Do you view the millions of existences prevented by contraception the same way? Those humans also don’t exist for entirely preventable reasons …

This seems like an on its face absurd and pointless argument to me. In these scenarios we are basically talking about unborn hypothetical future cows and from that perspective your argument makes no sense at all.

Cattle would obviously continue to exist in some form, even with a greatly diminished population – so we are not even talking about extinction.

Is the fact that compared to 100 years ago the US horse population shrank by 50% (due to reduced demand) a great tragedy? Obviously not. Obviously.

This argument is so weirdly absurd.

You've missed the argument - the argument is we have prevented the existence of millions of humans without blinking, many of whom would probably rather exist.

Once we've one that, killing off large numbers of animals is an academic point. Who cares if we kill them by preventing their existence or giving them years of life then killing them? They're the lucky ones who got to be born. If you gave me a choice, I'd rather die and be eaten than never have existed.

I would also rather have been born and die horribly (which may yet happen) than be one of the uncountable infinity of humans who never existed to breath the air.

Is there a quality of life tipping point at which you would rather never have been born? If you were offered a life consisting entirely of pain and suffering, would you accept that?

If the quality of life is *not* an issue, we could logically maintain that we are morally obliged to maximise the number of beings brought into life -- however short and horrible that life may be -- because any form of existence is preferable to non-existence.

If quality of life *is* an issue, we should strive not to bring beings into existence that are likely to have a particularly low quality of life. The suffering of factory farmed animals may be great enough to say it would be better that they never existed rather than they were born into a short life of imprisonment and suffering.

The compromise position then would be to breed them so they didn't suffer. It'd probably be good for the meat quality too.

The idea there is a moral issue here is suspect. It is obvious I, personally, don't want to be factory farmed. It isn't obvious that factory farming is a moral problem.

It is all moot anyway, vat-grown meat is going to be more hygienic, cheaper and all-round better once they work out the kinks. But it might result in the near or total extinction of cattle.

I hope cellular agriculture will help reduce real meat consumption, and decrease overall suffering. Breeding out the ability to suffer is also desirable.

Do you not think that factory farming causes suffering? Causing avoidable suffering seems like a moral issue to me.

I, personally, do not care if factory farming causes suffering and support cheap, nutritious and convenient food by whatever means is necessary. The people who want to ban it are insensitive threats to human comfort IMHO.

But if it is a problem that needs to be solved, breeding the animals to enjoy it is a much easier solution than synthetic meat. We've had the technology to change animal behaviour through breeding for longer than we've had history. If people want them to get a kick out of being caged and slaughtered then that is doable. easier and would have been faster to accomplish than growing meat in a jar, anyway. I think it is a waste of time, but it is better than laws restricting food production.

Can you tell me what exactly I missed?

The pill prevents millions of humans from existing and I just cannot for the life of me see any ethical issue with that.

I did, that was what I said in the comment. There isn't an issue with a pill preventing millions of humans existing. And that is worse than factory farming, because it affects humans. Ergo factory farming isn't a moral issue.

With some tweaks to taste, that is the argument you are responding to. The bit after the "because" depends on the person's moral framework.

Factory farming normalizes extreme violence and exploitation. It teaches humans it’s acceptable to profoundly harm and neglect living creatures for profit. I have to imagine this has highly negative spillover effects on society at large. It’s making our society more depraved than it otherwise would be if we just grew plants for food.

Or, consider animal agriculture’s role in deforestation of the Amazon, in massively polluting our planet, and in being a breeding grounds for zoonotic disease transmission, etc.

IMO “allowing” a cow to live the entirety of its early life as a confused, neglected, and often tormented slave doesn’t offset a single one of those evils.

There is a very good argument to be made that the life of cows on factory farms is worse than never existing.

There was an article on Slate Star Codex that examined this issue in detail. The conclusion was the opposite - basically that life is worth it even if living in extremely poor conditions - as evidenced by accounts of human survivors of e.g. concentration camps (the majority still wanted to continue living, and even engaged in normal human activities like love and procreation).

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/11/acc-is-eating-meat-a-n...

"Continuing to live" is a very different state than "being brought into existence," and I struggle to see how the desire for the former implies the latter. You can't ask anyone who was never born if they would prefer to have been created, nor can someone who was created observe what it would have been like to have never been born. It's difficult to even conceptualize non-existence!

If we all moved to impossible beef, cattle populations would plummet. However, despite popular perception, for most of its life before slaughter, a cow is raised in large open ranges for grazing, like in the California foothills. Only the last parts of their live do they get put into crowded feedlots for "fattening", which might be described as inhumane. Perhaps, it would lead to the advent of wild cattle in the California hills, as land owners stop caring.

Two things:

Cattle are slaughtered within 1-2 years and they are held in feed lots for 1/3 of that time.

Cattle slaughtered for veal are caged and do not live in any humane conditions.

I would certainly not want to exist.

re veal: How many people eat veal these days?

In the US, not so many. In the rest of the world, quite a lot. It seems this "ethical dilemma" is a US or Western-centric 1st world problem.

> Perhaps, it would lead to the advent of wild cattle in the California hills, as land owners stop caring.

Which would be an invasive species.

indeed. making the thing even more hilarious.

I had to scroll 1/3 down the page before finally finding this argument.

Simply said, for cows, eating meat means murder. Not eating meat means extinction.

Because there would be no efforts to prevent cows from going extinct? What?

This argument comes up almost every time and it has never made any sense to me. Yes, you would rather live than never have been born. That's because you're alive right now, you can have and express that feeling. Someone who doesn't exist will not care even in the slightest, because they can't.