Depends on the meat. Grass fed beef tends to be treated well as animals are outside eating their natural diet, etc. Huge difference to a feedlot. Saying that the conditions in a feedlot are universal is inaccurate and completely guts your "indisputable facts"

I'm looking around for where I mentioned universality. "in large quantities" is the only vaguely similar term I used, which could still be 0.01% of agricultural practice and qualify as a "large" number of animals. Not that it is 0.01% of course: I live in Ireland where our beef is pretty much universally grass fed, and relatively well treated, but even here the same cannot be said of other meat production (chicken and pork really ain't great), and this is a tiny country, not producing on anywhere near the scale of many outside of Europe where standards are far worse.

I'm all for more advocacy for those involved in meat production who are adhering to a stricter standard of quality and ethics, but there mere existence doesn't negate the overall dreadful impact of the meat industry as a whole on animal welfare.

The only subjective aspect is whether you believe that's a worthy trade-off, but you can't argue that it isn't happening.

> but it is very much a fact that the meat industry does subject animals to intense suffering

>My statement is indisputably factual, the only subjective element is whether you believe that system is justifiable.

That sure sounds to me like it's universal. Which is why I responded the way I did. I'm not arguing that's everything is totally good. But your statement reads as everything is universally bad. Which isn't factually correct, as you've admitted.

Ultimately yes there's a lot of bad stuff going on in the system. But if you only buy animals that were humanely treated it's pretty easy to sleep at night.