4 ms·

A (somewhat?) vegan perspective. I've teetered on staying committed to veganism for ethical reasons, and have spent time on and off with vegan diets. I don't a

by badRNG 5y ago

A (somewhat?) vegan perspective. I've teetered on staying committed to veganism for ethical reasons, and have spent time on and off with vegan diets. I don't at all think (nor do I think most vegans think [see disclaimer]) that pigs are worthy of equal moral consideration as humans. I, along with most humans, think that pigs as well as other animals are worthy of some level of moral consideration. Most would be rightfully outraged at the torture of animals for fun, for instance. Vegans take it a small step further, the moral consideration of a pig outweighs the pleasure provided to our taste buds by consuming their flesh. The prior two examples of consumption and torture, while vastly different, are also on a whole different level than raising pigs to save human lives. If you agree that pigs and humans are NOT morally equivalent (which is most people, including most vegans [see disclaimer],) then I think you are committed to the idea that it is imperative to raise and kill pigs to save human lives. [Disclaimer: neither vegans or non-vegans are monoliths. There are countless ethical, religious, and practical frameworks one will employ to arrive at any particular ethical position.]

jakear 5y ago
A bit off topic but you seem level-headed and I've been wondering about this for a while: what's your vegan "endgame"? The way I see it, the "vegan utopia" would get rid of all small family farms (even strictly milk/egg ones) -- where animals are given all the food they need, have access to good medical care, are sheltered from predators, and are able to reproduce and nurse offspring -- and replace all that with... a couple animals scrapping it out against the brutality of raw, unfiltered, natural selection? I wouldn't want that for myself, and I don't know of any vegans who have opted into that lifestyle either. So what gives? Why is the vegan "morally correct" thing to force onto animals the opposite of what we collectively opt into as humans? (Plenty of people say they want to "escape from it all" and go live in the woods, but to actually commit to that for any amount of time is... rare.)
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  > The way I see it, the "vegan utopia" would get rid of all small family farms (even strictly milk/egg ones) -- where animals are given all the food they need, have access to good medical care, are sheltered from predators, and are able to reproduce and nurse offspring This is, like, the most charitable interpretation possible of the current state of farming for meat.
  - jakear 5y ago
    Certainly large scale factory farms should be avoided at all costs. But animal husbandry is an ancient art that a good number of small family farms still practice. They're the ones I'm referring to here. Also note I'm specifically referring to egg/dairy production as opposed to meat production.
    - aflag 5y ago
      There are many ancient arts that got lost as time progresses. Not sure if we should fear changing our ways. I've drastically reduced my meat consumption in an effort to help with climate change. The end game for me is for, some time in future, meat consumption to be seen as something old fashioned that no one does anymore. Like wearing a top hat. The only reason I'm not 100% vegan/vegetarian is because, since most people aren't, it restricts a lot the number of dishes you can eat. Specially when you go out in a restaurant. But, if more people would be vegetarians, I'm sure that would change.
    - aiiiiiiiiiiit 5y ago
