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Surprised nobody said meat yet. Current prices are only possible through gigantic subsidies and the blatant disregard for even the most basic of animal wellbeing and that's not even starting to factor in the environmental and climate damage meat production ensues.
I agree with you but there are more ethical ways to eat meat while also saving money. Last year my wife and I purchased 1/4 of an entire cow from a farm about 35 miles north of us (friends and family bought the other 3/4). This cow was responsibly raised, grass fed, on a small, local farm. We received 200 pounds of meat with probably a dozen different cuts of meat. This includes dozens of pounds of excellent steak and the meat is simply amazing. We will definitely be going this route moving forward as we averaged the price per pound to ~$4/lb which is far less than the local grocery.
I understand this isn't possible for everyone as we also had to purchase a chest freezer which requires space but has made our grocery bill far smaller and the meat we are eating much better in many ways.
Even if the cow is responsibly raised, there's still the question of how it was conceived. No farmer simply let's a bull on top of a cow, since our modern cows are too big to safely mate. So usually a cow is artificially inseminated, which is an inherently violent procedure. The milk industry could simply not exist without this institutionalized rape
That’s only really true in dairy. Most meat cows are conceived using ‘natural cover’, where several bulls are just left with the ladies to do their thing.
Their method isn't perfect, but taking steps is a good thing, imo
As you said, they can’t mate… so what’s your solution? Let them go extinct and we lose not only a beautiful creature but a significant part of our species food source and history? We’ve been drinking milk and eating beef since the dawn of animal husbandry
Wait you're saying it's better to be genetically experimented on, caged, forced to breed, and be killed in your early adulthood than not have children?
That's it's actually more ethical to make a creature who you later kill for your own pleasure than not to do that? because the alternative is only wild cows and cowlike creatures existing?
They're living beings, not museum exhibits ffs. Species don't have preferences, individuals do.
That's what a farm is. They're saying we should keep farming them or else they would go extinct and that would be worse than continuing to farm them.
they did not say what you said. you are putting words in their mouth.
What did they say then? What are the implications? what are they arguing against?
you are putting words in their mouth and arguing with a strawman.
you should read a book about subtext and implication. I think you're probably very young and have a mind that takes things very literally. When we say things, it implies things.
They are not arguing for the establishment of cow sanctuaries and global veganism they are putting forward a disingenuous and nonsensical defense of their own eating of meat.
they haven't said anything about what they eat
I don't care how old you think I am because my age doesn't matter. what I say is true or false regardless of my age. attacking a speaker instead of their statements is textbook ad hominem and expressly prohibited on lemmy.world
your accusation of disingenuity is, itself, bad faith.
>you should read a book about subtext and implication.
you should read what socrates said about rhetoricians
Point out the wild bovine to me bruh, they don’t exist, they’re one of the many species dépendant upon humans for their survival.
Ummm. Are you serious?
Very frustrating to argue with people who claim to have no concern for living creatures when in fact they probably love their dog or cat and would find it just as hard as anyone else to watch a video of what goes on in factory farms. Food choices are such a fundamental part of human culture that most people just cannot stand having them questioned, it's as if you are questioning their religion. Alas.
this reads like an appeal to ridicule, not a rebuttal
Ok you should Google wild bovine. Aurochs are extinct, cows aren't really a distinct species, and bovine specifically covers everything from wilderbeasts to yaks which all exist in the wild. So it's worth ridiculing people so ignorant of the world and so unwilling to even do a Google search.
Hell there are wild escaped domestic cows a day's drive from me lmao.
this is better, but it amounts to handwaving and anecdotes. surely you can address the logic of what they said and cite a source instead of saying "look it up"
no, there is no point in investing effort in a discussion when the other party wont. The commenter does not actually care whether there are or aren't, if they cared they would look it up.
They want to waste my time arguing against a position they have no investment in. There is literally a Wikipedia page on wild bovines, that's how low effort this is.
>it’s actually more ethical to make a creature who you later kill for your own pleasure
no one is doing that
What is meat farming? in most of the world at this point in time it's much more efficient to eat plants. Nobody with access to a supermarket is eating only what meat they might need to survive with no alternatives, you eat it for pleasure. For this pleasure someone must die, therefore you kill them for pleasure.
if you are buying food in a supermarket your not killing anything except maybe lobsters
If I pay someone to kill you only a lawyer or a pedant would argue I didn't kill you. Without me you wouldn't have died.
the people killing cattle are paid long before I go to the store, and they are paid by someone who isn't me
Terrible, no-good argument. By that standard you do not exist in the economy.
economics is storytelling.
you literally don't know what anyone else needs. you can't dictate the diet that is right for them.
Well if someone can prove they need meat to survive and only eat the bare minimum obtained in the least terrible way I'll engage that fictional person in discussion but that is nobody you or I know so it's moot.
you literally don't know what anyone else needs, and survival is a pretty high bar. you can survive without your electronic devices. no one is saying you should
>it’s better to... breed...than not have children?
the highest benefit to any organism is to pass it's genetic material to another generation.
benefit for whom?
for the DNA
Which isn't a living being and has no feelings. It doesn't matter unto itself.
you are speaking as though your values are universal
artificial insemination isn't rape. it's a veterinary procedure
If I artificially inseminated you would you feel raped?
I'm not a cow and I somehow doubt you are a veterinarian
So it would be abhorrent right? What makes it ok to do to a cow then? Is it the prop stethoscope? the certificate of graduation on the wall? Do cows just not matter? if so why not?
if you have something to say, say it. what I said is true.
cows aren't people.