[alterom]

>Obviously there's the cognitive dissonance aspect to point out, but we are all doing that to some extent.

Not necessarily. I mean, the people who give out an uncomfortable laugh do exhibit signs of cognitive dissonance.

I don't have an issue with accepting both statements: factory farming is awful, and I still eat meat.

There is no cognitive dissonance.

The logic is straightforward: I do not believe that me, an individual, abstaining from meat is going to do much to factory farming, while it will make a huge, adverse impact on my life.

Government regulation is how this problem would be solved (the only way it can get solved), and I'm all for voting for bans on factory farming, heavy taxes on meat products, etc.

One's gotta pick their battles.

I pick ones where my participation won't amount to martyrdom.

[tapland]

Yeah but tons of things are awful. For me I couldn't keep doing things I knew caused immense suffering in other beings, be it humans or animals. (Sourcing things from ethical whatever and reducing consumption in general the last two decades, I'm sad my iPhone 6 isn't supported for banking so have to go android 10 etc).

Vegetarian options got cheap, and I still eat locally produced eggs and some milk products.

But like, awful can be coped with. Everyone thinks factory farming is awful. Few give a shit.

[Ritewut]

Few people can afford to give a shit. Most people are getting the cheapest meat and dairy they can get from Walmart.

[tapland]

Blessing/curse that meat is so expensive in Scandinavia that good vegan options actually became competitive. I know meat is dirt cheap in the US =/

[NonHyloMorph]

It's still not cheaper to have a very meat rich diet then to have one that is mostly plant based; or entirely vegetablebased plus milk and eggs from local production - which wouldn't get you in some of the difficulties vegsns have to desl with, where they need to take some nutrients in the form of supplements if they don't absolutely optimize their diet (which again becomes expensive - would be interesting to be corrected here)

All that is to say: some people act less ethical then others, and should have to accept that fact - instead of trying to produce an image of the self (to themselves mostly but also to others) that conceals it; be it through normalization ("guess we all do that"), rationslization ("if i wouldn't do it someone else would"), or blame shifting (if someone would do this and that i would behave like that, so it's up to them to provide me with xyz)

edit: I apply that to myself. I know that I don't act as ethical as I could regarding the consequences of my diet.

[fwipsy]

Basically this boils down to "I don't feel responsible for the meat I eat being factory farmed."

Not that I'm in any position to criticize; I'm in the cognitive dissonance camp.

Have you considered consuming "ethical" animal products (e.g. free range eggs or whatever?) That doesn't seem like martyrdom; compared to what you want (government mandated livestock welfare) it only costs you marginally more (due to missing economies of scale.)

[BobbyTables2]

I’m in the same camp. On the other extreme, I find it darkly funny that eating plants is supposed to be okay…

Aren’t they alive too? What if they were conscious? If they aren’t but still a lifeform, that makes it perfectly okay?

No answers, just makes me wonder at times if common ethics is all it’s cracked up be.

Is eating plants not required for sustenance or nutrition really justifiable? (Chocolate, sugar, spices, …)

[computably]

> What if they were conscious?

Well, they're not.

> If they aren’t but still a lifeform, that makes it perfectly okay?

According to Jains: No. Violence against plants, insects, and possibly even certain microorganisms is considered unethical.

IMO as an irreligious person: Yes. Life is just a particular form of self-sustaining and self-propagating system. Those properties are of little to no moral value.

[smackeyacky]

Are you sure? What about a stand of trees whose consciousness might just run extremely slowly compared to ours?

[computably]

About as sure as one can be. It's neither logically nor physically impossible, but the claim that trees are conscious is practically unfalsifiable and is not supported by any substantive evidence. It has nothing to do with "fast" or "slow," no matter how you poke or prod or slice or dice a tree, there's nothing that suggests a capacity for consciousness. I would be less surprised if my friend's dog started speaking perfect Chinese with an American accent.

[imjonse]

If anyone cares about plants suffering they should go vegan, as many more plants are consumed to raise animals than would be if there was a direct plant intake in humans for the same amount of calories and nutrients. Ditto for land use, water, CO2 emissions, etc. but let's assume our friend cares strictly about reducing suffering short of starving themselves to death.

[yunwal]

Just FYI, the designation "free range" on eggs means essentially nothing. It means the hens have access to the outdoors, but that could still mean a tiny, packed space, just missing a roof.

