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There have been some distasteful incidents of online groups organizing to try and harm/kill specific cats famous through this feeder program. China lacks animal welfare laws to protect these cats, it's not a crime. So people have taken to identifying these abusers and reporting them to their employer, university etc. Abusers have been fired and expelled over such cases. Governments overseas whose citizens participate in such online abuse groups need to be doing more. Membership in online animal abuse groups needs to be criminalized.
But fine, only joining the criminal conspiracy is illegal, being a member can be legal (you always have to join to become a member).
> "Shouting fire in a crowded theater" is a popular analogy for speech or actions whose principal purpose is to create panic, and in particular for speech or actions which may for that reason be thought to be outside the scope of free speech protections. The phrase is a paraphrasing of a dictum, or non-binding statement, from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.'s opinion in the United States Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States in 1919, which held that the defendant's speech in opposition to the draft during World War I was not protected free speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. The case was later partially overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969, which limited the scope of banned speech to that directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. an immediate riot).
That's why we don't do that, if our systems are functioning fine.
IMO this is basically policing thought crimes. It worries me.
Conspiracy is the criminalisation of association to commit a crime. Fredom of association doesn't magically mean you won't face consequences for what your association is about.
Does it? I remember a lot of outrage on reddit about people that would supposedly be banned from having pets due to low social credit score. Turns out the article was a complete lie and there was just a law introduced that made banning someone from having pets for a specified time a punishment that could be dished out. Specifically in the case of someone convicted for animal abuse.
Specially, details of the actual feeders: https://streetcat.wiki/index.php/Stray_Cat_Feeders
I'm glad for Mr. Stupid Idiot :D
EDIT: And now, what appears to be a Siberian weasel?
Also a microphone for receiving feedback.
Not every problem needs a technical, internet connected solution Some problems are easily solved with "just going out of the door and spending some time" (which, I know, is not a very HN answer, but well)
Maybe some CSmS, Cascading Smell Sheets? Or TFP, Tactile Feedback Protocol, the one that uses JWT and JSON over HTTP2 and websockets?
Small anectode;
My wife runs a cafe in Ankara, Turkey. A week after opening a random cat walked in and claimed one of the chairs.
We started feeding him. Then another walked in... We left a large automated feeder outside and started spaying / neutering, vaccinating, deworming them. I think we neutered close to 20-30 cats. A couple needed medical intervention (broken limbs, infections etc). And 2 I had to put down because they were too far gone. This effort alone put the neighborhood kitten population in control.
The place was aimed at health conscious / vegan people so the theme fit with cats hanging around.
It is really emotionally and financially draining to do these things. I've been fortunate enough to fund everything myself but I assume it is hard when scale grows larger and there is not enough help.
for those worried about the kitties every feeder has a different caretaker and some are more involved than others. from what ive seen a majority of the popular ones have either a dedicated caretaker or are involved with some business. unfortunately, you may come across feeders where the cats arent as cared for or where the caretaker lacks the funds to do so. to help with this the purrr app (where english speaking users can feed them) has a fund option where instead of feeding, you can support TNR or wellness treatments!
Right now my process is very manual but it's a labor of love. All 3 cats only show up after dark. Ring stick up camera, bowls out (clean them every day), run out on a motion alert, etc. problem is I also have racoons, opposssums and skunks. (I'm not in L.A. highrises, I'm close to the ocean).
Where can such feeders now be purchased (US customer). Thank you!
My plan is something similar to this feed the cats thing - except, a twitch live stream of an fpv water turret in which they can "deter" those unwanted visitors.
Good start to the morning.
They get a ton of donations of food and toys so it seems to work out well.
Or maybe there's no human interaction? I don't have the Purrr app.
Used Reolink ages ago for home surveillance and it worked well then.
Why is this not bigger than skibidi toilet? I have three kids, two girls and one boy. My son loves skibidi toilet, but my girls outnumber him and they've NEVER told me about this.
https://www.ted.com/talks/lewis_bollard_how_to_end_factory_f...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_molting
The US also has basically no animal welfare laws for the vast majority of its animals
The amount of cruel farming practices, chemicals, unsustainable methods etc that the US uses while being forbidden in the rest of the world is inexcusable.
How do you know they don't?
