I'm the first one to admit that the line is fuzzy.

I read this story [1] by Glenn Greenwald (of Snowden interview fame), and I realized that I was not ok with gestation crates for pigs, or the practices espoused by the industrial farming of any animal.

I do not object to raising animals and eating them, but I do object to essentially keeping them in brutal, squalid conditions. Animals should have access to the outdoors, be allowed to pursue their own social connections, have enough space to stretch and exercise, have feed that's natural and high quality, and generally exist in a comfortable way.

Totally acknowledge that's my own definition. It's an arbitrary line in the sand to say, "Killing an animal is ok, causing suffering to an animal before killing it is not".

I just... read the article and couldn't stomach letting any of my money flow to companies that would think that sort of behavior was ok.

[1] https://theintercept.com/2017/10/05/factory-farms-fbi-missin...

I'm following pretty much the same definition with you. Compassion In World Farming [1] also campaigns (more or less) along these lines. So you're definitely not alone. CIWF also operates in the US, but the campaigning in Europe seems more extensive. It is shocking the amount of abuse the animals may go through just to save us pennies. E.g. I was shocked to read about live animal transport conditions [2], only to have them slaughtered in another country.

[1] https://www.ciwf.org.uk/our-campaigns/ [2] https://www.ciwf.org.uk/our-campaigns/live-animal-transport/

That theoretical distinction makes sense to me, but I don't see how it would be possible to support one kind of animal agriculture and not the other with purchasing habits. When most consumers don't distinguish provenance, demand for animal products is fungible.

What I did: stop purchasing meat from the supermarket. Stop eating meat at restaurants.

Find a local farmer and source a whole animal to split with your friends. Visit the farm, meet the farmer. A whole beef is a few thousand dollars, and splits nicely into 8ths. We spent, I believe, ~$6.50/lb for organic, grass fed beef.

It's more time and cost up front, but now we have a freezer full of meat to draw from when we need to. If I eat meat, it's from that one animal. We don't eat meat often at home.

Apropos of just shootin' the breeze, could you have also met the animal? I wonder if that would make a further difference. I eat meat, but I put my hand up and say that if I ordered a steak in a restaurant and they brought out the cow and gave me a rock, and I had to beat the cow to death with the rock myself, I think I'd change my order.

I'm not trying to make any points here; just freewheeling in conversation with what I know about myself.

Totally. Not every farmer will let you, but I definitely had the opportunity. (My farmer gave me the choice between three animals.)

I think the 'bashing it with a rock' is sort of the thing I'm trying to avoid. My farmer brings a USDA butcher to his site to kill the animal (the kills are done away from the pasture space). The offal is removed there. If you want the tongue, heart, liver, etc. you show up on slaughter day and cart them away.

The carcass was then taken to a local butcher shop, where it was processed into steaks, ground beef, roasts, etc. at my direction -- how thick did you want steaks, how big did you want roasts, etc.

Being involved in this way is surprisingly intimate -- seeing the animal, being on the farm the day of it's slaughter (though I did not witness the slaughter), and working with the butcher to define how it will be broken down taught me so much more about how my food is prepared than anything you'd get from the grocery store.

I've been following this thread and it's gotten me curious. I can't help but wonder - do you have some kind of personal connection to this farmer? How does one source a farmer, let alone one that is willing to let you meet the cow, be there on slaughter day, etc. These are all things that are foreign to most people.

No personal connection at all. I cold called around. My local farmers markets publish a guide of local farmers. [1]

I just put together a spreadsheet with all the farms within 50 miles and visited a few websites/made a few calls. Some farmers had already sold their beef for the season, others weren't grass fed, etc. Eventually I narrowed the candidate pool down to two or three and asked if I could come see their farms. One farmer said no, so I went with one of the others.

[1] http://www.pugetsoundfresh.org/

Just googling around, it seems that you can find quite a few farmers advertising such services.

For a more personal connection, I'd start at the local farmers' market.

> For a more personal connection, I'd start at the local farmers' market.

I agree. The farmer's market was my entryway. At ours, local ranchers are present and selling their meats. There is a huge wealth of knowledge about what exists in your area at a farmer's market. Not just for meat, but for everything.

That's really interesting, I'd read a blog post about the process.

I once took a survival course and during it I had to kill a rabbit with my bare hands, skin it, process the meat, cook it, and eat it. I definitely wanted to make sure the animal suffered as little as possible, but I was in no way deterred. Most people through human history have killed their own food from time to time. It's not really a big deal.

