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This is hard because yes dogs are awesome.
But so are cows, and pigs.
I'm no vegan, but It's interesting that the revulsion line for so many is dogs rather than fellow land mammals, land creatures, or something more distinct than a mammal you find particularly cute.
I'd argue the moral judgment here largely comes from people who just plain abstain from pointing that same moral judgment to sentient creatures they do eat. A cow or a pig is no less an individual than a dog.
As for me, I am eagerly awaiting lab grown meat becoming more available as an end to our species' barbarism. Usually all I hear back is disgust at the concept. Give it a chance, for the sake of all the creatures we breed to torture and kill. If we can grow animal protein that tastes the same, that's a win for everyone.
We bred dogs specifically to love people and to be expressive in an innately human way, so it feels wrong to kill them. Cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, etc. were bred for food. There’s less betrayal if the idea was always to eat them.
Cows are not bred only to supply meat, they supply labor to till fields and provide manure for crops. The dog breeds used for food in those regions are bred specifically for food, no different than current domesticated animals. Its the lack of that understanding and diminishing the work that other domesticated animals do that cause the problem. Hell there are plenty of studies that show pigs are smarter than dogs, we use them for organ transplants and stuff. You can legitamately argue pigs are more innately human than dogs are.
Pigs don’t have expressive faces, built-in emotional understanding of humans, and, most importantly, infinite affection. Horses supplanted cows as farm… workhorses, which severely altered our perception of them in the west. It’s a marketing issue.
Yes, they do.
No, they don't.
I think some dogs do but not all breeds. Some dogs are dumb as shit but still awesome in their own way.
Emphasis on the west. In eastern culture, cows are still used (e.g cows in india are considered sacred). Hell, an example of a cow that was originally not bred for consumption is the wagyu, a highly sought after piece of meat. But of course, as westerners, apparently we disregard that fact...
TIL
I really appreciate your usage of the word "betrayal" here, I think it's incredibly apt.
but do you think this makes any moral difference? or that it would matter at all to the being having their throat slashed or thrashing in a gas chamber?
Not really, I’m vegetarian out of preference but I get where people come from. I’ve offered the truth of the matter, irrespective of my feelings on it.
What does betrayal have to do with the morality of killing something?
It's either right or wrong to kill something if you don't have to for survival.
If you think killing dogs is wrong, then killing cows or pigs should also be wrong.
I don't think it's unfair to say there's a spectrum to this. I'm not going to feel as bad with an ant dying compared to a dog
Not sure that an ant is relevant to this discussion, since it’s not really similar to a cow, pig, dog, cat, etc.
Curious to where the line is drawn then? And who determines that?
I agree. I still eat shrimp and some fish. The fish bother me, but not enough to stop eating them, and the shrimp don't bother me cause they're basically underwater crickets.
For example killing an elephant is worse than killing a chicken. And everyone draws the line somewhere already (unless you're fine with eating endangered animals and even cannibalism). It's just where does your own morality draw the line at what level of creature it's ok to ask to die for your next meal?
You’re talking about morality and I’m considering people’s feelings, however convoluted they might be. It’s not a moral issue, it’s marketing.
Is killing a person a moral issue, or is that also simply marketing?
Your food and clothing likely involved slavery directly and murder by less than a degree of separation, you goober. Yes, it’s a marketing issue.
Clothing doesn't require the death of anyone the same way eating meat does.
One it's possible to be cruelty free, and the other is not.
Also, if I knew for a fact that a company committed acts of evil, I would avoid them as best I could, just like I do with meat.
Complaining that eating meat is not actually wrong, it's just marketing, is just a laughable way to look at ethics and empathy.
Lastly, whataboutism is a joke of a defence.
You’ve said quite a bit to this vegetarian-since-you-were-an-egg that I processed well over a decade ago. I want you, if you don’t mind, to read my other replies and to reread the question I responded to. And with the most belabored sigh that you can imagine, can I say please?
Sorry you're not cute enough, now go into your dungeon, because i really like factory meat.
It's more. Your farm goat is your friend. That wild goat you caught as a baby will be more like a wolf than a dog. The point is really that we didn't just breed cows to be fatter than previous cows, but also to be nicer to humans just like dogs.
I made a comment like that to my younger sister when I was just out of high school and you'd think that I had just burned the Bible in front of my father or something.
As a rule, most Americans prefer the bliss of ignorance.
so the issue isn't whether cows or dogs are individuals.
This issue is about that, as people are upset about cruelty to dogs but just put blinders on for cows.
No person anyone would consider sane would advocate on behalf of saving watermelons, as they have no emotions like fear or sense of self-preservation. Most westerners know intimately that dogs do, but we choose not to dwell on the similar plight of cows, mostly because of the long standing tradition of eating cows. Tradition as always is an idiot thing.
So yeah, the issue here does revolve around these creatures being sentient individuals, and our erratic recognition of that among the species we choose to consume.
the distinguishing characteristic isn't necessarily the individuality of each, and given that you're right that there is no appreciable difference in that regard, there must be some other factor at play.
why not?
Doesn't taste nearly as good, doesn't satiate the pallette. And yes I've tried all the impossibles and faux stuff multiple times because I like to try new things.
That said, I'm completely for alternative routes to meat, and will give them every opportunity as they mature to break my bad habit. Plant based meat just isn't an adequate nicotine patch for such things, at least not yet.
it really snaps into view when you think about it as an addiction; which also just so happens to be fueling and unfathomably cruel bundle of industries that is destroying the planet - so the stakes are pretty high here.
I would encourage people to try veganuary this year, it's growing massively and there's tons of support.
I mean couldn't you argue that anything that gives enjoyment be considered an addiction then. I mean thats sort of the function of seratonin.
and that's totally fine when it doesn't inherently victimize someone else.
I hear you. I don't eat meat, and I haven't for several years. I still find it extremely tempting sometimes to eat some chicken wings.
The only reason I don't is because whenever I actually think, "maybe I should just have some," I get overwhelmed with flashes in my mind visualizing the deaths of the chickens and then I just... can't.
But if those flashes weren't there I definitely would've caved by now.
that sounds like ptsd.
Understandable, nothing tastes quite as fine as animal suffering.
We get it. You're better than us. You can put that on your bio.
Case and point: affluent white women go goo-goo gah-gah over doggies so Westerners immediately revere them above other animals.
It's cognitive dissonance at its finest, but I don't expect more from meat-eaters.