If it’s acceptable for humans to exploit other animals for food, clothing, labor, entertainment or experiments because we’re more intelligent than them, would it be equally acceptable for a superintelligent alien race with 10x the mental capacity as humans to do the same to us?
This is something only someone who grew up in a privileged home in the city would say. I grew up on a farm. Animals have a great life. They’re kept as healthy and happy as possible. Yes, some get slaughtered eventually, but they have no concept of this. They don’t know their time on the earth is shortened by a couple of years. They do know they’re not dying from horrific disease or consumed alive by predators. There’s this crazy idea that wild animals have better lives. That’s patently absurd. Go spend some time in nature.
I’m sure you too know that it’s a spectrum. Some production animals live on a free-range farm having jolly good time while others live in a 26 storey pig skyscraper
We need more of the former, and less of the latter.
You can stop at any time.
The vast majority of farm animals are grown in horrible conditions on factory farms, so what the comment you’re responding to said is not inaccurate.
I’m not sure how both can be true.
One is existential dread. The other is physical pain. I could probably have articulated that better.
Yeah, but they probably don’t know they could be suffering from some disease if they never had it. Same goes about predators they’ve never encountered. Which isn’t to say they don’t have instincts but that’s not knowledge.
Yes, but point is they’re living happy, blissfully content lives, not suffering from disease or predators.
No, the (at least my) point is what they do and do not know. On everything else, we agree.
There’s a species of monkey too large for any local birds to predate that still has a prey response whenever they hear a hawk cry. There used to be, but is long since extinct, a hawk that was large enough and did predate these monkeys. There’s an evolutionary fear of predation these animals carry even though they aren’t prey anymore. I would think it would be the same for livestock. Similarly, I used to have egg laying hens and a rooster to protect them. None had ever been attacked by a predator, but they all knew to run inside when they saw a big shadow fly overhead, and the rooster knew to call out and puff himself up. What I mean to say is as far as their “happiness” goes, the input from instinct vs input via knowledge isn’t really important. If the question is “how does the animal FEEL” then what it KNOWS only informs the feeling just as instinct does.
The overwhelming majority of chickens are allocated exactly 1 sq foot (this qualifies as cage-free, btw) to spend their short, miserable lives.
I grew up in the countryside, surrounded by farms and my family raised and slaughtered sheep, chickens, cows and more… and yet I can easily see that just because you provide someone with shelter and food it doesn’t make it okay to kill them for profit/taste.
Same argument could be made about killing humans, they would have no idea after they died.
I’ve said nothing about wild animals.
Farm animals are not rescued from the wild, they are bred by the billions to be killed for profit, that is cruel.
Actual privilege is thinking that you’re completely entitled to have living and feeling beings killed for your taste pleasure.
This is how animals are actually treated: https://watchdominion.org/
Well, depends on the farm. Farms I grew up on and around were and are kind to their animals, even if they are going to get slaughtered close to the end of their life.
Big corporate factory farms (IE Perdue) keep their animals in conditions bad enough they’d be better in the wild
I really doubt they were slaughtered near the end of their lives, that wouldn’t be profitable for the farm, cows live 20+ years for example.
And even if there were, it’s still killing someone for profit, that’s cruel.
That’s a good point. We should absolutely take any cruelty out of factory farming. I just take umbrage with the activists who claim all farming is cruel.
How is needless killing not cruel?
No matter how nicely you treat someone it’s cruel to kill them for profit/taste.
The definition of cruelty is, “wilfully causing pain or suffering to others, or feeling no concern about it.” Slaughter in most Western nations is done without pain or suffering. Even if it were, it would be incidental. Animals are unable to feel existential dread.
Any source for this funny idea?
No one can provide proof of a negative. Do you have any evidence that they can?
lmao, killing isn’t cruel, ok buddy.
Does this look painless? https://youtu.be/-7hAELEBjX4
If you care about using the words as they are defined, then no, it’s not cruel. Find a better word.
I don’t like that video and think they should use lower concentrations of CO2, as suggested by the narrator.