If you’re at all aware of what goes in farming in Australia you know it’s a massive horror show. From chicken macerators to pig gas chambers animals suffer massively to end up on your plate.

Every Australian I’ve ever spoken to describes themselves as loving animals, and is horrified at things such as whaling. Most of us even find activities like puppy milling or hunting upsetting.

In light of this; and the knowledge that a few decades ago whaling was a-ok, monkeys didn’t matter, and elephants certainly didn’t feel pain; what makes you confident that what you were raised to consider beneath consideration actually is?

Eating animals is neither necessary nor nice, so why do it?

  • CTDummy@lemm.ee
    1·
    15 days ago

    I can see that, more to point out current social norms or “tradition” as you put it. If the majority of people are currently omni and they have no external reason to change; they won’t. Psychosocial factors/status quo might be what I’m appealing to?

    Well I’d assert that those cases are not all equal. Cattle in feedlots probably don’t live the same lives as dogs that fight each other; often to the death. Whales are important to their ecosystem (and we could fish them into extinction). It’s also just super wasteful to kill whales for oil/food when we have other ways of sourcing those materials. Elephants can practically never be sufficiently well kept by a circus (except a wealthy company maybe) and are incredibly social animals so there’s no way in my mind to keep them in a circus in a humane way.

    I think the main problem veganism/vegos face is PR/marketing. For example, I feel like far more people would become meatless for environmental reason rather than comparing “modern” farming to dog fighting. Which feels more like guilting than anything and puts the receiver immediately on the defensive. Factory farming and abusive farming practices in general can get fucked though.

    • NaevaTheRat [she/her]@vegantheoryclub.orgOPEnglish
      01·
      15 days ago

      But cows in feedlots necessarily die… I mean most fighting dogs don’t get chained to that eating fence. Or say broiler chickens, stuck in a shed and frequently having their own bones collapse under their growing weight. Even that aside, surely if I told you I intend to breed dogs, pamper them, then at 2 years old bolt gun them and repeat you’d be a little aghast? no?

      You’re a bit all over the shop and I don’t want you to feel like I’m not listening to you. So what do you want to talk about of the following:

      • environmental impact (whales are important to ecosystems)
      • waste (it’s wasteful to kill whales)
      • Quality of life/the repugnant conclusion
      • what it means to be humane
      • whether it is possible to eat meat without factory farming

      Or if there is another issue you’d rather talk about?