As much as I find chickens, and all avians in general, cute and I find it sickening the way they are treated… I do love eggs, they’re tasty, versatile, easy to cook, and unbelievably healthy.
I think the differential we have to identify is one thing, and that is scale.
I am not a vegan, I do not believe it is wrong to consume animals or animal-sourced products, however I do support animal welfare and believe that if we are to raise livestock for consumption they should be treated as the sentient, thinking, feeling creatures that they are and cared for accordingly.
Imagine instead of human and animal rights we just had “sentient rights”, for example.
Being able to test for sentience is a topic in and of itself, and out of scope for my argument.
I think there is no harm done in, a hypothetical world where people had the space to do such a thing, raising our own livestock, limited to individual homesteads or the immediate settlement (a local town market, for example).
The line where it becomes unethical is quite obvious really, are the animals treated as living things, or machines to simply fuel and feed to grow them for slaughter and harvest? Yes, in my example of fair treatment the goal may be to raise them for eventual slaughter, but its their lifelong treatment where this applies, not the overall objective.
if we are to raise livestock for consumption they should be treated as the sentient
this is a contradiction in itself.
It is normal and healthy for people to empathize with the animals they eat, to be concerned about whether or not they are living happy lives and to hope they are slaughtered humanely. However, if it is unethical to harm these animals, then it is more unethical to kill them.
Killing animals for food is far worse than making them suffer. Of course, it is admirable that people care so deeply about these animals that they take deliberate steps to reduce their suffering (e.g. by purchasing “free-range” eggs or “suffering free” meat). However, because they choose not to acknowledge the right of those same animals to live out their natural lives, and because slaughtering them is a much greater violation than mistreatment, people who eat ‘humane’ meat are laboring under an irreconcilable contradiction.
The better treatment balloons costs by requiring more land and more care, which significantly inflates the cost of the final products. This could be an effective measure for reducing meat consumption by people buying less to save money, many people would be against those increases.
Its just like mass produced clothing. Since they dont see the abuse and destruction, they are satisfied with the lower prices at the store.
That surplus is factored in to the companies making money and providing consistant demand. Prices will increase if the treatment gets better because the capitalists and oligarchs will not willingly take a profits cut. The surplus waste in the current system could be utilized better, for example fast freezing and being provided to food banks or soup kitchens.
No matter how you cut it, if labor and land demand increases, the price will increase.
I don’t really disagree with you, but land area isn’t actually a significant factor. When you consider how much land is used to produce feed for the pigs, it’s clear that the stables themselves take up very little space.
Sure, but we don’t have to go all pasture fed. Maybe just 10x more space for them in their stables could be a start. Would it be more expensive, absolutely, but either people will have to eat less meat, consumption has almost doubled the past 70-ish years, or they’ll have to pay more for it.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t get to eat meat, I’m just saying it’s rediculously cheap for what it is, and really not needed in the amounts people eat.
Doubling the cost to raise chicken wouldn’t double the shelf price. Most of the cost of food comes from the distribution network. Chicken raised this way costs double because that’s what some consumers will pay over cheaper chicken.
I think there is no harm done in, a hypothetical world where people had the space to do such a thing, raising our own livestock, limited to individual homesteads or the immediate settlement (a local town market, for example).
That’s fundamentally what I’m doing. My girlfriend also loves chickens and ducks so we bought a couple, build a big, nice coop for them (with fucking floor heating because why not lmao), also dug a pond for the ducks and now we have plenty of eggs and my girlfriend can just sit in the chicken enclose when depression kicks and the chickens and ducks take care of that. Best decision we made so far.
I’m certainly no expert, but a heated floor in a chicken coop seems like a bad idea.
It seems like it would be a fire hazard in a coop and regardless of that, seems like you would have to keep it much cleaner as it’s going to create a breeding ground for germs (and potentially attract critters)
It’s certainly no fire hazard. It’s heated with hot water. If the water gets hot enough to ignite the coop, I might have a completely different problem because that same water is used in my house lmao.
The cleaning part is also not that true since we don’t heat the stable to like 30°C at all times. It’s only for winter when temperatures drop massively where we heat the stable to like 15°C. But we clean the coop every two days anyways, I’ve designed it to be easy to clean. It’s fundamentally just a plywood plate that I can take out. Only takes like 15 minutes - remove the hay, remove the floor, pressure wash it, put it back in, add new hay, done. The pipes are directly below the plate, covered in styrofoam, heating it very reliably in winter without being some kind of danger to the coop.
