5 ms·

I’m surprised too. But I suspect it’s more because it’s a very inconvenient truth: what about factory farms, the suffering we make billions of animals go throug

I’m surprised too. But I suspect it’s more because it’s a very inconvenient truth: what about factory farms, the suffering we make billions of animals go through so we can eat them cheaply, and having to change our habits to accommodate this reality? It’s way easier and socially accepted to ignore this entirely and assume animals are dumb so it’s ok to keep doing what we do to them.

threeseed 3y ago
9 million people die every year from hunger. Humanity will do just fine ignoring the suffering of animals however smart they are.
- frakrx 3y ago
  Less meat consumption should lead to more production and decrease in price of of other types food. Also despite all the suffering in the world people still care very much about the wellbeign of dogs and cats. If anything with inflation and more and more wars around the globe the world needs cheaper food now more than ever.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > the world needs cheaper food now more than ever. We are getting there. The price of food has crashed pretty hard over the last couple of years, and we're already back to 2019 levels, with little sign of that trend stopping. Barring some major shift, food will be cheaper than ever by next year. It may not actually be cheaper food that you need, but rather cheaper retail workers. While food has crashed, the price of food in the grocery store still seems to be climbing.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    The inputs into meat today are things like soy and feed corn, which aren't particularly good for people. It's not quite as easy as just not eating meat. Many of the farms need to switch to other crops that are healthy which requires different machines, more labor, or other factors. You probably aren't going to see too much drop in other food prices since much of the cost of foods (especially corn and soy related) is in the processing and distribution, not in the actual growing. Then you need to convince people they want to eat whatever the new product is. You could give people something made from scraps similar to dog food, but that's not going to go over well for a bunch of reasons.
- ornornor 3y ago
  And westerners throw away an obscene amount of edible food on a daily basis. I don’t see how being more compassionate and opting out of participating in animal suffering will make people who don’t have enough to eat have more to eat.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    Lower grain price?
    - ornornor 3y ago
      This makes no sense. Animals eat grain. We eat the animal. Animal has to eat 10x the calories in grain for 1x the calories to whoever eats the animal. VS 1x the calories in grain if you skip eating the animal in between.
- nine_k 3y ago
  Meat, especially beef, is an utterly inefficient way to produce food. People die from hunger not because the world is not producing enough food, and even not because the world is not trying to feed people in distress. It happens mostly because local politicians or warlords tend to steal or grab the humanitarian aid, or straight out not let it in, in order to preserve their power structures, and themselves on top. They don't mind killing some compatriots for that, with guns, or with hunger, no matter.
  - assimpleaspossi 3y ago
    I think the real problem is there are too many people.
    - p-e-w 3y ago
      The elephant in the room that any discussion about social issues will bend over backwards to avoid mentioning. Climate change, ecocide, many if not most international conflicts, the housing crisis, fossil fuel consumption, and countless other issues are simply proportional to the number of humans on the planet. Yet directly addressing that fundamental problem is almost always the very last thing proposed, or even talked about.
      - yvely 3y ago
        This is a common sentiment, but I have yet to hear any reasonable proposal for solutions. It certainly is talked about a lot in my experience. It is so easy to complain about overpopulation. But how would you solve it? 1 child policy? Didn't work out great in China. Some can have children, others can't? Doesn't exactly seem right. Culling? Yeah, no-one wants genocide. It's a very complex problem and people are very fast to complain about it, without thinking much about what actually to do.
        nine_k 3y ago
        It worked so well in China that they have a birth rate well below replacement level 20 or so years after the one-child policy was repealed.
- johnnyworker 3y ago
  In this day and age, people aren't still starving because the animals and plants don't give up their nutrients easily enough, but because humans trample and prey on humans at worst, or neglect their suffering at best. And empathy is empathy, I doubt you can outright ignore the suffering of animals while having a whole lot for the suffering of humans.
- dfgfek 3y ago
  How smart were those 9 million people? Given that most of them live in zones where they couldn't apply even the simplest agriculture techniques, I would say not much.
  - jhanschoo 3y ago
    What is your argument here relating to the original argument?
- BeFlatXIII 3y ago
  Those 9 million can be properly nourished on a plant-based diet.
junofan 3y ago
The broader context is a lot of the Western philosophy we rely on today formed around the same time we started building intricate machines, and those thinkers also wondered whether animals were just really intricate machines. Nothing nefarious. It’s probably fine if we express more gratitude towards these animals like we used to.

