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[-Minsc-]

The pressure to make food cheaper and cheaper.

Yesterday I was at a dairy producer meeting. One topic of a speaker was culling. The short is a calf being sick at young age can greatly effect the age of first breeding, success of breeding, success of bring a calf to term and future lactation milk volume produced. Such an animal is the enemy of profit. A four year old heifer (when she calves, she is then called a cow) doesn't easily pay for herself. By that age a cow will have hopefully broke even.. What was the suggestion by the speaker? Axe any such animal ASAP since they are going to under perform later in life.. Your calf gets treated for pneumonia at five weeks of age? Get rid of her. This could mean shipping her out to be another farmers problem. Where does this line of thinking go? Well, why even treat her. Shoot her instead.

While I'm not vegan, I can understand some of their concerns for the animals. I'm pressured to not allow animals to live long lives. Pressured to view them as just things.

 

[Nester99]

What did you expect? A farmer to do all that work and not even feed their family?
Life requires hard choices.

 

[Pejo]

While I'm not a farmer and have limited knowledge of the industry, my brother-in-law came from a family of dairy farmers. I heard through stories on holidays how tough his side of the family had it for a while now. They reduced their output by like 75% over the last few years and now just rent out their land to be farmed by big companies to have some income.

 

[Hulk_Smash]

Yeah, I'm glad I'm not a farmer but the day we abandon them for some woke bullshit like "awwww they have to shoot the calf! That's so mean!" Yeah fuck that. If it wasn't for farmers, we'd be out there every weekend hunting our own food and growing our own crops just to survive. They already have razor thin profit margins and have to deal with bullshit government regulations and big farming corporations cozying up to politicians.

If they know that shooting a calf is the best way to run their business (stay profitable, keep people employed, not make us pay $20 for a pound of ground beef) then shoot the calf.

I remind myself almost every day that I have tons of free time and delicious and cheap food because farmers and their laborers are busting their asses in the hot sun for long hours to get me that food. We should all be incredibly grateful and not second guess the things that they have to do to survive.

 

[Northeastmonk]

I'm vegan and its points like these that made me choose to be vegan. Baby cows being taken away from their mothers. Milking cows dying early because they're force to give up their milk. Its either venison or veal where they take the young animal and tie it down. This is so it never gains any muscle. It simply stays in that position for months. That's incredibly cruel and hard to watch. Farmers can farm vegetables. Saying "tough shit" or just "batting an eye" to it all is ignoring what actually happens. I won't sit here and verbally accuse people of choosing to eat animal products. I just can't imagine being the person who has to do the job. It happens behind closed doors and the decisions are not in the best interest of the animal. Its a market that doesn't give a shit about your nutrition or the welfare of animals. Again, this is just my opinion because obviously its kinda hard finding an outlet for vegans to express themselves like this.

 

[synchronicity]

One of the tragedies and part of the vast collateral damage of a consumerist society. When we establish our values as a society and we place the highest value on wealth (or its symbols), we devalue other things by necessity as a matter of hierarchy or priority.

 

[Greedings]

I don't get it. Killing an animal is better than leaving them in horrendous conditions.

People have similar standards for themselves. Give me liberty, or give me death.

 

[haxan7]

One of the tragedies and part of the vast collateral damage of a consumerist society. When we establish our values as a society and we place the highest value on wealth (or its symbols), we devalue other things by necessity as a matter of hierarchy or priority.

What's the better alternative to a consumerist society?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

One of the tragedies and part of the vast collateral damage of a consumerist society. When we establish our values as a society and we place the highest value on wealth (or its symbols), we devalue other things by necessity as a matter of hierarchy or priority.

Not just wealth, but variety. Think of all the random shit you can buy at a store.

In reality, every one of us can get through life perfectly fine even if 90% of it was gone and we lived life with fewer products to choose from. BUT humans love variety.

As for vegetarians or vegans, that's fine and your life style. But don't be too judgmental. All those veggies you eat are grown with fertilizer (animal shit), GMO seeds and chemicals. That batch of carrots you're eating isn't coming from boring natural seeds used by pilgrims 200 years ago which resulted in lousy yields and prone to insect infestations.

 

[GreyHorace]

My grandparents on both sides of the family were farmers. My lolo (grandfather) could slaughter a whole pig well into his 60's. It was a way of life for them and part of their routine. There was no asinine concerns about animal rights (but treat your livestock well and it'll grow right), you had to kill a cow, pig or a chicken just to feed your family.