I think if I just thought about installing an electric heated floor in anything on my ground, the austrian construction safety office would raid my house. I highly doubt that is legal here.
100% this, thankfully I’m lucky enough that in the near future I may be living in a quiet cottage. It’s always been a goal of mine to be self-sufficient, and that process will begin there.
Same, I moved to austria for that goal alone. There’s plenty of lone areas around and we’ve been able to find a massive piece of land with an old farmers house which took a lot of work to restore it. We’re not at full self-sufficiency yet, which honestly won’t happen anyways since for some things like internet access, you always need some dependency, but we aim to produce most of the stuff we eat and most of the power we consume ourselves until 2030.
Btw, veganism is really about just minimizing the harm you cause to the world. Don’t let any puritans tell you otherwise. What you have described is a form of veganism! Admittedly, it’s a little bit minimalistic, but it’s still something!
“Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”
From thevegansociety.com, emphasis mine. I’d argue strongly and vehemently that what is described above is not “as far as is possible and practicable” at all! It’s firmly within “as long as it doesn’t really inconvenience me” territory
I’m not a perfect vegan, I do my best, and I’m getting better. The expectation of perfection is self defeating. Ideally, though, I would have zero captive slaughtered animals in the world.
Right, I’m explicitly talking about “as far as is practicable and possible”. For instance I have to take a certain medication in order to function but there is no vegan derivative, they all contain gelatin. It is impossible for me to “exclude all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals”. But I do it “as far as is possible” which (at least initially) went far beyond what I considered comfortable.
And that’s the distinction I’m trying to make, if you are sure it is impossible, if it is not practicable (as in, not possible to be put into practice no matter how you twist or turn it), then sure it is what it is. what can you do. No ethical consumption under capitalism. But if you still have holdouts because you aren’t “ready” to give up certain treats or comforts then you aren’t (yet?) vegan.
Not being able to reach perfection is no excuse to not get as close as possible to it.
I don’t know that there’s any one thing that veganism is “all about”, per se. There are a ton of good reasons to eat fewer animal products, and everyone can cut out some level of extra saturated fat in their diets. The ability to cull and harvest a disgusting level of animal meat is the reason heart disease is the number one killer of modern humans
I’m not even fully vegan, I just eat animal fats in heavy moderation and balance them with lots of plants and exercise. I’m not perfect, I like eggs, but eggs aren’t fucking healthy in any context. And that’s only one of the several phenomenal reasons to eat way fewer animal products and more plant based & home-cooked.
You didn’t answer my question. Would you/do you support the ethical and mutually beneficial raising of animals? Chickens for eggs, milk for dairy animals. No abuse, good healthcare, no premature slaughter, etc.?
Edit. I just realized I’m not responding to the same person. But the deflection still stands.
How will you get the milk and eggs without abuse? Cows don’t just automatically start producing milk and chickens were bred to lay more eggs at the cost of their health. If you really tried to get these products without abusing the animals it would be so inefficient that only a tiny fraction of people could afford to consume them in bigger amounts.
Actually, counter-intuitively, strict veganism would objectively increase animal suffering if authentic alternatives exist.
Which they do. But they are admittedly not easy to find.
Ethical farms do exist, and typically self-regulate and self-support by selling the products the animals produce. Wool clothes, free-range eggs, end-of-life meat, excess milk & honey, etc.
If your only 2 options are torture products, or nothing, then yes I 100% agree that veganism would be the correct choice.
Between these 3 options though, giving your money to an ethical farmer objectively increases the livelihood of the animals under its care, more so than complete avoidance.
The way I see it, the tiny fraction of meat that’s produced ethically should go to the tiny fraction of people with dietary restrictions that require meat.
The vast majority of people are not going out to investigate small farms to see if their practices are ethical. They are buying meat from a grocery store, and if they consider it at all, they might pick one with a label slapped on like “organic,” completely meaningless thanks to lobbying.
Practically speaking, it is almost always a choice between torture products and nothing.
That’s an argument for vegetarianism, not veganism. What about wool, honey, milk, eggs. And different countries have different mechanisms. Using the USA as a basis, is admittedly a bad example.