I've caught, killed, and eaten fish before. It was certainly an interesting experience and teaches you a lot about yourself and the world to experience killing the animal you're willing to eat. I haven't done it with any bird or mammal, but do want to some day; mostly to prove to myself I'm not a hypocrite for being willing to eat meat but not kill it.

Yep. I've killed several smaller animals and processed them, etc. Not a huge deal to me.

I've yet to kill or process a whole cow, though I've broken down primals/subprimals.

I'm not sure how I would do if it was an animal I had raised. If I'm a farmer or rancher with a few dozen or hundreds of heads of cattle, probably no different. If it was a single cow... I might have trouble.

Everyone is different, though. Even some people I know who eat plenty of meat can't stand to look at processed carcass.

I don't mean this as an insult, because I think I would be the same way. I think what you described is a very privileged position of someone who has likely never felt real hunger. I acknowledge I might have the same feelings you describe about raising a single animal for food. Particularly for species that are more emotive. But that's because I too have a historically unfathomable variety of options and privilege.

> I think what you described is a very privileged position of someone who has likely never felt real hunger.

I think that's an excellent point. I suspect that nearly everyone, if faced with actual starvation, would be able to kill their own food.

Not to you. But to some. You're not everyone, and everyone else isn't you.

> and they brought out the cow and gave me a rock, and I had to beat the cow to death with the rock myself, I think I'd change my order.

So would I, but maybe for different reasons. Aside from the method of killing (bashing the poor thing with a rock seems unnecessarily cruel to me), killing my food would be something better done well in advance of mealtime, not once I've sat at the table.

In general, though, I don't think that I'd have an issue killing my own food. That's hypothetical, of course, since (outside of fishing) I've never had to do that.

I really admire your efforts, but "Find a local farmer and source a whole animal to split with your friends" is a really tall ask for many people I would argue.

I personally would likely struggle to convince anyone I know to enter some kind of cooperative livestock purchase/kill/process/store arrangement. As a matter of curiosity, how willing is the average livestock farmer to enter into such an agreement with private individuals?

It's not a widespread practice, but it's more common than I expected when I started looking into it. EatWild[1] maintains a directory of meat and dairy farmers that sell directly to consumers, they seem to have most of the US covered. Anecdotally I've also purchased humanely raised meat/eggs through CSAs that aren't listed here and offer smaller amounts than an entire animal. [1] http://www.eatwild.com/index.html

> a really tall ask for many people I would argue

I agree, but I don't think they were doing much beyond stating their own goals and methods. As a guide to what you can do and how you can attempt to go about it, I think it serves well.

> I personally would likely struggle to convince anyone I know to enter some kind of cooperative livestock purchase/kill/process/store arrangement. As a matter of curiosity, how willing is the average livestock farmer to enter into such an agreement with private individuals?

I imagine some butchers might provide cows where you can check the providence, at least in more populated areas. It wouldn't be quite as cheap as a cooperative project, but it would almost definitely be less time consuming, and supporting a free market for this good has additional benefits.

It was trivial? Many of the farmers list their rates on their websites.

With my friends, it was "Hey, anyone want to buy 50lbs of meat? It's $XYZ dollars per 50lbs. 50lbs is about one medium freezer full."

I put out the call to about 20 people, and got 5 very interested people, and about 5 maybe next times.

I have done this for years. Its as simple as 1. Buying a deep freezer 2. Check local forums for ranchers, or use a sustainable ranch that will ship, like corner post meats. 3. Enjoy while being thankful for the life of the animal, the effort of the rancher, and the ethics observed by everyone in the chain.

Food cooperatives are another option, which is what I increasingly use: http://www.lamauve.com/

They taste better than grocery store meat too.

It's not like the animal is going to live forever if you don't kill it. In nature animals are often eaten alive by predators, die from disease, starvation and get horribly injured in competition for mates.

A free range animal that's being humanely put down by a farmer has a much more pleasant life.

If you go down this rabbit hole deep enough you can begin to question whether life itself should exist.

What we do know for sure is that the animal would not have lived the same life if it weren't captive.

>A free range animal that's being humanely put down by a farmer has a much more pleasant life.

I don't think we can objectively say this. We have no idea what these animals want. Our humanity for these animals lives is nothing short of projection, purely because we have no idea what they want.

We can 100% objectively say this.

Animals like chickens lack self awareness and the ability for future planning. They operate on instinct. We can prove this. Thus, they also don't know what they want--outside of the immediate satisfaction of an instinctual urge.

