spectrumvideos wrote:I think all of these arguments hinge on the idea of mass production and factory farming
No they don't. Cows burp and fart whether you have them in a backyard pasture or in a feed lot.
Animal abuse, likewise, is not unique to large operations. There are even dogs and cats who suffer abuse in people's homes.
spectrumvideos wrote:which I think almost everyone can agree are bad.
I don't. They're better for the environment, because the operations are actually more efficient.
They may or may not be better for the animals, it probably depends on the farm.
spectrumvideos wrote:Small-time farms, especially backyard operations where a person grows their own fruits and vegetables and raises their own (non-genetically modified) animals does not harm the animals or the planet, so it's kind of a whole different argument.
That's incorrect on both points. Breeding genetic freaks is not the only thing that harms animals. Neglect and abuse is omnipresent, we have to engage in a cost:benefit analysis. And all operations have environmental impact. If we want less impact, we need veganic farming, not to perpetuate an unnecessary reliance on animal products as food.
Backyard operations, if you're growing it and eating it yourself, cut out some transportation and reduce waste (packaging and spoilage) which helps. Particularly if you use compost or green manure (if you're buying manure and having it shipped to you, that's still packaging and transportation of the nitrogen).
They are not environmentally harmless, though. Particularly if ruminant animals are involved or you are feeding the animals.
Rumens will always produce methane from enteric fermentation.
Honey will always involve harming the bees somewhat by either reducing their food stores or replacing their food with sugar (where are you getting the sugar?).
If you're actually buying chicken feed, there's a severe ecological impact due to the cultivation of that feed. Feeding animals grains and then eating them or their products reduces total available food and harms the environment. Thermodynamics ensures calories will always be wasted.
If you have wild chickens in your yard eating the pests in your gardens and you aren't feeding them aside from that, that's probably a pretty sustainable practice. You're not going to get much yield in terms of eggs, and taking eggs from hens is not
always harmless.
spectrumvideos wrote:As far as health goes, I think it's clear that in areas of the world where people are generally living the longest, people still consume some animal products, just not very much.
That's a poor argument that misunderstands the limits of epidemiological studies.
There are no vegan populations of significant size to study, the only large groups of people who are mostly so are so due to extreme poverty.
If you want to look at the effects of modern plant based diets, you either have to look at smaller groups (which are not going to be as statistically significant), or you have to look at mechanistic and intervention studies. Nothing in the science suggests that a small amount of animal products is necessary or useful for good health any more than it suggests that smoking one cigarette a year will make you live longer. Mechanistic evidence is pretty clear that it should be slightly harmful, you just won't find a large enough population of people doing that to control for variables and see an epidemiological effect since the harm of a small amount of animal products or a small amount of smoking is too small to show up over the noise.
spectrumvideos wrote:Also, in regards to health, there are billions of people in developing or third world countries who don't have access to B-12 supplements and other fortified foods who actually do still need to get vitamins and minerals from animal products, so just providing plant food staples won't address the whole problem.
I hear the argument "not everybody can go vegan, so veganism is wrong" often.
Are you one of those people in the developing world? I'm not. The ability to go vegan is often a matter of circumstance.
Those who are able should. There's no reason for US to perpetuate animal agriculture.
Not everybody can avoid burning coal or wood in their homes for heat in the winter either. Those of us who can avoid it by using insulation and natural gas heating should avoid it (doesn't mean we have to be assholes to people who don't have a choice).
There are some people who don't have viable alternatives, and I don't blame them for doing what they have to in order to survive. Often that involves hunting and fishing, burning wood and coal for heat, or even piracy (of the high seas, or DVDs).
Vegans need to be aware of those limitations, and help people who have trouble find proper nutrition. There are a lot of vitamins that the very poor are missing out on.
spectrumvideos wrote:In the end, we probably won't ever live in a world where we will eradicate poverty, starvation, and cruelty, but we can strive to,
Moving from animal agriculture, particularly in the developed world, is an important part of that due to its impact on global warming and resource use. It's not a perfect or complete solution. If the developed world goes vegan will it solve poverty in the world? Not necessarily. But it will see the development and proliferation of more viable protein sources, and represent a better model for the developing world to follow, and it could stave off climate change a little to allow more people to escape poverty and relocate if necessary before things get really bad.