Here in Germany, there are very strict regulations on how living conditions can be claimed, ranging from 1(literal torture) to 5(outdoor access, pasture raised etc.)
I’m not saying it’s a perfect system, but I can’t agree that it’s impossible and pointless to try when there are places actively trying and actively supporting l.
Again, it’s a matter of whether you’re looking at things in the abstract, or in terms of how things actually work.
Take eggs for example. Eggs aren’t just a byproduct of having chickens around, there are specific breeds that are dedicated to egg-laying. Because only a small number of males are needed for reproduction, most male chicks are put on a conveyor and ground to death. While I can’t claim to be an expert in German laws, I did find that German courts have allowed this practice.
It’s a similar story with milk. Because dairy cows are a different breed, male calves are typically slaughtered at birth. Dairy cows are kept in a constant state of pregnancy, suffer the stress of being separated from their young, and are killed as soon as the milk slows down, typically a quarter of their natural lifespans. Dairy is also similarly bad for the environment as beef, and there are widely available plant-based substitutes like oat milk that taste just as good, if not better.
No matter what animal product we’re talking about, maximization of profits is almost always going to involve cruelty, environmental harm, and selective breeding to the point that any expectations about natural by-products aren’t true. Even with regulations (which can be difficult to enact effectively), there are tradeoffs: limiting cruelty can increase environmental impact (as well as the price). If animal products were appropriately priced based on offsetting the harm they cause, they would be unable to compete against plant-based alternatives.
Not sure where our definitions of “healthy” foods differ, but I literally wouldn’t call eggs “healthy” whatsoever. There is no single animal product that can even be considered “nutrient dense” much less healthy. Even in world war II, the world had enough saturated fats and excessive animal products that most of the soldiers even in their thirties had already started developing intravascular plaques, and brother, we’re a hell of a long way from that these days…
Just wanted to jump in and correct you because I don’t know where this eggs are. Healthy thing came from. They are certainly not. They are like eating butter essentially with some protein on top
Well unfortunately you haven’t got what you wanted, you clearly have a very simple view on nutrition, and a concerning lack of intelligence.
What is an egg? It is a vessel to grow a living organism in a self-contained environment, providing all the resources needed to do so.
Resources such as:
Vitamins
Amino-acids
Antioxidants
Healthy, unsaturated fats
If an egg was so bad for your health, I ask you quite simply, how the hell do they support a chick during a very intense time of rapid growth?
That’s like saying being in a womb is unhealthy for a developing foetus.
Please, next time, perhaps try updating your knowledge to something a bit more modern than WW2 before “jumping in and correcting” anyone again. With the constant stream of AI slop onto the internet, the last thing we need is human slop too.
I have a health degree, but ok mr. Expert. Have fun with ur heart disease. I’d just appreciate if you didn’t confidently lead others down ignorant health courses like “eggs are healthy” lol
Yes, slaves are super convenient. No one ever said that slaves aren’t nice to have, dude. YOUR experience is not the fucking point.
There is no way to create a creature for the express purpose of exploitation that is okay. There is no way to create a creature with the intention of forcing it into a state of total dependence that is not actually evil.
Yes! Good on you for noticing the speciesism that racism is built on! If non-human animals have less worth than humans then liking some humans to non-human animals means they have less worth. The issue is at the very start, that
a) non-human animal and human are a meaningful distinction
b) non-humans have inherently less worth than humans
Slavers do that because they think other Animals are worth nothing and want to say Human Slaves are also worth nothing.
Here quite the opposite is done. All Animals have a Worth. Every living being has the same worth. Modern Science says that Humans are also Animals.
If you still think its something only a Slaver would say then in your head other animals probably have no worth at all. So you think someone else wants to degrade humans with that comparison. Even tho its not degrading at all. You just think less of other animals, and you probably deny the science that Humans are Animals. Which is the reason why @[email protected] says you sound like a “human supremacist”
But that we can’t objectively say what kind of worth something has is pretty much the point.
How can you say that only humans have worth but other animals do not? What gives you the right to say that you’re better than a pig, a cat, or any other animal?
Some humans even do the same with their own kind and say that women have less worth or that someone with another skin color has less worth.