They do feel pain and hunger however. In the wild, these animals suffer more pain and hunger. In free range "captivity" they suffer less. It's as simple as that.

I swear most of the arguments against proper free range farming are grounded in either:

a) A fallacious appeal to nature, ie. the false presumption that just because something is "natural" it is automatically better or b) Projection of human awareness and emotional intelligence onto other species

Are factory farms more cruel to animals than proper free range farming? Yes. Is nature more cruel to animals than proper free range farming? Yes.

> Stop ascribing human-like emotions and awareness to other species.

Well, take a monkey, orca, elephant, dolphin, etc. and it would be hard not to. Sure, many farm animals fall below that level, but they're not bugs either. Many mammals have some basic language, care for their young, give distress calls, migrate, find shelter, etc. which seems to indicate at least some level of future planning whether innate or not. And many intelligent mammals have been seen grieving the dead or rescuing animals from danger.

> In free range "captivity" they suffer less. It's as simple as that.

Yet philosophy courses still exist... Because it's not as simple as that. For some, life is more than just the reduction of suffering. And there are a million other ways to answer "why we exist" or "how we should live".

For animals, we don't know. I think it's absurd to say we're giving them a better/easier/happier life on a farm or out in the wild. We don't know.

Taking zoos as an example though (which is a similar form of captivity, except they don't kill their animals), most people don't think it's a better life, except in the case where the animal is so weak, sick or unable to care for itself that it couldn't hunt in the wild.

Tons of prey animals are reintroduced to the wild, without concern that they might be eaten (some will), but in the hopes that many will survive and reproduce.

So, I guess if your goal is to ensure that the most number of animals lead a somewhat confined life away from predators until they're done growing, farms make sense. If your goal is to ensure that animals get to experience life in their native habitats including the ability to mate and get eaten, then farms aren't so good.

> And many intelligent mammals have been seen grieving the dead or rescuing animals from danger.

Not only mammals - corvids are known to do that too.

> ensure that animals get to experience life in their native habitats including the ability to mate and get eaten

This falls under A) fallacious appeal to nature.

You're suggesting that living is nature is the better way to live simply because it is natural.

No, I think I said "We don't know" what the better way is.

But if your goal is to let animals roam free in their native habitats then captivity on farms probably doesn't seem like the better option to you.

UK has relatively high livestock and animal welfare basic regulation, and in addition it has a certification scheme (that works out about 25% more expensive), run by the "Royal Society for Protection of Cruelty towards Animals". They base their standards as much as possible on academic measurements of stress and natural behaviors. One thing to note is that animals tend to get ill the more 'unhappy' their existence is - and this is argued as one of the reasons there is no need to chlorinate chickens from UK and very little food poisoning risk from fresh produce. Anyway, the RSPCA will actually certify chickens that are not able to 'free range' (these days it means ability to go outside occasionally) Their advice is it doesn't seem to be of great importance to chickens, unlike stocking density, temperature and conditions inside the barn, and even the introduction of 'toys' like beachballs which some are observed to play with. RSPCA workers are commonly regarded as genuine and professionally experienced their charge of, preventing cruelty towards animals.

> They operate on instinct. We can prove this.

How? Just because they demonstrate instinctual behaviour in some circumstances doesn't mean they lack self awareness or the ability for future planning. Humans also demonstrate instinctual behaviour.

A cow’s natural lifespan is about 20 years. We usually slaughter them between 1-4 years. I don’t think we can claim we’re doing them any favors.

It's a prey animal tho. That lifespan is only achievable in captivity, protected from predators.

I guess you are ok with being farmed in a similar way? Of course not.

Your argument would be valid if they were humans. They are not. I fail to understand why they should be treated as such.

And if we consider animals equal to humans, do we send them to jail if they behave badly? Do we prevent them from being murdered by other animals? Isn't it utterly hypocritical to let animals die by starvation in the wild while preventing farming? What is even the natural habitat of farmed animals like a cow?

What happens to a dog that bites a human? In many countries they get euthanized.

Cows as we know them wouldn't exist without farming (for leather, meat, milk). As meat eating reduction is something that will never happen over night, they simply are going to become protected, nearly extinct species that live in few sanctuaries (charity).

Without artifical insemination numbers are very manageable. Remaining, existing population would be eaten till numbers are low enough.

