[VS1999]

Is it arrogance? It's a huge uphill battle to prove that bees moving a ball around are "playing" and not just misapplying some other ingrained behavior, such as landing on a flower. It seems more like just pretending that animals engage in human behaviors because it feels good and satisfies our sense of pride.

[wzdd]

You could say -- and people do -- the exact same thing in support of the opposite argument, i.e. that it feels good and satisfies our sense of pride to pretend that humans are the only ones with such complex inner lives. So I think the "arrogance" claim should be retired, as it clearly doesn't add any value.

[jojobas]

I don't know, the fact that a cow can play doesn't mean we shouldn't breed them for meat.

[criddell]

Cow playing with a ball:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t98yf4T4hw

[Anotheroneagain]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F-fluUQApO8

[dantondwa]

And the fact that humans have feelings does not mean we can’t use them as slaves when needed.

See? Ethics are like that: there must be something we give value too, if we want to stop somewhere and build something. In that case, the core value being raised is that the ability to be aware, suffer and have emotions is morally valuable.

[jojobas]

Treating people decently is a part of social contract that no other animal can comprehend and accept, that's not playing with a ball, but that's not even the true reason this social contract exists.

The societies that have this social contract outdo those that don't, simple as that. If your version of treating animals was an advantage, Jainist countries would dominate the world. Yet they don't.

[nick__m]

Eating other species is the quite natural for omnivores... Remember that if a chicken was big enough to eat you it would ! (most birds ard opportunistic omnivores)

Preaching for veganism is preaching for the genocide of those domesticated species because if they weren't raised for food they would not exist !

I concede that the existence of the animals raised in industrial condition is deplorable but the existenceof the beef and chicken I buy from a local farmer is pretty good: ample space, quality food, grazing in the summer, no predator... and the way it's killed is doesn't leave time for suffering.

Cow raised for milk in place where they don't use hormone also have a great life because when they are not well treated the milk production is suboptimal.

Animal rights activists, should focus on banning growth and milk hormones, ensuring adequate space and socialization, and minimizing transport of living animals. They should be killed on site and transported dead and refrigerated to the meat processing facility, something that is prohibited for no justifiable reasons.

[twojacobtwo]

>Preaching for veganism is preaching for the genocide of those domesticated species because if they weren't raised for food they would not exist !

They existed as different, likely healthier versions of their species in the wild before we took control of their fates. If the original wild species died out since that time, then the genocide was already commited. If the original species still exists in the wild, then that proves your claim wrong.

Also, all we've done is made genocide perpetual. So instead of allowing the remaining ones to die, is it somehow kinder or more justifiable to perpetually slaughter untold generations of them?

Beyond that, we've now caused mass extinctions of other species in pursuit of raising these animals for slaughter (see: loss of bio diversity or clear cutting of the rainforests for ranching). So when do we stop acting like this endless cycle of genocide is somehow justifiable for the sake of avoiding genocide?

Perhaps it is possible to eat them in an ethical way (like only eating them if they've died of old age), but as it stands, the number of e.g. cows that are raised and slaughtered in deplorable conditions make up the vast, vast majority of total cow 'lives' and there's no way we would have the space/resources to maintain the current populations in the conditions you describe as being acceptable.

>Animal rights activists, should focus on banning growth and milk hormones, ensuring adequate space and socialization, and minimizing transport of living animals. They should be killed on site and transported dead and refrigerated to the meat processing facility, something that is prohibited for no justifiable reasons.

This is a false dichotomy. Why not both? Most animal rights activists I see advocate for better conditions for the animals as well, if we are going to slaughter them anyway. And who even says we would have to let these animals die out entirely if we stopped eating them en mass?

[thefaux]

These come across as rationalizations to justify your lifestyle.

[jojobas]

Why should one not protect his lifestyle? It was earned by a millions-year-long struggle to the top, I ain't giving it up to cows and insects.

[zeven7]

> "playing" and not just misapplying some other ingrained behavior, such as landing on a flower.

Or that’s just what “playing” is. It sure seems like my cat’s way of playing is to “hunt” me.