Cruelty to animals

[Farm Boy]

I am convinced that one day we will grow animal products in tubes.

Just as long as we do not become effectively the guinea-pigs for those tube-produced foods...

I have to agree. It's pretty amusing that people want "all natural" and "organic" foods when this is also stated as a goal.

It feels a little backhanded when somebody states an opinion that could also read along the lines of "You are are so immoral that I dream of a day when you go away."

Growing animal products in tubes seems a bit like the hydroponic growing on plants, but much farther down the rabbit hole. We can and do make hydroponics work, they are wonderfully productive per square inch. They aren't effective much of the time because the energy and infrastructure inputs required to pave over space, enclose it, heat it, light it, move the water around, intensively fertilize, etc. are very high. If you care about the process, it's efficiency, and it's environmental impact hydroponics already have some pluses but also a lot of negatives that people usually gloss over.

 

[warpus]

Not sure about this. I am assuming that what we are primarily interested in here is the producer, it is their actions after all, that are the topic of this discussion. When you are actually practicing husbandry and you are the one either personally doing or enabling the killing of animals for meat you become more interested in what I'll call stewardship. If you are going to keep the animal and kill it then you had best make the most of it. The animal's life is your livelihood, it becomes a form or respect to use it well.

The argument was poor for the same reason "Children shouldn't be enslaved and made to assemble sneakers in factories because the quality of our sneakers would go up" is a poor argument. It brings up a tangent rather than one of the main reasons why doing such a thing would be a bad idea.

"We shouldn't stab people in the face because then we might get blood on our shirts"

 

[Farm Boy]

Most people haven't explicitly made the ethical decision that their sneakers are worth more than then enslavement of children.

I have made the decision, explicitly, that every time I have helped raise an animal for meat that its meat was worth more than its life. I'm intentionally raising and killing something for food and profit. If I've already made that ethical decision the sneaker argument isn't just moving the goalposts, it is on a different playing field altogether.

 

[The_Tyrant]

God created animals to serve man. Each animal serves a different purpose, most are to fulfil our need for food and resources. Because of this, I don't buy into all that bogus about "animal rights". They have no rights. In terms of cruelty, don't interfere. The animal is property of the owner.

 

[Perfection]

Each animal serves a different purpose

Even Mosquitoes?

 

[Farm Boy]

They have no rights. In terms of cruelty, don't interfere. The animal is property of the owner.

I still want to know if the kid down the street is skinning his cats as a way to pass the afternoon.

 

[warpus]

God created animals to serve man. Each animal serves a different purpose, most are to fulfil our need for food and resources. Because of this, I don't buy into all that bogus about "animal rights". They have no rights. In terms of cruelty, don't interfere. The animal is property of the owner.

That's funny but not really...

 

[Flying Mathias]

I'm not sure if the thing about the Far East eating cats/dogs will come up, but I'd like to nip it in the bud before it starts. The dogs and cats eaten in the Far East (which aren't very popular) are not house pets, they are specially bred farm animals to produce the most meat. There's one breed of dog used almost exclusively for this, although I can't remember the name of it.

For other "pet" animals that are eaten, like horses, they very rarely have horse farms to get horse meat. But if your horse just becomes old and dies, or some other cause of death, they'll often eat it.

(Also, I've tried horse meat once, in France. It's delicious)

 

[Akka]

I don't have an emotional attachment to farm animals

I don't have any emotional attachment to you.
I guess that, according to your own reasoning, it does justify cruelty toward you.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Even Mosquitoes?

They kill dark people.

 

[Farm Boy]

Ah yes, we can impugn all our rhetorical semi-foes if only we imply they like things that hurt the darkies. =/