      > This is, like, the most charitable interpretation possible of the current state of farming for meat. It is charitable to call it charitable. Almost all meat, eggs, and dairy comes from factory farming. The small farms that people like to tell themselves they eat from are a literal rounding error [0]. You only get that if you go to the actual small farm itself or eat out at a very expensive restaurant. - If you buy a meat sandwich from the corner store...factory farming - If you buy a burrito from a restaurant...factory farming - If you buy eggs and cheese at a diner...factory farming - If you buy milk from the grocery store...factory farming You can tell yourself you only buy from small farms, but there is a 99% chance [0] you are eating factory farmed animal products. Sorry to break it to you. [0] https://thehumaneleague.org/article/what-is-factory-farming https://thehumaneleague.org/article/what-is-factory-farming
    - TulliusCicero 5y ago
      You don't get to do that in a discussion, just act like the main thing being lost would be only the nicest thing on your 'side'.
- neilparikh 5y ago
  > animals scrapping it out against the brutality of raw, unfiltered, natural selection Farm animals are bred by humans, not taken from the wild, so you wouldn't be introducing any new animals to the wild, to "deal with brutality". You'd simply not bred new animals to live in farms. Also, I think even small family farms practice male chick culling, so it's not really a great status quo.
  - jakear 5y ago
    Right, instead of a large biomass of generally happy “farmed” animals you have a small biomass of incredibly stressed “natural” animals. It’s not obvious to me that that’s as clear of a win as vegans would have me believe.
- badRNG 5y ago
  Industrialized farming is worlds different from these idealistic "small family subsistence farms." The hypothetical world in which one might be able to raise animals ethically as a food source isn't the same one that can have massive businesses turning a profit from supplying animal meat to millions of people. I don't think a business could survive in a market economy while treating their animals humanely. The cost would simply be unimaginable. Most people who oppose the torture of animals and are sufficiently educated with how industrialized farming works face either discomfort and cognitive dissonance to some degree, or feel inclined to make a change (whatever that may look like.) As far as the difference between living in the wild and living in industrialized farms, I think allowing animals to live in the wild is vastly more ethical than the misery that awaits them on factory farms. Of course, the current generation of livestock should never be returned to the wild. The "end game" would be the cessation of breeding of these animals.
  - jakear 5y ago
    > I don't think a business could survive in a market economy while treating their animals humanely. The cost would simply be unimaginable. It'd be quite easy to survive if there were enough people who cared about the well-being of animals and experienced sufficient economic stability to make consumption choices that don't necessarily maximize calories/dollar. Unfortunately those people tend to eschew animal product consumption all together, resulting in your (correct) analysis that the number of animals living in misery on factory farms is dramatically overtaking the number living at harmony on family farms. I don't buy from factory farms, but any time I go to a local store or farmers market and see a good local cheese, I buy it. I've visited many of the farms personally and have never seen a situation where it didn't look like the animals were living their best life. To shut those farms down, kill off their bloodlines, and replace them with... a way smaller number of slightly different looking ruminants spending their whole existence feeling (rightfully) frightened for their life upon any external stimulus? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And that's the "ideal" case, in reality it's far more likely that the farm will be bought up by some big commercial entity willing to cut more corners than that the good fertile accessible land will simply be yielded to the wild. [1] [1] "as average farm size has increased, the number of individual farms in the United States has decreased." https://www.statista.com/statistics/196106/average-size-of-farms-in-the-us-since-2000/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/196106/average-size-of-f...

