Cow eating chicken
youtu.be

The video is to prove a point really fast, but, cows actually do only eat proteins. They have three stomachs that they use to feed grass to bacterial colonies, which they then pull into their fourth stomach to eat, with any of the grass that's left un-eaten by the bacteria being shit straight out without being processed any further. They don't eat the grass, the grass is there to feed what they do eat, which is supplemented by eating any large animal small enough to fit in their mouth. I read a study once that almost all cows when dissected had at least 1 animal in their digestive system at a time.

The notion that cows are good peaceful harmless herbivores who eat nothing but grass is nonsense. Here's a video of a cow eating the corpse of a donkey. Of note: there's grass right next to the body. And it isn't just a result of cows being fucked up by human domestication, wild deer (who you cannot blame on humans malnourishing it or contaminating its feed or whatever) do it too.

constructing an elaborate worldview out of a kindergarten level understanding of biology and then getting extremely smug about it annoys me relentlessly. Cows would eat you if they had the chance

  • volkvulture [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    so is it the unethical nature of industrial-scale meat production, or is it the physical act of eating meat?

    you can't humanize/personify non-human animals using this ethical framework and then neglect applying that framework to animals themselves.

    should we shame the cow or show them how much more ethical it would've been to not eat the baby chick? not sure if this is an ethical argument about the meat production industry, or just a way to focus on & self-congratulate over individual consumer tastes

    i think eating raw celery is gross & probably unethical. Jains, in addition to being lacto-vegetarians, also think eating potatoes & carrots and other tubers/root vegetables is unethical because they have specific religious tenets recognizing a higher "spirit" in those plants

    that carnivores & omnivores generally & mammals also need animal protein as a matter of biological necessity should not be lost in these attempts to finger-wag about and atomize the "aesthetics" of specific food group consumption. these notions alone can't be used as some essential nexus of moral worth & focus

    • crispyhexagon [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      you cant... neglect applying [ethical framework] to animals themselves

      yes. you can. an animal is not capable of the ethical reasoning that a human is.

      everything else you said is nonsensical drivel based out of that fundamental misrepresentation of reality.

      • volkvulture [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        an animal is not capable of ethical reasoning... I don't know if I agree with you, because animals definitely act & are compelled to act in specific ways that promote evolutionary preservation of germline genetic material & dictate animal social behavior. But let's go with what you've said

        again, you can't turn an animal into a human or make them as important ethically as humans if the animals themselves aren't capable of being legally/conceptually ever considered human

        you're hand-waving here, and trying to turn near-religious dogma& self-certitude into an actual "social cause". we can definitely make laws around ethical treatment & methods of animal agriculture & husbandry, but that doesn't mean looking down on others because they eat meat.

        you're not better "ethically" or more "pure" just because you made these choices. we can spend all day talking about consumption in different forms and never arrive at a universally acceptable "moral" trajectory for anyone, because it's dogmatic & problematic to do so

        if you're basing this on vague notions of "spiritual" morality rather than human material necessity, then you are fundamentally misrepresenting reality

        • crispyhexagon [none/use name]
          ·
          4 years ago

          blahblahblah im going to ascribe a bunch of things to you that you didnt say blah blah eating meat is totally ethical inspite of all the evidence that says otherwise, how dare you say i have metaphorical blood on my literally bloody hands

          just shut the fuck up and go away :LIB:

          • volkvulture [none/use name]
            ·
            4 years ago

            so you can't actually discuss this thing you believe in good faith without lashing out at others?

            stop responding then lol

              • volkvulture [none/use name]
                ·
                4 years ago

                I definitely am discussing in good faith, because I actually want to drill down and examine these notions more fully, not just double-down & snidely dismiss others or pretend like I occupied some "moral" high ground all along

                • crispyhexagon [none/use name]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  i definitely am discussing i good faith

                  nope

                  not just ... snidely dismiss others

                  you are literally dismissing what i said because you have in your head some idea of what i might say and are preemptively responding to that instead of attempting to find out my actual beliefs by addressing what i did say

                  • volkvulture [none/use name]
                    ·
                    4 years ago

                    Yes, I am here discussing in good faith

                    You attempted to snidely dismiss me when I tried to bring up these ethical arguments from a critical perspective

                    I don't know what your beliefs are, true, and I said as much when I pointed out how we're stuck quibbling& deflecting here because you seem unwilling to discuss in good faith

                    I just know that you lashed out when I suggested that many animals probably have an "animal" ethics & decision-making calculus based specifically within the confines of their own evolutionary & ecological/social development

        • raven [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          You can't neglect to apply ethical frameworks to the animals and also say their lives have value.

          Fuckin' watch me

        • crispyhexagon [none/use name]
          ·
          4 years ago

          if a human is, for whatever reason, incapable of forming a proper rational framework of ethics through which to interact with the world in an upstanding and morally acceptable way, would you say they should be carved up into steaks for you to consume?

            • crispyhexagon [none/use name]
              ·
              4 years ago

              regardless of a deer being your brother or not, factory farming is entirely unsustainable as a food production model, and the attempt has severe ramifications for the environment.

              beyond factory farming then, if every human goes out and kills a deer by their own hand, deer go extinct.

              this destroys the biome.

              so then, in what ways could meat consumption not be deleterious to the social fabric?

              through strict regulation? but then who relegates and what amounts are permitted and to whom and when, and again under capitalism this quickly becomes a mark of wealth, and outside of capitalism, in some utopia, why would you not simply give up eating meat? all that effort, resources, land, time, etc could be spent better elsewhere, rather than on an unnecessary continuation of meat consumption that explicitly relies on murdering other creatures