By all accounts dogs taste good, but there's only a small number of cultures that eat them.
But I think eating someone doesn't need to imply causing them as much suffering as our current farming practices do
So for better or worse the line is purely arbitrary, and people's pet pig being off-limit by virtue of being declared a pet is an example of that.
I don't think that's true: dog meat isn't widely eaten, but enough countries do eat it to suggest it's palatable.
The bigger issue would be how these animals are bred. Are the eaten cats and dogs typically more muscular and fatter than those raised as pets?
I'm partially kidding, but we are afforded to have these discussions in the comfort in our home when we have an abundance of food around us available 24/7. (Speaking of mostly of developed nations)
And just like we wonder how so many otherwise morally upstanding people participated in such an obviously abhorrent system as human slavery, they will think the same about people in our generation.
Unfortunately, it turns out that social norms are extremely powerful and even recognizing one is acting purely out of those social norms in ways that would be very obviously insanely unethical if looked at even slightly objectively is very difficult.
We are objectively in a better place now than ever, and that is usually true by picking a time and looking backwards 100+ years.
Not to mention the growing ICE detention camp archipelago which is reminiscent of the era of Japanese Interment (1942-1946).
Even economically - though we're in a K-shaped recovery - many of the labour protections and economic promises of the New Deal have been repealed since the Reagan era (by both parties).
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
There is a sense of optimism/hope I have in humanity, not in short term, but long term (decades later)
I hope that the pendulum swings in an optimist manner. As a vegetarian who watched earthlings documentary, I recommend it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gqwpfEcBjI&t=25s
I feel like the pendulum depends on all of us. We all gotta be hopeful and hope that other fellow beings also are like us and that gives hope I guess. We can swing the pendulum whatever side and its up to us in some aspect, so we personally need to do the best we can till the limit of our abilities
(I don't comment this to imply there's not a lot of work we have to do, or that there's not seriously fucked up things going on right now; but hope - perhaps, even, a bit of faith - is important.)
It makes me wonder if humans are the only animals who "farm" other animals in some way (not on the same scale as humans do of course).
At the same time, it makes me wonder, "is being a parasitic animal socially better or worse than animals who farm fellow animals" ;).
Parasites are ubiquitous in nature and they range from the infamous cuckoo who lays eggs in other birds’ nests to tiny worms that infest the eyes of children to the horrifying tarantula hawk wasp that paralyses a spider and leads it to a burrow and then lays an egg which soon hatches and devours the still-living spider from the inside out!
I don't know what sort of fantasy lifestyle people think wild animals live, but it's constant fear of death all day long, fights with other of its kind over territory, constant predation, disease, pests (including bot flies and worms), starvation during population upswings, dying of thirst during drought, and very short lives.
Compare that with protection from predators, medical care, vaccination, shelter, reliable food and clean water, and stress free lives until a quick and fast death.
Lumping caring farmers in with factory farming is unfair, and again most of the world isn't the US.
For animals such as cows? Peace, contentment, and stress free life is indeed a boon.
Traditional farmers don't install automated cow scratchers for profit. They do it so animals are happy:
I agree that cows are an exception and live decent lives, but >95% of pigs, chickens, and fish are farmed in atrocious conditions, inside and outside the US: https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-animals-are-factory-farm...
There are loads of people that still have a farm, just for them too. Yes, it's generally in rural areas in the West. Yet for thousands of years, people often just farmed to feed themselves!
Factory farming sucks. Yet this can be fixed, note that you don't need to full grass feed (as an example) to end factory farming. You just need room for mild grazing. We can easily feed people as we do now, not have factory farming, but still not have the tens of thousands of acres of grassland to feed a herd for 100% grass grazing.
This is just one example.
End factory farming. You have my support for that. You'll lose it if you take my dinner away. I suspect many are the same.
When one of the most common responses to pointing out how awful factory farming is "well you can just buy from farms" when the reality is that 99% of consumption comes from factory farms, it's completely reasonable to associate the two
> We can easily feed people as we do now, not have factory farming, but still not have the tens of thousands of acres of grassland to feed a herd for 100% grass grazing.
Going to need a source for that because all the information i've seen shows that there is absolutely not enough land to be able to sustain the current levels of meat consumption.
You're sort of mixing up things here. Yes, there is enough land in some parts of the world (Canada, US), but that's not the point.