I hope you agree with me that a white person has no right to decide if someone else has more or less worth than them.
So why does a human have this right over other animals? What gave humans this right?
This is not about personal worth in something like a friendship. Obviously your best friend is more worth to you then a stranger. Obviously your own cat is more worth to you then a stranger cat.
But in general worth, you would probably also be angry if millions of stranger humans would be slaughtered, right? You are probably against Genocide, right? Even tho you don’t know these humans.
Just trying to find a baseline. If you’re not even against these things when talking about Humans, then you probably have other problems.
But in general worth, you would probably also be angry if millions of stranger humans would be slaughtered, right? You are probably against Genocide, right? Even tho you don’t know these humans.
none of this has to do with “worth”. i can be opposed to genocide and mass slaughter without trying to quantify the value of people.
Stop Spamming me and respond in one single Comment man. Is this your first time on a social media platform. How old are you. Maybe you’re way to young to even argue to.
Some humans even do the same with their own kind and say that women have less worth or that someone with another skin color has less worth. I hope you agree with me that a white person has no right to decide if someone else has more or less worth than them. So why does a human have this right over other animals? What gave humans this right?
i don’t believe in rights, at all. they’re a european fiction.
Well I concluded that because you didn’t deny that in the previous comment. I tried to make clear why you were called a “human supremacist”. I tried to understand why you think that comparing slaves to animals is only something slave owners do.
First, this is denying of Science. Humans are in fact also Animals.
So I thought, if you think only Slave owners say that, you probably deny that and think your self that animals are much less worth then humans, because you see it a comparison as degrading.
This way it would make sense why you think only slave owners would say that. And you didn’t deny it, so went with it in the next comment.
If you actually do not think that you are more worthy then other animals, then you need to explain your first comment. From what viewpoint are you looking that you thought this comparison is something only slavers are doing. Maybe we just have a misunderstanding.
no. no one is advocating that pigs be allowed to vote, get healthcare, or education. they’re obviously different, and treating them differently is necessary for right behavior
Cool, so what is the difference that makes it ok to exploit and kill pigs for taste pleasure, that if applied to a human would also make it okay to exploit and kill them for taste pleasure?
ah, the old “name the trait” line of argument. lets just skip to the end here: the ntt argument is just an elaborate line-drawing fallacy (also called a spectrum fallacy). the inability to identify the single trait, or sum of traits, which distinguish one end of the spectrum from the other does not mean that each end of the spectrum is the same. pigs are not people. qed
You realize putting googly eyes on a toaster doesn’t give it feelings, right?
Assigning human values and desires to non-humans is not a coherent philosophy or ethical position.
Animals “Exploit” each other throughout the animal kingdom. Ants Literally farm aphids by protecting and herding them in exchange for what they produce. How is this wildly different from keeping a cow or a goat for milk?
Is the cow version evil because we’re humans, but the ant version okay because they aren’t?
Because that’s just making rules based on your desired outcome, not reason.
I would argue that animal husbandry is a symbiotic relationship rather than simple exploitation. While we gain resources, animals receive guaranteed food, protection from predators, and medical care that they would otherwise lack in the wild. Overall, the life with humans is better for the animals from a survival standpoint. Mind you, I’m only talking about animal husbandry on a smaller scale, not those disgusting meat factories as seen in the image above.
And before you drop the “How can a relationship be symbiotic if the animal has no choice in its dependence?” question that I’ve heard so many times before: Symbiosis is defined by mutual benefit instead of autonomy. Many biological partnerships happen without conscious choice, such as the relationship between fungi and algae in lichens, or ants and the small things they herd (forgot what they are called in english lmao). The lack of choice is offset by a massive increase in survival rates and resource stability compared to life in the wild.
As much as I find chickens, and all avians in general, cute and I find it sickening the way they are treated… I do love eggs, they’re tasty, versatile, easy to cook, and unbelievably healthy.
I think the differential we have to identify is one thing, and that is scale.
I am not a vegan, I do not believe it is wrong to consume animals or animal-sourced products, however I do support animal welfare and believe that if we are to raise livestock for consumption they should be treated as the sentient, thinking, feeling creatures that they are and cared for accordingly.
Imagine instead of human and animal rights we just had “sentient rights”, for example.
Being able to test for sentience is a topic in and of itself, and out of scope for my argument.