Being vegan doesn't mean you have to think veganism solves everything. It just has to be a little better than the alternative of perpetuating animal agriculture where it's not needed.
spectrumvideos wrote:and I see a world without domestication as a world with a missed opportunity for rich relationships with many different animals we now only view as a food source.
If you understand epidemiology, it's also a world with much less disease, which largely comes from human-non-human interaction.
What kind of rich relationships are you talking about?
I'm in favor of zoos and petting zoos where animals are well cared for to instill a sense of compassion and care for animals and the environment to the next generation. The educational and empathy value of that, since very few animals can influence millions of people, probably outweighs the harm.
Any significant use in agriculture wouldn't be that, though.
spectrumvideos wrote:Cows, chickens, goats, these would all die out fairly quickly in a world where domestication and mutually beneficial relationships didn't exist
Some breeds might go extinct if they weren't bred. What do you think the intrinsic value in a breed is?
It's like saying we have to keep breeding and keeping bulldogs or they'll go extinct. Why shouldn't they go extinct?
Suffering is a tragedy, and so is death. But extinction itself?
Why does it matter if we have particular kind of cow, chicken, or goat in the billions? Why does it matter if we have pandas even?
A species is not a sentient being. It can't suffer, only individuals can. And these species aren't sapient enough to suffer any existential dread related to being the last of their kind that members of a human culture might.
What kind of value framework puts the arbitrary survival of species over the well being of individual sentient beings?
If they're suffering and being killed that's one thing. If they just aren't being bred anymore and they die off on their own, though?
spectrumvideos wrote:(and these animals have been domesticated and bred to be the way they are now for many thousands of years, like other pets).
Yes, it's terrible.
Why should we continue doing such a terrible thing if it's no longer necessary for us?
spectrumvideos wrote:But on a small scale, where they are kept in small numbers,
If you're not talking about more farms to distribute the same billions of animals, this would mean most of the world basically going vegan. If there's any good in it relative to what we do now, it's the reduction of harm through a reduction of scale of use.
I support the reducitarian message, it's a good one. Doesn't mean vegan isn't better in theory, but reducitarian messages may be better received.
That's still harm, though.
We may never get to zero, but why should we protest or stand against the idea of reducing harm to none or as low as it can go by just not supporting these practices personally? Particularly where there's no benefit to make up for that harm.
spectrumvideos wrote:given room to live, not bred or mutated unnaturally for our own benefit,
If they aren't wild animals, then they're being bred for our benefit (unless they're rescues, but this isn't a sustainable source).
spectrumvideos wrote:and treated with care (I don't support killing animals), these animals (like pets) can have long, meaningful lives than enrich both parties.
I understand pets, and zoos, and petting zoos. But I don't see any utility in keeping animals to consume their products. It means the animals have to be fed more to generate those.
Even a breastfeeding human mother, to feed an infant, needs to consume something like 500 extra calories a day.
It's physics: there is no free energy.
Better to keep a dog, who needs to eat less and provides good companionship, than a goat who must eat more and then provide milk (with less calories than the additional food eaten to make it) which is also bad for you to consume and harms the environment more than the (vegan) dog would.
When it comes to plants, it totally makes sense: grow plants which will provide you food and be beautiful. They ARE making calories from nothing (the sunlight that would otherwise be wasted on the ground). Doesn't make thermodynamic sense for companion animals, though.
Even if you did happen to want a goat as a pet (as a person in a modern developed country), it doesn't make sense to milk the goat. Not for your health, or the environment, or even for the goat.
spectrumvideos wrote:Those are my thoughts for the day! Look forward to hearing more, and I hope you have a Happy New Year!
Thanks, you too!
I think all of these arguments hinge on the idea of mass production and factory farming, which I think almost everyone can agree are bad. Small-time farms, especially backyard operations where a person grows their own fruits and vegetables and raises their own (non-genetically modified) animals does not harm the animals or the planet, so it's kind of a whole different argument.
