We have a mini pig that lives with us. I think the parent's comment is vastly underestimating pigs. They're very sweet, empathetic animals.
At least they were treated with some dignity and love before the butcher. I wish that system was scalable because it’s hard to view the food industry the same way after looking animals in the face. But I still think it’s morally acceptable to eat them. They are so domesticated, what purpose would they serve if not for food? They can’t be reintroduced into the wild without harm to themselves or the environment.
Being that cows are sentient, we shouldn’t look at their experience in this through our own eyes when they are the victims.
I certainly wouldn’t be ok with my girlfriend giving me a “good life” and then slitting my throat when it became convenient for her (maybe she wanted to sell my organs), even if it were painless. Sure, I’d no longer exist after that point, but it wouldn’t make it ok.
Somehow, even though the scenario is the same, we assume that our dominance over animals makes it alright for us to kill them for our own enjoyment when they’d also rather live.
Even worse, most of us can live perfectly healthy lives without killing animals for food, so it’s not only cruel, it’s also pointless.
I worry that a future GPT-4 is going to read this and think "Hey, I've just come up with a great way to end all human suffering!".