• dat_math [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    If you eat meat and this kind of story upsets you, please do some careful examination of why the industrial animal torture industries do not.

    • JayTwo [any]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      It’s because killing an animal companion for being disobedient and then telling your children what happened and why you did it, is textbook serial killer behavior.

      It’s not the same as say running a homestead and telling the children why some of the livestock are gone now.

      Only speaking for myself as I can’t get into others heads, the red flag is her power trip. The dog only existed to serve her despite her daughter’s attachment to it and would have lived to old age if only it obeyed.
      That’s the terrifying part.

      People who killed the family pet for failing to be obedient tend to eventually work up to humans.

      People who work the buzzsaw at a chicken plant, as gross as it is, don’t.

        • JayTwo [any]@hexbear.net
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          2 months ago

          I answered the question asked, why this is different, and more upsetting, than livestock slaughter.

          Animal ethics aside, the weird kid who keeps killing outside cats for meowing too much is much scarier than the weird kid who eats nothing but hotdogs and chicken nuggets.

          If you can’t understand that I don’t know how else to explain it to you.

        • JayTwo [any]@hexbear.net
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          2 months ago

          That’s a different definition of “serve”.
          Pigs aren’t trained to do tasks then slaughtered if they fail.
          They’re bred specifically for slaughter and then killed when they reach prime weight.

          A “life on the farm” story doesn’t convey an implied threat of if you cause me problems you may get shot in the head like this does.

            • JayTwo [any]@hexbear.net
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              2 months ago

              Sure but that’s a separate convo.
              I just answered the question of why the governor of South Dakota boasting about shooting her (and her daughter’s) dog dead because it wasn’t progressing along with training in a way she approved of is more horrifying to me than the existence of the slaughter industry.

              • MattsAlt [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                2 months ago

                It’s fair to say this person is much more deranged than the average meat defender, but the core issue of animal slaughter remains in this instance and in meat consumption. An animal’s life was cut short because a human decided they wanted to do that

          • dat_math [they/them]@hexbear.net
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            2 months ago

            A “life on the farm” story doesn’t convey an implied threat

            it would if the children in the metaphor see the family livestock being treated by their parents the way industrial dairy and beef cattle are typically abused instead of some homestead fantasy

      • MattsAlt [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        2 months ago

        It’s ultimately treating animals as property to be done with as the human sees fit with no regard for the animal’s desire to live

        Sure, this is more mask off in that regard, but it’s still the same core issue. All animals deserve to live whether they were brought into the world to be used for the clothing industry, factory farming, or a pet

        • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          2 months ago

          Food is a basic need, killing something for fun isn’t. There are many situations where it’s important for people to eat meat even in the modern era. I see veganism as a technological issue, if you can do it, that’s great. Many people can’t for a wide variety of reasons, though those reasons can be solved through better technology, socialism, and the refinement and advent of new vegan foods, binding agents, etc.

          Animal byproducts obviously do not require the death of the animal, yet vegans also reject this. You can treat the animal far better than it would receive in the wild, you eat some eggs, and vegans also reject this. There is also a tendency to reject history, some vegans here have argued things like “hunter gatherers ate only vegetables”. This is false, the Inuit had a diet of mostly meat, as did many peoples in arid and arctic regions. Why? Because there are foods we cannot digest well that are in abundance in these areas, that other animals can. This was common historically and in many places now, until humans began domesticating and replacing local plants over tens of thousands of years, there were not large quantities of food that were edible to us. In most of human diaspora out of Africa, humans were in fact scavengers and would frequently compete in a niche reserved for Giant Hyenas (pack animals the size of a horse), our main competitor at the time.

          There are many people that have digestive issues due to chemical poisoning by capitalism, or by genetics. If you research this phenomenon, these people become averted to any sort of sugar in plants, plant proteins, and even bulky carbohydrates. Certain types of meat are also issues. These people are essentially forced to eat meat and some very select vegetables in order to meet their dietary requirements. Until this is technologically solved, a vast swathe of people would starve to death, among other ailments, under a vegan only regimen.

          Am I vegan? Technically, yes, I eat only plant stuff 99% of the time, but it’s also because it’s a thing I can handle.

          • booty [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            2 months ago

            Food is a basic need

            This justification can be used for killing and eating your dog, the local squirrels, your next door neighbor, your grandma, and literally anything else that can be digested on the planet. The fact that you must eat something does not mean that it is morally justifiable to eat anything.

