[michaelscott]

Orcas are known to play with seals they've killed and never eat as well. Chimps also participate in clan wars [0]. I'd venture to say that the more intelligent an animal the more capacity they have for needless killing, or at least killing for reasons other than food. What that says about humans specifically I'm not sure, but what I dislike about these conversations is the need to feel like we are so special compared to other animals. We are unique and I'm positive we'll reach a point where we won't need to kill animals for food, but we're not there yet and until then we'll need to be a responsible component of the natural food chain.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War

[bjornjajayaja]

The thing is an orca isn’t going to mass-kill a bunch of seals because that’s wasteful (of energy). Sure they can kill and play with seals for entertainment, but they don’t (can’t?) cross the line of ecological torture/waste humans have.

On the human side: the problem is the producers (of meat/dairy) hide the torturous aspects from consumers by abstracting it away. We go to the store and get some chicken breast, steaks, or pork ribs, but we don’t do ANY of the work to prepare that animal. It’s prepared by underpaid/exploited foreign labor.

In contrast, even if a wolf killed a bunch of sheep for sheer pleasure: they are doing the killing, which takes energy. And if the sheep has a herd of rams with them the wolves might come out bloody themselves.

NOTE: I’m talking about factory farms and large scale production. There are farms which follow good, holistic procedures—where the farmers do care about the well-being of the animals and the cycle of life, even when animals are slaughtered.

[michaelscott]

I think the problem in our case specifically is that we centralise our food production, unlike other animals. Given our population size this sort of makes sense, but what you end up with is these death factories of concentrated animal slaughter. I would say the energy argument isn't a good one; factory farms are maximally efficient by design (which is why they're terrible for the animals) and humans definitely waste very little to nothing in these facilities since every inefficiency costs money.

I definitely think there's a disconnect between the average person and their food and it allows this sort of thing to happen more easily. I'm not sure what the right way to handle it all would be until we can 3D print all our food needs, but free range farms and farming animals that require less space (such as insects) are probably the best we can do currently.

[EvilEy3]

> farming animals that require less space (such as insects)

Do you seriously believe majority of people will eat that?

[8note]

Newly introduced species can have that same effect though?