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I would guess because the notion of telling children hard truths is not the key issue in this event, and you're kind of taking a moment for animal rights advocacy which people can find obnoxious. Both are an important topic for discussion, for sure.

Thanks - but this is about animal rights and our culture of eating meat, is it not?

If those people who took away the goat had more compassion then this little girl would still have her goat friend.

The little girl and the goat had a bond and it was broken because we just view these animals as objects / property and not as sentient beings that 'are too much like us' as Carl Sagan used to say.

> is about animal rights and our culture of eating meat, is it not?

One can make it about anything. These parents aren’t advocating against goats being slaughtered. I doubt any of them will stop eating meat. They’re advocating for a specific property interest.

> Property interest

And that's the point. Should a sentient being be regarded as property?

> Should a sentient being be regarded as property?

If these parents were raising awareness for a pets’ right law, I’d be far more sympathetic. They aren’t. It’s also unclear what the ramifications would be if livestock someone else has bought can be poofed into a pet at the previous owner’s insistence.

It was a more generic question.

Should a sentient being like a goat or a pig who passes the mirror test and is regarded to have the intelligence of a 2-3 year old child… should those animals be regarded as property, be exploited, made to suffer and their life taken away against their will? Even if we humans don’t need to exploit these animals anymore for our survival?

We have the technology and knowhow to feed ourselves more sustainably and without causing environmental destruction and suffering as we do now.

Yes. Animals are tools and can be regarded as property. I do support regulations in how animals should be raised and treated, but regarding them on the same level as humans is fallacy. I've seen your evidence and it has failed to change my mind. Especially since a vegan diet isn't suitable or healthy for everyone. If it works for you, great. Follow your heart.

In your view - what makes an animal property? Is it OK to make your property suffer and kill it? And if so, why?

And where did I say animals should be regarded the same as humans?

The point is animals can suffer and they avoid pain if they can - just like we do. They seek happiness and safety - just like we do. Yet we breed them in the billions and put them in horrible living conditions just so we can have burger.

It has nothing to do with following your heart. It's following science that tells us feeding the world with animal meat is not sustainable. It's about not supporting an industry that creates immense suffering and environmental destruction.

And a plant based diet is healthy [0][1] and we have the technology to create healthier and more sustainable protein sources than factory farming animals.

[0] A community of over 17,000 physicians proving you otherwise: https://www.pcrm.org/about-us

[1] Athletes thriving on a plant-based diet: https://gamechangersmovie.com/

I have first hand experience with someone in my immediate family who was unable to sustain a vegan diet. She became anemic and was ill 6 to 10 times a year. Iron supplements did help, but only enough to bring levels up to the lower bounds of normal. This went on for years. After reintroducing some amount of animal protein, her health and iron levels improved dramatically.

If you want to change someone's mind you could be less condescending. Right now, you are acting like the arrogant vegan stereotype. Do better.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to be condescending. Just sharing my sources.

I merely replied to your statement that a plant based is not healthy and pointing to PCRM. How is that condescending?

Of course there are edge cases, ie if someone has medical issues and can’t survive without meat and nothing else works then that’s a different matter.

You might find this useful https://nutritionguide.pcrm.org/nutritionguide/view/Nutritio...

Which bits were condescending to you? So I can adjust my wording and not come across condescending.

Could it be that you have a strong bias against folks who are vegan because some have a holier than though attitude? And you apply that bias towards me?

Curious to know your answers to my other questions, why you regard other sentient beings as tools and property and what gives us the right to enslave and kill those beings if our survival doesn’t depend on it.

I think if we showed kids from a very young age the processing of animals they likely not be traumatized for life. It'd be normal for them. I do believe that people should know where their food comes from and how it's made. I don't have any concerns with teaching kids how to hunt, farm, and harvest livestock.

I'm not talking about hunting.

Most meat consumed on this planet comes from large scale animal farms, not from going out to the woods and hunting, like our ancestors did (who needed it to survive - most of us don't anymore).

I'm talking about this: https://www.nationearth.com/ - ask parents to show their kids this or just videos of factory slaughterhouses. Do you think most parents would say yes? Would they say yes to showing pictures / videos of places where workers suffer from PTSD?

