[oceanplexian]

Not allowing something to exist is a really strange way of conceptualizing reduction of harm.

I'm perfectly fine eating something that was alive, so long as it was treated with respect and was killed humanely. Doing so connects you, a living being, to other living beings that are part of the circle of life, which live and die the same way you and I will.

[fayten]

Unless you are actively managing your own herd or actively hunting I don’t see how you are connecting to nature at the grocery store.

People don’t care as long as it tastes good. The current methods we have for farming meat do not scale and we need to work on alternatives. Meat is tasty and people want to eat it.

Innovation will continue in the lab grown meat sector and when it eventually scales it will over take traditional methods. Current factory farming is anything but natural and there is plenty of harm being done.

[hildolfr]

Would you respect being eaten as part of the circle of life? What about your family?

Where is the line drawn?

Explain to me the difference between disrespect and being cattle-bolted through the skull.

When the fish is yanked out of the factory farm and suffocated in air or chilled and frozen alive do you think they experience this respect we're talking about? If so, where?

Does the operator say thanks to each fish before their brutal, agonizing, often prolonged for market death?

'respect' is about the most stupid thing I can think to bring up when referencing loss of life in animals.

It's a meta human concept that means nothing other than the mans approval of method -- it means nothing with regard to the animal or the suffering.

[troyvit]

> Explain to me the difference between disrespect and being cattle-bolted through the skull.

I think if you could choose between that and being slowly consumed by five or six coyotes from the ass forward, you'd go for the cattle bolt. I have a ton of problems with the US meat industry (to the point where I only eat meat once a month or so unless somebody is throwing it away), but there are ranchers out there who do try to do their best for the food they raise.

[glenstein]

One has human moral responsibility, the other doesn't.

I actually do think, if we solved all the other problems in the world and had time left over, it would be right to intervene in nature to stop the harms you described too, and that conversation is a pandora's box of its own. But I don't think the upshot of these harms in nature is that we're also allowed to engage in similar harms at any scale we choose, as long as the badness isn't as bad as what happens in nature. Mainly because that comparison sidesteps the role of unique human moral responsibility and implies an unmade argument that analogies to nature can serve the function of authorizing human-initiated moral harms.

[KempyKolibri]

Depends on the context, not necessarily weird. If the choice was between “world A” where sentient beings were perpetually bred into existence to be perpetually tortured until they died and “world B” where the breeding stopped and the beings became extinct, it would be insane to favour world A over B.

[glenstein]

Farming them into existence creates moral responsibility, and killing then annihilates the remaining value of a life for which you were morally responsible.

The "connection" you're advocating appears to be a more a romanticized free association (along the lines of "we are all stardust") than a specific conceptual argument accountable to the interests of the animals being harmed.

[niek_pas]

> I'm perfectly fine eating something that was alive, so long as it was treated with respect and was killed humanely. Doing so connects you, a living being, to other living beings that are part of the circle of life, which live and die the same way you and I will.

Would you say the same thing about killing other humans for food? If not, why not?

[troyvit]

I'll answer for that person. If humans were naturally cannibalistic then I think they'd agree. For instance, if we were spiders it would seem pretty natural to eat each other. But the fact is that cannibalism, even among the biggest fans of CAFOs, is just not that much fun.

I'd ask the poster a similar question though. If a monkey or chimp was treated with respect and killed humanely, would they eat that?

[timeon]

> killed humanely

What does this mean?

Not sure about fish but mammals produced for meat are usually killed before adult age. Is that "killed humanely"?