[HenryBemis]

We don't eat them because they are uncool, we eat them because we can farm them 'en masse' in a cost effective manner and they cannot escape. I've had moose, horse, and a few more non-typical farmed animals. I like horse steak the best. But, a beef steak costs X and a horse steak costs 5x.

It's a complicated multi-threaded discussion. I saw a vid recently from (I assume the UK) that people were protesting on the meat-alley of a super market. So those people are cool when the super market sells cigarettes, sugary drinks that cause diabetes to kids, 'chocolates' with 50% sugar, alcohol that ruins millions of lives around the world, etc. But steak.. that is their problem. Oh the hypocrisy.

[EliRivers]

Perhaps they feel that tobacco farming and harvesting causes significantly less distress to the tobacco plants than animal farming and slaughter does to the animals.

[HenryBemis]

The plant stays alive once its 'fruit' is remove, true (although I've never picked cotton or tobacco leaves - I assume the process doesn't injure the plant).

But we don't care. We only keep the plant alive so we can make more of the 'good stuff' (cigarettes, jeans, etc.)

Again, low effort and low cost from our side. If it would be cheaper to kill the tobacco plant (I don't know much about tobacco plants, perhaps that at some point/age of the plant it becomes sterile, so we kill the old one and plant a new one?) If this is the case, then kill the old cotton plant, get a new one, start harvesting. We decided that we rule the earth. Until something very dramatic happens (ruin ecosystems, aliens invade, etc.) then we run the show.

[lxgr]

That’s a textbook example of whataboutism if I’ve ever seen one, but it’s also a category error:

Selling cigarettes harms the buyers, but selling factory-farmed meat harms the animals being factory farmed, and they don’t have any agency in this at all.

[HenryBemis]

> Selling cigarettes harms the buyers, but selling factory-farmed meat harms the animals being factory farmed,...

Yes, it is exactly as you write it! Did you just realize that? (pardon the irony but come on.. idealism = ideas, realism = reality)

> and they don’t have any agency in this at all.

Correct again! No they don't. We cut down trees that are very much alive because we want new/more/better chairs. We take a fish from the water, kill it, skin it, eat it. We don't care for its life. We care for our lives and comfort more. Yes. It has been decided, humans are the dominant species on this planet. We rule. Now, I wished we ruled with more wisdom (e.g. avoid over-fishing and other unsustainable practices). But that's not how greed works. And our species is greedy. Perhaps you and I are not, but 'we' are. And perhaps it will ruin us.

[melagonster]

Sorry, most of fish we eat were not farmed by human.

[HenryBemis]

My point was about "we eat what does not resist" also "cost". If it would cost us $1m to eat 1kg of fish, we wouldn't be eating fish (the 99.999% of the population). If hunting cows would end up costing us $200k per 1kg of beef.. same.

It is about "how obedient/simple/easy/effortless" is the thing we eat.

I probably did not explain that well in my initial message.