The vast majority of Americans (who view dogs as beloved pets and companions and get riled up with emotionalism and indignation whenever they are harmed by people) would disagree.
I’ll let a vegan explain it. There are plenty of reasons to be a vegetarian/vegan. Appeals to natural biology are not one of them.
I’m going to assume you have an objection to farming dogs for meat because you object to farming any animal for meat.
Eating dog isn’t my culture, but I understand that it’s been a practice in many cultures in history, from Asia to Central America. It’s not something I would do or promote but I’m not going to insist that, say, Vietnam ban the practice. I know you were reaching for an analogy there but really, child molesting is going to generate a much more visceral reaction than almost any dietary choice.
So… my neighbor with the chickens, who get to run around the backyard scratching and eating all day, who are sheltered from predators all night, are “horribly exploited”? Seems to me they have pretty good chicken lives, and a damn sight safer than wild chickens. Which is, of course, different entirely from battery hens.
So the world needs to conform it’s dietary practices to what the majority of Americans find acceptable?
So you long for the glory days of the Precambrian and wish that we were working towards a world that is a cold, dead rock?
At least you are on the correct career path.
Raising animals for their meat/milk/eggs is always exploitative. Even “free range, grass fed, homesteaded” etc etc animals are exploited.
Antinatalism is not about creating a “cold, dead rock.” It is about not further creating sentient life.
True but where do you draw the line?
As a living being you consume things. As such you have an impact on the environment around you.
Beef is the worst, though: smaller animals (rabbit, lamb, chicken…) are nowhere near as wasteful.
And for those of us whose food issues involve several vegetables frequent in vegetarian or vegan diets (soy is one of my asthma triggers), it’s just a lot simpler. Eating soy free is a pain in the ass, eating soy free vegan (because if keeping chickens for slaughter is evil, so is keeping them for eggs) fugedaboutit.
No, antinatalism is about not creating human life. Being opposed to the future existence of all forms of higher animal life is formally known as “raving wackadoodle nutbaggery.”
In other words, keeping animals at all is wrong. Gotcha. Nevermind the chickens get to run around being chickens until they drop dead of old age, it’s cruel to keep them alive at all, it’s cruel to provide them shelter and safety, while nicking the occasional egg out from under them.
How do you feel about keeping pets? Seeing eye dogs?
Are you also an advocate of the human race ceasing to reproduce? Just wondering if you’re on that extreme or not.
It must be admitted, though, that unlike those large herbivores, people eat a lot of seeds (grain, beans, nuts) and fruits (tomatoes, eggplant, pumpkin, okra, as well as everything we call “fruit”) and not a lot of leaves and stems. I don’t know if it’s possible for a human to survive on leaves and stems, but if it is, that human would probably need to eat all day long, too.
I’m not wild about the idea of eating dog. And I mostly don’t eat pork. But I just can’t see it as evil. Especially if the animals aren’t mistreated while alive.
Chickens are dumb as shit. It’s a stretch to call them “sentient”. To the extent they are, they are nasty creatures. Yes, I lived with chickens for a while. I can’t imagine any better life for a chicken than what you describe.
I don’t have a problem with someone keeping and taking care of chickens. I have a problem with people breeding chickens for their meat and eggs, which is precisely what the meat/egg industry does. I’m opposed to purchasing pets because that creates demand and incentivizes the breeding of more animals for pets, but I don’t have a problem with people adopting animals.
Yes.
See this recent thread.
Hey, man, around here people will *give *you Rhode Island Reds, they sort of breed on their own if you let them. Great pet chickens - they haven’t been super-optimized for either eggs or meat, and they’ve also been bred for some hardiness so they don’t suffer the problems of more specialized breeds.
Puzzlegal is right, though - chickens aren’t very smart. Even around here where the really stupid ones get eat by local predators and/or run over by cars (there used to be a rooster in the area that would challenge vehicles and spur the front bumper. It ended as you might expect.) Basically, just smart enough to be chickens and nothing more. But then, what more do they need? Also, not particularly nice animals. Interesting and at times useful. Capable of a some very simple types of training. Can be either entertaining or annoying (the roosters are especially likely to be the latter).
Well, OK, you get points for consistency at least.
Yes, I’ve read that (might even have a hardcopy of it around here somewhere). Chickens are smarter than people typically give them credit for, but really, they’re optimized as chickens, not Einsteins.
What possible objection can there be to taking eggs? Most eggs do not hatch – if they did, the coop and yard would be over-populated horribly. Why just throw the eggs in the trash, when we can collect them and have them for breakfast?
Eggs from the coop are like apples from the tree: they’re there, waiting for us to take them, and if we don’t, they’ll simply rot on the ground.
I, for one, have no issue with this comparison. It allows readers to understand his perception, and if I’m not mistaken, he stated that in order to explain why it was making him so emotional.
It’s a bit like comparing god to fairies in debates about religion. Many believers get offended by the comparison but they can’t really understand the atheist mindset until they grasp the idea that for him, there isn’t much difference.
Basically, he’s saying : “I feel as strongly about eating meat as you feel about child molestation”. It’s an informative statement.