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Comment by testfoobar | Hacker News Reader

I agree.

We are removing statutes of Confederate figures and slave holders now. Schools, buildings are being renamed.

I expect this list of schools named after Barack Obama to grow larger: https://www.google.com/search?q=schools+named+after+barack+o...

Here is Barack Obama ordering burgers at Five Guys burgers: https://www.google.com/search?q=barack+obama+five+guys&sourc...

It is well within bounds to imagine future generations being absolutely incensed that schools are named after meat-eaters consuming the end product of industrialized slaughter.

It is easy to imagine future generations seeing us as monsters.

Are we monsters?

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Not as individual meat consumers, no. In the same way we don't see Yanks who bought cotton clothes as evil. It's all we have the choice to buy, really. As a society that breeds living things that are disfigured, can't walk, live in hell, and die... sure, we are evil.

I won't give up meat. I will however do everything in my personal power to vote to end such practices and buy local, even if it means paying more. I think we just need to show more people. The meat industries have done a great job of hiding their awful secrets, often at the legislative level.

I won't deny that this is a systemic issue and we shouldn't place all the blame on individuals. But it's an absolutely ridiculous claim that it's our only choice.

Don't waste you're money buying local because it really means nothing with respect to welfare of the animal. Instead try to reduce your consumption.

Sure it does. If factory farms failed to exist, we'd all have to buy local. And costs are going to skyrocket, and consumption is going to go down.

If everyone reduced consumption just to reduce it, factory farms would still exist, just less of them. You didn't solve the issue, you just made it slightly smaller.

If the issue you're referring to are the ethical problems of farming, they are in no way limited to CAFOs. Some of the worst practices I've personally witnessed have been at small farms. Size is no guarantee of treatment and locality has absolutely no bearing on ethics.

You're also underestimating the impact of modern animal breeds on the price of animal products. Broiler chickens are slaughtered at about a third of the age as chickens a century ago. All farms benefit from that kind of decrease and it's one of the things that turned chicken into a daily food. Without CAFOs, prices would certainly go up, but less dramatically than you thibk.

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