by badRNG 5y ago

jakear 5y ago

A bit off topic but you seem level-headed and I've been wondering about this for a while: what's your vegan "endgame"? The way I see it, the "vegan utopia" would get rid of all small family farms (even strictly milk/egg ones) -- where animals are given all the food they need, have access to good medical care, are sheltered from predators, and are able to reproduce and nurse offspring -- and replace all that with... a couple animals scrapping it out against the brutality of raw, unfiltered, natural selection? I wouldn't want that for myself, and I don't know of any vegans who have opted into that lifestyle either. So what gives? Why is the vegan "morally correct" thing to force onto animals the opposite of what we collectively opt into as humans? (Plenty of people say they want to "escape from it all" and go live in the woods, but to actually commit to that for any amount of time is... rare.)

TulliusCicero 5y ago
> The way I see it, the "vegan utopia" would get rid of all small family farms (even strictly milk/egg ones) -- where animals are given all the food they need, have access to good medical care, are sheltered from predators, and are able to reproduce and nurse offspring This is, like, the most charitable interpretation possible of the current state of farming for meat.
- jakear 5y ago
  Certainly large scale factory farms should be avoided at all costs. But animal husbandry is an ancient art that a good number of small family farms still practice. They're the ones I'm referring to here. Also note I'm specifically referring to egg/dairy production as opposed to meat production.
  - aflag 5y ago
    There are many ancient arts that got lost as time progresses. Not sure if we should fear changing our ways. I've drastically reduced my meat consumption in an effort to help with climate change. The end game for me is for, some time in future, meat consumption to be seen as something old fashioned that no one does anymore. Like wearing a top hat. The only reason I'm not 100% vegan/vegetarian is because, since most people aren't, it restricts a lot the number of dishes you can eat. Specially when you go out in a restaurant. But, if more people would be vegetarians, I'm sure that would change.
  - aiiiiiiiiiiit 5y ago
    > This is, like, the most charitable interpretation possible of the current state of farming for meat. It is charitable to call it charitable. Almost all meat, eggs, and dairy comes from factory farming. The small farms that people like to tell themselves they eat from are a literal rounding error [0]. You only get that if you go to the actual small farm itself or eat out at a very expensive restaurant. - If you buy a meat sandwich from the corner store...factory farming - If you buy a burrito from a restaurant...factory farming - If you buy eggs and cheese at a diner...factory farming - If you buy milk from the grocery store...factory farming You can tell yourself you only buy from small farms, but there is a 99% chance [0] you are eating factory farmed animal products. Sorry to break it to you. [0] https://thehumaneleague.org/article/what-is-factory-farming https://thehumaneleague.org/article/what-is-factory-farming
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    You don't get to do that in a discussion, just act like the main thing being lost would be only the nicest thing on your 'side'.
neilparikh 5y ago
> animals scrapping it out against the brutality of raw, unfiltered, natural selection Farm animals are bred by humans, not taken from the wild, so you wouldn't be introducing any new animals to the wild, to "deal with brutality". You'd simply not bred new animals to live in farms. Also, I think even small family farms practice male chick culling, so it's not really a great status quo.
- jakear 5y ago
  Right, instead of a large biomass of generally happy “farmed” animals you have a small biomass of incredibly stressed “natural” animals. It’s not obvious to me that that’s as clear of a win as vegans would have me believe.
badRNG 5y ago
Industrialized farming is worlds different from these idealistic "small family subsistence farms." The hypothetical world in which one might be able to raise animals ethically as a food source isn't the same one that can have massive businesses turning a profit from supplying animal meat to millions of people. I don't think a business could survive in a market economy while treating their animals humanely. The cost would simply be unimaginable. Most people who oppose the torture of animals and are sufficiently educated with how industrialized farming works face either discomfort and cognitive dissonance to some degree, or feel inclined to make a change (whatever that may look like.) As far as the difference between living in the wild and living in industrialized farms, I think allowing animals to live in the wild is vastly more ethical than the misery that awaits them on factory farms. Of course, the current generation of livestock should never be returned to the wild. The "end game" would be the cessation of breeding of these animals.
- jakear 5y ago
  > I don't think a business could survive in a market economy while treating their animals humanely. The cost would simply be unimaginable. It'd be quite easy to survive if there were enough people who cared about the well-being of animals and experienced sufficient economic stability to make consumption choices that don't necessarily maximize calories/dollar. Unfortunately those people tend to eschew animal product consumption all together, resulting in your (correct) analysis that the number of animals living in misery on factory farms is dramatically overtaking the number living at harmony on family farms. I don't buy from factory farms, but any time I go to a local store or farmers market and see a good local cheese, I buy it. I've visited many of the farms personally and have never seen a situation where it didn't look like the animals were living their best life. To shut those farms down, kill off their bloodlines, and replace them with... a way smaller number of slightly different looking ruminants spending their whole existence feeling (rightfully) frightened for their life upon any external stimulus? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And that's the "ideal" case, in reality it's far more likely that the farm will be bought up by some big commercial entity willing to cut more corners than that the good fertile accessible land will simply be yielded to the wild. [1] [1] "as average farm size has increased, the number of individual farms in the United States has decreased." https://www.statista.com/statistics/196106/average-size-of-farms-in-the-us-since-2000/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/196106/average-size-of-f...