[a-french-anon]

"Cruelty" is a rhetoric word because its meaning is caught between the classical "deliberate causing of pain" and the new "neglect, indifference towards another's pain" and of course, that discrepancy is fully exploited. What livestock beasts suffer is purely for practical reasons.

>I am genuinely unsure where this disconnect comes from

1. Empathy is a base emotional response triggered by nearby animals, not a rational/moral one.

2. Empathy is also an evolutionary tool that "happened" in (some) humans to help survive situations that require some sort of cooperation, like harsh winters. Anthropomorphization is an associated bug, not a feature.

2b. Being disconnected from nature and reality is the #1 cause for such disorder; you don't see any kind of vegetarianism in rural people.

3. People with a brain realize that eating meat is important.

4. People with a bigger brain also realize that that eating other animals is the prerogative of power: humans have simply won the animal kingdom's oldest game and are enjoying its spoils. Things wouldn't (and shouldn't) be different if positions were reversed.

[frotaur]

Since you are french according to your handle, I will direct you to this video, which I liked very much : https://youtu.be/VlWvnhSiuck?si=dvgQQS1Y4oa3A1yO .

In essence, I don't disagree with points 1 and 2. But the conclusions that you draw from these could be used to justify things which, hopefully, you would find morally objectionable. It is not because empathy is not a rational response that we should not try to use rationality to shape our decisions. There are pretty of other feelings/behaviours that we choose to consider bad and worthy of punishment, regardless of the fact they are useful evolutionary tool.

Unfortunately this comment is much too short to make the full argument, but the video I linked does a great job. I was wholly convinced by it, and though I'm not vegetarian, I do try to source my meat from places with more humane conditions.

[HeatrayEnjoyer]

> 2b. Being disconnected from nature and reality is the #1 cause for such disorder; you don't see any kind of vegetarianism in rural people.

This is just untrue, hundreds of millions of rural South Asians are vegetarian.

> 3. People with a brain realize that eating meat is important.

Everyone has a brain. Both vegetarian and omnivore groups have their share of geniuses and fools. Meat was important as a calorie source but it has many drawbacks in modern society totally unrelated to animal ethics; cancer risk, inefficient land use, methane production, etc.

> 4. People with a bigger brain also realize that that eating other animals is the prerogative of power: humans have simply won the animal kingdom's oldest game and are enjoying its spoils. Things wouldn't (and shouldn't) be different if positions were reversed.

This sounds like manifest destiny rhetoric and deserves just as much consideration.

[chithanh]

> Meat was important as a calorie source but it has many drawbacks in modern society totally unrelated to animal ethics; cancer risk, inefficient land use, methane production, etc.

I think the most important drawbacks which actually threaten modern society are deforestation and zoonoses. Both can be largely avoided by raising only insects for meat, which reduces water and land use by 80%, and CO2 emissions even more if feed is mostly food waste. It is however a hard sell and has to be hidden in products in order to be accepted by consumers.

[hollerith]

So, it is marketing and perception problem and not because insects are objectively terrible as food for people?

[chithanh]

In my understanding it is mostly a cultural thing that makes people reject insects. I am unaware of any objective measure by which are insects are terrible foods.

[hollerith]

And how many of your meals have included insect food?

[chithanh]

Here in the EU, insect powder is now an approved food additive.

https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/novel-food/authorisati...

As I don't closely read labels of everything I eat, probably I consumed it inadvertently already. Otherwise, I don't eat meat.

[saagarjha]

Why ask this question?