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Time to End Factory Farming?

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Re: Time to End Factory Farming?

#51

Post by Rainymood »

latch wrote: post #14
Rainymood wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we have a biological need for meat. Meat tastes good because we need it to thrive (note, we can survive on a vegetarian diet but it is not optimal). >How can you be against cruelty to animals and still regularly consume meat? How can you be against slave labor of children and still regularly wear clothing made in sweatshops? It's easy, it's a cost-benefit trade-off. It is simply too expensive. People understa…

I appreciate your reply. If I can paraphrase your first point, people eat meat because they enjoy it, and that's that. I'm curious what your source is for saying a vegetarian diet isn't optimal. Most studies I've seen (including large and long studies) claim the opposite. Here's a list: [1] I agree it's like sweatshops. I didn't want to draw the comparison to slavery because I think the ethical question stands on its…

> If I can paraphrase your first point, people eat meat because they enjoy it, and that's that.

I understand your sentiment but there's a reason people enjoy eating meat, it feels pleasureable in our mouth because it is rich in nutrients and rare in nature. In nature you don't eat meat every day like we do in our current society.

Just like donuts and candy tastes nice is because there's a lot of sugar and fat in them, things that are scarce in nature.

>I'm curious what your source is for saying a vegetarian diet isn't optimal. Most studies I've seen (including large and long studies) claim the opposite. Here's a list: [1]

If you actually read through the Wikipedia I am not really convinced

> (...) although this is at least partly due to lifestyle factors beyond diet, such as a low prevalence of smoking, and the generally high socioeconomic status

>(...) and other lifestyle factors associated with a vegetarian diet may contribute to the positive health outcomes that have been identified among vegetarians.[11]

The point Wikipedia tries to make is clear.

What I'm trying to argue is that there are nutrients in meat that you are unable to get anywhere else than from meat. Yes, I fully realize that we can synthesize these things artificially but you still need them. As with most things in life, the optimum is somewhere in between. One could eat no meat at all, one end of the scale, one could eat only meat, the other end of the scale with the optimum probably somewhere in between.

Re: Time to End Factory Farming?

#52

Post by chimprich »

drenvuk wrote: post #31

The author has two articles, one is this one and the other makes a case for veganism. I understand that killing animals for their meat strikes some people as morally wrong but you're not going to change my mind by making me feel bad about how a cow, pig or chicken is raised and killed. This is not a moral problem for most people. We don't really care enough. We eat them because they taste good, are easily available a…

And yet it does persuade some people. Many people are vegetarian and an increasing proportion of the population is moving in that direction. It seems reasonable to assume that at least some of that change is due to exposure of modern factory farming methods.

> you're not going to change my mind by making me feel bad about how a cow, pig or chicken is raised and killed

Why not? If you're feeling bad about it, presumably you have some empathy with the animal. Or do you mean that it's not possible to make you feel bad about it?

Re: Time to End Factory Farming?

#53

Post by drenvuk »

another-cuppa wrote: post #38
drenvuk wrote: post #31

The author has two articles, one is this one and the other makes a case for veganism. I understand that killing animals for their meat strikes some people as morally wrong but you're not going to change my mind by making me feel bad about how a cow, pig or chicken is raised and killed. This is not a moral problem for most people. We don't really care enough. We eat them because they taste good, are easily available a…

Have you actually watched a film like Earthlings, though? Why don't you watch it before you go to "Texas Roadhouse"?

Watching it right now. Pretty gruesome so far, up to the kosher part but it's still not a deterrent.

edit: Finished. I'm still going to eat that steak but some of those scenes will probably pop into my head while I'm eating. A bit annoying tbh.

Re: Time to End Factory Farming?

#54

Post by GraffitiTim »

drenvuk wrote: post #31

The author has two articles, one is this one and the other makes a case for veganism. I understand that killing animals for their meat strikes some people as morally wrong but you're not going to change my mind by making me feel bad about how a cow, pig or chicken is raised and killed. This is not a moral problem for most people. We don't really care enough. We eat them because they taste good, are easily available a…

As a counterexample, I used to be like you (loved eating meat) and was convinced not to by allowing myself to entertain the notion that it was wrong, and learning about animal suffering at factory farms. I was able to make a moral determination that went against what I wanted or craved. I still crave meat years later, but I don’t eat it.

