Most noteworthy for me is the fact that more Americans think that porn (52%) and homosexuality (39%) are wrong than spanking children (23%) and being ultra wealthy (18%).
🤡 country
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/03/19/what-do-americans-consider-immoral/
I used to agree with you, but then I went to r/vegancirclejerk and heard the classic joke “We just barbecued up the family dog for Christmas dinner. He was well loved, he had a happy and healthy life. So it’s ethical to eat him.”
Now I think the only ethical way to enjoy meat is with consent. Like in The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe.
The restaurant at the end of the universe has genetically engineered animals that want to be eaten. I don’t know if that is consent but it’s definitely unethical. Imagine genetically engineering woman to want to sleep with you. Creepy af.
The Dish of the Day is engineered not only to want to be eaten, but also to be intelligent enough to express informed, non-coerced consent. It can speak, it can understand the concept of mortality, it knows exactly how it will be cooked and which parts of its body will be used for which items on the menu. It has a complete understanding of the situation and is very happy to be eaten. If you don’t want to eat it, it will be disappointed. Nothing bad will happen to it if it does not agree to be eaten, it wants to be eaten of its own free will.
It’s an ideal ethical situation. The Dish of the Day hasn’t been coerced, abused, tricked, or taken advantage of. The only room for ethical objection is in the breeding process, but I’m inclined to trust that the breeding was more or less ethical, given the great ethics of the parts we actually see. That’s inductive reasoning, but it’s the best reasoning we have on that process.
Okay? And? I had rabbits and pigs as pets. We ate them when their time came. What’s different about it being a dog? Dogs are no more special than any other animal just because we have an arbitrary emotional attachment to them.
As long as the animal was given a good life and, when time came for slaughter, they were killed in an ethical manner then there is no moral or ethical issue.
Humans are omnivores. We eat other animals. It is no more unethical than if any animal eats another animal.
You’re right, dogs are no more special than other animals. Hearing that simile made My heart realise it’s wrong. For My head to realise it’s wrong, I had to accept that killing is usually very painful, and most humans, if given the power to kill for profit, will optimise the ethics out of the process.
I make exception for traditional Indigenous Australian hunting practices. Indigenous Australians have a social system to ensure the killing of animals is done ethically and humanely. You see, if you want to hunt an animal, you need to get permission from the person whose totem is that animal. That person considers that animal their siblings, their family. Their duty is to hold sacred knowledge about that animal and to monitor the populations. And they can’t eat their totem, because that’s cannibalism. That person has the authority to say when you can hunt their totem, and how many you can kill. They can’t profit from the killing because they can’t eat their totem. So the system has checks and balances to prevent corruption. I’m okay with meat eating within that system because it controls against the consequences.
But the white capitalist system has no controls, it just causes suffering. So I’m not okay with traditional European methods of husbandry and slaughter. I might reconsider after capitalism is overthrown.
So you agree then with my original point that the ethical question lies with the production of animal products and not with the consumption of animal products? Glad that’s settled then.
Yeah, I judge people for eating meat because it’s symbolic of support for factory farming. It’s the same as how I judge people for reading Mein Kampf (outside of an academic context), even if they pirated it.
That is an incredibly shortsighted view to blame the consumer instead of the producer. It’s incredibly lacking in class consciousness. It is in no way “symbolic support” of factory farming. People need to eat and are constrained by the society they live in. Do not blame the victims of society for needing to participate within it in order to survive. Focus your blame onto those actually doing the harm.
Reading Mein Kampf doesn’t mean you support what is said by it. It is actually beneficial to have read it so you can better understand the argument of your opposition to dismantle it when arguing against them. Again, your take on this is shortsighted and arbitrarily judgmental.
Edit: people downvoting have no understanding of the concept “no ethical consumption under capitalism”.
“No ethical consumption under capitalism” is not an excuse to engage in avoidable, harmful consumption.
Wasn’t that pretty much the exact logic used by a bunch of slaveowners? “I oppose the institution of slavery, but it’s a systemic problem. Sure, I could free my own slaves, but that wouldn’t really fix anything.” Surely there’s a line to be drawn somewhere.
Also, “blaming the consumer rather than the producer” seems like a very backwards way of applying class consciousness. The consumer generates the demand. If a farmer, the worker who produces the meat, quits his job, the demand will still exist and will likely be filled by someone else. But if the consumer quits demanding it, then it’ll cause production to be reduced.
Of course, there are larger systemic solutions that we ought to look at, but that’s not either or, any more than it would be either or to criticize a slaveowner for not freeing their slaves while at the same time calling for systemic change.