          • MattsAlt [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            2 months ago

            This is pretty into the weeds, the vast majority of people could stand to at least attempt vegetarian diets rather than meat for every meal which is where the original commenter’s point on “industrial torture industry” comes from

            If everyone who is able to do so were doing so, the fraction of a fraction of the population who was unable to for whatever reason would not result in the torture factories present today

            You’re a regular poster and I know this is good faith, but it’s using niche situations to cover for regular, widespread atrocities

            • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              2 months ago

              This is pretty into the weeds, the vast majority of people could stand to at least attempt vegetarian diets rather than meat for every meal which is where the original commenter’s point on “industrial torture industry” comes from

              You’re a regular poster and I know this is good faith, but it’s using niche situations to cover for regular, widespread atrocities

              Roughly 30% of western society has ailments that could prevent them from going full vegan. This argument is similar to other arguments, “only a handful of people die of covid”, “only 1% of society is trans, there is no need to accomodate or discuss”.

              I do of course agree that most people should reduce or annihilate their intake of meat, not for moralistic reasons but for efficiency and environmental reasons. I also think that synthetic meat and heavily processed GMO plants like soy are getting better and are necessary for ideological veganism, and anyone that thinks it is unnecessary is fooling themselves.

              • RION [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                2 months ago

                Roughly 30% of western society has ailments that could prevent them from going full vegan.

                do you know where i could read more about this? tried googling the figure but couldn’t find anything

              • MattsAlt [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                2 months ago

                I’m not nitpicking, but I did say at least attempt a vegetarian diet which would address the crux of the original comment regarding widespread animal torture which never explicitly even mentions veganism

                It’s not as though there is going to be some sweeping legislation to outlaw meat and kill meat eaters which is akin to examples you’re making here wrt COVID or trans people. If 70% of the population made a conscious effort to stop eating meat that would be a tremendous benefit for their health, the welfare of animals, and the climate. And as a bonus, they’d save money doing it

                • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                  2 months ago

                  It’s not as though there is going to be some sweeping legislation to outlaw meat and kill meat eaters which is akin to examples you’re making here wrt COVID or trans people. I

                  There are plenty here that think it should be fully outlawed, just because you aren’t one doesn’t mean it isn’t a common sentiment

                  • MattsAlt [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                    2 months ago

                    I’ll be honest, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a post like that made in sincerity and it’s not what I’m advocating for

                    I don’t deny a subset of the population may have legitimate dietary constraints, but their existence doesn’t excuse the vast majority who do not. I have seen those who do not use the existence of those people as a shield for their own spinelessness in refusing to cut meat from their diet for purely selfish reasons

                    And this is coming from an autistic person who cannot stand the texture of beans even today and would sit at the table for hours as a kid refusing to eat vegetables I did not like. If it’s important enough, adjusting your diet is an accomplishable task. It’s clear that some posters here do not feel the unnecessary suffering of animals is important enough for them to make a relatively simple lifestyle change and it’s disturbing

          • BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            2 months ago

            Am I vegan? Technically, yes, I eat only plant stuff 99% of the time

            Am I a non-cannibal? Technically, yes, I eat only non-human stuff 99% of the time.

    • Hestia [comrade/them, she/her]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      Did she eat the dog? Or did she just kill out of pure malice when it didnt conform to her desires? There is a difference between killing a dog that provides companionship and the evils of mass farming.

    • chickentendrils [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      Probably worthwhile for most but there’s something particularly fucked up to most people about killing pets, I’d hope at least. With livestock there’s a whole historical context of homo sapien omnivorousness to explain it.

      • JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair]@hexbear.net
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        2 months ago

        that kind of post is just pretending to not understand the cultural significance of pets. If there’s actually a point behind it besides antagonizing people in a post about child abuse and violating social norms, I don’t know what it is.

        • MattsAlt [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          2 months ago

          You’re deliberately misreading their post

          It says “why industrial animal torture industries do not” not that “industrial animal torture doesn’t upset you just as much”

          Either you think pets are higher tier beings than the equally smart and full of personality animals killed for food or you don’t. It’s not that hard

          • JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair]@hexbear.net
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            2 months ago

            Either you think pets are higher tier beings than the equally smart and full of personality animals killed for food or you don’t. It’s not that hard

            nah i think it’s social categories, not moral ones. Cool i’ve deconstructed the categories of “pet animal” and “food animal” and think that if you want to keep a holstein as a pet or raise cats as livestock that’s a little weird (historically, culturally, and logistically) but not some great sin just because the animals are flipped around.

            people keep lizards and weird bugs as non-traditional pets too, maybe it’s easier to see compared to mammals that the thing that’s special about a pet is that it’s a pet, not the species.

