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by yadingus
1055 days ago
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The "suffering equation" is to me the weirdest rationalization. Whether that is true or not, I think it's more important to keep in mind that it's not our place to judge that, unless you hold some biblical belief that animals were put on earth by god to feed us. The cost of freedom must be taken into account too, it's a value not only relevant to humans. A lot of the suffering in the world comes about because humans have an inflated sense of moral agency over things outside their scope. We have the tools to affect many beings and many lands, but not the wisdom to see the immediate and long term effects. We just see our current behavior, and then employ all kinds of mental gymnastics in order to perpetuate it. We'll go to great trouble to change the world, just so we don't have to admit we need to change our selves. |
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In my mind sentience is a spectrum and cows aren't very far along it. I spent my childhood working with cows and I can tell you they're dumb as rocks. They have little memory of the past and zero concept of the future. They were always happy to see us and had no concept of their freedom being restricted or that we would eventually auction them and their offspring to the slaughterhouse. People that are worried about cow rights have usually never spent time with them. Goats are further down the spectrum, but still dumb. Certain other cattle like pigs are said to be quite intelligent so there's more of an argument to be made.