That’s a disingenuous comparison that doesn’t take into account class based analysis of the two situations. Consumers, who are of the working class, do not have direct control in how their meat was produced. They can only indirectly make choices based on what is available and accessible to their circumstances. They don’t own the farm and ethically sourced meat is usually prohibitively expensive to many consumers. The slave owner is an OWNER, with direct control over the labor practices, who directly makes the choice to employ slavery or not. The slave owner is the one who controls the production so the responsibility lies with them.
Don’t buy into the myth of supply-demand. If you quit buying the meat, the capitalists will still sell to those who support the harmful treatment and just have the difference subsidized like they currently do. Supply-demand logic puts the responsibility on the consumer; it is propaganda by capitalist owners to shirk off their responsibilities for producing ethically and sustainably. Just because a demand exists doesn’t necessitate that others labor to fill that demand. Only because we exist in capitalism that incentivizes the pursuit of profit above all else does it justify that kind of logic because a demand unfulfilled is one that hasn’t been exploited for profit. If workers owned the farms, and decided to only produce ethically and sustainably, then people who demand more than what is available can go shove it or start hunting for themselves.
So if I bought a shirt made from cotton picked by slaves, that would’ve been perfectly fine? If I buy chocolate harvested with child labor, or blood diamonds, that’s all fine?
This whole production-focused morality is entirely self-serving and has nothing at all to do with class consciousness. Many people involved in the meat industry are workers just trying to make a living. You just don’t want to deal with the inconvenience of these issues yourself.
Even if it’s theoretically possible to create a system that doesn’t depend on supply and demand, it is very much a thing in the world we actually live in.
Complete nonsense. If they could just “get more subsidies” whenever they felt like it, they’d get them now, until they couldn’t get anymore. Which is… where we’re at. This is magical thinking.
Even if one particular worker-owned farm decided to do that, it wouldn’t change anything. The consumers looking for cheaper meat would simply go to the farms willing to use harmful treatment.
Why does that logic only work one way and not the other?
Sure they do. My meat was not produced. You have this power too.
Disbelieving that consumer demand influences production is a wild take that doesn’t absolve you of responsibility for that which you consume.
I’m vegan. I can’t eliminate My unethical consumption, but I can reduce it. I can make better choices. They might not be good choices, but they’re better than just participating in the system.
I’m also making an effort to use Indigenous bush medicine in consultation with the local Indigenous clans. I’ve consulted with the totem holder about the plant I use for My allergies. That way, I’m not engaging with capitalism at all to treat My allergies. I’m using the traditional communist economy. Medicine literally grows out of the ground for free all over the place, and all I need to use it is knowledge and respect. Knowledge and respect are free!
And how you personally choose to reduce it is your prerogative. Regardless, you cannot eliminate it entirely so you should not be arbitrarily judged for the ways you do or do not limit yourself.
As well, it is great that you have the opportunities to choose alternatives but you also need to realize not everyone has those opportunities or the disposition to utilize them so they also should not be judged for that. Knowledge is free but the education to know how to appropriately and effectively use that knowledge without inadvertently harming yourself is usually not free barring extenuating circumstances, such as yourself having a local indigenous clan willing to teach you. Medicine grows out the ground but so do poisons and many medicines are also poisonous if prepared improperly.
If people have the opportunity and ability to utilize alternative, ethical sources then, by all means, they should do so but I’m not going to sit and arbitrarily make judgement about someone outright if they don’t. I don’t know them, their capabilities or circumstances.
Fair point but I want to offer a correction. We don’t have tribes where I live, we have clans. Tribes and clans are different. Tribes have a chief, clans are governed by consensus. That’s how it was explained to me by My Indigenous teachers, the words are likely different in other countries.
Also, I consider a person’s disposition within their control. If someone doesn’t know the issues with meat, that’s fair. But once they’ve had a decent conversation with a vegan like Myself, it comes down to their willingness to learn. A vegan diet is pretty cheap. Bread, potatoes, rice, noodles, pasta, all the cheapest foods are vegan. I know what poverty is, I’ve been homeless. I had to eat meat when I was homeless because it’s what they served at the shelter. I let My ethics wane for survival. But they waxed again when I got back on My feet, and I feel entitled to judge anyone who has it better than Me, had a chance to learn the facts, and isn’t vegan. Which is most people in My country. At a certain point, ignorance becomes a choice. We’ve all got rectangles in our pockets containing the sum of knowledge.
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