You got it right: around ~70 billion land animals in 2013, 1-2.7 trillion fishes [0] and 25 trillion shrimps [1]
But can you compare:
- a fish that lived 1 year wild then died by pressure or asphyxia in a net during 15 minutes
- a chicken that lived 40 days in a cage
Instead of raw count, the Welfare Footprint Institute [2] propose a framework:
> quantify animal welfare by systematically measuring animals’ affective experiences—specifically, the intensity and duration of their negative (painful) and positive (pleasurable) states […]
>The Welfare Footprint Framework (WFF) is a method developed to quantify animal welfare by systematically measuring animals’ affective experiences—specifically, the intensity and duration of their negative (painful) and positive (pleasurable) states.
We got utilitarianism for chickens before GTA 6! But yeah that's roughly matches my own intuitions. A literal lifetime of suffering doesn't seem like the right approach here.
>25 trillion shrimps
Holy crap. That's not even a comprehensible number!
So I'm not against animal products (not even meat) per se, just against keeping them locked inside in cages.
(And also, it should go without saying, but I've seen the footage, I'm against paying psychopathic factory farm employees to treat them horribly...)
A return to traditional farming methods would obviously require a significant worldwide reduction in meat consumption though (and the prices would go up a lot I think), due to the increased land requirements.
I haven't given the fishing situation much thought (I don't eat fish), but that ties in with "stop devastating natural ecosystems" which seems pretty straightforward to me (just for basic self-preservation reasons).
There might be attention between "traditional farming" and that though, because having them on land instead of compacted in a giant industrial cube obviously requires way more space :/
I don't know, it doesn't seem like there's any good solutions here. (More vegan propaganda? That doesn't seem to be working very well...)
We got utilitarianism for chickens before GTA 6! But yeah that's roughly matches my own intuitions. A literal lifetime of suffering doesn't seem like the right approach here.
>25 trillion shrimps
Holy crap. That's not even a comprehensible number!
So I'm not against animal products (not even meat) per se, just against keeping them locked inside in cages.
(And also, it should go without saying, but I've seen the footage, I'm against paying psychopathic factory farm employees to treat them horribly...)
A return to traditional farming methods would obviously require a significant worldwide reduction in meat consumption though (and the prices would go up a lot I think), due to the increased land requirements.
I haven't given the fishing situation much thought (I don't eat fish), but that ties in with "stop devastating natural ecosystems" which seems pretty straightforward to me (just for basic self-preservation reasons).
There might be attention between "traditional farming" and that though, because having them on land instead of compacted in a giant industrial cube obviously requires way more space :/
I don't know, it doesn't seem like there's any good solutions here. (More vegan propaganda? That doesn't seem to be working very well...)