If slaughterhouses had glass walls...

[Neptune]

I want a fucking whopper.

[wolf89]

seemd to concentrate on battery farming

i turned off after 3 minutes though

if it mentioned anything about organic or free range i'd be very surprised, theres a large sector of the farming industry which is very good, and the people care about their animals

all the horseshit about it being unaffordable is horseshit to... my family get our eggs from a farm a few miles away, get a massive box of em for about £4... all the chickens are raised on the farm, you can see them running about

we get our bacon from a place called the Cheshire Smokehouse, the bacon is the exact same price as regular supermarket bacon, the pigs are raised locally, in big fields, with loads of care and attention about how they're bred and raised, their diet and the conditions they live in

fair play though we dont often go to the butcher for beef unless we're doin like, fancy steaks, but i go to the butcher once every couple of months and went a lot more often when i was at uni, and they always have local, good quality meats if they're a decent butcher!

there's two sides to every story

if you go to Netto and spend 12p on 24 eggs you know where they've come from, some people can only afford that though so hey

This basically.

[Hyoscine]

How many meat-eaters here actually think eating meat is ethical, and how many just don't care? It seems to me that mainstream values have progressed to the point where any 'rational' ethics would have to forbid meat eating, or else be considered horribly backwards by most of the population. For example one thing you hear a lot is that enslaving/killing animals is okay because animals are dumb, but you never hear that it's okay to eat retarded people.

Not judging anyone, I'm just interested in how meat-eaters who consider themselves 'ethical,' 'moral' etc. deal with this.

[wolf89]

I don't give a fuck. I just need to eat meat!

[magma]

If I showed you a similarly shocking video about abortion, you'd probably be against that too.

Why are people so easily led by shocking images? Of course animals get hurt in abatoirs... THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE FUCKING FOR. We kill animals to eat them. We've done it for hundreds of thousands of years. Lots of other animals do it to. There's only an ethical question over it if you invent one. My brother told my 3 year old nephew that the pretty deer tasted nice so he spent an hour chasing them rubbing his belly and saying how pretty they looked. We can enjoy the sights, sounds and behaviour of animals AND the taste.

Fucks sake.

My mate raised and slaughtered 4 pigs this year. Best. Pork. Ever.

[magma]

Also, dying in the wild is SHIT... this is often left out of the equation. Most animals die weak, in intense misery and pain from starvation, disease or predators. Farmed cattle die with a bolt through their skull or a massive electric shock after having been fed regularly every day... sure, we need to make sure conditions are good (and better than today's average, no doubt), but it's not hard to be cushier than the wild. The wild is shit.

[magma]

Did anyone ever see the Stephen Fry thing where he went out to find the last Komodo Dragons? They killed a cow by biting it and then following it around for days whilst it slowly bled to death in front of them.

I'd rather a bolt gun...

[DRTY]

yes my comment was tongue in cheek.

As has been said it really isn't difficult to get non battery meat, and also.... this video is obviously the worst example they could find so they could get a reaction.

EDIT but yeah I think they actually would be basically non existent here. But I don't eat meat to preserve them

[cityzen]

There's only an ethical question over it if you invent one.

You can say that about anything though, ay.

[Genevieve]

If I showed you a similarly shocking video about abortion, you'd probably be against that too.

Why are people so easily led by shocking images? Of course animals get hurt in abatoirs... THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE FUCKING FOR. We kill animals to eat them. We've done it for hundreds of thousands of years. Lots of other animals do it to. There's only an ethical question over it if you invent one. My brother told my 3 year old nephew that the pretty deer tasted nice so he spent an hour chasing them rubbing his belly and saying how pretty they looked. We can enjoy the sights, sounds and behaviour of animals AND the taste.

Fucks sake.

My mate raised and slaughtered 4 pigs this year. Best. Pork. Ever.

It's not so much about the raising and killing them as it is about how they are raised and killed.

I'll still eat my steak, but the bio-industry isn't exactly commendable.

[jugo]

Did anyone ever see the Stephen Fry thing where he went out to find the last Komodo Dragons? They killed a cow by biting it and then following it around for days whilst it slowly bled to death in front of them.