The phenomenon of children not knowing where their meat comes from is recent. For thousands of years, society was mostly agrarian. Children survived and were not traumatized. I suspect the downvotes you are seeing are due to people feeling like you are overstating your case, being somewhat dramatic, and a little off topic.

You’re projecting hard.

My niece happily eats the chicken she helped raise and watched be slaughtered and butchered. I also knew where meat came from as a child and that didn’t bother me.

These grand moralistic pronouncements don’t seem true… and ignore that carrying them out would be the death of 35M cattle, 500M chickens, etc. A near total devastation of their species, who primarily exist as our food source.

Should we stop the worst abuses of industrial farming? — yes, and that’s already happening. But spare us the grandiose speeches demanding we cull food herds as a moral imperative.

That's why I didn't say all kids - of course there are exceptions. And your example is not how most of us get animal meat. Kids in cities don't have a garden where they can raise their own chickens.

I'm talking about the realities of factory farming and slaughterhouses - where animals lead a miserable life.

And where did I say we should kill all remaining farm animals?

Of course it would be a transition away from large scale animal farming to more sustainable plant based farming and maybe some small family run animal farms.

It would mean removing the huge subsidies the meat and factory farm industry is getting and using those subsidies to help farmers transition to sustainable farming.

The UN, scientists from the IPCC and various other organizations urge us to reduce or eliminate our consumption of meat & dairy if we want to limit global heating to 1.5C. But hey, don't look up.

And what's wrong with having moral values that extend to other living beings on this planet? Killing animals and raising them in factory farms is cruel [0] - if you disagree then I'd like to hear how it's not cruel. Do you think an animal happily gives up their life so we can have a burger?

Why kill and enslave animals if we don't need to?

[0] Richard Dawkins: No Civilized Person Accepts Slavery So Why Do We Accept Animal Cruelty? | Big Think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4SnBCPzBl0

> And where did I say we should kill all remaining farm animals?

Right here:

> Why kill and enslave animals if we don't need to?

Where do you think the animals go, if we stop using them for food?

You come across as demanding we cull our food herds, without replacing them — and then justifying it by saying that an animal wouldn’t want to be a burger… apparently saying they’d rather their species be annihilated entirely.

I’d rather have a harsh life than no life — why would I assume the opposite about animals?

I think you misunderstood that sentence.

Of course things wouldn't change over night. But if more people chose not to consume factory farm animal products - the demand would go down over time and we would not breed as many anymore.

It would be a slow phasing out and a transition to more sustainable food sources.

> I’d rather have a harsh life than no life

Please watch Earthlings[0] - the documentary about the factory farm industry and how animals live. Tell me you would want to live under those conditions. And no - those are not isolated, it's the reality for factory farm animals.

Those cows, chickens and pigs in factory farms are not wild species anymore. We bred them to the point where we maximized their meat or egg production at the expense of their health, e.g. chickens grow so large they can't stand on their own legs anymore.

And we have many sanctuaries now - where farm animals are being rescued and they can live to their natural end, so they would continue to exist.

So if you had the choice - what would you choose for yourself:

1) Not be born

2) Be born into a system where you will suffer and lead a horrible life and at the end you will be slaughtered just because someone wants a burger.

[0] https://www.nationearth.com/

You premise is kids don't want to eat animals but we force them to eat it. And they don't realize what that is.

My premise is that if we showed kids the realities of slaughterhouses and the impact that animal farming has on our biosphere and all the other externalities - I believe most would not want to support this.

Imagine we had a children's book that would convey these facts in a manner kids understand more easily.

And yet we hide these facts from children and we tell them to eat meat and drink milk because they need it for protein etc, even if they don't want to - happened to me and countless others (online reports).

Don't you think a child would get traumatized by the sight of a cow being shot in the head and being cut open and the guts falling out - sometimes the animal is still alive and its eyes are rolling. It's a horror show.

If a grown man (Mike Bisping - ex MMA fighter) couldn't last longer than 2 weeks working in a slaughterhouse because it's a madhouse - do you think children could stomach watching videos of that environment?

Slaughterhouse workers suffer from PTSD - some say they had to suppress their compassion to carry out the killing.

