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Comment by tuna-piano | Hacker News Reader

Imagine a future, lets say in 2040, where lab grown meat is cheap and tasty.

-Will future children look back at our current acceptance of the treatment/killing of animals like we look at societal acceptance of slavery? The pictures/videos of some of our factory farms are unbelievable.

-Will laws be imposed for the killing of mentally capable animals such as pigs and cows? Some states already outlaw killing/eating certain animals (dogs+cats)[1], and cruelty to animals is illegal almost everywhere. But what is a more cruel punishment than death? I'd rather be tortured and then live the rest of my life than be murdered today.

-We can all live perfectly happy, long lives without killing animals today... so why is it okay to kill them today just for our own enjoyment?

(I'm not a vegetarian but am ethically conflicted)

[1]https://inhabitat.com/killing-dogs-and-cats-for-meat-is-stil...

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Quite simply because there is not ethical imperative to stop- and its about nourishment rather than just enjoyment.

Do we have an ethical imperative to stop cats from killing birds? All complex animal life on this planet consumes other living cells in order to survive, it is just a matter of scale and type.

This is especially true for animals that exist so that we may consume them. Hundreds of millions of chicken live only so that we may be nourished- similarly for cows, sheep and so forth.

Raising them in a minimally harsh and 'humane' environment can be an ethical good but that their lives are shortened by our 'harvesting' process is irrelevant, since they exist only due to that need to begin with.

Now killing an animal and discarding the resultant bounty- that is unethical and wrong, unless needed to ameliorate some other harm.

> Raising them in a minimally harsh and 'humane' environment can be an ethical good but that their lives are shortened by our 'harvesting' process is irrelevant, since they exist only due to that need to begin with.

are you saying it's always preferable to create a life, as long as its conditions pass some threshold of being humane?

many would disagree. you might value minimising suffering above maximising happiness, for example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism

I'm saying when a species exists in its current form and cannot exist except for the support of its creator species, there is no ethical dilemma in harvesting the results of raising it.

Unless and until we reach 'uplift' level sentience of client species the death of a husbandry animal creates no more ethical conflict than cutting down wheat.

i don't follow how being born of and dependent on husbandry redeems the suffering of these lives

> "Raising them in a minimally harsh and 'humane' environment"

The vast majority of meat eaten in the developed world comes from factory farms where the treatment of animals is pretty horrific. If you don't believe me on how bad it is, watch the movie Earthlings. It's free on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrlBSuuy50Y

I'm aware. Quite pleased that distributors/retailers have started doing checks of their upstream suppliers. Just as manufacturers have done the same with upstream parts/materials suppliers- there is no requirement that meat eaters tolerate unnecessary cruelty.

I used to feel conflicted about this, much like you, and then one day it made sense to me that I just didn’t need to feel conflicted about this - I went vegetarian. Now I no longer feel like every bite of my meals is conflicting with my sense of integrity and ethics.

> We can all live perfectly happy, long lives without killing animals today

(emphasis mine)

I think the moral argument is relative (progress-based) at best. Slavery was never essential to survival, but consuming other animals so far has been, or at least it was until only very recently. Being a healthy vegan is mainly possible today thanks to advancements in science and food production. I think our children will give us a moral pass in the same way we give it to cats that still eat mice.

And what about old civilizations such as Indians or Chinese? There has been religious vegetarian sub groups for a long time (Jain, Buddhist, Hindu, etc). Not vegan, but at the time there was no CAFOs either.

That's true. I think my point still stands if we consider that the practices of these groups were probably not portable to all regions/people of the world.

But still, it's interesting to think about how for a very long time, a good number of people achieved the moral ideal here without advanced understanding of nutrition. We ruined this with factory farmed dairy/eggs.

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