder when they were newborns. Examine the whole system, not the the visibly "best" parts.

Karawebnetwork 5y ago

The thing is, crabs and lobsters don't live in buckets naturally. If you took two wild mammals and forced them to cohabit in a small area it would also very likely end in bloodshed. Lobsters are known for having seasons in which they migrate. Even sources that say that crabs don't move a lot will describe that lack of movement as "will not exit a one mile area".

cheese_goddess 5y ago

The important difference between hunting and farming is that hunting is done for sport and the people killing the animals derive pleasure from killign them. Farmed animals are killed to be eaten and no farmer derives pleasure from killing the animals they raised from babies. So when people say they ind hunting "evil" but farming not, that's the general idea.