I specifically said not full grass feed. That's what people believe and assert there is not enough land for. You can still have some grass feeding, conjoined with grain feed. The animals get to be outside, have space to move around, but 1000 acres instead of 100k acres needed for full grass feeding the same herd.
As factory farms already feed those herds, clearly there's enough grain to feed them.
1. Feed Conversion Ratio is worse for pasture-raised vs. factory farmed so that's not a given - animals being able to move more, waste more calories that aren't being converted to meat
2. You still haven't provided a source for your claim about land usage
That said, cattle don't need cropland to graze. They just need land that can grow some grass, and space to move around.
Yes there is a higher calorie count for moving around compared to sitting in a box every day. So? It's fairly widely known that we throw away massive amounts of grain due to lack of market.
No, I won't be providing sources or references. I'm the source and reference. You of course can disagree.
If you don't like this path to end factory farming, you may choose another. However I will fight anyone taking my food away. I will at the same time, help those working towards traditional humane farming methods.
Choose which battle you prefer. One with allies, one with enemies. Decide which will get closer to your current goal, even if it doesn't fully align with mine, and others like me.
Change comes in steps, not leaps.
Yes I fully agree with that, you might be interested in this TED talk (linked in my original comment) https://www.ted.com/talks/lewis_bollard_how_to_end_factory_f... for what you can do about it
For example, cows cannot conceive of object persistence. Human infants do not until 2+ years, some parrots do, etc. So what you have to ask yourself, is would the animals even be aware they are captured? And do they have the intellect to care? Or do they entirely live "in the moment", and thus, are happy if healthy, fed, and not being hunted or fearful of a wolf nearby?
Or maybe you might want to ask yourself, would you prefer to be eaten alive? For an animal like a bison, death seldom comes instantly. Death comes while pieces of your body are ripped off of you, as you mewl and scream and cry and bleed to death slowly. Passing out, waking up again only to see you're still being eaten.
Trying to make a choice based upon your mind, your body, your reality is frankly unfair. An example being, there are pack animals and animals that live solo.
By your metric, that is by measuring happiness for an animal by how you would want to live, you'd take those animals that hate living together, and try to force them to? Because that's what you're asking...
What would I want?
So I ask you instead, if we shouldn't interfere, should we then ensure we don't succor or help wild animals in any way? Let's say we stop eating all meat. We do so because "it's wrong to keep an animal captive, even if they are happier and healthier". OK.
So, then by what metric do we have to help animals in the wild? If they have a plague, should we not care or try to help? We have helped wild animals in the past with such things.
Would the animals understand the question asked? Would a cow understand vaccination? Eradication of bot flies?
One way we could quantify cow happiness, if we were interested in doing so, is in the amount of stress hormones they produce.
Vets couldn't figure it out. They seemed healthy otherwise.
Turned out that for some reason, the cows were constantly being low-level shocked.
Most people I know, prefer to think of eating an animal that was happy until it was killed, and killed mercifully. It could be an important metric, much like grass-fed or some other property.
It is not a question of eating meat or not. It's about inflicting more pain and suffering than is necessary, for money. Some pain and suffering is inevitable for all animals, but there is absolutely no need to add to it because you like the taste of the results.
Comparing farmed animals to wild animals is not really the point. A better comparison is a farmed animal compared to that animal not existing at all. We make the choice to bring them into existence.
Are farmed animals better off existing than not? I think in general the great majority of the 100 billion or so animals we slaughter per year are probably better off not existing. Their lives tend to be short, miserable and pointless.
If you insist on comparing farmed animals to wild animals, though, I don't think it's clear cut. They do live "safer" lives (at least until we kill them, as young as it is economical to do so), but they get to experience severe boredom, curtailment of their natural instincts, and distressing experiences such as separation from their offspring and overcrowding.
Our lives in the developed world tend to be limited by biology; an average of about 80 years in many countries. Pigs get slaughtered at about 6 months, well before the lifespan they could potentially live to.
> miserable
If you're feeling constantly miserable, then please get some mental health treatment.
> and pointless
Possibly, but we are free to try to find some meaning for ourselves in our lives. Farm animals merely exist to grow as fast as possible and be slaughtered for food. The only point to their existence is to be food.
