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Some people want to minimize animal suffering.
by sqeaky 2y ago
Some people want to minimize animal suffering.
- brokensegue 2y agoOr help the environment
- nytesky 2y agoFrom Guns, Germs, and Steel, my impression is that cows as a species will go extinct if not domesticated. I am all for grass fed free ranging happy cows, of course, and I personally don’t eat red meat. But I don’t know where on the scale of animal suffering it all falls.
- excalibur 2y agoI don't think we're in any danger of reducing our livestock levels to the point where cows become an endangered species, nuclear Armageddon notwithstanding.
- PretzelPirate 2y ago> my impression is that cows as a species will go extinct if not domesticated. Is that bad? Cows aren't necessary for the food chain and them not existing won't do anything to harm the environment, it will do the exact opposite. The "cow species" isn't a sentient being who cares whether or not it exists, so if we can reduce the suffering of individual cows who are already here and the outcome is that domesticated cows go extinct, I don't see that as being bad. It is bad for the dairy farmer, but it's worse for the individual cows and the environment if we keep things the way they are. Even free-range cows are sent to get fattened up on corn that they can't properly digest before they're slaughtered. Despite what Temple Grandin tried to do, cows are still very stressed and scared before they're slaughtered, and the slaughter process is optimized for speed, so the bolt gun doesn't always stun the cow before they're bled out. I think it would be hard to look at what we do to end a cow's life at just a fraction of it's natural length and think that it's better than allowing domestic cows to go extinct.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- gweinberg 2y agoIf we wanted to, we could turn domestic cows back into something like aurochs with selective breeding.
- EricE 2y agoAnd Bill Gates loves to make lots of money. If he can pretend he's also saving the planet and ending animal suffering that's just a double bonus. BTW - I have friends who own diaries - they treat their cows way better than our government treats our veterans.