I think there is no harm done in, a hypothetical world where people had the space to do such a thing, raising our own livestock, limited to individual homesteads or the immediate settlement (a local town market, for example).
The line where it becomes unethical is quite obvious really, are the animals treated as living things, or machines to simply fuel and feed to grow them for slaughter and harvest? Yes, in my example of fair treatment the goal may be to raise them for eventual slaughter, but its their lifelong treatment where this applies, not the overall objective.
this is a contradiction in itself.
from https://yourveganfallacyis.com/en/humane-meat
The better treatment balloons costs by requiring more land and more care, which significantly inflates the cost of the final products. This could be an effective measure for reducing meat consumption by people buying less to save money, many people would be against those increases.
Its just like mass produced clothing. Since they dont see the abuse and destruction, they are satisfied with the lower prices at the store.
Again, scale.
How much of the meat produced is actually eaten? What’s the chance for each garment produced to actually be worn more than once?
The current system can downsize significantly without needing to raise prices, as we’re already in a significant surplus.
The point at which products are no longer guaranteed due to demand is when the prices have to go up.
That surplus is factored in to the companies making money and providing consistant demand. Prices will increase if the treatment gets better because the capitalists and oligarchs will not willingly take a profits cut. The surplus waste in the current system could be utilized better, for example fast freezing and being provided to food banks or soup kitchens.
No matter how you cut it, if labor and land demand increases, the price will increase.
Obviously if treatment got better, the capitalists and oligarchs would no longer be a problem.
Guillotines
I don’t really disagree with you, but land area isn’t actually a significant factor. When you consider how much land is used to produce feed for the pigs, it’s clear that the stables themselves take up very little space.
The land use would be significantly higher if the pigs were pasture fed instead of crop fed.
Sure, but we don’t have to go all pasture fed. Maybe just 10x more space for them in their stables could be a start. Would it be more expensive, absolutely, but either people will have to eat less meat, consumption has almost doubled the past 70-ish years, or they’ll have to pay more for it.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t get to eat meat, I’m just saying it’s rediculously cheap for what it is, and really not needed in the amounts people eat.
Doubling the cost to raise chicken wouldn’t double the shelf price. Most of the cost of food comes from the distribution network. Chicken raised this way costs double because that’s what some consumers will pay over cheaper chicken.
That’s fundamentally what I’m doing. My girlfriend also loves chickens and ducks so we bought a couple, build a big, nice coop for them (with fucking floor heating because why not lmao), also dug a pond for the ducks and now we have plenty of eggs and my girlfriend can just sit in the chicken enclose when depression kicks and the chickens and ducks take care of that. Best decision we made so far.
I’m certainly no expert, but a heated floor in a chicken coop seems like a bad idea.
It seems like it would be a fire hazard in a coop and regardless of that, seems like you would have to keep it much cleaner as it’s going to create a breeding ground for germs (and potentially attract critters)
It’s certainly no fire hazard. It’s heated with hot water. If the water gets hot enough to ignite the coop, I might have a completely different problem because that same water is used in my house lmao.
The cleaning part is also not that true since we don’t heat the stable to like 30°C at all times. It’s only for winter when temperatures drop massively where we heat the stable to like 15°C. But we clean the coop every two days anyways, I’ve designed it to be easy to clean. It’s fundamentally just a plywood plate that I can take out. Only takes like 15 minutes - remove the hay, remove the floor, pressure wash it, put it back in, add new hay, done. The pipes are directly below the plate, covered in styrofoam, heating it very reliably in winter without being some kind of danger to the coop.
Not sure why my mind went to electric heated floor lol. Must be too used to Jerry-riggers.
I think if I just thought about installing an electric heated floor in anything on my ground, the austrian construction safety office would raid my house. I highly doubt that is legal here.
100% this, thankfully I’m lucky enough that in the near future I may be living in a quiet cottage. It’s always been a goal of mine to be self-sufficient, and that process will begin there.
Same, I moved to austria for that goal alone. There’s plenty of lone areas around and we’ve been able to find a massive piece of land with an old farmers house which took a lot of work to restore it. We’re not at full self-sufficiency yet, which honestly won’t happen anyways since for some things like internet access, you always need some dependency, but we aim to produce most of the stuff we eat and most of the power we consume ourselves until 2030.
