In the repeated game of life, you can end up ahead if, by forswearing extreme cruelty toward others even when it's locally "efficient", you significantly reduce the probability of others behaving so cruelly toward you. This is a major reason civilization exists at all.

It is not unreasonable to believe that someone who is used to being exceptionally cruel to animals, when it is not terribly expensive to avoid that cruelty, will on average be more willing than usual to be cruel towards other humans. "Avoid hurting beings that can experience pain" is arguably a more compelling Schelling point to organize 21st century civilization around than "avoid hurting other humans, but do whatever the hell you want to other species". I disagree with Wiblin about this being a "no-brainer", but I mostly agree with his final judgment of the desirability of phasing out this type of factory farming.

If people stop eating meat we would have more food for each person rather than less. See:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10062999.

It's completely wrong to say that anyone would go hungry because we stopped farming meat. The market would easily adjust and provide other foods at a lower cost.

Exactly! If you don't see the political agenda behind this one, you are blind. But I was doomed to be down voted when I made the comment above anyways given the demographics on hackernews.