> Both propositions are obviously horrible. But why? The answer is similar to why the death of worms < chickens < pet dogs < people < great people.
>Consciousness is a matter of connected/integrated complexity
Can you prove this supposition, though? Would that make the internet conscious, for example? I would think not.
I think the propositions you mentioned seem horrible because of an offshoot of our instinct to form tribes to survive better. It feels bad to torture people and other beings that help us survive, because that's integral to our survival. A lone human being has a much rougher time than a group does, and a group that trusts each other would survive better than where everyone is at each other's throats.
My theory is that human beings need a religion to feel sane. If there isn't an organized one that they accept, they create one of their own. This is why these sort of "common sense" laws of morality (better to not raise animals in a factory) come into being. People need to believe in a higher set of laws than what man can provide, even if there isn't any real justification for them one way or the other.
The internet is governed by consciousness and consciousness emerges from it, in the same way as our neurons or brain parts are not conscious per se but are structured by consciousness and provide the mechanism for it.
Both propositions are obviously horrible. But why? The answer is similar to why the death of worms < chickens < pet dogs < people < great people.
Consciousness is a matter of connected/integrated complexity; as a result, millions of worms do not eventually produce the depth and richness of human consciousness. Secondly, consciousness is dependent upon other conscious beings; our consciousness isn't really our own, it is part of a shared web. So, consciousness that does not participate in that shared web is less conscious, in a real sense, than consciousness that does.
For both these reasons, if we value consciousness, the only real benefits of factory farmed chickens would come from how they help contribute to the overall conscious ecosystem. Perhaps they let us build more integrated complexity, in which case, thanks.