[-] Zyko_Manam@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 year ago

This is absurd. You are comparing humans to cattle. In no way is your example equivalent. I will not continue to engage if you wish to argue in bad faith.

[-] Zyko_Manam@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 year ago

The only reason we slaughter almost all male cattle in milk production is due to the scale of milk production. If we let every single male bovine live, there'd be far too many cattle to sustainably take care of. This is a very recent development, and not something inherent to harvesting milk. This problem would be solved by scaling back milk production drastically, something I do believe is necessary for multiple reasons.

The cows spend their whole lives artificially inseminated

This is untrue, cows have reproductive cycles like any other animal. Cows are only able to be bred about every 21 days. Additionally, farmers choose to wait 50-80 days after a cow gives birth before breeding them again. This article I read recently was very enlightening when it came to that subject as well.

Cows were never meant to produce 10L of milk a day cor their calves,

That is precisely what they are meant to do, it's something humans have bred for over tens of thousands of years. Whether you think that itself is wrong is another discussion. They are here now though, and that's what they do.

Now, most of what you're talking about is not inherent to dairy collection, and is only done because it is the most profitable option under capitalism. Same with chickens and eggs, and I ought to know more about that one because I lived with chickens when I was young, they were treated well and we didn't have a giant grinder that we sent every male chick into.

[-] Zyko_Manam@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 year ago

So, I'd like to preface this by saying I myself am vegetarian, and I respect anyone's choice to be vegan, or to be neither vegan nor vegetarian.

With that out of the way, I do have to disagree with the idea that harvesting animal products such as eggs and milk is inherently exploitive and that it can be a mutually beneficial relationship for both humans and livestock animals.

We must understand that in no way are livestock animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, etc. a product of natural selection. The modern versions of these animals are the descendants of thousands of years of guided evolution by humanity. These animals cannot be returned to the wild, for they have not been wild animals in tens of thousands of years.

I bring this up to first illustrate that these animals' very existence is intertwined with ours. With this in mind, I'd like to conjecture that livestock animals have far better lives than most wild animals. They have access to guaranteed food, modern medicine, shelter, and protection from predation by other species. In return for these things, we receive products such as eggs, milk, wool, and more.

Secondly, many of these animals produce extra products as a result of the genetic manipulation. Cows make more milk than they need to nurse their young, hens produce eggs even when they are not making chicks, sheep grow wool to the point it needs to be removed to prevent complications.

I don't disagree that farming these animals on the scale we do today leads to a lot of unneeded suffering on their part, and tons of animal product getting dumped simply because it would be unprofitable to sell it. I'd like to think that in the process of scaling back production of these products, we can offer all of our livestock animals much more humane living conditions. The US doesn't need to produce 23.5 billion gallons of milk a year, especially considering how many cannot even consume dairy products.

Again, I respect anyone's dietary choices for whatever reasons they may have, and I do think there is much productive discourse to be had in regards to how we approach our livestock friends.

[-] Zyko_Manam@lemmygrad.ml 22 points 1 year ago

Got to see the statue last November. It was remarkably clean, considering how often it gets defaced by Seattle libs.

Zyko_Manam

joined 4 years ago