[1] https://www.groupon.com/deals/gl-ringling-bros-and-barnum-ba...
I know many people don't care but it bothers me.
I don't find the 'conservation' excuse all that acceptable either. What if the millions spent on Zoos were instead spent to conserve the native territories of the animals and to improve the lives of the people who live near them so they won't resort to poaching or habitat destruction.
Doesn't this come mostly from clearing land for agriculture?
Humans are horrible caretakers of this planet.
A lot of zoos are funded 100% off ticket sales. How do you generate those millions of dollars without some business model supporting it?
Planet 1: "Hey there, long time no see, how are you doing? :-)"
Planet 2: "not too good lately... :-( I got infected by humans..."
At best, it is looking like most life dies off. Conway's game is incredibly fitting in that.
Replace "zoo" with "modern society", and vets with hospitals. Sounds pretty similar to what a lot of people strive for.
The common argument against that comparison is animals don't have a choice in the matter, while we are free to flee.
If the bar was "the kid could technically decide not to", then we would allow advertising cigarettes to children.
Who do you believe is putting in the work required to play football professionally, but doing it purely out of peer pressure?
That is, I viewed it as two different points. I will agree that there is unlikely anyone staying in professional football from the peer pressure. However, that they got into football at all is probably attributable to that.
First, people make these choices voluntarily and are not in servitude.
Secondly, even as science is revealing the horror of the consequences, a lot of these people still choose to do it.
For example when you tell star college football players the NFL has a 40% chance of brain damage, most will still go. It's hard for me to understand, but the fame, fortune, glory, adulation some believe is a fair trade off.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/04/1...
And do you understand that these animals are absolutely vicious and cruel with each other in the wild? A tiger will start picking at your guts while you're still breathing. A male lion will kill all of the existing cubs of its new mate.
Just to toss one possibility out, maybe something along the lines of "Hey, that did bother me. Check out this other thing that bothers me about X farming."
I love people who make silly counter arguments. Watched a hunter challenge someone protesting their hunt: "Do you wear leather?"
"I'm a vegetarian" was the entirely predictable response.
(Actually, I now remember it was the other way around. "Do you wear leather" was the next step after asking the protester whether he ate meat and getting the vegetarian answer. As if a vegetarian would go out of his way to avoid meat, protest hunts, and still not be aware where leather came from.)
Restricting one's consumption to vegetables can promote animal welfare despite engaging in other practices that harm animals.
Demoralizing people who strive to promote animal welfare by pointing out their contradictory behavior is less desirable, to my mind, than encouraging people to do as much as they can.
Why not reconsider your own views and encourage such people to promote animal welfare in all the ways they could rather than demoralizing them to give up altogether?
EDIT: spelling, rewrite final sentence, formatting.
I'm asking you to reconsider your position. I understand you're unlikely to do so.
One thing you should consider is the very strong possibility that "the least important human concern" is not distinct from what you consider to be "animal welfare".
Living beings on this planet are probably deeply intertwined and interdependent in ways we poorly understand. For one example, take the growing research around gut flora and microbiomes.
As individual beings, we are crucially dependent on bacteria that, in fact, extend the boundaries of what we consider to be our bodies far beyond what we have understood to be the case for millennia.
Separating the human condition from "animal welfare" is a grave mistake. For your own good, I think you should reconsider your position regarding the care of non-human organisms.
You'd be surprised.
Human society is built on not behaving like animals to each other. Sounds like a good idea to extend this to other sentient beings.
Besides that, i also think it is a different thing: You do have to eat, we are eating meet for 10000 years and we need it much more than watching a circus show. Also killing an animal quick and fast is also a different thing than dominating an animal for a show.
"A healthy vegan diet can meet all your nutrient needs at any stage of life including when you are pregnant, breastfeeding or for older adults." -- http://www.dietitians.ca/Your-Health/Nutrition-A-Z/Vegetaria...
No, you don't need meat; You want it.
A vegan diet for children is borderline child abuse in my opinion.
To your point though, difficult in what respect? I've been doing this since I was 9 and haven't had any issues. The most common concerns I hear are nutritional (protein, iron, calcium, B12) and convenience (restaurants, grocery stores, birthday cakes, etc). But I'm curious as to what your specific concerns are.