Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "On a side note: I'm not vegetarian. I simply agree with those who are." This was my position for a long time until finally making the jump at the beginning of the pandemic (vegetarian, will rarely eat fish sometimes). For me, it was mostly about reducing suffering of other animals. I thought this way before but it's hard to change behavior and I liked hamburgers. I think this is the strongest argument and the envi…
> For me, it was mostly about reducing suffering of other animals. I thought this way before but it's hard to change behavior and I liked hamburgers. I think this is the strongest argument and the environmental or nutritional arguments feel like side issues to avoid just tackling this issue directly. For me, this is the weakest argument. Animals are not people, and agriculturally farmed animals only exist because of…
I don't understand this. Why not care about the emotional state of the animal? You're going to kill it to eat it, there's no reason to cause it suffering too.
In any case, it's impossible to not care about the emotional state of an animal you grow and care for, including the ones you grow for food. But this is not something one learns living away from farmed animals and leaving someone else do all the dirty work of growing them and the bloody work of slaughtering them.
I think the above is at the root of both opinions like yours, and the other extreme, of abstaining from eating meat for nebulous ethical reasons. People eat other animals for very good reasons, but there is no good reason to make them suffer, or ignore their suffering, or not try to alleviate and minimise their suffering beyond what is absolutely necessary.