4 ms·

As others have noted, it's not a pure byproduct and if you believe that the way we treat cattle is immoral, singling out one industrial scale consumer of animal

As others have noted, it's not a pure byproduct and if you believe that the way we treat cattle is immoral, singling out one industrial scale consumer of animal products in a web of interconnected and interdependent industries and saying changing them won't change the bigger picture is in isolation correct. But it misses the bigger picture, if you believe for ideological reasons, that there is no moral way to use animals at industrial scale - the same way that thinking of slavery as something negative is a subjective ideological stance, one that wasn't the mainstream opinion of many societies over time - dismantling the leather industry won't get you all the way there, but it's a step. To take a personal stance, I draw the arbitrary line at insects, I'm fine with farming plants and insects in some kind of harmony with nature, but not mammals or fish. Live on earth is a co-op, you don't win by being the last species standing.

card_zero 2y ago
Gazelles cooperate with leopards, you say?
- Voultapher 2y ago
  That's an old trope. I'm not talking about the individual level. But even in your example, if the Leopards hunt Gazelles and other Prey animals to extinction, there won't be any Leopards, inversely hunters play a crucial role in keeping populations of animals in a sustainable equilibrium. It's possible to read your comment as the old trope of, if other animals kill to live why can't we? Well I'd be surprised if you'd argue that one person killing another over a personal grievance is the same thing as committing genocide on purpose. Yes both involve the killing of humans, but there are some substantial qualitative differences. I purposefully talk about industrial scale animal use. It's something completely different for indigenous people to hunt and use animals. The latter I have no moral objections too.
  - card_zero 2y ago
    Quibbles: leopards don't deliberately refrain from hunting their prey to extinction, humans do deliberately refrain from eating the entire population of cows and pigs and sheep, and leopards aren't motivated a personal grievance against gazelles. (Man, that gazelle is such an ass! I'm gonna eat him.) Then there's the ethics bit, which goes like: * We should not say animals are "only animals" and use that as a reason to eat them, that would be unethical, * Furthermore, we should not hold them to the same ethical standards, and put the predators in prison and try to reform them. That would be ridiculous because they're only animals. But you don't seem to be saying that anyway, if subsistence hunters are OK. If the "industrial scale" is the main point, that looks like a solid argument - except why focus on animals? There's also tree plantations, mines, cities, and anything else that isn't sitting in the jungle doing craftwork.
    - h0l0cube 2y ago
      > If the "industrial scale" is the main point, that looks like a solid argument - except why focus on animals? There's also tree plantations, mines, cities, and anything else that isn't sitting in the jungle doing craftwork. I think the "factory farming" is the point. The manner of which animals are treated throughout their lifetime, and the manner in which they are dispatched, would make most people squirm. What's worse is that animals are shot and mostly just disposed of to keep crops from being eaten, and in many places it's illegal to sell meat from these or other wild caught animals. Often this is justified by a need to control disease or parasites, but more likely it's to protect the livestock industry. And of course, livestock will be crammed as close as possible to each other to 'increase productivity', and this poses a significant biohazard, as we've seen recently with the avian flu outbreak (and prior bird flu outbreaks, swine flu, mad cow disease etc. etc.) putting to question this justification of public health.
      - card_zero 2y ago
        Hmm. You know, if instead of proselytizing this was framed as a sort of luxury preference, like "I'm so fussy and squeamish that I don't want to even imagine animals suffering anywhere near anything I touch", I could endorse it. People having picky preferences and being upfront about it is kind of cool. Then it just turns into a battle between the reach of the imagination and the allure of bacon, and is entirely about what feels nicest. In fact a friend of mine is vegetarian in an even simpler way, "I'm not making any principled argument, I just don't really like meat". The biohazard angle is fairly persuasive too. Personally I'm fond of venison, and puzzled by the part about laws banning the consumption of hunted meat, since meat is expensive and then there are frequent deer culls which are apparently also expensive, and yet this doesn't often lead to me getting venison pies, it's frustrating.

card_zero 2y ago

Gazelles cooperate with leopards, you say?

Voultapher 2y ago
That's an old trope. I'm not talking about the individual level. But even in your example, if the Leopards hunt Gazelles and other Prey animals to extinction, there won't be any Leopards, inversely hunters play a crucial role in keeping populations of animals in a sustainable equilibrium. It's possible to read your comment as the old trope of, if other animals kill to live why can't we? Well I'd be surprised if you'd argue that one person killing another over a personal grievance is the same thing as committing genocide on purpose. Yes both involve the killing of humans, but there are some substantial qualitative differences. I purposefully talk about industrial scale animal use. It's something completely different for indigenous people to hunt and use animals. The latter I have no moral objections too.
- card_zero 2y ago
  Quibbles: leopards don't deliberately refrain from hunting their prey to extinction, humans do deliberately refrain from eating the entire population of cows and pigs and sheep, and leopards aren't motivated a personal grievance against gazelles. (Man, that gazelle is such an ass! I'm gonna eat him.) Then there's the ethics bit, which goes like: * We should not say animals are "only animals" and use that as a reason to eat them, that would be unethical, * Furthermore, we should not hold them to the same ethical standards, and put the predators in prison and try to reform them. That would be ridiculous because they're only animals. But you don't seem to be saying that anyway, if subsistence hunters are OK. If the "industrial scale" is the main point, that looks like a solid argument - except why focus on animals? There's also tree plantations, mines, cities, and anything else that isn't sitting in the jungle doing craftwork.
  - h0l0cube 2y ago
    > If the "industrial scale" is the main point, that looks like a solid argument - except why focus on animals? There's also tree plantations, mines, cities, and anything else that isn't sitting in the jungle doing craftwork. I think the "factory farming" is the point. The manner of which animals are treated throughout their lifetime, and the manner in which they are dispatched, would make most people squirm. What's worse is that animals are shot and mostly just disposed of to keep crops from being eaten, and in many places it's illegal to sell meat from these or other wild caught animals. Often this is justified by a need to control disease or parasites, but more likely it's to protect the livestock industry. And of course, livestock will be crammed as close as possible to each other to 'increase productivity', and this poses a significant biohazard, as we've seen recently with the avian flu outbreak (and prior bird flu outbreaks, swine flu, mad cow disease etc. etc.) putting to question this justification of public health.
    - card_zero 2y ago
      Hmm. You know, if instead of proselytizing this was framed as a sort of luxury preference, like "I'm so fussy and squeamish that I don't want to even imagine animals suffering anywhere near anything I touch", I could endorse it. People having picky preferences and being upfront about it is kind of cool. Then it just turns into a battle between the reach of the imagination and the allure of bacon, and is entirely about what feels nicest. In fact a friend of mine is vegetarian in an even simpler way, "I'm not making any principled argument, I just don't really like meat". The biohazard angle is fairly persuasive too. Personally I'm fond of venison, and puzzled by the part about laws banning the consumption of hunted meat, since meat is expensive and then there are frequent deer culls which are apparently also expensive, and yet this doesn't often lead to me getting venison pies, it's frustrating.