Not sure what OPs requirements are, but mine are along these lines:

"If animals like free-range cows have lives that are not worth living, almost all wild animals could plausibly be thought to also have lives that are worse than non-existence. Nature is often romanticised as a well-balanced idyll, so this may seem counter-intuitive. But extreme forms of suffering like starvation, dehydration, or being eaten alive by a predator are much more common in wild animals than farm animals. Crocodiles and hyenas disembowel their prey before killing them[1]. In birds, diseases like avian salmonellosis produce excruciating symptoms in the final days of life, such as depression, shivering, loss of appetite, and just before death, blindness, incoordination, staggering, tremor and convulsions.[2] While a farmed animal like a free-range cow has to endure some confinement and a premature and potentially painful death (stunning sometimes fails), a wild animal may suffer comparable experiences, such as surviving a cold winter or having to fear predators, while additionally undergoing the aforementioned extreme suffering[3]."

-Thomas Sittler. "How Should Vegetarians Actually Live?"

His point about wild animals is very accurate, but that's not considering that animals bred in captivity ("free"-range or otherwise) would not have been if not for meat demand. It's debatable whether non-existence is preferable to being raised and then killed, but the dichotomy isn't between wild animals vs. free-range animals.

I think this is more an argument for an eventual plan to deal with wild animal suffering (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_animal_suffering), not an argument that whatever we do to free-range animals is acceptable because it's no worse than the suffering wild animals experience. Of course it's not very pragmatic for humanity to make a dent in that problem in the near future, especially without causing externalities, but just because it's hard doesn't mean the alternative is to say "they all have shit lives anyway, who cares what we do with them?"

>His point about wild animals is very accurate, but that's not considering that animals bred in captivity ("free"-range or otherwise) would not have been if not for meat demand. It's debatable whether non-existence is preferable to being raised and then killed, but the dichotomy isn't between wild animals vs. free-range animals

The idea is is as follows. Might be worth just reading the article:

"If ethical vegetarians believed animals have lives that are unpleasant but still better than non-existence, they would focus on reducing harm to these animals without reducing their numbers, for instance by supporting humane slaughter or buying meat from free-range cows.

I will argue that if vegetarians were to apply this principle consistently, wild animal suffering would dominate their concerns, and may lead them to be stringent anti-environmentalists."

http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2016/03/oxford-uehiro-p...

This article starts with a false premise: "Vegans are against the suffering of animals."

But really the point, at least for myself as a vegan is that "Vegans are against the suffering of animals at the hands of humans."

Often vegans are also environmentalists in that human effort has put additional major stressors on wildlife - deforestation, oil spills, human-accellerated climate change, plastic pollution, etc. Factory farming by humans happens in addition to wildlife suffering.

Wildlife suffering happens with or without humans, but humans active choose to breed and kill animals when we don't necessarily need to. We could just not do that.

>Wildlife suffering happens with or without humans, but humans active choose to breed and kill animals when we don't necessarily need to. We could just not do that.

You don't support humane slaughter or buying meat from free-range cows, because you think not being brought into existence is better than a happy life with an abrupt ending? What if supporting humane slaughter led to less animals being factory farmed, which is agreeably relatively better conditions for the farmed animal population as a whole? That would then be lessening the suffering of animals in the hands of humans.

>Often vegans are also environmentalists in that human effort has put additional major stressors on wildlife - deforestation, oil spills, human-accellerated climate change, plastic pollution, etc. Factory farming by humans happens in addition to wildlife suffering.

That's great for keeping a clear conscience. But realistically is it believable that this will slow down the impending climate change?

It seems to me that a vegan's idea of helping animals/climate is to disconnect from the situation entirely. That might allow for avoidance of responsibility and a moral high-horse, but economically, it isn't realistically helping to lay the groundwork for lessened suffering and a cleaner environment.

> You don't support humane slaughter or buying meat from free-range cows, because you think not being brought into existence is better than a happy life with an abrupt ending?

I'm always amazed when this argument is raised. I can't fathom anyone actually believes more life, for the sake of life, is "better". It strikes me as a bad faith argument. There is a colossal difference between ending a life and preventing one from happening.

> That's great for keeping a clear conscience. But realistically is it believable that this will slow down the impending climate change?

About 21.8% of the world's population is vegetarian [1]. Let me flip your question: Do you think if those billions of people began consuming meat, the world would be the same? Of course not. Assuming meat production could rise to fit this 21.8% increase in demand (it likely couldn't), the planet would be much worse off. So, yes. Although an individual's choice to not eat meat doesn't do much, in aggregate, it's massively important. "The inactive must justify their sloth by picking nits with those making an attempt"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country

> I'm always amazed when this argument is raised. I can't fathom anyone actually believes more life, for the sake of life, is "better". It strikes me as a bad faith argument. There is a colossal difference between ending a life and preventing one from happening.