I'd rather a bolt gun...

we need to ban hyenas.....

[wormcode]

When I was growing up, my parents were really good friends with a Filipino couple and they had 3 kids about my age, so we spent a lot of time together. They had a bunch of land somewhere that we would all go to for various parties. There was a pig farm there, and the first time I went I was feeding and playing with the pigs. That same day they did a full on pig roast with the one I happened to make friends with. They did that pretty much every time. It was weird seeing it happen because I'd never been that close to it actually happening, but I still ate him.

I've hunted and shot a couple of deer as well, and hung them up and gutted/cleaned them myself by hand. I have no interest in hunting any more really (and totally despise "sport hunting" where they just leave the animal to rot), but it made me far more appreciative and conscious of what eating meat means. I still think it is a natural thing, but the way it's gone about now in the 21st century is far from natural. For example, that's why I don't eat fast food but maybe a couple of times a year, and I'm very picky about it even then. I haven't given money to McDonalds or Walmart in probably 10+ years and doubt I ever will again. When you're paying less for some hamburger than you're paying for your Coke, I think there's something wrong tbh. I try to support free range and organic farms/products and research their history/policies, but I know not everyone is as lucky and can't afford the hefty price mark up they usually have.

Here's one: How many would gladly switch to in-vitro cloned meat products? Would vegetarians here ever try this? I would like to see this become a viable alternative soon especially for the fast food industry where they are basically running animal death camps. It could also help in hunger and poverty problems, as long as the wrong people don't get a hold of the right patents, etc... (related inteview with Ray Kurzweil)

[Hyoscine]

There's only an ethical question over it if you invent one.

You can say that about anything though, ay.

Yeap, this.

If you're 'moral' and 'rational,' you need a reason to treat humans and animals differently (wrt slavery/murder, etc.). In lieu of a reason you can either give up ethics, give up rationality, or stop eating meat. All three are good options, really

[borrowed]

You fucking pussies would have starved a hundred years ago, and now we accept this bullshit and call it the way of the future. Fuck vegetarians. I'm gonna go clean two fish just to spite you.

[noam]

There's only an ethical question over it if you invent one.

You can say that about anything though, ay.

some ethical questions are asked by necessity and others by opportunity

we aren't short of food, so the opportunity to present an ethical dilemma is much more apparent than if we were say, starving to death and had to kill our food with our bare hands

context is everything

moral relativism innit fam

[cityzen]

Point well made Noam, i concede defeat.

Oh Borrowed, you're such a merry chap.

Wormcode, I would try cloned meat in theory, but in practice i'm a bit of a technophobe when it comes to that sort of thing so probably not. Ethically, I don't have a problem with it.

For the record, I don't have a problem with people who eat meat. Sup to you, innit.

[Hyoscine]

You fucking pussies would have starved a hundred years ago, and now we accept this bullshit and call it the way of the future. Fuck vegetarians. I'm gonna go clean two fish just to spite you.

A hundred years ago? lol. 10 thousand years ago maybe. Vegans would have suffered from B12 deficiency but lacto-vegetarianism has been possible for a long time. Some Hindu sects have been doing it for hundreds of years.

[noam]

can vegans drink breast milk??

do vegan mothers protest other mothers??

[Hyoscine]

I wouldn't be surprised Some vegans are very dumb and nearly all of them are moralists.

[borrowed]

You fucking pussies would have starved a hundred years ago, and now we accept this bullshit and call it the way of the future. Fuck vegetarians. I'm gonna go clean two fish just to spite you.

A hundred years ago? lol. 10 thousand years ago maybe. Vegans would have suffered from B12 deficiency but lacto-vegetarianism has been possible for a long time. Some Hindu sects have been doing it for hundreds of years.

I'm not talking about some secluded Hindu sect. I'm talking about people in America and western Europe, which is where the vast majority of the posters here are from. Go ahead and ask your parents or your grandparents what would have happened if they turned down meat at the dinner table for it being too icky. Fuckin lol.