There’s a massive difference between industry-scale production and free-range, small-scale production. The former can never be ethical, by definition. The latter: absolutely can. It requires humans to cut down on animal products consumption drastically, so campaigning and education is necessary, but equating ALL non-veganism with animal cruelty does more harm than good to that goal.
what in your mind makes it ethical to do the things to a chicken that would not be ethical to do to a human? you can’t just say “it’s ethical;” that is the entire debate.
“The animals we bred to be genetic freaks are so deformed they will no longer survive in the wild so we should continue breeding the genetic freaks.” Amen brother.
I mean I’m not super opposed to non-factory farms but, just as 2 examples, chickens for meat grow so quickly that they can barely stand and their hearts literally can’t keep up and they end up extremely sick and often just dying of heart attacks. Egg laying chickens are bred to essentially be constantly ovulating, which can’t be great for their health or well-being, but this one’s harder to say.
I agree with you about that it is horrific. No animal should suffer that. And I do see that the machine is incentivizing this through merciless efficiency.
But just because it is incentivized doesn’t mean a farmer has to be ruled by the machine. They don’t have to be ruled by efficiency. They can choose to care for their animals instead of disregarding their gleedity.
This necessarily means there will be much less meat, but the meat that is produced will come from animals that has had a good life, instead of being tortured throughout their life.
I’m just saying those are the breeds we have now, and we would basically have to selectively breed less productive animals, which I don’t see happening any time soon.
The goal should be no breeding at all. I don’t have a perfect solution, but bringing millions more into factory farming while “tapering it down” causes as a whole far more suffering. I don’t see an animal dying of an infection and say “well killing is wrong so have fun writhing in agony until you die, adios!”
I mean I don’t think they would even disagree with that, they were just saying it is still exploitative to kill something or take eggs from something that does not want that to happen, as it would be for a human. Their contention was that while having small scale farms would be practically more moral, that doesn’t make it moral.
um… if 2 humans wanted to bring a child into existance that would suffer its whole life and then die of a heart attack into the world I would also say that’s immoral. An animal having low social awareness or being mentally disabled is not the same as ovulating 3 times a day every day for their entire life, or having a heart attack by 6 months old.
if 2 humans wanted to bring a child into existance that would suffer its whole life and then die of a heart attack into the world I would also say that’s immoral.
So what would you want to do if they kept making such children? Imprison them? Forcefully sterilize them? Would you like the political system of your society to have the authority to decide what “suffering your entire life” is?
I mean I might, same as I would if they took a homeless person and caused them to suffer their whole life, that’s legitimately evil behavior. We may not have an exact definition of “suffering your entire life,” but whatever factory farmed chickens are experiencing is certainly it. This is like saying “we can’t define exactly what constitutes abuse so what are you going to do, have society decide an arbitrary line?” Yes, and that is what we do.
Free range, small-scale “production” (disgusting word to use in this context imho) - why would this be any less exploitative than what animal AG is doing in the billions? Sure, the animal is treated better, which is good in a vacuum, but the animal still can neither consent nor object to being exploited. At best, it’s a chicken laying eggs for reproduction or for its own sustenance and is robbed of these, at worst it’s a cow that’s being force-impregnated to give milk, to sustain its calves which it can’t, or it’s killed for meat. The end result is, whatever way you wanna spin it, a dead or exploited animal.
All these hypotheticals of people having “small-scale productions” or, for some reason not being part of the larger issue at hand just because they raise their own animals, is ultimately just cope to justify cruelty and exploitation. Accept that fact and move on, but at least be aware of what you’re doing, or change something about your perspective.
Veganism explicitly mentions to reduce the exploitation of animals in all facets of life, more or less. If you’re dependent on animal products because you’re living isolated and have no access to other nourishment - sure. I doubt the average Lemmy user is in such a predicament, however. Thus, it’s absolutely within the realm of reason to assume that living as a vegan is possible and should be strived towards - especially if you’re a self-proclaimed leftist.
Ah, I misunderstood your intentions. I thought you were against the extermination of all farm animals, who have no way of surviving outside of, you know, farms.
Apply this logic to human slaves producing transplant organs. If we didn’t create them, then they’d never exist; so we are actually doing them a favour by creating them and forcing them to serve us.
It’s just cope after cope after cope. I’ve been there. They are all trying to lead you away from the same place, but that’s the place you have to go if you want to be a person who does not commit cruelty and violence against vulnerable individuals.
Not so much “exterminating” but more so liberating. Get rid of farm animals but set them free to farms to just chill and live their lives. I’m not sure if this concept exists outside Germany, probably, but we have so-called “Lebenshofe” here - literally translated to “life farm” where former farm animals are rescued to and can find shelter and love. That’s the ideal 💚
to be fair, the person that responded to me isn’t the same that wrote the initial response I responded to (???) but I share your sentiment wholly
There’s a massive difference between industry-scale production and free-range, small-scale production. The former can never be ethical, by definition. The latter: absolutely can. It requires humans to cut down on animal products consumption drastically, so campaigning and education is necessary, but equating ALL non-veganism with animal cruelty does more harm than good to that goal.
what in your mind makes it ethical to do the things to a chicken that would not be ethical to do to a human? you can’t just say “it’s ethical;” that is the entire debate.