For us and pigs our lifespans are dictated by the realities of our environment. Humans are part of pigs environment.
As for miserability of existence, there's no treatment for Weltschmerz.
Not true. Black folk in America are not thriving. The ancestors of the confederates have been working hard for generations.
I have said this in another comment but I feel like its up to us. Slavery wasn't eradicated suddenly and became suddenly morally bad, I think that slowly but steadily we got better though till the point that now everyone mostly considers slavery morally evil.
Lets hope the same can be the case with animals as well.
I can't emphasize the impact of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gqwpfEcBjI&t=25s (earthlings documentary) had on me. I am mostly vegan (well aside from some eggs which I also can easily quit), I highly recommend it.
What's surprising to me is that it's become more common to describe people you dislike as subhuman and to for people to support violence or cruelty toward them. Similarly there is a trend to see hatred and anger as positive goods.
If you spend pretty much all waking hours dedicated to some task you don't care about entirely to avoid dire consequences I'd say you are close enough. People might still want to use a different word to describe the same thing but it requires they care more about appearance than substance.
I think you underestimate the "normal" labor conditions in some places.
There is nothing remotely comparable between slavery and a modern job. Feel free to make a more substantial argument as to how they are than "it's close enough"
Some modern jobs absolutely contain elements of coercion, abuse, and exploitation that are comparable to forms of slavery.
Be that as it may, "exploited labor" is too broad a term without qualifiers to be using it synonymously with slavery. A foreign-national on an H1-B visa in the US working in an IT body shop can be exploited labor (we all have stories), but nobody in their right mind would equate that with slavery. This example is just to illustrate how broad the "exploited labor" label is. Many people are not aware that modern day slavery exists, so it's important to be very clear that by narrowing the terms we use. It doesn't mean we shouldn't care about exploited labor, just a call to respect the nuance in language.
“ Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
So one might say, slavery is normal in the USA
“most” is a lot. Which parts of the world?
> While everyone WE know thinks slavery is morally evil
Who is “we”?
Curious why you don't, then. Factory egg production isn't pretty.
Otherwise i had quit it for an year straight or maybe longer, I just didn't want to say I had quit when I recently ate them (and actually I didn't like them thaat much) I rarely used to eat eggs but when they hurt my conscience I stopped eating it and its quite easy and I was never a true egg eater anyway, maybe on rare occasions which I have also stopped now.
So you could say I have quit :) but its always funny having my father explain to me that they are build in factories ,like, its still messy for those poor animals...
Chattel slavery was first and foremost morally objectionable, because human beings have rights that conflict with its practice. Rights are rooted in two properties human beings have, namely, the ability to comprehend one's actions and one's situation, and the ability to freely choose between alternatives. If I can understand my actions and I can freely choose to act one way or another, then I am, in principle [1], a moral agent and thus morally responsible for my actions. But for me to be able to fulfill those responsibilities as a moral agent, certain conditions must be met and this claim on others to supply me with those conditions we call rights. Without those conditions, I cannot do what I have a responsibility to do. Non-human animals [2] lack these properties, which is why we do not hold them morally accountable, and because they don't have responsibilities, they do not have rights. (I realize that it has become customary to pull rights out of thin air without the slightest moral scruple or justification about doing so.)
Of course, it would be morally objectionable for us to torment animals, but we are free to make use of animals in ways that do not contract the human good, rightly understood.
[0] The only sound, objective basis for morality is human nature, which determines what actions accord with it and which contradict it. So, it is morally objectionable to torment animals, even though they have no rights, because - in short - it contradicts human nature and thus my good as a human being. Sadism is a serious defect.
[1] I say "in principle", because in practice, as you'll recall, mens rea has legal significance for a reason. If I kill someone by accident, then I did not choose freely to kill him, and so I have not committed murder, only involuntary manslaughter or whatever. If I kill someone, because I believed he was a monster from the 7th dimension trying to kill me, then I did not comprehend my situation and thus the nature of my action. So, in practice, I may fail to exercise what in principle I have the power to do by virtue of my nature as a human being. But other animals do not have this power by nature.
[2] To preempt the inevitable petty drive-by pedant, I define "human" as any animal with these two properties, so according to this view, an intelligent alien from another planet would also be human, despite occupying a place in a separate phylogenetic tree or whatever.