"Cage free" and "no antibiotics" are probably the only USDA-regulated terms worth caring about, but they're fairly low bars. "Certified Humane" designation is a higher, well-audited bar, but many farms that might qualify forgo it due to the costs associated.

[kevin_thibedeau]

Factory farming is a consequence of a post-industrial economy where 95% of the population isn't directly involved in farming. Few people would want to reset the clock back to where most are attached to the land with limited options. The only reliable source of B12 before the modern era was to consume some animal derived products. Other basic nutrients are hard to attain through plants alone. It is necessary for us to engage in animal husbandry in the absence of technological interventions that we never evolved to depend on.

[alterom]

To the extent that I can, I do try to pick ethical products (like the aforementioned free-range eggs).

It's not an all-or-nothing thing indeed; there's a huge spectrum between veganism and not at all thinking (or caring) about where the animal products come from.

But yes, I, as a consumer, am not responsible for what is already heavily regulated in favor of factory farmers. Heard of the ag gag laws? You can't vegan them away.

It's not a free market, see.

It's as delusional to blame people for eating the availableunethically produced meat as it is to blame them for starving during the Holodomor (..or Great New Leap, or the Irish Potato Famine, or...).

Radium-based snake oil "medicine" didn't disappear because the consumers boycotted an unethical product. It was because we have FDA.

I really do not feel responsible for what would amount to trying to enforce regulation that doesn't exist.

I am responsible for voting, so when it comes to the ballot, ethical farming does get my vote.

[yunwal]

> like the aforementioned free-range eggs

I noted this in another comment, but the "free-range" designation means almost nothing. Hens have access to the outdoors, but that can mean a packed coop with no grass where part is missing a roof.

Look for "Certified Humane" or research the farm directly.

[alterom]

Thanks for the actionable advice.

Side note: I've never seen that "certified humane" label. I'll look for it though.

The people who are saying that it's "easier than ever" to be buying ethically farmed products are full of it.

[daemin]

All markets have rules, the "free" in "free market" is just marketing.

(Not disagreeing with you, just mentioning it because your statement inside made me think of it)

[alterom]

Well of course. Free market (even as a theoretical concept) is only possible with regulation that prevents monopolies and ensures some sort of fairness.

The agricultural market is perhaps the furthest thing from it, given the importance of, well, having food. Farmers get subsidies. Nation-states get involved in the circulation of food around the planet. Geopolitics comes into play.

In some markets, individual choices of consumers matter a lot in shaping them.

Agricultural products are as far from that as it's possible.

I am not convinced that not buying unethical meat does any more than not buying unethical weapons of mass destruction, or not using Palantir's products.

Few of us are hoarding stashes of chemical weapons or signing contracts with Palantir, and yet Palantir still thrives.

Perhaps simply not buying it isn't always the most effective way to end something.

[GolfPopper]

>Government regulation is how this problem would be solved (the only way it can get solved)

My cynical inner pedant compels me to point out that societal collapse will also solve "factory farming is awful". And we're probably closer to that than effective government regulation of it.

[nickburns]

Equating eating meat with martyrdom in the year 2026 is, in fact, the same cognitive dissonance you personally deny.

I eat meat. And I'm highly, highly morally conflicted. I'll leave it at that to avoid sounding hypothetical—except to mention that the only logical reason I don't go vegetarian/vegan is the work and personal development that'd be required of me. (I'll take being called lazy over disingenuous any day, if we're ostensibly virtue signaling here.)

[TeMPOraL]

> I eat meat. And I'm highly, highly morally conflicted. I'll leave it at that to avoid sounding hypothetical—except to mention that the only logical reason I don't go vegetarian/vegan is the work and personal development that'd be required of me. (I'll take being called lazy over disingenuous any day, if we're ostensibly virtue signaling here.)

But that is precisely acting as a martyr.

You're "highly morally conflicted", which means you suffer inside. You could stop that suffering by either 1) going vegan, so you don't have to worry about it, or 2) deciding to continue eating meat and no longer worry about it. Right now, you're picking the strictly worse combination of continuing to eat meat and remaining conflicted indefinitely.