Ah, OK, I misunderstood you. I didn’t realise you’re a proponent of exterminating all the farm animals.
Because, if they’re not used on farms, they have no way of surviving in the wild. Not to mention there either not being “enough wild” for all of them.
“The animals we bred to be genetic freaks are so deformed they will no longer survive in the wild so we should continue breeding the genetic freaks.” Amen brother.
That only applies to industrail scale farming which Alaknar has taken distance away from in this thread.
I mean I’m not super opposed to non-factory farms but, just as 2 examples, chickens for meat grow so quickly that they can barely stand and their hearts literally can’t keep up and they end up extremely sick and often just dying of heart attacks. Egg laying chickens are bred to essentially be constantly ovulating, which can’t be great for their health or well-being, but this one’s harder to say.
I agree with you about that it is horrific. No animal should suffer that. And I do see that the machine is incentivizing this through merciless efficiency.
But just because it is incentivized doesn’t mean a farmer has to be ruled by the machine. They don’t have to be ruled by efficiency. They can choose to care for their animals instead of disregarding their gleedity.
This necessarily means there will be much less meat, but the meat that is produced will come from animals that has had a good life, instead of being tortured throughout their life.
I’m just saying those are the breeds we have now, and we would basically have to selectively breed less productive animals, which I don’t see happening any time soon.
Yeah, if only I didn’t specify cutting down on consumption which would drive a “wind down” of breeding…
But hey, good to know you’re so concerned about farm animal welfare that you want to kill them all.
The goal should be no breeding at all. I don’t have a perfect solution, but bringing millions more into factory farming while “tapering it down” causes as a whole far more suffering. I don’t see an animal dying of an infection and say “well killing is wrong so have fun writhing in agony until you die, adios!”
Which is why I’m talking about enforcing free-range farms where the animals can be happy.
It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s an achievable solution. Suddenly ending all farm animals is not.
I mean I don’t think they would even disagree with that, they were just saying it is still exploitative to kill something or take eggs from something that does not want that to happen, as it would be for a human. Their contention was that while having small scale farms would be practically more moral, that doesn’t make it moral.
holy ableism batman. If animals are people, then denying domesticated animals reproductive access because of their genetics is genocide.
um… if 2 humans wanted to bring a child into existance that would suffer its whole life and then die of a heart attack into the world I would also say that’s immoral. An animal having low social awareness or being mentally disabled is not the same as ovulating 3 times a day every day for their entire life, or having a heart attack by 6 months old.
So what would you want to do if they kept making such children? Imprison them? Forcefully sterilize them? Would you like the political system of your society to have the authority to decide what “suffering your entire life” is?
I mean I might, same as I would if they took a homeless person and caused them to suffer their whole life, that’s legitimately evil behavior. We may not have an exact definition of “suffering your entire life,” but whatever factory farmed chickens are experiencing is certainly it. This is like saying “we can’t define exactly what constitutes abuse so what are you going to do, have society decide an arbitrary line?” Yes, and that is what we do.
Free range, small-scale “production” (disgusting word to use in this context imho) - why would this be any less exploitative than what animal AG is doing in the billions? Sure, the animal is treated better, which is good in a vacuum, but the animal still can neither consent nor object to being exploited. At best, it’s a chicken laying eggs for reproduction or for its own sustenance and is robbed of these, at worst it’s a cow that’s being force-impregnated to give milk, to sustain its calves which it can’t, or it’s killed for meat. The end result is, whatever way you wanna spin it, a dead or exploited animal.
All these hypotheticals of people having “small-scale productions” or, for some reason not being part of the larger issue at hand just because they raise their own animals, is ultimately just cope to justify cruelty and exploitation. Accept that fact and move on, but at least be aware of what you’re doing, or change something about your perspective.
Veganism explicitly mentions to reduce the exploitation of animals in all facets of life, more or less. If you’re dependent on animal products because you’re living isolated and have no access to other nourishment - sure. I doubt the average Lemmy user is in such a predicament, however. Thus, it’s absolutely within the realm of reason to assume that living as a vegan is possible and should be strived towards - especially if you’re a self-proclaimed leftist.
Ah, I misunderstood your intentions. I thought you were against the extermination of all farm animals, who have no way of surviving outside of, you know, farms.
Apply this logic to human slaves producing transplant organs. If we didn’t create them, then they’d never exist; so we are actually doing them a favour by creating them and forcing them to serve us.
It’s just cope after cope after cope. I’ve been there. They are all trying to lead you away from the same place, but that’s the place you have to go if you want to be a person who does not commit cruelty and violence against vulnerable individuals.
Right. So, in this scenario, you have billions of humans that you’ll just kill and then say “it’s for their own good”?
Not so much “exterminating” but more so liberating. Get rid of farm animals but set them free to farms to just chill and live their lives. I’m not sure if this concept exists outside Germany, probably, but we have so-called “Lebenshofe” here - literally translated to “life farm” where former farm animals are rescued to and can find shelter and love. That’s the ideal 💚
Yeah, that’s exactly what I was talking about, mate.
Enforce free-range, but just don’t let the food they’re producing and not utilising go to waste.
No, that’s where you misunderstood me. Let them be animals and not products to be exploited
So, the cow milk and chicken eggs all just go to waste for a higher ideal?
Yes, that’s literally what I’ve been arguing with you about here for the past few days