This is called moving the goalposts. You could just as easily advocate for more humane slaughter house conditions but you are instead using bad actors (claiming this is how ALL animals are slaughtered) to call for a vegan lifestyle.

Let's define vegan for a moment.

Vegan = reduce suffering and cruelty to other sentient beings as practically as possible. So this means the only justification for killing an animal to consume its flesh is when our survival depends on it. That is not the case anymore for the majority of people.

My premise is around the large scale factory farm industry, which not only causes immense suffering and cruelty, but also causes great pollution and environmental destruction.

Feeding the whole world with meat is not sustainable.

That's not moving the goalpost, but a fact (See UN, IPPC and various other reports).

More poultry and meat means more co2 capture.

So following that logic we should eat more meat to reduce global heating and keep it below or at 1.5C increase as urged by the IPCC?

Following that logic, we should raise more animals, either through public parks/recreations, zoos, farms, or public feeding.

Like how India does it. There used to be a documentary on netflix on this. The greatest density of animals and humans, where both help each other survive.

I don't understand.

I was asking you whether you meant that breeding more animals for slaughter would solve our high carbon footprint in the animal agriculture industry?

If yes - then it doesn't make sense, since the science community agrees we need to reduce meat and dairy consumption not increase it.

And a lot of people in India are vegetarian.

Raising more animals does not increase global warming. And eating those animals does not increase global warming.

> lot of people in india are vegetarian.

Not really. Majority are not vegetarian. only Gujurat is Majority vegetarian. Every where else they are a minority. They have made it a purpose of life to feed wild animals, and live with wild animals. It's quite fascinating.

> Raising more animals does not increase global warming. And eating those animals does not increase global warming.

Raising more animals will mean more resources are required, such as land, water etc. It's more efficient to use that land and use that water to grow food for us.

So are you saying the scientific community is wrong by saying that the world needs to reduce meat & dairy consumption?

This is an agenda.

I don't follow.

Can you elaborate?

You are trying to insert your own views into the upbringing of other people's kids in order for them to be have taken the same view point as yourself.

Agenda.

Factory farming causes the following:

- environmental destruction, biodiversity loss, Amazon destruction, overfishing etc

- causes PTSD in some slaughterhouse workers

- animals lead a miserable life and die horribly.

That's not a view but a fact.

There is a reason why kids are not being shown the reality of this.

Would you show your kid slaughterhouse scenes from this documentary - https://www.nationearth.com/ ?

> That's not a view but a fact.

Ok. The rest of it is a view!

Ok - so thank you for acknowledging the facts about factory farming.

So what I'm saying is that if we would talk to our kids about this or show them the realities of factory farms and slaughterhouses and show them that there are alternatives that don't involve all that destruction - then my view is most kids would instinctively choose the option that doesn't involve killing and making animals suffer.

I'm not saying we have to force kids - but instead give them the facts and let them decide.

But we are not doing it, since we know the reality of factory farming and slaughterhouses is grim.

Even a lot of adults can't look at that footage.

As Paul McCartney said - if slaughterhouses were made of glass and people could look into it - many would be horrified.

Which makes this an agenda, back to where we were from the start.

Which definition of agenda are you referring to?

1) discuss a list of item 2) "hidden purpose" - which is a negative connotation.

If you mean point 2 then how is discussing with kids the facts and showing the reality of factory farming a hidden purpose?

Are you saying kids should not know what they are eating and how it's being produced?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32743808

So you mean point 2. Then let me repeat my question:

Are you saying kids should not know what they are eating and how it's being produced?

Do you not understand you are in pursuit of an agenda? Do you not know what you are doing is pandering a personal agenda? NO matter what I am saying, this will still be an agenda. NO matter what you feel truth is, this will still be agenda.

So telling the facts of where meat comes from is following an agenda?

Basically ou're saying we should hide facts from children.

How else can I interpret your answer?

If I go a step further, I could say you're following an agenda, i.e. don't tell kids that they are eating those cute animals they read about in their childrens books - because otherwise they might change their mind.

The fact that you can't answer the simple question I raised in my post above is quite telling.

Kids should know where their food comes from and that death is a natural part of life.