There are indeed such people. Depending on your particular flavor of utilitarianism, it's a pretty reasonable to conclude that the best things you can do in your life are to A) ensure that there if more life in the future; and B) work to make sure that life is happier than present life.

It basically comes down to how much weight you place on two factors. The first factor is the weight of pleasure (aka happiness, contentment, joy, pick your favorite single word) vs suffering. The second is the weight of present vs future beings.

If you think pleasure outweighs suffering and you are future-oriented then the best possible world is achieved done by increasing the number of happy sentient beings in the universe.

If, OTOH, you believe, as I do, that the negatives of suffering are much stronger than the positives of happiness and you heavily discount future not-yet-existent beings, then you want to focus on eliminating suffering in the present and you should be fairly skeptical of future increases in sentient beings.

It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live. ;)

>About 21.8% of the world's population is vegetarian [1]. Let me flip your question: Do you think if those billions of people began consuming meat, the world would be the same? Of course not. Assuming meat production could rise to fit this 21.8% increase in demand (it likely couldn't), the planet would be much worse off. So, yes. Although an individual's choice to not eat meat doesn't do much, in aggregate, it's massively important. "The inactive must justify their sloth by picking nits with those making an attempt"

My point is NOT "if everyone practiced vegetarianism, climate change would be unaffected." I completely agree with you that the world would be a better place if "everyone were to suddenly switch to being vegan." The point is that in aggregate, not much is ever going to change in the short term, and to believe otherwise is wishful thinking. We have a large sample size of folk who simply don't care about the well being of animals, and a smaller portion of folk who do. That portion hasn't actually changed much over time, even though information about animal farming practices has because much more readily available [1]. It can thus be assumed that changing the way animals are raised and delivered will have a bigger impact on their well-being, than will those who do not eat meat continuing not to eat meat.

> "The inactive must justify their sloth by picking nits with those making an attempt"

A disingenuous attempt at mocking me, considering I have taken large steps in my own life toward vegetarianism. I just hold realistic rather than idealistic hopes for the future of omnivores and the environment they derive their food sources from.

[1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2018/08/03/you-m...

> I completely agree with you that the world would be a better place if "everyone were to suddenly switch to being vegan." The point is that in aggregate, not much is ever going to change in the short term

How does social change happen? It is slow. But it has been happening. Not only are people becoming vegetarian or vegan, but those options are increasingly seen as valid, occasional choices for meat eaters as well.

> It can thus be assumed that changing the way animals are raised and delivered will have a bigger impact on their well-being, than will those who do not eat meat continuing not to eat meat.

This is a much different argument than you have been making. You're (now) saying people can't be persuaded not to kill animals, so we should do so in a more humane way.

> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2018/08/03/you-m...

Yeah, but that article doesn't exactly undermine our points because the poll was only for 1,000 people, and even then the actual Gallup poll says:

1) Vegetarianism is slightly higher among Americans under 50 than among those who are older.

More younger people are vegetarian. This will shape social attitudes for decades.

2) Sales of plant-based food grew 8.1% in 2017 alone and exceeded $3.1 billion last year, and plant-based alternatives to dairy products are soon expected to account for 40% of dairy beverage sales. [...] it appears Americans are eager to include alternatives to animal products in their diets but are not willing to give up animal products completely.

Every single plant-based product people choose to buy means slightly less demand for animal products.

>This is a much different argument than you have been making. You're (now) saying people can't be persuaded not to kill animals, so we should do so in a more humane way.

Can you help me to understand where i contradicted myself?

The article you posted claims that, since animal non-existence is "preferable" to animal suffering, the ethical choice is to euthanize / sterilize as many animals as possible. But you claim after you post the article that the actual better outcome is that animals are brought into existence by humans should be given better lives before they are killed by humans.

>since animal non-existence is "preferable" to animal suffering, the ethical choice is to euthanize / sterilize as many animals as possible.

The article isn't seriously suggesting to euthanize /sterilize as many animals as possible; I would suggest you reread it. It's using that as an example to point out the moral conundrum that vegetarians undertake when they become vegetarian rather than just "anti-factory farm".

Regardless, I don't claim to align with the article in its entirety - just the idea that animals which have much better lives than their wild counterparts are morally suitable for eating. But yes in continuation of this we should strive for the best lives possible for said animals.

> It can thus be assumed that changing the way animals are raised and delivered will have a bigger impact on their well-being, than will those who do not eat meat continuing not to eat meat

There's no reason we can't do both!

