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Comment by Voultapher | Hacker News Reader

As others have noted, it's not a pure byproduct and if you believe that the way we treat cattle is immoral, singling out one industrial scale consumer of animal products in a web of interconnected and interdependent industries and saying changing them won't change the bigger picture is in isolation correct. But it misses the bigger picture, if you believe for ideological reasons, that there is no moral way to use animals at industrial scale - the same way that thinking of slavery as something negative is a subjective ideological stance, one that wasn't the mainstream opinion of many societies over time - dismantling the leather industry won't get you all the way there, but it's a step.

To take a personal stance, I draw the arbitrary line at insects, I'm fine with farming plants and insects in some kind of harmony with nature, but not mammals or fish. Live on earth is a co-op, you don't win by being the last species standing.

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Gazelles cooperate with leopards, you say?

That's an old trope. I'm not talking about the individual level. But even in your example, if the Leopards hunt Gazelles and other Prey animals to extinction, there won't be any Leopards, inversely hunters play a crucial role in keeping populations of animals in a sustainable equilibrium.

It's possible to read your comment as the old trope of, if other animals kill to live why can't we? Well I'd be surprised if you'd argue that one person killing another over a personal grievance is the same thing as committing genocide on purpose. Yes both involve the killing of humans, but there are some substantial qualitative differences.

I purposefully talk about industrial scale animal use. It's something completely different for indigenous people to hunt and use animals. The latter I have no moral objections too.

Quibbles: leopards don't deliberately refrain from hunting their prey to extinction, humans do deliberately refrain from eating the entire population of cows and pigs and sheep, and leopards aren't motivated a personal grievance against gazelles. (Man, that gazelle is such an ass! I'm gonna eat him.)

Then there's the ethics bit, which goes like:

* We should not say animals are "only animals" and use that as a reason to eat them, that would be unethical,

* Furthermore, we should not hold them to the same ethical standards, and put the predators in prison and try to reform them. That would be ridiculous because they're only animals.

But you don't seem to be saying that anyway, if subsistence hunters are OK. If the "industrial scale" is the main point, that looks like a solid argument - except why focus on animals? There's also tree plantations, mines, cities, and anything else that isn't sitting in the jungle doing craftwork.

> except why focus on animals?

It's a gamble. My assumption is that extrapolating from my personal experience of experiencing the world around me, to other humans is often wrong, but the main gist stays the same. I would feel awful, if someone were to cut off my limbs one by one, so I don't do that to others. Extrapolating from me a human being to a orangutan doesn't seem so far fetched. I think they would also feel awful being cut into pieces. Looking at cows, they have such varied and often human like behavior and expressions, that I think chances are my experience of the world, while still drastically different is still similar enough that the treatment in a farm - any farm - is not something I want to subject them to. Continuing this thought I could go all the way to bacteria or even maybe further. But to me that seems impractical and I think extrapolating from my emotions to the emotions of a bacteria has so little predictive power as to be effectively zero. So as I said, I draw the line at insects, where I think they are different enough that applying my perspective isn't useful anymore.

I could be wrong, and the cow really doesn't mind being torn apart limb by limb, or the other way as well and trees do mind. Maybe society is right and it doesn't matter, but what if not?

Extrapolating your reasoning... Why have morals at all?! Seems just another inefficiency to optimize away right?

> If the "industrial scale" is the main point, that looks like a solid argument - except why focus on animals? There's also tree plantations, mines, cities, and anything else that isn't sitting in the jungle doing craftwork.

I think the "factory farming" is the point. The manner of which animals are treated throughout their lifetime, and the manner in which they are dispatched, would make most people squirm. What's worse is that animals are shot and mostly just disposed of to keep crops from being eaten, and in many places it's illegal to sell meat from these or other wild caught animals. Often this is justified by a need to control disease or parasites, but more likely it's to protect the livestock industry. And of course, livestock will be crammed as close as possible to each other to 'increase productivity', and this poses a significant biohazard, as we've seen recently with the avian flu outbreak (and prior bird flu outbreaks, swine flu, mad cow disease etc. etc.) putting to question this justification of public health.

Hmm. You know, if instead of proselytizing this was framed as a sort of luxury preference, like "I'm so fussy and squeamish that I don't want to even imagine animals suffering anywhere near anything I touch", I could endorse it. People having picky preferences and being upfront about it is kind of cool. Then it just turns into a battle between the reach of the imagination and the allure of bacon, and is entirely about what feels nicest. In fact a friend of mine is vegetarian in an even simpler way, "I'm not making any principled argument, I just don't really like meat".

The biohazard angle is fairly persuasive too.

Personally I'm fond of venison, and puzzled by the part about laws banning the consumption of hunted meat, since meat is expensive and then there are frequent deer culls which are apparently also expensive, and yet this doesn't often lead to me getting venison pies, it's frustrating.

> if instead of proselytizing this was framed as a sort of luxury preference

> Personally I'm fond of venison

You just talked right past me. I was saying specifically—read the comment again—about factory farming and how that is distinct from wild caught food. If you really feel strongly that hunted meat should be consumed more, you should proselytize the ability to sell it. Animals can live their happy lives in nature, we lose a significant X-risk, and those with this 'luxury preference' of eating meat can do so without the extra step of lifelong torture. You might find some resistance from factory farms that have built a business model upon this kind of misery, and also from established fast food chains, and everyday consumers, that want access to consistently cheap meat.

They both completely ignored the factory farming part AND the entire point of suffering/empathy towards mammals... At this point I'm thinking don't feed the trolls. the only reason to dance around that subject so much is to avoid admitting they don't care about the suffering. Which they are aware is not very socially acceptable even among the heaviest meat consumers .

How is that talking past you? You regretted that meat from wild caught animals or those shot to protect crops isn't sold, and that factory farming presents a health hazard, and I agreed with both points. I could accept a charge of being vacuous, since I didn't add anything, but I wasn't ignoring your words. I agreed with you, and I'll do it again.

I can't see how what I was saying could be framed as a 'luxury' preference. It's more like, here's government intervention in favor of factory farming. We should be able to go down to our local butcher and get wild caught meat, but this would be deflating the price of meat (or at least deflating the yield). Allowing the sale of wild caught meat provides an affordable and ethical option to people who lack the inclination, time, or ability to slaughter animals. The only problem is that it's money being diverted away from established corporations with their grubby fingers all over government.

(I raised the point about zoonotic disease to contrast the supposed justification of restricting wild caught animals due to disease)

Does this place always devolve into such bad faith trolling? Especially on this topic? Yes you did talk past them and yes you seem to be mostly missing the entire point ... And acting in bad faith, purposely saying nonsense with high confidence .

Not seeming to have even a basic grasp on morals or human decency and compassion .... In short this does not spark curiosity. And you are a rather nasty person who does NOT represent the bulk of humanity. And your attempts at dry or emotionless logic are easily dismissed .

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