"just because you can"

Yeah screw trying to provide consistent source of protein for 7 billion people. We torture and mutilate cows and chickens just because we can.

That wouldn't fall under the umbrella of "just because you can". Just because you can means, you don't need to, but you do it anyway, because you can.

I'm also arguing that it is not necessary to be cruel to animals, even if you have to eat them. Beating and torturing a chicken doesn't provide any more protein than if you treated it humanely and slaughtered it in a quick and painless way.

You can even argue that being a part of our diet actually benefits the species as a whole. You don't see cows and chickens on an endangered species list, but you don't see them in the wild either.

To go even further, we will eventually have the ability to create synthetic meats that don't require us to slaughter animals.

Does that apply to plants? They're species too.

It could apply to anything, I've heard of vegans who go as far as not using anti-bacterial soap because they don't want to kill the bacteria, or not eating honey because they consider the honey as stolen property belonging to the bees.

My point is in order to do something you wouldn't like done to you to something else, not out of necessity, but just because you feel like doing it, you may have missed an update or two from evolution's package manager.

For a lot of people it applies to plants as well.

I wouldn't for the sake of it willfully maim or destroy a plant.

That said, I'm also not the kind of guy that watches his footsteps to avoid stepping on ants or grass.