> A disingenuous attempt at mocking me, considering I have taken large steps in my own life toward vegetarianism. I just hold realistic rather than idealistic hopes for the future of omnivores and the environment they derive their food sources from.

I'm sorry. I'm not trying to mock you. I interpreted your argument as a classic "make perfection the enemy of good" argument. It's fantastic you are making efforts to do your part.

> you think not being brought into existence is better than a happy life with an abrupt ending?

You're forming the question again in the same way as the article:

"You think not being brought into existence is better than a happy life with an abrupt ending?"

When really the question is:

"You think it's better that humans choose not to bring animals into existence in order to kill them is better than humans choosing to bring animals into existence in order to kill them?"

And yeah, I think it is better not to breed animals just to kill them, when we could also not.

> What if supporting humane slaughter led to less animals being factory farmed, which is agreeably relatively better conditions for the farmed animal population as a whole?

False dichotomy: poor factory farm conditions vs. better factory farm conditions. There is also the option of no factory farms at all, which would be the least amount of suffering at the hands of humans.

> That's great for keeping a clear conscience. But realistically is it believable that this will slow down the impending climate change?

Actually, it's in the top global climate change causes, so, yes. And there's an avalanche effect of not having to grow 9 times the crops to feed the livestock: less pesticide runoff, less land needed to grow food so less incentive for deforestation and overall habitat destruction, less hauling and shipping required which burns less fuel...

Honestly: do you really think you're doing the animals a favor by raising them in factory farms? You really care about these cows and pigs, so you eat them? Would you be willing to pay the cost - the real cost, not including subsidies funded by taxpayer dollars - for them to have long, nice, natural lives? Because meat is already expensive, and it's artificially cheaper, and the animals only live about 10% of their natural lives. Chickens can live about 8-10 years but are killed at about 18 months when their egg laying starts to diminish. Cows are killed around the same time, but can live up to 20 years.

Would you choose to be fed okay food, in a pen, until you were about 15, then killed?

>False dichotomy: poor factory farm conditions vs. better factory farm conditions. There is also the option of no factory farms at all, which would be the least amount of suffering at the hands of humans.

When it comes down to it we can just agree to disagree on this point. I believe in a more intermediate future where meat comes from animals that, yes, while being bred for consumption, are happy animals that lived happy lives; lives which would be better than any lack of existence. I believe most meat eaters would realistically support this future as well - if not through their purchasing power then at least potentially by law. Lastly, I believe that getting to this future is through strong support of farmers who have already achieved it.

>Would you choose to be fed okay food, in a pen, until you were about 15, then killed?

This might surprise you but actually I would be inclined to say yes. I would absolutely chose that life over no life [1]. Have you raised farm animals before? They generally feel safer and less agitated in a "pen" of sorts because they view it as protection. They get to socialize all day - and don't usually have to worry about predators or food. Humans aren't motivated by the same environmental dynamics as cows or chicken.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huT5__BqY_U

You don't live a happy life being raped and having a child taken away at birth so that milk can be produced for humans. All animals cannot live "happy" lives. Demand won't allow it. There is no future where all animals can be happy and the level of meat consumption can stay the same.

So you would choose to live a happy 15 years and then die. Unfortunately most animals that we farm cannot and do not live happy lives, and they don't get a choice. You would more realistically be living to 15 until slaughter with torture, rape, and your children being taken away to further the cycle. Never existing seems better. There is another option though, not raping, torturing, and slaughtering for humans to consume. Humans won't wither away without animal products.

In the not so distant past slaves were given "happy" lives by there owners. They were lesser beings so they should be happy to be alive at all right?

>There is no future where all animals can be happy and the level of meat consumption can stay the same.

I'm not in disagreement with this...just because you're cynical about the future of husbandry doesn't mean I can't be optimistic about it. I'm unsure how repeatedly stating facts about the worst of the current state of factory farming is going to change my mind about how we can potentially lessen demand and migrate production from factory farms through not supporting them. It's actually the exact same concept as becoming a vegetarian but with different expected results.

How will a future where are animals that humans consume leading happy lives decrease demand? Doesn't decreasing demand counter your point about creating more lives being a better thing, since that would lead to less lives?

Even if I was optimistic about farming being able to have animals leading happy lives, it would still ignore many negative factors dealing with animal consumption:

1. The environmental impact from animal consumption would increase if all animals lead happy lives and consumption stayed the same.