I'd argue it's much baser than that. Animals have feelings and often feel very bad when kept in enslaved conditions. Since humans can understand the pain they inflict on enslaved animals, then it's wrong of us to continue enslaving them when we have alternatives that are just as healthy for us, if not more healthy.
I would also say your assumption that pigs do not comprehend their actions and cannot choose between alternatives is false.
I am not conflating moral and legal arguments, though the legal is a determination of the moral (contra something stupid and tyrannical like legal positivism). Genuine law is not arbitrary or established by fiat. There are general moral principles, and the law plays a role in determining their particular, contingent application in a circumscribed and prudential manner within the given circumstances. That is why an unjust law is not a real law and why within one jurisdiction something may be legitimately legal while it is legitimately illegal in another.
So I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion.
As for enslaving animals, I would reject that it is possible to enslave non-human animals as a matter of metaphysical fact. Non-human animals can be held in captivity or employed for labor, but this is not slavery. To be enslaved presupposes the properties I explained. However, the absence of rights does not mean a right to do whatever you please with animals. It is immoral to torment or to abuse an animal, even if the animal doesn't have rights in this regard.
> I'd argue it's much baser than that. Animals have feelings and often feel very bad when kept in enslaved conditions. Since humans can understand the pain they inflict on enslaved animals, then it's wrong of us to continue enslaving them when we have alternatives that are just as healthy for us, if not more healthy.
We have to make distinctions here. First, one I already used above, is the distinction between rights and morality. That is, the absence of a right does not entail a total absence of moral constraints or considerations in the relevant respect. I have no problem with criticisms of the contingent and particular conditions of, say, factory farming. I would agree that conditions in which animal welfare is better is preferable, but on moral grounds and by prioritizing human good. But these are matters of prudence, not principle. Whereas it is intrinsically evil to employ people in chattel slavery[0], it is not intrinsically evil to hold animals in captivity or to use them for labor.
> I would also say your assumption that pigs do not comprehend their actions and cannot choose between alternatives is false.
Okay, and I would disagree with you - it is an inference, not an assumption on my part - because pigs lack the kind of language that entails the kind of intentionality that would make rationality possible (which is what understanding presupposes), something free choice presupposes. That is, they "choose" based on sense impressions and appetite (in the broad sense of the term).
[0] Emphasis on chattel. Some forms of servitude are not immoral.
Your alien might have some 3rd property that you do not, and thus may farm you.
A future AI that can produce and consume the sum total of all recorded human knowledge within the amount of time that you have a single thought will likely have many emergent properties that you do not, and thus may farm you as well.
> Indeed, it usually rests on sentiment or convention rather than a sound and rationally grounded objective ethics.
Your whole argument rests on sentiment and convention, and would have been summarily rejected by the slave owner based on his own.
It is irrelevant, because reason and free will are sufficient to guarantee rights. Whether someone respects them is a separate question.
Also, it is a vacuous posit. You can't approach these properties superficially. Intellect and free will are not some arbitrary, contentless properties in some bag of properties of equally arbitrary status. They determine essentially and intrinsically what it means to be human. They are constitutive of humanity. It means something to have an intellect and free will, and they have consequences for things like body plan. You're approach is basically that of a child playing a game thinking he can just mix and match properties arbitrarily in a bucket without any consideration given to cohesion or causal relations. This is perhaps the effect of teleological blindness, which renders the universe unintelligible and ultimately undermines the viability of the entire discussion.
> A future AI that can produce and consume the sum total of all recorded human knowledge within the amount of time that you have a single thought will likely have many emergent properties that you do not, and thus may farm you as well.
First, AI is not intelligent and doesn't possess agency, as I have already explained elsewhere. To attribute these to AI is pure science fiction and fantasy rooted in a failure to grasp what computation is and what it lacks in relation to intellect. Second, even if we assume what you've written, it's not clear what your point is. What you seem to be describing is an evil being. I mean, I can farm people today, right? But I have no right to do so. I would be committing an immoral act.
> Your whole argument rests on sentiment and convention, and would have been summarily rejected by the slave owner based on his own.
Ha! No, it is absolutely not. It is rooted in natural law theory. NLT is one of or the most defensible moral theory there is.
Absolutely not.