Probably similar arguments to yours were made in favor of slavery not so long ago. “It’s convenient and makes my life better, and the morality of it is irrelevant.” Now slavery is repulsive, and in the future we will look back at how we treated farm animals in a similar way. For me it was worth considering which side of the moral history I wanted to be on.

Re: Time to End Factory Farming?

#55

Post by [deleted] »

snarfy wrote: post #44

My sister tried to get a job at a factory farm. She found there weren't many openings as they primarily employ prisoners through work programs. They employ prisoners because nobody wants those jobs. Even the prisoners would chose a different work program given the option.

[deleted]

Re: Time to End Factory Farming?

#56

Post by Sharlin »

throwaway8879 wrote: post #49
Sharlin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumerism was always a lie. The idea of working more in order to earn more in order to buy more stuff to purportedly make us happier. Insofar as it did, it came with a terrible cost.

When exactly in human history did people live in an Utopia of happiness? Misery and suffering has always been prevalent for the majority of the human species.

I don't think I implied otherwise.

Re: Time to End Factory Farming?

#57

Post by [deleted] »

drenvuk wrote: post #31

The author has two articles, one is this one and the other makes a case for veganism. I understand that killing animals for their meat strikes some people as morally wrong but you're not going to change my mind by making me feel bad about how a cow, pig or chicken is raised and killed. This is not a moral problem for most people. We don't really care enough. We eat them because they taste good, are easily available a…

[deleted]

Re: Time to End Factory Farming?

#58

Post by orblivion »

drenvuk wrote: post #35
johnmoberg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that many people would care, they just aren't aware. How many people know, or even want to know , where their meat comes from? Factory farming is very much an inconvenient truth.

I only have possibly skewed anecdata for this claim but of the people who I know have seen factory farming investigation videos only two are vegetarians and the rest of them (20+ easily over time) have used it as a joke topic while eating meat laden meals together. This is from college 10 years ago until now. I think sharing these articles helps, maybe it will spur someone into making some new animal-cruelty-free foo…

Can you help me interpret these jokes between you and your friends? "Boy this steak sure tastes good because that cow was suffering" This sort of callousness is a common theme. Is this the form the jokes were taking?

I'd understand if it were making fun of the animal for getting killed so long as it was humane, and people who worry too much about them. I'd understand the idea of "yeah I know it's bad, what am I going to do. It tastes good". I could understand making fun of an exaggerated claim of suffering. I could understand making fun of trying to avoid killing in the world which is probably literally impossible. But I can't understand making fun of real suffering, and furthermore making fun of people who care about it. I don't think they're actually sociopaths but I don't understand how else to interpret what they're expressing here.

If the answer is "hey don't take it seriously, you were a jackass in college too" - fair enough, but you brought this up as an example of the general population just not caring enough. Maybe your friends actually made these jokes to deal with their discomfort with those videos?

And yes for disclosure, I'm a vegetarian myself.

Re: Time to End Factory Farming?

#59

Post by panic »

snarfy wrote: post #44

My sister tried to get a job at a factory farm. She found there weren't many openings as they primarily employ prisoners through work programs. They employ prisoners because nobody wants those jobs. Even the prisoners would chose a different work program given the option.

A couple months ago there was a nationwide prisoner strike in the US against this practice: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/20/prison-labor...

Re: Time to End Factory Farming?

#60

Post by falcor84 »

throwaway8879 wrote: post #41
grecy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that it's illegal to film factory meat farms in some States in the USA should tell you a lot about just what is going on - and how horrible it must be. Sure, you want to eat steak, I get that. Go eat a steak. But lets at the very least treat the animals with respect and give them some semblance of a decent life and kill them quickly and humanely.

You want to treat something with respect and then kill it to eat it? What exactly is the point?

These are two separate things. Hunters for example are often very respective of the animals they track. And as another example, when a persom is sentenced to death, we still try to treat them with respect throughout the process.
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