urg3t0ki11r151ng wrote on December 25, 2018 at 7:39 AM

I like meat and would kill animals to eat them even if the meat industry did not exist. Vegan arguments--in my experience anyway--tend toward moral arguments about mistreatment of animals. I see the mistreatment of animals as a symptom of the meat industry and capitalisms endless drive toward more profit. Veganism seems like a consumerist solution to an industrial problem. I am not set in my ways however. I would like to know, why are you vegan?

curious OP wrote on December 25, 2018 at 8:51 AM

Meat and dairy consumption involves an awful amount of waste and harms the planet, first of all. But to me, industrialization is not the entire problem, I view any use of an animal as abuse. No animal would consent to being used, killed or otherwise and its forced use is therefore exploitation. Although industrialization and factory farming make these issues much more pronounced, even backyard chickens or hunted venison are ideas I am not comfortable with, and this would be mistreatment even outside of capitalism. An inability to consent is as good as a lack of consent, and animals want you to know: no means no.

GaldraChevaliere wrote on December 25, 2018 at 3:32 PM (edited on December 25, 2018 at 3:34 PM)

I don't know about you, but I'd consider a nearly instant death by a .308 or an arrow to the heart a much kinder way to go out than being trapped in a cage up to your knees in shit before someone finally 'humanely' dispatches you with a bolt gun to the back of the head. Predation is not unnatural, for humans or for animals. Nobody wants to be eaten, but when we frame it in these terms and anthropomorphize animals, we're contributing to a lot of the same arguments that justify the extermination of predator species that are otherwise keystones of their ecosystems. Where I'm from the deer and beaver population is so out of hand for lack of wolves or even coydogs that I'd argue it's an obligation to hunt and keep their numbers in check. A couple years back one of their dams got so big it shunted off the whole river and flooded the lowlands around it which pushed more of the animals out and into dangerous contact with cars and territorial farmers. And every well-run small farm that can directly serve its locale does at least contribute a little to dismantling our dependency on industrial scale agriculture and livestocking. None of this is to say you're wrong or shouldn't be uncomfortable with eating meat or eggs or milk if it still doesn't feel right to you, but it is to say that out of several bad options, hunting and subsistence farming are some of the less awful ones.

e: I'd also like to say that backyard chickens are probably one of the best options to roll with. If you buy your chicks and hand-raise them, they'll love you about as much as a chicken can, and it hurts the hens none that you harvest the eggs as long as you don't take the ones they've chosen to lay on. You need a rooster to fertilize them, until then they're inert little packages of yolk and the chickens (or other fowl, especially guinea hens) care none if you take them.