threeseed 3y ago

9 million people die every year from hunger. Humanity will do just fine ignoring the suffering of animals however smart they are.

frakrx 3y ago
Less meat consumption should lead to more production and decrease in price of of other types food. Also despite all the suffering in the world people still care very much about the wellbeign of dogs and cats. If anything with inflation and more and more wars around the globe the world needs cheaper food now more than ever.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > the world needs cheaper food now more than ever. We are getting there. The price of food has crashed pretty hard over the last couple of years, and we're already back to 2019 levels, with little sign of that trend stopping. Barring some major shift, food will be cheaper than ever by next year. It may not actually be cheaper food that you need, but rather cheaper retail workers. While food has crashed, the price of food in the grocery store still seems to be climbing.
- giantg2 3y ago
  The inputs into meat today are things like soy and feed corn, which aren't particularly good for people. It's not quite as easy as just not eating meat. Many of the farms need to switch to other crops that are healthy which requires different machines, more labor, or other factors. You probably aren't going to see too much drop in other food prices since much of the cost of foods (especially corn and soy related) is in the processing and distribution, not in the actual growing. Then you need to convince people they want to eat whatever the new product is. You could give people something made from scraps similar to dog food, but that's not going to go over well for a bunch of reasons.
ornornor 3y ago
And westerners throw away an obscene amount of edible food on a daily basis. I don’t see how being more compassionate and opting out of participating in animal suffering will make people who don’t have enough to eat have more to eat.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Lower grain price?
  - ornornor 3y ago
    This makes no sense. Animals eat grain. We eat the animal. Animal has to eat 10x the calories in grain for 1x the calories to whoever eats the animal. VS 1x the calories in grain if you skip eating the animal in between.
nine_k 3y ago
Meat, especially beef, is an utterly inefficient way to produce food. People die from hunger not because the world is not producing enough food, and even not because the world is not trying to feed people in distress. It happens mostly because local politicians or warlords tend to steal or grab the humanitarian aid, or straight out not let it in, in order to preserve their power structures, and themselves on top. They don't mind killing some compatriots for that, with guns, or with hunger, no matter.
- assimpleaspossi 3y ago
  I think the real problem is there are too many people.
  - p-e-w 3y ago
    The elephant in the room that any discussion about social issues will bend over backwards to avoid mentioning. Climate change, ecocide, many if not most international conflicts, the housing crisis, fossil fuel consumption, and countless other issues are simply proportional to the number of humans on the planet. Yet directly addressing that fundamental problem is almost always the very last thing proposed, or even talked about.
    - yvely 3y ago
      This is a common sentiment, but I have yet to hear any reasonable proposal for solutions. It certainly is talked about a lot in my experience. It is so easy to complain about overpopulation. But how would you solve it? 1 child policy? Didn't work out great in China. Some can have children, others can't? Doesn't exactly seem right. Culling? Yeah, no-one wants genocide. It's a very complex problem and people are very fast to complain about it, without thinking much about what actually to do.
      - nine_k 3y ago
        It worked so well in China that they have a birth rate well below replacement level 20 or so years after the one-child policy was repealed.
johnnyworker 3y ago
In this day and age, people aren't still starving because the animals and plants don't give up their nutrients easily enough, but because humans trample and prey on humans at worst, or neglect their suffering at best. And empathy is empathy, I doubt you can outright ignore the suffering of animals while having a whole lot for the suffering of humans.
dfgfek 3y ago
How smart were those 9 million people? Given that most of them live in zones where they couldn't apply even the simplest agriculture techniques, I would say not much.
- jhanschoo 3y ago
  What is your argument here relating to the original argument?
BeFlatXIII 3y ago
Those 9 million can be properly nourished on a plant-based diet.

junofan 3y ago

The broader context is a lot of the Western philosophy we rely on today formed around the same time we started building intricate machines, and those thinkers also wondered whether animals were just really intricate machines. Nothing nefarious. It’s probably fine if we express more gratitude towards these animals like we used to.