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A 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.
by Azek 5y ago
A 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...
- laumars 5y agoI’m not a vegetarian and I still really hate that “if I wasn’t farmed I wouldn’t exist at all” argument because it’s really just an excuse to be shitty to other life forms. The fact is if you didn’t exist then you wouldn’t care either way, so it’s a moot argument. The fact that you do exist changes that, not excuses it. Or in other words: we are not doing other species a favour by eating them. It’s also worth noting that many of the species we far isn’t the natural evolution of that animal. They’ve been bread to be fatter, or more docile etc. Many of the species suffer from health issues due to breeding that their natural cousins do not. The reason a lot of these animals seem suited to farming is because man has bread them that way. This isn’t doing these animals a favour either. It’s purely for man’s own benefit.
- janto 5y agoIf farming result in the existence of happy animals then the process definitely favors them. If it results in their unhappy existence then it does not favor them. The argument around doing them the favor of providing them existence relies on them having a nice life, until the day we eat them. It sounds like you are opposed to them coming into existence because it means they exist in existential agony. Also that physical agony is a near certainty, by your last paragraph. But that does not seem to be the core of your objection.
- cjonas 5y agoWhen done responsibly, it's pretty clear ranch cattle are in the same or less physical agony as their counter parts. Where I live, it's not uncommon to see wild elk, antelope and sometimes even bison grazing alongside cattle. The wild ones must fend off predators and often starve during the winters. Cattle do not. The same cannot be said for industrial scale ranching. In fact, I think the production of dairy is typically far more more inhumane than that of beef.
- laumars 5y ago> It sounds like you are opposed to them coming into existence because it means they exist in existential agony. No, I’m opposed to stupid arguments where you justify being a carnivore because you’re somehow doing these creatures a favour by farming them. You’re not. If you’re going to eat meat, and I have zero issues with being a carnivore, then you have to reconcile the fact that what you’re doing is immoral for the animals but you’re doing it for your own personal survival. At least call a spade a spade rather than creating these stupid mental paradoxes where you’re the hero for breeding docile animals and then cooking their flesh. It’s all about taking responsibility for your actions and respecting the consequences they have.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago>a more equal comparison would be an adolescence to mature human... So 12-18 years? Food, shelter & protection provided? Blissfully unaware of my predetermined fate? So basically the plot of the Never Let Me Go. Except you can't really get the blissfully unaware of my predetermined fate thing if the organisms are intelligent.
- Viliam1234 5y agoAlso similar to The Promised Neverland.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ornornor 5y agoIf they were never born, is that really so bad?
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y agoDo they actually live 25 years in the wild on average? My understanding was that wild animals have dramatically shorter lives than the same animals in captivity, as a general rule. The exact difference varies from species to species but typically the lifespan would be around half.
- marliechiller 5y agosource of that general rule?
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y agohttps://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/286147 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/286147 The general rule was my own synthesis from what little I know of this subject. This study is one of the main sources I used to drive my current understanding. You can also try this search term: "do wild animals die of old age?"
- sweetheart 5y agoWhether a wolf would kill a cow before its 25 years old doesn’t affect our moral duty to not kill animals unnecessarily and prematurely.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y agoPerhaps not under your preferred moral system. But yours is not the only moral system. It should be obvious that there are plenty of moral systems where counterfactuals do indeed affect the morality of actions (e.g. any utilitarian system or compound system with a utilitarian component).
- sweetheart 5y agoWhat moral belief system posits that it is moral to do something simply because someone else would do it? Does anyone actual subscribe to such a belief? Do you?
- parkingrift 5y agoIt’s not an issue to the animals. They aren’t made aware of their impending death and made to ponder what more of a life they could have lived. From their perspective they are alive and then suddenly, not.
- Azek 5y agoI wish I could still believe that. If you have the time and stomach I'd recommend search up slaughterhouse footage. I'll let you judge for yourself what they're feeling in those moment.