[bheadmaster]

If you start treating farm animals as humans, where do you draw the line?

Is growing vegetables also inhumane, since we're controlling every aspect of those plants' lives?

Is doing pest control in your own house a mass murder, because you're killing a colony of cockroaches or termites?

Is washing your hands a genocide, because you're killing millions bacteria and tiny parasites on your hands?

That kind of extremist empathy is fatal to humanity. I'd rather choose to be cruel than dead.

[Voultapher]

Respectfully, every comparison you made seems like a false equivalence to me. I'd argue extrapolating from the human perspective to a cow is much closer than to a cockroach. Personally I draw the line at "complex" emotions, somewhere between insects and fish. Yes, that line is arbitrary and I can't prove it. But so is drawing the line at, humans and nothing else that isn't cute. You can't prove the validity of that line either. So what are we left with? Is it so unreasonable to extrapolate from one mammal to another?

[bheadmaster]

The point of my comment is to point out the absurdity of the equivalences drawn in the grandparent:

> Imagine your children being born into one of these farms.

> You might argue non human animals are different, but why does that matter? Black and white people are different, why would that difference justify enslaving one group?

I don't claim to know where the exact line is, but thankfully, I don't have to, because the world doesn't run on ethical guidelines, it runs on power struggle. Grandparent was quick to draw the analogy to black slavery - I'd like to point out that black slaves were powerful enough to fight for their own freedom. Cows and chickens aren't. We're gonna eat them because that's just how the world works.

Of course, if someone very powerful becomes obsessed with animal rights, and uses political power to ban meat, I guess we'll stop eating them. I'd be very sad if that happens, but again, that's just how the world works.