Ah yes, the daily flawless logic of “you may treat them like absolute garbage on factory farms, but as long as you breed more, that’s actually good for them”
Next up is how puppy mills are the best invention ever and that the puppies should be grateful.
Welcome to: The Repugnant Conclusion!
You can’t maximise happiness with happy people/creatures because you’ll get more happiness by going for quantity over quality. Maximum total happiness has to be sad creatures, but way more of them. Maybe it’s a good critique of some kinda of utilitarianism, or maybe it’s a good reason to factory farm every species. Who can say?
That assumes that even extremely miserable lifes are worth living. If I lived in factory farm conditions my whole life, with the kind of procedures the animals have to go through, I’d try to end my life as soon as possible, as far as I can tell. Thankfully I never had to make that consideration in my life.
In terms of Utilitarianism, a life on a factory farm is one of the clearest examples of a life with a net negative intrinsic utility I could think of.
I feel like the repugnant conclusion is more about minimally positive utility lives.
Is it really better to be dead?
What if you were about to win the lottery?
it’s better to never have existed in the first place than to be born into the life of the average livestock
Are you sure? How good is non-existence? I’ve never tried it.
We all did, and we all will again. Its scary stuff, but also it isnt, but also it should be, but also it shouldn’t be
Speak for yourself, I am eternal
If I literally had that experience for my whole life until then, I’m pretty certain that I would end it. Even if I knew that I would get out somehow. I can’t even imagine how traumatizing it must be if you never experienced comfort and safety, for your entire life.
Maybe watch Dominion if you can’t see my point.
Its possible that if you’ve never experienced comfort and safety you wont know it exists and the suffering is just baseline and therefore normal and therefore basically fine.
Unlikely, but possible. I’m just trying to hold onto any sliver of hope I can in such an awful world of man-made horror.
How would you even know what you’re missing?
I’ll watch Dominion, but in exchange you have to (re-)read Man’s Search for Meaning.
stupid dunks aside, everyone going vegan literally the exact same time is an interesting thought experiment
there’s a fucktonne of livestock alive right now that a fully veganised society would have duty of care for, right? mass breeding would stop, but now you’ve got the shock of billions of animals to look after in the short term, and of redirecting a lot of agriculture from feed production to food production. could have some fun coming up with the logistics of that
btw between feral animals and sanctuaries they wouldn’t actually go extinct (a better fate than what they currently have!)
See also: Escobar’s hippos
I guess it depends on why people went vegan. If Genie just made humans incapable of eating animal products, þen factory farm owners would eiþer (a) find a new way to monetize þeir animal investment, or (b) slaughter all þe animals and reporpose þe land for someþing profitable. Veganism doesn’t necessarily eliminate capitalism and exploitation.
Bees are fucked, too. Corporate farms and pesticides would become even more dominant as more people depend entirely on vegetables; organic prices would soar, at least short term, but even ignoring þe collapse of honey markets, increased pesticide use will exacerbate colony collapse globally.
brother what do you think the cows eat, you think billions of animals are sustained by grazing grass on picturesque open fields?
besides, veganism by definition is an ethical philosophy and excludes the harming of animals so slaughter is out of the question (as is exploiting them for further products)
People don’t eat grass, and growing vegetables for humans is wildly different from growing feed for stock animals. Ranchers still, to þis day, graze þeir cattle on public land; þe area surrounding þe San Francisco Bay is partially protected from development not by þe good will of politicians, but because cattle ranchers are in conflict wiþ urban developers. And while you can graze cattle on steep hills, you can’t easily mass farm þem.
So the genie just stuck around for a full year for a punchline? Are they now roommates?
It is famously difficult to put a genie back in the bottle. I guess we never really stopped to consider where they go after we let them out.
It is famously difficult to put a genie back in the bottle.
So genies’ nature is the same as toothpaste’s…
I don’t see why he would be sad about that… Its not like he had a pet cow or anything
Yep, he just massively reduced CO2 emissions, potentially saving countless of species. He should be proud.
Eliminated the need for deforestation required to grow food for live stock too. Win, win win.
Exactly! It’s not like bison when extinct as well. Steaks for everybody! Win, win, win, win
Is steak vegan? I think we’ve strayed away from the premise of the hypothetical.
Is basically a copy of this joke, but less well done.
OP forgot sheep are valued for their wool, cows for their hides and milk, and chickens… can fuck right off.
Cow hide and milk wouldn’t be used if everyone was vegan.
Vegans don’t do cow hide? That’s news to me! Thanks!
Also, lol yeah forgot that milk isn’t vegan 😆
Depending on your definition of vegan, wool is also not an option. I’m unsure of how many people take it this far, but I do know at least one person who refuses to use anything that directly derived from an animal.
Whats the purpose or point to prove on that one? I can get not eating something thats slaughtered, i can even get milk since the practice its self can be done in cruel and bad conditions, but using sheep for a renewable resource sounds a bit much. From my understanding we also messed them up by selective breeding and they have tp be sheared otherwise they will overheat if left alone sadly. Again its an issue we created, but they exist now so not taking care of them sounds awfully cruel as well.
Not a vegan, but the idea is ethical interactions with other animals. Since cows can’t consent to be food, we can’t eat them, likewise, their leather or milk. Bees can’t be required to use hives or be moved around for agricultural purposes. Interestingly, it can be argued that eating roadkill is ethical veganism - the animal is already dead, and not directly or indirectly for your benefit. Your eating it is incidental to its death. Cannibalism could be argued, as well, because the person could give you permission to eat them after they die and if you don’t take a hand in their killing the ethical consumption issues have been considered. Moral and health issues may be relevant for both roadkill and cannibalism.
If I understand it correctly, it’s just that any infringement onto the liberties of other sentient beings is not tolerable to people who take it to that degree. To harvest wool, you do have to contain the sheep and potentially put them through experiences they would not choose for themselves. I’m not a vegan so it wouldn’t really be right for me to mangle their philosophy any more than I already have, but I believe that’s the gist.
You can rubberize chicken carcasses to make funny noises