2. Dairy products could no longer be produced as that would lead to unhappy animals

3. The sustainability of eating animals, we produce feed for them, and then we eat them. It would make much more sense to only produce feed for us.

As you're on hacker news I assume you're familiar with the trolley problem[1], by factory farming animals we are falling into the same ethical dilemma, we've chosen to pull the lever - but it's not clear in this scenario if we're actually saving lives, this is more of a trolly problem where there are five people tied down on each line, but someone offers you 1000$ to pull the lever and send it down the other line[2]. We are shifting the responsibility for these animal's deaths onto our hands so that we can benefit with yummy meat, so I find the argument above to be immensely weak.

The consideration that animals may become extinct if they aren't useful seems a more worthy one, but less valid in the modern world.

Also, I'm not vegan or vegetarian - I am internally content with my moral and ethical choices regarding meat and have carefully considered them.

[1] If not, see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

[2] Assuming that person's motivations are opaque, if we know they want to save or specifically kill someone then the problem gets miles more complex - if it makes it easier, maybe imagine a piece of china on the track that the train will go down - so your choice is five people or five people and some nice china.

If the animal is free from suffering, including lacking awareness of what's happening during the killing, that's as free from cruelty as you can get. If lacking life is what's cruel, then vegetarianism doesn't really solve that problem, since the animal would never be born without farming.

I don't think lacking life has ever been an argument vegetarians use. Once consciousness emerges, there is an innate desire to remain alive and to be free from suffering. Even if we could give animals a wonderful life in our current capitalist system, and then kill them without their awareness, we'd still need to justify (from a philosophical standpoint) why it would be immoral to do the same with a human animal.

> I don't think lacking life has ever been an argument vegetarians use.

That would make sense, since GP said:

> If lacking life is what's cruel, then vegetarianism doesn't really solve that problem.

So if vegetarians used the argument that lacking life is cruel, then vegetarianism would be cruel, right? It makes perfect sense (given GP's point) that they don't use that argument.

You're the third replyer that writes as if they disagree about this while making the same point. I'm wondering if I'm reading this wrong, or if GP edited their comment just before I loaded the page.

The GP implied that vegetarians use the logic "ending life is cruel" as a basis for their stance.

I suppose that argument could be used to justify killing some hermit unbeknownst to them. Most people, however, are connected socially, and killing them would make others suffer.

Lacking life isn't a remotely useful metric for cruelty, or every minute decision anyone has ever made is responsible for an infinite number of states of the universe not happening.

They're not saying that this is a logical metric, they're saying that if that is your metric, then vegetarianism won't help you.

But they were the first one to mention anything resembling that metric. There's no reason to bring it up unless you think someone uses that metric, or alternatively as a straw man to argue against.

> If the animal is free from suffering, including lacking awareness of what's happening during the killing

How do you measure this? How do you know for certain that what you're eating had no idea it was about to die when it did?

How do you know animals don't experience existential suffering, similar to how humans experience it? Why do you believe that humans are in control of their livestock's emotional state, even when they provide the best environment for them?

You can't know. You can know what acute suffering looks like and try to avoid it.

You can observe animal behavior and say, "They appear not to be suffering from existential dread beyond what they would in the wild", you may be able to measure cortisol levels in the meat. But you'll never know for sure.

> If lacking life is what's cruel

Nobody's arguing this, are they?

If you do believe this, then I hope you're breeding rats, rabbits, and insects as fast as possible!

I think you two agree. They said that if that is your definition of cruelty, then vegetarianism can't help you. Not that the lack of life is cruel. You're being cynical with someone who didn't even say one side was right and the other is wrong.

But nobody has EVER argued that, have they?

I'm saying it's a pointless statement and trying to demonstrate its ridiculousness.

I guess this is a good place for a rant for some down votes. The concept that death is cruel is ridiculous to me. EVRYTHING DIES, every animal in nature either dies of starvation, freezing to death, dies in a conflict with their own species for breeding rights, or gets to be attacked and eaten alive by a predator. The entirety of nature revolves around life and death struggles. Dying isn't cruel, to think so is a rejection of nature itself.

That being said there are quicker and better ways of taking an animals life, the quicker and less painful the better. I will categorically state that for me how they live is more important than how they die. I don't agree with many of the practices in the production of chicken, pigs, cows, and yes even farmed fish and generally try to avoid them.

Not going to downvote you as everyone has an opinion, but this argument is ridiculous. If you're saying everything dies so it doesn't matter, why is it wrong to kill another human? And dying isn't cruel (or the problem - once I'm dead I probably won't care exactly how I died), it's humans killing them that's the problem for people like me.