Btw, veganism is really about just minimizing the harm you cause to the world. Don’t let any puritans tell you otherwise. What you have described is a form of veganism! Admittedly, it’s a little bit minimalistic, but it’s still something!
From thevegansociety.com, emphasis mine. I’d argue strongly and vehemently that what is described above is not “as far as is possible and practicable” at all! It’s firmly within “as long as it doesn’t really inconvenience me” territory
I’m not a perfect vegan, I do my best, and I’m getting better. The expectation of perfection is self defeating. Ideally, though, I would have zero captive slaughtered animals in the world.
Right, I’m explicitly talking about “as far as is practicable and possible”. For instance I have to take a certain medication in order to function but there is no vegan derivative, they all contain gelatin. It is impossible for me to “exclude all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals”. But I do it “as far as is possible” which (at least initially) went far beyond what I considered comfortable.
And that’s the distinction I’m trying to make, if you are sure it is impossible, if it is not practicable (as in, not possible to be put into practice no matter how you twist or turn it), then sure it is what it is. what can you do. No ethical consumption under capitalism. But if you still have holdouts because you aren’t “ready” to give up certain treats or comforts then you aren’t (yet?) vegan.
Not being able to reach perfection is no excuse to not get as close as possible to it.
I don’t know that there’s any one thing that veganism is “all about”, per se. There are a ton of good reasons to eat fewer animal products, and everyone can cut out some level of extra saturated fat in their diets. The ability to cull and harvest a disgusting level of animal meat is the reason heart disease is the number one killer of modern humans
And none of those reasons are veganism. Veganism provides a singular reason to not exploit animals any more than we need to for survival.
Just because your vegan doesn’t mean you don’t eat saturated fats. Coconut oil exists and I use way too much of that shit.
I’m not even fully vegan, I just eat animal fats in heavy moderation and balance them with lots of plants and exercise. I’m not perfect, I like eggs, but eggs aren’t fucking healthy in any context. And that’s only one of the several phenomenal reasons to eat way fewer animal products and more plant based & home-cooked.
Then as a vegan you would support raising chickens, pigs, and goats on a small hobby farm where the animals are extremely well cared for and happy?
animal sanctuaries exist for this reason
You didn’t answer my question. Would you/do you support the ethical and mutually beneficial raising of animals? Chickens for eggs, milk for dairy animals. No abuse, good healthcare, no premature slaughter, etc.?
Edit. I just realized I’m not responding to the same person. But the deflection still stands.
How will you get the milk and eggs without abuse? Cows don’t just automatically start producing milk and chickens were bred to lay more eggs at the cost of their health. If you really tried to get these products without abusing the animals it would be so inefficient that only a tiny fraction of people could afford to consume them in bigger amounts.
But surely in the present state of affairs where that treatment is not the norm, veganism is the only ethical approach, no?
Actually, counter-intuitively, strict veganism would objectively increase animal suffering if authentic alternatives exist. Which they do. But they are admittedly not easy to find. Ethical farms do exist, and typically self-regulate and self-support by selling the products the animals produce. Wool clothes, free-range eggs, end-of-life meat, excess milk & honey, etc. If your only 2 options are torture products, or nothing, then yes I 100% agree that veganism would be the correct choice. Between these 3 options though, giving your money to an ethical farmer objectively increases the livelihood of the animals under its care, more so than complete avoidance.
The way I see it, the tiny fraction of meat that’s produced ethically should go to the tiny fraction of people with dietary restrictions that require meat.
The vast majority of people are not going out to investigate small farms to see if their practices are ethical. They are buying meat from a grocery store, and if they consider it at all, they might pick one with a label slapped on like “organic,” completely meaningless thanks to lobbying.
Practically speaking, it is almost always a choice between torture products and nothing.
That’s an argument for vegetarianism, not veganism. What about wool, honey, milk, eggs. And different countries have different mechanisms. Using the USA as a basis, is admittedly a bad example.
Here in Germany, there are very strict regulations on how living conditions can be claimed, ranging from 1(literal torture) to 5(outdoor access, pasture raised etc.) I’m not saying it’s a perfect system, but I can’t agree that it’s impossible and pointless to try when there are places actively trying and actively supporting l.
