A fire has ripped through a dairy farm in Dimmitt, Texas, leaving 18,000 animals dead. Death in fire seems like an exceptionally appalling way to go — involving a combination of pain and fear that the comfortable imagination can only dimly grasp. It would be preposterous to think that cows are unintelligent enough to be immune to that fear and pain. Each of those 18,000 animals — if they were not rapidly made unconscious by the smoke — must have suffered tremendously.
I know there are issues with scaling up to the level it would take to feed the world but I'm a sucker for the pasture raised, grass fed, etc. stuff for this reason. They don't need to feel what we feel in order to have some small, minuscule amount of value worth giving small protection to. I'm also less hostile to lab meat than some of the esoteric RW types, although it looks like that won't scale up either. But I'm also not eating the bugs, so...
I recognize factory farming is cruel but I still eat meat because it's cheap and delicious. Pigs are the smartest so I have sworn off pork and am trying to progress to stopping beef and then chicken and turkey. But it's hard - steak is extremely delicious so I don't know if I'll get off beef entirely. Lab meat now? I'll eat it.
What I do find weird is the Ricky Gervais style outrage where people get whipped up into a frenzy about some dude shooting a lion or whatever in Africa (a shooting duly approved by local authorities as acceptable under their wildlife management program, i.e. not an endangered species etc). Probably 90%+ of the people getting mad about that eat factory meat every day. Therefore this may be the first example in history wherein people participating in a self-righteous moral panic are guilty of the exact crime they profess to be against!
I know there are issues with scaling up to the level it would take to feed the world but I'm a sucker for the pasture raised, grass fed, etc. stuff for this reason. They don't need to feel what we feel in order to have some small, minuscule amount of value worth giving small protection to. I'm also less hostile to lab meat than some of the esoteric RW types, although it looks like that won't scale up either. But I'm also not eating the bugs, so...
I recognize factory farming is cruel but I still eat meat because it's cheap and delicious. Pigs are the smartest so I have sworn off pork and am trying to progress to stopping beef and then chicken and turkey. But it's hard - steak is extremely delicious so I don't know if I'll get off beef entirely. Lab meat now? I'll eat it.
What I do find weird is the Ricky Gervais style outrage where people get whipped up into a frenzy about some dude shooting a lion or whatever in Africa (a shooting duly approved by local authorities as acceptable under their wildlife management program, i.e. not an endangered species etc). Probably 90%+ of the people getting mad about that eat factory meat every day. Therefore this may be the first example in history wherein people participating in a self-righteous moral panic are guilty of the exact crime they profess to be against!
Animal cruelty is illegal in every western country and many others.
That's the answer.