I'm starting to realize that internal moral conflicts are a lot like physical pain - it's an important signal from the body, and you should pay attention to it, but in the end, if you know you're not going to do anything about the underlying cause, then there's no point in continuing to suffer - you just make it go away with painkillers, and carry on living. This does not mean denying the problem - quite the opposite. Constant pain makes it hard to think rationally, and suppressing it puts you in a much better position to address its underlying cause.

[nickburns]

You say I'm 'suffering inside', not me.

[satvikpendem]

What is confliction if not suffering?

[nickburns]

What is suffering?

[aziaziazi]

Do what you like and as you like, but my two cents: if you want to make something that seems hard, start with one step and continue step by step at your own peace. Big goals are accomplished by proudness of small gaps instead of shame and desires of the missing ones.

During 10 year I gently removed some ingredients of my diets/habits and added others in the meantime. It was longer but way easier than I imagined.

Good luck, you lazy :-)

[nickburns]

Hey, at my ripe, old age, I only started learning how to properly feed myself more recently than I'd like to admit. So I take your point about acknowledging one's baby steps once you successfully string a few together.

Thanks for the encouragement!

[alterom]

>Equating eating meat with martyrdom in the year 2026 is, in fact, the same cognitive dissonance you personally deny

You completely missed the point.

In the context of picking battles, martyrdom is (self) sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice, with no direct gain for the cause.

Abstaining from meat, to me, will take away one of the not-so-many joys I have in my life, without possibly making a meaningful impact on unethical farming.

I'm well off. You might be. Most people in the US are not.

And in the end of the day, poor people are going to buy the cheapest products in the grocery store.

So, there's always be a demand as long as there's supply.

More than that. We don't really have a choice for where meat comes from anyway. There's no requirement to put that on the label, along with nutritional data.

That, by the way, is another example where legislation can make a lot of difference.

My point is that abstaining from meat is about as useful as that young man setting himself of fire in the US to help children in Gaza.

Same goes about feeling bad about eating meat (while eating it).

The impact on the cause is zero.

Your energy would be better spent fighting the ag-gag laws, requiring disclosures on the labels, making ethically farmed products cheaper (and factory farmed produce more expensive), and so on.

You having morally conflicted feelings doesn't help anyone.

And it's simple, really: you are complicit in doing a bad thing. But the complicity is not in doing the thing, it's in supporting the system where in doing it is the rational choice for the majority of people.

Your choice in doing or not doing the thing has very little impact on whether the thing happens.

[satvikpendem]

Aren't vegetables cheaper than meat? I'd assume poor people also like the taste of meat, as was evolutionarily advantaged, not that it's the cheapest.

[alterom]

>Aren't vegetables cheaper than meat?

Do you even do any grocery shopping where you live?

Not long ago, I could get chicken for $0.99/pound, same as the cheapest tomatoes, whereas quality tomatoes sold for $2.99/pound.

Now the prices for meat are up, but chicken still costs $1.99/pound[1], while decent tomatoes are $3.99/pound[2].

Even if you are thrifty and find cheaper tomatoes, they are incomparable to chicken in nutritional value.

You know the expression "chicken soup for the soul"? There's a reason it's not "tomato soup for the soul" (as much as I love gazpacho).

> I'd assume poor people also like the taste of meat

Try eating on a budget instead of assuming what them "poor people" like.

[1] https://www.safeway.com/shop/product-details.960014952.html?...

[2] https://www.safeway.com/shop/product-details.184570092.html

[aziaziazi]

The comparaison of chicken and tomatoes is a strawman.

First off: people don’t swap them in their diet, a better exemple would be wheat or soy - which are what the 0.99/p chicken eat [edit: and it's closer in term of nutrients].

Second: the shelf price you mention includes gouvernement subsidies and economy of scale. The grains price should be the one paid by the fermer, adjusted for smaller packaging. Your comparaison may stands where you live because of political choices and societal evolution. It doesn’t in a more liberal and non regulated juridictions, does it?

[alterom]

>The comparaison of chicken and tomatoes is a strawman.

It's a direct answer to the question asked by the parent.

The answer is: no, vegetables are not cheaper than meat in the US.

It is perverse. Which is my point: what enables the low, low price of chicken isn't merely the laws of supply and demand.

>First off: people don’t swap them in their diet, a better exemple would be wheat or soy

Those are not vegetables. Those are grains and legumes, respectively.