Again, it’s a matter of whether you’re looking at things in the abstract, or in terms of how things actually work.
Take eggs for example. Eggs aren’t just a byproduct of having chickens around, there are specific breeds that are dedicated to egg-laying. Because only a small number of males are needed for reproduction, most male chicks are put on a conveyor and ground to death. While I can’t claim to be an expert in German laws, I did find that German courts have allowed this practice.
It’s a similar story with milk. Because dairy cows are a different breed, male calves are typically slaughtered at birth. Dairy cows are kept in a constant state of pregnancy, suffer the stress of being separated from their young, and are killed as soon as the milk slows down, typically a quarter of their natural lifespans. Dairy is also similarly bad for the environment as beef, and there are widely available plant-based substitutes like oat milk that taste just as good, if not better.
No matter what animal product we’re talking about, maximization of profits is almost always going to involve cruelty, environmental harm, and selective breeding to the point that any expectations about natural by-products aren’t true. Even with regulations (which can be difficult to enact effectively), there are tradeoffs: limiting cruelty can increase environmental impact (as well as the price). If animal products were appropriately priced based on offsetting the harm they cause, they would be unable to compete against plant-based alternatives.
Yeah the exploitation and killing part
no, that’s fine, actually.
Not sure where our definitions of “healthy” foods differ, but I literally wouldn’t call eggs “healthy” whatsoever. There is no single animal product that can even be considered “nutrient dense” much less healthy. Even in world war II, the world had enough saturated fats and excessive animal products that most of the soldiers even in their thirties had already started developing intravascular plaques, and brother, we’re a hell of a long way from that these days…
Just wanted to jump in and correct you because I don’t know where this eggs are. Healthy thing came from. They are certainly not. They are like eating butter essentially with some protein on top
Well unfortunately you haven’t got what you wanted, you clearly have a very simple view on nutrition, and a concerning lack of intelligence.
What is an egg? It is a vessel to grow a living organism in a self-contained environment, providing all the resources needed to do so.
Resources such as:
If an egg was so bad for your health, I ask you quite simply, how the hell do they support a chick during a very intense time of rapid growth?
That’s like saying being in a womb is unhealthy for a developing foetus.
Please, next time, perhaps try updating your knowledge to something a bit more modern than WW2 before “jumping in and correcting” anyone again. With the constant stream of AI slop onto the internet, the last thing we need is human slop too.
This reads like you are so insecure you have to personally attack people to cope with your own emotions.
I have a health degree, but ok mr. Expert. Have fun with ur heart disease. I’d just appreciate if you didn’t confidently lead others down ignorant health courses like “eggs are healthy” lol
Clearly wasn’t a particularly good university, and anyway, this is nutrition, not health.
I could guess that the 31 replies I see referenced but cannot view are from a fairly insane vegan I recently blocked for being insane and rude.
No one cares about your block list as much as you will. No need to share your mundane account activity with us.
But this response here is vital info that I need to know. I’m guessing the real issue here is “insane rude vegan” struck a nerve with you personally.
Yes, slaves are super convenient. No one ever said that slaves aren’t nice to have, dude. YOUR experience is not the fucking point.
There is no way to create a creature for the express purpose of exploitation that is okay. There is no way to create a creature with the intention of forcing it into a state of total dependence that is not actually evil.
So it’s fucked up to have pets because they fully depend on you? 🤔
comparing slaves to animals is what slavers do
Yes! Good on you for noticing the speciesism that racism is built on! If non-human animals have less worth than humans then liking some humans to non-human animals means they have less worth. The issue is at the very start, that
a) non-human animal and human are a meaningful distinction
b) non-humans have inherently less worth than humans
speciesism is necessary. racism is bad.
for once in your life make an argument and don’t just throw out claims.
what I said is true. nothing more need be said
Slavers do that because they think other Animals are worth nothing and want to say Human Slaves are also worth nothing.
Here quite the opposite is done. All Animals have a Worth. Every living being has the same worth. Modern Science says that Humans are also Animals.
If you still think its something only a Slaver would say then in your head other animals probably have no worth at all. So you think someone else wants to degrade humans with that comparison. Even tho its not degrading at all. You just think less of other animals, and you probably deny the science that Humans are Animals. Which is the reason why @[email protected] says you sound like a “human supremacist”
if this were true then harvesting grain or chopping down a tree or using hand sanitizer would be murder.
value is subjective. this is not an objective fact.
