this post was submitted on 06 May 2026
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Memes of Production
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Well, clearly you didn't read it, since you see it as cope...
How do you eat the body of someone who doesn't want to be eaten and think it isn't exploitation. Do YOU even listen to the words you are saying, or are you just distracting yourself from rational thought until the bad feelings go away?
We can tell you've never thought seriously about the subject in your entire life because you make claims like eggs and dairy don't harm the animals producing them. That's so ignorant, you have to be going out of your way to avoid learning about where your food comes from. But you have paragraphs of arrogant shit to shovel down our throats. Read a fucking book, okay?
to be fair, the person that responded to me isn't the same that wrote the initial response I responded to (???) but I share your sentiment wholly
There's a massive difference between industry-scale production and free-range, small-scale production. The former can never be ethical, by definition. The latter: absolutely can. It requires humans to cut down on animal products consumption drastically, so campaigning and education is necessary, but equating ALL non-veganism with animal cruelty does more harm than good to that goal.
what in your mind makes it ethical to do the things to a chicken that would not be ethical to do to a human? you can't just say "it's ethical;" that is the entire debate.
You are ignorant of the realities of "free range" ranching, but that is not really relevant yet so we'll ignore it.
Ah, OK, I misunderstood you. I didn't realise you're a proponent of exterminating all the farm animals.
Because, if they're not used on farms, they have no way of surviving in the wild. Not to mention there either not being "enough wild" for all of them.
"The animals we bred to be genetic freaks are so deformed they will no longer survive in the wild so we should continue breeding the genetic freaks." Amen brother.
That only applies to industrail scale farming which Alaknar has taken distance away from in this thread.
I mean I'm not super opposed to non-factory farms but, just as 2 examples, chickens for meat grow so quickly that they can barely stand and their hearts literally can't keep up and they end up extremely sick and often just dying of heart attacks. Egg laying chickens are bred to essentially be constantly ovulating, which can't be great for their health or well-being, but this one's harder to say.
I agree with you about that it is horrific. No animal should suffer that. And I do see that the machine is incentivizing this through merciless efficiency.
But just because it is incentivized doesn't mean a farmer has to be ruled by the machine. They don't have to be ruled by efficiency. They can choose to care for their animals instead of disregarding their gleedity.
This necessarily means there will be much less meat, but the meat that is produced will come from animals that has had a good life, instead of being tortured throughout their life.
I'm just saying those are the breeds we have now, and we would basically have to selectively breed less productive animals, which I don't see happening any time soon.
As long as we bond with the machine, you are right, that will be a reality. But it is when we relearn to appreciate independence that we can move beyond the time of shame.
Yeah, if only I didn't specify cutting down on consumption which would drive a "wind down" of breeding...
But hey, good to know you're so concerned about farm animal welfare that you want to kill them all.
The goal should be no breeding at all. I don't have a perfect solution, but bringing millions more into factory farming while "tapering it down" causes as a whole far more suffering. I don't see an animal dying of an infection and say "well killing is wrong so have fun writhing in agony until you die, adios!"
Which is why I'm talking about enforcing free-range farms where the animals can be happy.
It's not a perfect solution, but it's an achievable solution. Suddenly ending all farm animals is not.
I mean I don't think they would even disagree with that, they were just saying it is still exploitative to kill something or take eggs from something that does not want that to happen, as it would be for a human. Their contention was that while having small scale farms would be practically more moral, that doesn't make it moral.
My point is that if vegans go all "eat meat == murderer" narrative, the actual winding down of the animal industry slows down. So it's amoral to do that, because you're extending the suffering of animals. We need the wind-down to happen ASAP, so we can kick the lobbies out, and start working on lab-grown equivalents. Which will be hard enough to introduce to the public, without the guilt-shaming added from the other side.
I mean yeah it's not a good narrative, if someone eats less meat but I see them buying eggs ill go ehhhhh.... and look the other way. But if someone asks me "am I morally right to buy eggs?" I'll usually say something like "well it's still not great but it's much better than eating meat." They were only speaking to the veracity of your statement, I think any non-insane vegan would agree that "switch to small, humane farms" is better messaging and far closer to being moral.
There's also going to be a whole 'nother can of worms opened when we finally figure out that plants also feel pain, which also makes eating them amoral.
Until we figure out fully artificial food sources, 100% lab grown matter, we will be causing some pain to the world, it's inevitable, it's how this world works.
holy ableism batman. If animals are people, then denying domesticated animals reproductive access because of their genetics is genocide.
um... if 2 humans wanted to bring a child into existance that would suffer its whole life and then die of a heart attack into the world I would also say that's immoral. An animal having low social awareness or being mentally disabled is not the same as ovulating 3 times a day every day for their entire life, or having a heart attack by 6 months old.
So what would you want to do if they kept making such children? Imprison them? Forcefully sterilize them? Would you like the political system of your society to have the authority to decide what "suffering your entire life" is?