The fact is it's completely unnecessary. We don't need meat and we waste far too many resources rearing cattle and other animals just to kill and eat them.

Using your logic, everything we do can be considered an unnecessary waste of resources. We don't need the internet and cars and air conditioning and plane travel and television and houses and land ownership and governments and militaries, etc. etc.

To continue down your slippery slope, you'll find the only proper way to live is to revert to the woods and live as a hunter-gatherer society.

Where you chose to draw the line is just as arbitrary as where the OP chooses to draw the line. To claim yourself as morally superior is ridiculous.

It's not 'arbitrary' to weigh the cost of an activity against its benefit just because it's hard to quantify them. Most vegetarians would eat meat if their lives depended on it, and most people today consider it unacceptable to euthanise profoundly disabled humans. But different attitudes prevailed in the past. Perhaps the slope is not that slippery.

I mean, I understand where you're going but it's adsurd. Most people if they don't have a car or internet access would suffer some detriment to their life be it social, work related, etc. Everything you mentioned provide benefits to society for existing.

Not growing meat? The big disadvantage to that would be we'd no longer be able to enjoy the taste of meat and the farmers would probably need to find something else to farm.

Some further thoughts in two different directions (I don't personally have a settled opinion here):

1. Not only does everything die, many things naturally die as food. Being a victim of carnivores is a perfectly normal thing in nature. So even if you don't feel comfortable justifying killing animals in general with "everything dies," it should certainly justify killing animals for food. (BTW, my understanding is that halal- or kosher-certified meats are slaughtered very humanely/painlessly, so if you're worried about suffering and not death, sticking to those isn't a bad choice.)

2. Although things happen in nature, that doesn't mean they're not cruel, and as humans, we have the option of being more humane than nature. While many early humans would also have starved, frozen to death, or been eaten alive, we think it's pretty not great for modern-day humans to be subject to such a fate and we often think it's a moral obligation for society to prevent that from happening. So why should we not also save animals from their fate in nature instead of perpetuating it?

How does your argument not apply to eating human beings, say those who would objectively have had a painful life, by first giving them a quality life before slaughtering them?

Seems pretty fair. Imagine you are in the Matrix and eventually when you die, it wasn't actually your real death, it was the harvesting of your meat in the real universe above. They gave you a pretty decent ride, eh? At some point we all have to admit we don't have full control of the universe - and we hope the universe will treat us kindly. Unfortunately, the universe itself, and the powerful within it, can become muddled - when men determines fate of others, as if they are Gods, then one must question their allegiance to `going with the flow.` It seems like most of us are only happy going with the flow of the all-powerful universe, not his second rate stooges... Pretty sure most vegetarian philosophy comes down to - if you want to act like a God when it comes to determining other's fates, be the God you'd want for yourself.

There is a distinct difference between being born naturally, or living a kind life free range, and suffering for a short period, than being bred for industrial purposes. Industrial breeding usually means male and females of the species are separated and artificially inseminated, the mothers are separated from their offspring, male animals are routinely killed or used for young meat, female animals are forced into often crowded conditions and given antibiotics and hormones to grow faster. This is not the pleasant life, it is slavery from the beginning with a most cruel end.

Not to mention that the breeds we raise for mass production are now Frankenstein creations that could never survive in the wild. A lot of broiler chickens can’t even walk because they’re so top heavy.

Ending life is not necessarily cruel...how about for veterinarians utilizing euthanasia? Let's say you have an animal that's 95% going to die sometime within 12-24 hours. If your client can pay $5000, which they can't usually, the chances improve to 50% chance of living. In most cases, for money or for suffering, euthanasia is the least cruel option, as it's vastly more affordable and a painless, harmless process.

Euthanasia and factory farming are apples and oranges. Cows can live up to 20 years, but are often killed at 18-24 months. They aren't killed with euthanasia, but panicked and terrified, with bolts to the skull and slit throats, right after seeing several other cows killed that way. Their lives before that are often miserable to keep costs down.

Is that the least cruel option?

Cows aren't panicked and terrified, the hormone release from that would result in poor quality meat that has to be discarded. The slaughterhouses are humanely designed thanks to people like Temple Grandin. The cows are calm until the end.

I don't think anyone is saying ending life is necessarily cruel. We're saying unnecessarily ending life is cruel.

Do you drive? If so you are partly responsible for over 2 million world wide deaths a year. Many times that in number of animals cruely killed.