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My feeling is not that killing is morally justified by their lack of intelligence, but that there is no purely ethical choice in food besides starving to death.

by kaikai 3y ago

My feeling is not that killing is morally justified by their lack of intelligence, but that there is no purely ethical choice in food besides starving to death. Even veganism necessitates environmental destruction, exploited labor, and other externalities under industrial farming. Anyone that’s harvested a grain field knows that a vegetarian diet is not free from costing animal lives just because it doesn’t include animal protein. I give my animals the best life and the best death that I can. I hugely value getting significant calories from the sun to my mouth, without environmental destruction /global shipping/slavery/preservatives/etc.

kaikai 3y ago
Adding just so it’s explicit: modern factory farming is morally abhorrent. Yes, the abuses are well-documented and disgusting, and there is no argument in my mind that can ever justify that level of treatment for any conscious being.
archon1410 3y ago
That there are deaths during crop harvesting does not mean that one should then feed those crops to other animals and then kill them for flesh too—instead of growing and eating something human edible. The vast majority of animals killed for their flesh are fed grains and various other harvested crops. I of course don't know what you specifically are doing—but if it somehow does result in lesser suffering, it is remotely not the norm.
- kaikai 3y ago
  Your original point was that breeding animals and shooting them was incredibly depraved behavior that should make anyone with a conscience sick. I don’t agree- I think there are ways that raising animals for meat can be an ethical choice. I offered up my own experience of living closely with my animals, relating to them with respect while still using them for meat and fiber. We are in agreement on the horrors of modern industrial farming. I’m not making any kind of argument in support of factory farming, because I DO find it morally abhorrent. I hoped by sharing my own experience with my animals, I could add some nuance to the conversation. I now see that that’s unlikely.
  - block_dagger 3y ago
    Overall getting protein from meat is something like 10x less efficient resource-wise so if you pull back and look at the numbers, it's better to eat plants. One can think of meat eaters as greedily using 10x what they need in a world where resources are scarce.
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      Note that this is only true for modern agricultural practices. The norm for much of human history was to graze cows and sheep on grass, which humans can't consume at all, and which has evolved in concert with grazing animals. Pigs would often be fed on leftovers and also plenty of non-edible foodstuffs. Chicken were more of an exception, but then again their eggs were eaten much more often than sacrificing the chicken itself. There is nothing preventing us from going back to more traditional agricultural practices in this area, just as we need to do for most crop harvests to avoid depleting the soils everywhere. Of course, this will require meat to become more expensive, seasonal, and a less common food overall. But there is no reason a 0-emission world would require the whole humam population to be vegan.
      - theultdev 3y ago
        This is still the norm. They graze in pastures or free range (small and large ranches) even in places like Nevada and Arizona. They are then shipped to the large processing cages you see several days before and are fed large sums of grain.
        maccard 3y ago
        That's just not true, at scale. I did some googling and all signs point to single percentage points of beef being handled that way. That's US beef, you think the last 20 years of Argentinian beef has coexisted with the Amazon?
      - 867-5309 3y ago
        >grass, which humans can't consume at all wheat, rice, maize (corn), barley and millet are all grasses

by kaikai 3y ago

kaikai 3y ago

Adding just so it’s explicit: modern factory farming is morally abhorrent. Yes, the abuses are well-documented and disgusting, and there is no argument in my mind that can ever justify that level of treatment for any conscious being.

archon1410 3y ago

That there are deaths during crop harvesting does not mean that one should then feed those crops to other animals and then kill them for flesh too—instead of growing and eating something human edible. The vast majority of animals killed for their flesh are fed grains and various other harvested crops. I of course don't know what you specifically are doing—but if it somehow does result in lesser suffering, it is remotely not the norm.

kaikai 3y ago
Your original point was that breeding animals and shooting them was incredibly depraved behavior that should make anyone with a conscience sick. I don’t agree- I think there are ways that raising animals for meat can be an ethical choice. I offered up my own experience of living closely with my animals, relating to them with respect while still using them for meat and fiber. We are in agreement on the horrors of modern industrial farming. I’m not making any kind of argument in support of factory farming, because I DO find it morally abhorrent. I hoped by sharing my own experience with my animals, I could add some nuance to the conversation. I now see that that’s unlikely.
- block_dagger 3y ago
  Overall getting protein from meat is something like 10x less efficient resource-wise so if you pull back and look at the numbers, it's better to eat plants. One can think of meat eaters as greedily using 10x what they need in a world where resources are scarce.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    Note that this is only true for modern agricultural practices. The norm for much of human history was to graze cows and sheep on grass, which humans can't consume at all, and which has evolved in concert with grazing animals. Pigs would often be fed on leftovers and also plenty of non-edible foodstuffs. Chicken were more of an exception, but then again their eggs were eaten much more often than sacrificing the chicken itself. There is nothing preventing us from going back to more traditional agricultural practices in this area, just as we need to do for most crop harvests to avoid depleting the soils everywhere. Of course, this will require meat to become more expensive, seasonal, and a less common food overall. But there is no reason a 0-emission world would require the whole humam population to be vegan.
    - theultdev 3y ago
      This is still the norm. They graze in pastures or free range (small and large ranches) even in places like Nevada and Arizona. They are then shipped to the large processing cages you see several days before and are fed large sums of grain.
      - maccard 3y ago
        That's just not true, at scale. I did some googling and all signs point to single percentage points of beef being handled that way. That's US beef, you think the last 20 years of Argentinian beef has coexisted with the Amazon?
    - 867-5309 3y ago
      >grass, which humans can't consume at all wheat, rice, maize (corn), barley and millet are all grasses