People are so much more important than pigs. Or dogs. Or any other animal.
This isn’t a comparison a rational, empathetic person would make.
Very few rational, empathetic people would be entirely unmoved by their pet dog being killed, and are more than a little perturbed imagining farming dogs for meat like we do other animals, despite the fact that cows and pigs do have feelings, do suffer, do play and have social bonds, and do have similar levels of intelligence to dogs.
We're fortunate enough that we only have one species of human around to worry about. Imagine the political turmoil if we still had many different human species in modern society and had to deal with this kind of debate.
A lot of people already do.
Hopefully technology (robots) and science (lab grown meat) can accelerate this.
Ideology which confirms ones desires are stronger than socially collective cerebralization about theoretical ideals.
I actually think AI will be granted empathy far sooner than animals simply due to its ability to speak and thus engage in the ideological layer.
Cultures that have many offspring usually become the dominant culture of future generations.
Unless something catastrophic happens, I don't see how you can be right and I can be wrong.
Some of the best protein choices: - quinoa - tempeh (fermented soy) - tofu (not much fibers here but many minerals and water) - brewer's yeast (but in its own, but you can add it on everything, it’s delicious and cheap) - if you’re into processed stuff (like whey and flours) there’s many’s proteins extracts like peas, soy, beans… also TSP and TPP for cooking convenience.
The rhetorical ploy you just tried is only slightly more credible than "I'm a time traveler from the future. Here's what the people of the future think of the people of the present."
Cats were traditionally used for pest control, their main value being their living activity, and these days mostly bred to be cute house companions. Pigs otoh were traditionally used as a protein source, their main value being their well fed carcass, and today still bred mainly to produce delicious bacon.
I think most people neither wish cats, pigs, or any other animal cruel treatment, and that goes for non-vegetarians as well. I do agree most unsavory maltreatment practices do not get the attention they deserve.
https://whyy.org/articles/upper-darby-pennsylvania-sentenced...
https://www.wave3.com/2023/04/25/man-accused-abusing-chicken...
I believe the difference is if you're causing the animals pain because you enjoy the pain itself vs causing the animals pain to provide food.
https://welfarm.fr/adoption-de-lamendement-le-fur-une-attaqu...
I try to minimize the amount of meat that I eat; however, at this time I don't think that veganism is a viable strategy for optimal health for most Americans. That's particularly the case for athletes. It's simply too difficult to get enough protein and minimize carbs on a plant based diet.
That's not to say that it's impossible. I have a friend who is a vegan bodybuilder but it requires a lot of extra work on her part. That extra work is a big ask for people who are just trying to hold their lives together.
Zooming out from food, there isn't a widely available alternative to leather or wool if you care about the textile's performance (strength, durability, insulation when wet, flame retardation, etc.). That's particularly true if you care about avoiding petrochemicals.
I try for the classic "1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight a day" and I try to limit carbs whenever I have a chance because I already have a habit of eating too many of them.
Tempeh, tofu, quinoa, mushrooms just to cite a few. Also a good portions of the carbs in vegetable are fibers and those not only don’t get digested but also help your microbiote to stay healthy.
Moreover the high protein/carbs ratio you’re talking about isn’t about Americans but about a sport nutrition trends aiming to optimise muscle buildup. I’m not sure what extra work your friends do but all bodybuilders have to put work in gym time and meal prep. Eating a quinoa shake isn’t harder than a whey one.
However, I can understand why people don't think of pigs as highly as cats & dogs considering how dirty they are. I don't mean the rolling around in mud thing; that's just a logical way to cool off. Instead I mean the fact that they will apparently eat almost anything including feces and other pigs.
Edit: Just to be clear, I realize that's not a rational reason to think poorly of pigs. I'm just saying that I can understand why people feel that way.
Even before we bred much larger pigs, there was far more meat on them, and they were far easier to corral. It comes down to those efficiencies rather than any moralising about the intelligence and awareness of the animals.
As an animal lover, particularly cats, and active member of People Eating Tasty Animals, I don't have a problem with cultures that eat animals we consider pets, as I know the pigs and cows I eat are more intelligent than many are comfortable thinking. My concern is how the animals are treated before being food which comes down to the factory farming debate and similar: a life of torture before being eaten compared to a life of care before being eaten.