[bsmitty5000]

I'm raising pigs for the first time at home and I'm having a similar dilemma with the slaughter date just a few days away. They're like 300lbs dogs- playing with each other, running to me when I come out (although this might be just because I feed them most times I go out there), friendly with the kids.

I think it comes from a viewpoint that all death is bad and all life is good. something I think is probably pretty culturally specific and kinda ingrained in me since childhood. I was raised Catholic with everyone around me believing that after you die you go to Heaven, but still family members dying was a tragedy, instead of say, it being a celebration since didn't they just get into eternal paradise?

But death isn't bad. It's actually necessary for life to continue. The circle of life, carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, all that stuff. From that point of view, eating other animals is nothing. It's an efficient, and delicious, way of surviving and passing on genes. We're not above nature. We're in a closed system here that we can't ever rise above. Although with that point of view stuff like climate change takes on a different meaning. If we can't rise above nature then climate change is a natural phenomena even though it's accelerated by humans. Just like the Great Oxidation Event.

[silisili]

My dad had a similar dilemma I think, though he'd never admit it. He even named and spoke with every single one.

He enjoyed raising animals, but in the end just sold them off at auction rather than slaughter them himself. We'd still eat meat, but presumably not what was raised. He claimed there was more money in it, but I strongly assume he just couldn't bring himself to kill the creatures he'd raised.

[voakbasda]

I raise meat. At small scales, I cannot afford to eat any of it if I want to make any profit. Agriculture is completely rotten due to regulatory capture by Big Ag.

[blamestross]

We rotated our evolution from genetics to memetics when we started this whole society thing. Society, culture, cars, concrete, skyscrapers and the internet are all as natural as termite mounds are. We are part of nature not above it. We do have more power to steer the great wheel of nature than most animals, and we have the power to understand the responsibility that comes with it. So yeah, climate change and the Anthropocene extinction are natural events, but collectively working together and stopping or changing the outcome of those events has just as much potential to be "natural" too.

[colordrops]

Can't you apply the same logic to humans? It's just the circle of life to use humans for your own purposes, whether for slavery or eating. We are just part of nature.

[bsmitty5000]

I'm not trying to justify not acting on climate change. That original comment is really just a snippet of some internal thought trains I've had with myself after we decided to grow some of our own food- where the price of deciding to be a meat-eater is not hidden behind some shrink wrapped plastic. Specifically the argument that eating meat is natural- well where do you draw the line between rationalizing our behaviors as being natural for some actions and trying to elevate ourselves above our primitive selves for others.

I'm not a philosopher or anything. of course slavery is bad- if slavery is natural and I'm against slavery, does that eventually lead to me having to be vegan in order to be internally consistent? Maybe, but I'm still not ready to give up meat.

[jjtheblunt]

Then don't slaughter them, because jesus christ you said yourself they're like dogs.