• artificialset [she/her, fae/faer]
    ·
    1 year ago

    So the meat industry is basically a giant concentration camp of suffering, but im unsure if the suffering outweighs all the workers it employs, or evsn ths fact that they taste good.

    it's okay that sentient beings suffer because you think they taste good. you must realise how genuinely fucked up that thought is, right? what gives you any right to decide your favourite treat is more important than a life? animals feel pain. they have wants that aren't purely instinctual. their right to autonomy is more important than your desire for treats or a paycheck for workers - paycheck that comes at a heavy price, mind you. a job that requires mass killing has negative psychological and sometimes even physical effects on people.

    at the end of the day, we're leftists because we believe that pushing suffering on the innocent is wrong. pigs, cows, chickens have done nothing to deserve death. buying their corpses to eat is completely out of step with the values communists and anarchists claim to hold.

    • CarbonScored [any]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      My leftism is about better human social organisation for every human's benefit and reduced suffering. Beyond the practicality of ensuring a sustainable planetary ecosystem, it has nothing to do with other animals.

      • SixSidedUrsine [comrade/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        "My leftism has nothing to do with empathy or recognizing the suffering of others, it has only to do with benefiting those that I deem enough "like me" to be worth my consideration! Leftism is all about making things better for me and my kind! No, that's not reactionary! I'm not a chud! I'm a leftist, really!"

        • CarbonScored [any]
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Feel free to go and busy yourself making the world better for rocks or something? You draw your own line at making the world better for things that sufficiently 'like you', too. I deem humans sufficiently 'like me', and there are plenty practical reasons for encompassing all humans in a just world, too. You just deem animals also sufficiently 'like you', but I don't personally see sufficient reasoning to extend that far.

          • artificialset [she/her, fae/faer]
            ·
            1 year ago

            you really need to self crit and think about why you think beings only like you deserve safety and freedom from oppression. that really is so incompatible with everything we talk about here

            • MattsAlt [comrade/them]
              ·
              1 year ago

              "Oppression and subjugation of a living thing is fine so long as it can't speak to me and tell me it doesn't like it. Extra points if it's tasty!"

              • 1simpletailer@startrek.website
                ·
                1 year ago

                There is actually adequate scientific evidence that many animals have a much greater awareness and emotional intelligence then we often attribute to them, this includes most if not all of our domesticated animals. You could argue that the act of meat eating isn't in itself amoral, but the mass suffering facilitated by the conditions within the meat industry certainly is. Not to mention the conditions it subjects its workers to. There is no ethical industrialized meat consumption.

                • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Not to mention the conditions it subjects its workers to. There is no ethical industrialized meat consumption.

                  yes, the labor conditions are something that harms people, especially in slaughterhouses.

                • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  idk, what does "feel" mean? the ones with nervous systems and appropriate receptors probably have a stimulus response. do they have an experiential self that sits in that stimulus and dwells on it like people? do they have opinions about pain?

              • UlyssesT
                ·
                edit-2
                15 days ago

                deleted by creator

              • Maoo [none/use name]
                ·
                1 year ago

                Recognizing the capacity of animals to understand and suffer is basic science, not idealism. People with pets understand this and we know they should protect the health and well-being of the animals they keep. In fact, they often support laws requiring that pets are treated well enough.

                But the moment it's a designated food animal, this goes out the window and brains shut off.

                So anyways are you gonna eat dogs and cats or are you an "idealist"?

          • SixSidedUrsine [comrade/them]
            ·
            1 year ago

            It has nothing to do with where I personally draw the line, asshole. It has everything to do with the scientifically established reality about who is capable of suffering. Rocks can't. Cows, pigs, etc. can. Just because your sphere of empathy is arbitrarily drawn to reinforce what's convenient for you doesn't mean that by necessity everyone else is so shallow, cruel, and morally inconsistent.

      • seeking_perhaps [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Animal agriculture is a disgustingly exploitive industry with awful environmental practices. Even if you only care about the human side of it you should want it to end.

        • CarbonScored [any]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yeah, I want all sorts of horrible industries under Capitalism to end.

      • artificialset [she/her, fae/faer]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        if your empathy and concern for suffering ends at humans, i don't think you're a proper leftist and you should take your belief in autonomy and freedom from oppression to it's logical conclusion (animal liberation)

        • CarbonScored [any]
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          I just draw my line at the necessity of autonomy and freedom from oppression at humans. Best I can understand, typical vegans just draw their line at animals. I don't see an objective logical path to animal liberation.