            • MattsAlt [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              2 months ago

              No, the thing that is special about all of them is that they’re living creatures that can experience pain and have desires to live in their natural environments

              Your example isn’t doing any favors here. It’s honestly more concerning that all that matters to you is the label you assign to a being that gives its life worth. You’re explicitly acknowledging anything could be a pet that is meaningful to someone but some just get the shit end of the stick and are killed after a lifetime of torture instead

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                2 months ago

                Now hold on.

                I’m a vegan, but I can recognize murdering your own pet as being even worse than murdering any other animal. The problem isn’t that the dog is a pet, but rather, her pet. She just murdered a member of her family for pissing her off. That’s serial killer shit.

                I had pet chickens before I was a vegan and if anyone killed them back then I’d fucking- well. They wouldn’t kill anything ever again.

                • MattsAlt [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  2 months ago

                  I don’t know what part of the thread I’m in at this point, but I’ve said elsewhere here that I agree this is more unhinged than average carnism defense. The underlying issue I’m trying to tease out here is the imposition of a human’s will upon the life of an animal because the human wanted to do that and didn’t care about the animal enough to make a different choice

                  The parent to this developing struggle session was not equivocating the two, it was asking why one made carnists feel a certain way and the mass torture of animals for food doesn’t

                  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                    2 months ago

                    The question necessarily implies hypocrisy on the part of carnists i.e. “if this woman murdering her dog makes you feel bad, you should feel bad when you murder animals” or even “you murder animals all the time, what right do you have to judge her for doing the same thing?”

                    I certainly read it as you trying to equivocate the two! And I doubt I was the only one.

              • JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair]@hexbear.net
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                2 months ago

                is special about all of them

                this is about interrogating why people think pets are different from livestock, something common to mammals (and talking about desires gets a little weird, but anyway) isn’t going to be the difference between them.

                You’re explicitly acknowledging anything could be a pet that is meaningful to someone but some just get the shit end of the stick and are killed after a lifetime of torture instead

                yes. although to slide in part of another comment i saw pop up while typing this

                If it’s purely the label of pet, we get back to the comment [queermunist] replied to

                i think it’s the social relation itself rather than the label being a talisman. We even attach to inanimate objects the same way sometimes.

          • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.netM
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            2 months ago

            Why should I interrogate my own beliefs when I can completely ignore them and make a bad faith argument turning it into a personal attack on my fragile carnist ego?

            Ask me why I think the systemic mass slaughter of sentient beings is ok? How fucking dare you? Have you considered culture you stupid vegan? Stop antagonizing me! frothingfash

            • JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair]@hexbear.net
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              2 months ago

              Why should I interrogate my own beliefs when I can completely ignore them and make a bad faith argument turning it into a personal attack on my fragile carnist ego?

              Ask me why I think the systemic mass slaughter of sentient beings is ok? How fucking dare you? Have you considered culture you stupid vegan? Stop antagonizing me! frothingfash

              could you show me where i called someone stupid? there’s plenty of real things to be mad about you don’t have to make up more.

              • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.netM
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                2 months ago

                Ancient carnist strategy: distract from the actual issue, make it about yourself.

                Another bad faith comment. I know you’re well aware of the bullshit you’re spewing but for all the toddlers out there learning how communication works, you don’t have to quote someone verbatim when caricaturing them.

                there’s plenty of real things to be mad about

                I know the mass slaughter of sentient beings is a nothingburger to you but that doesn’t mean it is to everyone else :)

                you don’t have to make up more.

                Indeed, it would be hard to make up something more depraved.

                But now you’ve upset me, responding to you made me forget about the oven and now my broiled dog is ruined. Please don’t antagonize me with your western morality btw.

        • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          2 months ago

          That’s tautological though, they’re asking us to interrogate why we have a cultural importance and pets statistically and citing the cultural importance itself as the only reason doesn’t work

          • JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair]@hexbear.net
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            2 months ago

            it’s tautological because that’s all there is. There are historical reasons why some animals made better draft animals or whatever than others, but our pets are special to us because we adopt them. You could adopt a cow or a shark too, we just usually don’t because of the logistics.

    • QuietCupcake [any, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      The carnist apologia in this thread is something else. The contortions people (sadly, including leftists) will go through just to try to assuage their cognitive dissonance and justify what they must know on some level is naked hypocrisy is truly is wild.

      Hexbear carnists engage in self-crit challenge: impossible.