I mean I might, same as I would if they took a homeless person and caused them to suffer their whole life, that's legitimately evil behavior. We may not have an exact definition of "suffering your entire life," but whatever factory farmed chickens are experiencing is certainly it. This is like saying "we can't define exactly what constitutes abuse so what are you going to do, have society decide an arbitrary line?" Yes, and that is what we do.
Congratulations, you support eugenics. Historically governments have forcefully sterilized all sorts of people because their children would suffer unacceptably by the government's standards.
Now please look into the history of eugenics and see what the policy you support has meant in practice.
Much like historical eugenics supporters, you are ignoring the outside factors that are causing someone's suffering in your judgment, blaming a factory farmed chicken's suffering on them being a "genetic freak" rather than on the people that lock them in cages shoulder to shoulder.
The descendents of chickens will produce so many eggs that they will start rotting near the nest and become a health threat, so they need assistance with getting enough protein and with removing the eggs before they rot. This is not a life of suffering, they only need a tiny bit of assistance to live as full life as any bird.
Chickens choose to make their nests in coops if they are built for them. Fences around a chicken yard are usually there to stop predators from murdering them and most chickens will not fly over them even if they can, as long as the fenced off area is large enough.
The same goes for dairy cows, who need assistance getting the milk out because they produce more milk than their calfs can drink. A farmer with a bucket may be approached by cows that want to relieve the pressure.
Some vegans consider honey to be provided with consent if the beekeeper is gentle enough. By the same standard, chicken eggs gotten when helping them clean their nest and milk gotten from cows whose udders would otherwise break would be vegan.
Of course without killing the males, a farmer probably can't saunter up to a cow and help them get the milk out quite as easily, but that's a skill issue.
Free range, small-scale "production" (disgusting word to use in this context imho) - why would this be any less exploitative than what animal AG is doing in the billions? Sure, the animal is treated better, which is good in a vacuum, but the animal still can neither consent nor object to being exploited. At best, it's a chicken laying eggs for reproduction or for its own sustenance and is robbed of these, at worst it's a cow that's being force-impregnated to give milk, to sustain its calves which it can't, or it's killed for meat. The end result is, whatever way you wanna spin it, a dead or exploited animal.
All these hypotheticals of people having "small-scale productions" or, for some reason not being part of the larger issue at hand just because they raise their own animals, is ultimately just cope to justify cruelty and exploitation. Accept that fact and move on, but at least be aware of what you're doing, or change something about your perspective.
Veganism explicitly mentions to reduce the exploitation of animals in all facets of life, more or less. If you're dependent on animal products because you're living isolated and have no access to other nourishment - sure. I doubt the average Lemmy user is in such a predicament, however. Thus, it's absolutely within the realm of reason to assume that living as a vegan is possible and should be strived towards - especially if you're a self-proclaimed leftist.
Ah, I misunderstood your intentions. I thought you were against the extermination of all farm animals, who have no way of surviving outside of, you know, farms.
Apply this logic to human slaves producing transplant organs. If we didn't create them, then they'd never exist; so we are actually doing them a favour by creating them and forcing them to serve us.
It's just cope after cope after cope. I've been there. They are all trying to lead you away from the same place, but that's the place you have to go if you want to be a person who does not commit cruelty and violence against vulnerable individuals.
Right. So, in this scenario, you have billions of humans that you'll just kill and then say "it's for their own good"?
Not so much "exterminating" but more so liberating. Get rid of farm animals but set them free to farms to just chill and live their lives. I'm not sure if this concept exists outside Germany, probably, but we have so-called "Lebenshofe" here - literally translated to "life farm" where former farm animals are rescued to and can find shelter and love. That's the ideal 💚
Yeah, that's exactly what I was talking about, mate.
Enforce free-range, but just don't let the food they're producing and not utilising go to waste.
No, that's where you misunderstood me. Let them be animals and not products to be exploited
So, the cow milk and chicken eggs all just go to waste for a higher ideal?
Yes, that's literally what I've been arguing with you about here for the past few days
Yeah, so here's where your ignorance shows.
Chickens might do fine, I'll give you that. Although, probably not, their population would skyrocket and they'd starve to death. Not a great way to go.
Cows? They NEED TO be milked, or they'll die in incredible pain.
Etc., etc.
On top of that: how exactly literally wasting food helping anyone or anything....?
I take it you never heard about eggs or milk...?
Ah, no, you have! So why do you only and specifically associate "non-veganism" with "eating the body of someone who doesn't want to be eaten"?
Let me guess: your argument is the cage-locked, industry scale production, yeah?
Are you capable of taking a deep breath and not spazzing out here, or is that out of the question and we won't have a conversation?
How do you know that cows do not want to be eaten?
eggs and dairy dont harm animals because the animals want to produce eggs and dairy and have been designed to do so