>Second: the shelf price you mention includes gouvernement subsidies and economy of scale.

No shit.

Which is my point exactly: the problem is addressed by government regulation, and exists because of government regulation, including, but not limited to, subsidies to particular forms of farming, and ag gag laws.

>Your comparaison may stands where you live

Well of course I can speak about where I live.

And yeah, we're talking in English on a US-based website (specifically, a Silicon Valley one). I am talking about the US, a country of about 350M people.

It's not like I'm talking about a small state few people have heard of with no impact on anything. The situation in the US matters because it influences a lot.

Canada isn't that different from the US food-wise, for that matter.

[redsocksfan45]

Bro you're picking the most yuppy veggies you can find to strain to make your point. "I can't just eat the cheap tomatoes, I demand the finest!"

Quit being such a fruit.

[nickburns]

> In the context of picking battles, martyrdom is (self) sacrifice, with no direct gain for the cause.

On the first clause, exactly. (The second clause appears to be a bit of ad lib.)

> Abstaining from meat, to me, will take away one of the not-so-many joys I have in my life

I don't think the concept of 'martyrdom' encompasses self-interest. It does however consider the cause/s of other beings. So I maintain, not a very cognitively consonant use of the term.

[alterom]

>On the first clause, exactly. (The second clause appears to be a bit of ad lib.)

The original definition of martyr is: "a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty for declaring belief in and refusing to renounce a religion"[1].

It's suffering for the sake of being true to one's faith; impact of that decision on anyone else not being a factor in whether one is a martyr.

Abstaining from meat consumption when it's something you really enjoy is martyrdom in that sense: you are sticking to your moral principles while having no impact on the proliferation of unethical farming.

>I don't think the concept of 'martyrdom' encompasses self-interest

You think incorrectly. The concept of martyrdom means forgoing the self-interest of self-preservation and not being in pain. There's no martyrdom without sacrifice.

>It does however consider the cause/s of other beings.

It may, in the modern sense of the word, but it doesn't have to. See the linked definition. The causes for which one martyrs themselves may vary. The unifying factor is suffering in the name of the cause.

Not suffering with the effect of making something happen. It's choosing to suffer in the name of something that makes one a martyr.

Martyrdom is not an efficient way to bring the cause closer to reality.

> So I maintain, not a very cognitively consonant use of the term.

You can maintain it's not the correct usage of the term, dictionaries be damned, but cognitive consonance has nothing to do with that.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/martyr

[DangitBobby]

Many individuals independently making the choice has made a difference, both in harm reduction on the demand side and choice on the supply side. It's never been easier or more accessible to be vegetarian/vegan.

[_DeadFred_]

We used to have more humane farming. We used to have laws against child labor. We now eat pigs, animals smarter than dogs, that lived tortured lives while wearing clothing made by children.

You can easily chose 'not factory farmed' and still eat meat. You just don't. I'm guessing unless you grew up rich or very recently, you consume more meat now than you were accustomed too growing up. In that case you choose to actively benefit from the factory farming.

[alterom]

>We used to have more humane farming. We used to have laws against child labor.

So, you get the point of having legislation like laws prohibiting child labor instead of moral grandstanding calling on people to abstain from purchasing unethically produced goods, right?

>We now eat pigs, animals smarter than dogs, that lived tortured lives while wearing clothing made by children.

Which goes to show my point: the problem of child labor has only ever been resolved by having legislation against it.

Not by passing the (un)ethical choice onto the consumer.

>I'm guessing unless you grew up rich or very recently, you consume more meat now than you were accustomed too growing up.

I grew up in a communal flat in post-USSR-collapse Ukraine with five families to 1 toilet, in case you are wondering, and no, I don't consume any more meat now than I was accustomed to growing up.

I don't see how that is related to anything I'm saying, other than trying to go for another holier-than-thou ad hominem.

>You can easily chose 'not factory farmed' and still eat meat.

Pray tell how.

Let's be specific. I live in California, and while I consider myself well off, I'm not what you'd call rich.

I shop in stores like Lucky, Ralph's, and 99 ranch.

When I go to those stores, how do I tell which meat was "factory farmed", and which wasn't? Honest question, because that information isn't on the label.

Which is, again, a point I am making: it should be illegal to not put this information along with nutrition data.