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To me the most important questions are, does living a farm style life cause them undue distress and harm, and will they realize they are on a farm instead of ju
by AngryData 5y ago
To me the most important questions are, does living a farm style life cause them undue distress and harm, and will they realize they are on a farm instead of just some weird octopus community.
For example, the cows I own I can keep on my land and they are perfectly content to munch grass around the different pastures throughout the year as they are rotated, and have free clean shelter in the barn and free hay in the winter. The only thing containing them is a thin strand of wire which they can (and have) easily walked through at any point in time without even trying, usually to reach an especially tall clump of weeds on the other side. For most of their life they are under basically zero stress due to protections from the environment and predators and have no desire to leave or look for more. They don't feel trapped and keeping them contained is more of a suggestion that they don't wander off and get lost. While at the end it sucks they will be distressed when loaded up in a trailer and taken down the road to the slaughterhouse, but they aren't thinking "Oh my god they are going to kill and eat me!",they are just bewildered by the wild experience of being driven down a road in a trailer, then let out in a new place with maybe some other cows around, and are instantly KOed when they are to be slaughtered.
I would have very different feelings about it if they lived in shitty life trapped in a little cage always hoping and trying to find a way out, feared humans as they came around stealing their friends away from them at random times assuming they were being eaten. And I do feel that way about, and don't buy, a lot of factory meat for the contained caged lives they experience when there are known better, healthier, more sustainable, and more ethical ways of caring for farm animals that goes back thousands of years.
- gfody 5y agocan you really compare cows to octopuses? are there even wild cows?
- AngryData 5y agoThe wild ancestor of cows is extinct, so technically they would all be feral cows, but there are places where feral cows have ran around for a few generations alone that you might consider wild. However their extensive past breeding still brings into question their actual intelligence and cognitive abilities compared to their wild ancestor, most animals inadvertently are bred to be significantly dumber during domestication because they are the easiest to handle and control.
- ajsnigrutin 5y agothere are wild goats, and the goats on a farm live pretty much the same life as cows do.
- mtoohig 5y agoWhere I am in Vanuatu in the south Pacific we have wild cows in the bush. Originally, these cows would have been domestic but escaped and they raise their young in the bush and now people hunt wild cows. Cows are usually kept by a rope around their neck tied to a tree and every couple days move the cow to a new area to let them access fresh vegetation. There are also some big plantations for coconuts and these usually have cows which if they break a fence will allow many to escape into the bush and hills. People here use a dozen or so dogs to sniff out wild animals in the bush and chase them down until they tire enough for the hunters to catch up and spear the animal. These hunting parties can take days of hanging out and following the dogs or just one if lucky. Then carrying home giant cuts of meat is the hard part which often requires the hunting party to leave a lot of fresh meat behind.
- leobg 5y agoI didn’t know Vanuatu was actually that big. It looks like just that thin strip of land on the map. BTW, I just find it fascinating to be talking to someone from Vanuatu here. HN rocks.
- cheese_goddess 5y agoI think the gaur is a legitimately "wild cow" (wild bovine anyway): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaur I don't think it's a feral breed, coming from once domesticated animals, but I may be wrong.
- adamweld 5y agoOctos aren't social creatures.
- fouc 5y agoIt varies, several species have been found to be social.
- Azek 5y agoHow long do your cows live before they are sent to slaughter?
- rtkaratekid 5y agoI’ve heard this called the “one bad day” approach. The animals have a good life with only one bad day. In my opinion it’s probably the most ethical way to keep animals if the intent is to slaughter them at some point.
- Azek 5y agoA non-obvious issue here is that often these animals are sent to slaughter around 12-24 months when they can live happily up to 25 years.
- cjonas 5y agowithout farming they cease to exist at all...
- puchatek 5y agoSo 0 bad days.
- xyzzy_plugh 5y agoNaN bad days.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tommoor 5y agoOne way to think about it – Imagine a superior alien civilization farming humans and killing them for food at 12-24 months. Does that feel acceptable?
- cjonas 5y agoa more equal comparison would be an adolescence to mature human... So 12-18 years? Food, shelter & protection provided? Blissfully unaware of my predetermined fate? And if they don't eat me, I never exist in the first place? I'd opt to be eaten. Just seems like the aliens would be better off eating cows...
- dnhz 5y agoEven still, your cows live a fraction of their natural lifespans. A few years as opposed to 10+
- philipswood 5y agoI know you mean lifespan if left to die of natural causes, but To be honest the “natural lifespan” of a cow is 0 years and the average life of a cow is a picnic compared to the hardships faced by a comparable natural animal in the wild. Edit: clarified distinction in understood meaning.
- ilrwbwrkhv 5y agoWe will look back with astonishment at the sheer madness of killing animals and eating them.
- tengbretson 5y agoDoesn't it make you want to go back in time to the moment that humans invented the concept of eating animal flesh and putting a stop to it?
- jiggunjer 5y agoNo. Because our brains would never have evolved to their current state without meat, and the early animal meat was probably scavenged not hunted. At least wait until agriculture developed to start the ethical debate.
- cjonas 5y agoHumans didn't "invent" the concept of eating other animals. We evolved to do so, just like all the other carnivores & omnivores
- adrian_b 5y agoAs another poster has already said, becoming predators was an absolutely necessary stage for humans to become as intelligent as they are now, so we cannot regret it or wish that it has not happened. Even many of the people who abhor the most to see the death of other animals cannot abstain to admire the beauty of the actions of top predators like tigers/jaguars or octopuses. Nevertheless, now we are approaching quickly the moment when killing other animals in order to use their body for food or for producing various useful substances is no longer needed, so we should stop this as soon as it becomes possible. Unfortunately we still need some technological developments for this to become feasible everywhere. I would like to be completely vegan, but for now there still exist 2 food ingredients of animal origin that I consume, because any equivalent vegan alternatives for them are much more expensive than I can afford. However, the bulk of the food, which provides most of the energy, can already be restricted to non-animal origins, for everyone, everywhere.
- 5y ago
- codeisawesome 5y agoIs it really ‘free clean shelter’ and ‘free hay’ if, in exchange, their flesh is being harvested at some point? I applaud your efforts for humane animal consumption and I’m shamefully nowhere near your commitment. But I just took issue with the small problem in the mental model.
- cgriswald 5y ago"Free clean shelter and hay" are the mental model of the cow.
- fmakunbound 5y agoDoes that work for, for example, veal or lamb?
- puchatek 5y agoDon't they mind having their kids taken away from them though?
- TaylorAlexander 5y agoThat is one of the saddest parts, and one that a lot of people ignore.
- ornornor 5y ago> does living a farm style life cause them undue distress and harm, and will they realize they are on a farm instead of just some weird octopus community. Why even take the chance then, other than to show greed and a lack of empathy?
- machiaweliczny 5y agoOnce head transplant works we will have this dilemma for human clones as shown in “Island” movie.