Factory Farming Is a Blight | Hacker News Reader

Factory Farming Is a Blight

palladiummag.com

55 pointsspeckx15 comments

There are all sorts of ugly industrialized systems required to support our world of 8 billion people.

It's incredibly difficult to square them with how we want to perceive life. Your brain immediately wants to slip into a counterfactual fantasy, "Meat isn't required, we could all be vegetarian" etc.

I don't have an answer to it. Factory farming is a nightmare beyond most horror. It's hard enough to even make a list of all these ugly areas. I think the necessity of plastics is another, lesser example.

> required

Source? Keep in mind factory farms are subsidized by corn subsidies (used for feed) and by not paying for externalities, namely the antibiotic-resistance they breed due to their overuse of medication to keep animals alive in such oppressive environments. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a far greater threat to that world of 8 billion people than slightly higher meat prices.

> counterfactual fantasy

20-40% of India is vegetarian, and factory farms barely existed before the 1950s, and become widespread even later. Far from a fantasy, it did and does work.

There's nothing lazier than looking at a system, and declaring, without evidence, that no other way could work. Especially when there are counterexamples in living memory.

Source is millions of people (including me) that are alive and well without touching any kind of animal based food products whatsoever.

You seem to be agreeing violently with parent?

Meat isn't required. We could all be vegetarian.

The impact to quality of life could be minimal. Right now, today, there exist plant-based burgers (Beyond) and even steaks (Juicy Marbles) that are in every way superior to the average offal-based "meat" you get from the average fast food joint. Granted that you can't replicate the very nicest of fine cuts with plants - yet - but how often are you really eating rare sirloin for lunch anyway? Right now the plant based alternatives are more expensive than animal meats, but this is an economic artifact that would evaporate in a hypothetical world where meat consumption was de-normalized (and meat subsidies halted!).

Perhaps you mean it's counterfactual because you don't think it's a social norm that has a hope of being challenged. I think that's defeatist. Vegetarianism is practiced globally. You must begin from the following perspective: this is an indulgence, not a necessity for survival or even a requirement for a happy life. Raising an entire animal only to slaughter it for consumption is wanton extravagance of both physical and moral resource. Its practitioners deserve no subsidy, financial or social. Most people would be quite put off their meat if forced to viscerally confront the reality, but are carefully insulated from it - usually by simple distance and pleasant marketing, but in some places by actual legislation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ag-gag

In short, like most of the evils of world today, it's not a necessary evil. Just a lazy, can't-be-bothered-to-change, would-upset-the-current-economic-order evil.

Why do you say that a vegetarian/vegan population is a fantasy?

There's a wide range between factory farming and vegetarianism. Moderate, humane farming and lower-but-not-zero meat consumption is a perfectly realistic alternative to the extremes.

I read TFA as suggesting a few approaches that might be useful to modifying the status quo somewhat.

We can just eat less meat, and the meat we do eat can be non-factory farmed. Eventually lab grown meat will take over (not because it achieves sentience, but because its tasty & cheap).

If there's one social transformation I long to see in my life time which seems actually achievable and believable it would be for plant-based eating to become hip and cool, sort of like how smoking or being anti-gay became uncool, among Gen-Z and later. As the article highlights, current sentiment is totally against factory farming, it feels like people just need the right affordances to express that distaste in the marketplace. Right now if you confine yourself to vegan food you're going to get something very bland in the majority of eateries. I think that may be because the previous wave of vegan eaters were doing so for health reasons and so wanted to avoid excess fat and salt. Deep fried, richly seasoned mushrooms on the menu at your local bar and grill soon, god willing!

But deep fried, richly seasoned mushrooms pair so well with steak and a cigar...

Why is it that any discussion on the horrors of meat-eating and factory farming inevitably invites this kind of morally nihilistic hedonism. Just because you like doing a thing does not make that thing justifiable. It’s that simple.

Signaling cynicism and borderline psychopathy is cool. Empathy is perceived as a weakness.

Hey, as long as the deep fried mushrooms are replacing the deep fried chicken wings as an appetizer, that's the sort of progress I'm talking about. It's better the vibes change such that 50% of people start ordering plant based meals 10% more often than that 1% of us go fully vegan, and feels like a lot more likely and possible.

Join your local Green Party. They always need help and this is exactly what they want to achieve!

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