But that we can’t objectively say what kind of worth something has is pretty much the point.
How can you say that only humans have worth but other animals do not? What gives you the right to say that you’re better than a pig, a cat, or any other animal? Some humans even do the same with their own kind and say that women have less worth or that someone with another skin color has less worth. I hope you agree with me that a white person has no right to decide if someone else has more or less worth than them. So why does a human have this right over other animals? What gave humans this right?
This is not about personal worth in something like a friendship. Obviously your best friend is more worth to you then a stranger. Obviously your own cat is more worth to you then a stranger cat. But in general worth, you would probably also be angry if millions of stranger humans would be slaughtered, right? You are probably against Genocide, right? Even tho you don’t know these humans.
Just trying to find a baseline. If you’re not even against these things when talking about Humans, then you probably have other problems.
none of this has to do with “worth”. i can be opposed to genocide and mass slaughter without trying to quantify the value of people.
Stop Spamming me and respond in one single Comment man. Is this your first time on a social media platform. How old are you. Maybe you’re way to young to even argue to.
this is just rhetoric, now. you’re complaining about my form, and following up with an ad hominem.
what i’ve said is true.
i don’t believe in rights, at all. they’re a european fiction.
i didn’t
i didn’t
Well I concluded that because you didn’t deny that in the previous comment. I tried to make clear why you were called a “human supremacist”. I tried to understand why you think that comparing slaves to animals is only something slave owners do.
First, this is denying of Science. Humans are in fact also Animals. So I thought, if you think only Slave owners say that, you probably deny that and think your self that animals are much less worth then humans, because you see it a comparison as degrading. This way it would make sense why you think only slave owners would say that. And you didn’t deny it, so went with it in the next comment.
If you actually do not think that you are more worthy then other animals, then you need to explain your first comment. From what viewpoint are you looking that you thought this comparison is something only slavers are doing. Maybe we just have a misunderstanding.
you have a reading comprehension problem. if you just read what i’ve written, you’ll see i’m not saying the same things you are saying i’ve written.
Talking like that is what human supremacists do.
it’s not about supremacy. it’s about treating different things differently.
Like white people and black people?
no. no one is advocating that pigs be allowed to vote, get healthcare, or education. they’re obviously different, and treating them differently is necessary for right behavior
killing them is “right behavior”?
it’s amoral
Cool, so what is the difference that makes it ok to exploit and kill pigs for taste pleasure, that if applied to a human would also make it okay to exploit and kill them for taste pleasure?
ah, the old “name the trait” line of argument. lets just skip to the end here: the ntt argument is just an elaborate line-drawing fallacy (also called a spectrum fallacy). the inability to identify the single trait, or sum of traits, which distinguish one end of the spectrum from the other does not mean that each end of the spectrum is the same. pigs are not people. qed
no one says they’re killing pigs for “taste pleasure”. most are simply killed for profit, and some are killedfor food.
You realize putting googly eyes on a toaster doesn’t give it feelings, right?
Assigning human values and desires to non-humans is not a coherent philosophy or ethical position.
Animals “Exploit” each other throughout the animal kingdom. Ants Literally farm aphids by protecting and herding them in exchange for what they produce. How is this wildly different from keeping a cow or a goat for milk?
Is the cow version evil because we’re humans, but the ant version okay because they aren’t?
Because that’s just making rules based on your desired outcome, not reason.
I would argue that animal husbandry is a symbiotic relationship rather than simple exploitation. While we gain resources, animals receive guaranteed food, protection from predators, and medical care that they would otherwise lack in the wild. Overall, the life with humans is better for the animals from a survival standpoint. Mind you, I’m only talking about animal husbandry on a smaller scale, not those disgusting meat factories as seen in the image above.
And before you drop the “How can a relationship be symbiotic if the animal has no choice in its dependence?” question that I’ve heard so many times before: Symbiosis is defined by mutual benefit instead of autonomy. Many biological partnerships happen without conscious choice, such as the relationship between fungi and algae in lichens, or ants and the small things they herd (forgot what they are called in english lmao). The lack of choice is offset by a massive increase in survival rates and resource stability compared to life in the wild.