That rural connection in my family is why I can't take seriously any of these animal right activists. These people who've lived in urban environments all their lives (like me) have probably never experienced what back breaking work farming is. I'm thankful of my familial relations for providing me with first hand knowledge of the work that goes to providing the food that I buy from the grocery store every other day. A comfortable urban lifestyle is what I have because of the sacrifice these people make. Why the hell would I protest against them?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

My grandparents on both sides of the family were farmers. My lolo (grandfather) could slaughter a whole pig well into his 60's. It was a way of life for them and part of their routine. There was no asinine concerns about animal rights (but treat your livestock well and it'll grow right), you had to kill a cow, pig or a chicken just to feed your family.

That rural connection in my family is why I can't take seriously any of these animal right activists. These people who've lived in urban environments all their lives (like me) have probably never experienced what back breaking work farming is. I'm thankful of my familial relations for providing me with first hand knowledge of the work that goes to providing the food that I buy from the grocery store every other day. A comfortable urban lifestyle is what I have because of the sacrifice these people make. Why the hell would I protest against them?

Sounds good.

Farming is a noble kind of job. Farmers and everyone else has to eat, and 99.9% of people are too lazy to make anything themselves. They think growing tomatoes in their backyard from a $1.99 seed pack from Home Depot, or microwaving a TV dinner is real cooking.

Then they brag at the office their shitty patch of 8 tomatoes they picked which took all year to grow is the best thing ever.

Food is something taken for granted.

And not even just raw ingredients like growing produce or meat and dairy.

I've worked at companies that make edibles too, and the amount of effort in the whole process to do R&D, get machines up and running and going through legal hoops and getting stores to carry it is a strenuous process across departments. Lots of time and money goes into getting something to a store shelf.

However, 99% of people have no clue, don't give a shit, and think it's easy to do. All while stuffing their mouth with a Starbucks coffee and a scone.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

The pressure to make food cheaper and cheaper.

Yesterday I was at a dairy producer meeting. One topic of a speaker was culling. The short is a calf being sick at young age can greatly effect the age of first breeding, success of breeding, success of bring a calf to term and future lactation milk volume produced. Such an animal is the enemy of profit. A four year old heifer (when she calves, she is then called a cow) doesn't easily pay for herself. By that age a cow will have hopefully broke even.. What was the suggestion by the speaker? Axe any such animal ASAP since they are going to under perform later in life.. Your calf gets treated for pneumonia at five weeks of age? Get rid of her. This could mean shipping her out to be another farmers problem. Where does this line of thinking go? Well, why even treat her. Shoot her instead.

While I'm not vegan, I can understand some of their concerns for the animals. I'm pressured to not allow animals to live long lives. Pressured to view them as just things.

But what about mushi?

#MushiLivesMatter

 

[jdforge]

I've stopped drinking milk and eating much if any dairy products.

When you start to research the life of a dairy herd you begin to realise how unfair it is to the animals and the farmers just to produce a 2ltr carton of milk for 99p to splash on your cornflakes.

There's so many better alternatives now. I've started making my own oat milk, which is not only cheaper (oats, water some honey) but tastes far better than cows milk, and comes with the added environmental and ethical benefits.

You'd be surprised how many people think cows just produce milk by eating lots of grass and aren't aware of them having to be perpetually pregnant in order to produce. It's in humane.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Keeping a sickly / weak animal alive (using expensive medicines) is costly and will directly affect the final product that the consumer eats.

In nature, the herd would've culled the calf naturally via wolves. It's no more inhumane than that.

 

[synchronicity]

What's the better alternative to a consumerist society?

To be sure, I make no claims of any utopia - not that there is such a thing. The nature of the society we live in has its positives for sure, and I am often the beneficiary of many things and aspects for which I am grateful. But there is a cost to everything. Every rose has its thorn. And I sometimes grow weary of a world in which everything from actual goods and services, to ideologies, to personalities and people, and so on, are products, in the end. I often have the feeling that the intrinsic value of many things is lost, forgotten and discarded in an environment where everything is prioritized relative to its financial value, a secondary value - the "bottom line". I realize not everyone is sensitive to this sensation, but for me, it can at times be exhausting. I sometimes feel like a fish in a pond looking for refuge from this feeling, but realizing the water I inevitably must swim in permeates all reaches.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

To be sure, I make no claims of any utopia - not that there is such a thing. The nature of the society we live in has its positives for sure, and I am often the beneficiary of many things and aspects for which I am grateful. But there is a cost to everything. Every rose has its thorn. And I sometimes grow weary of a world in which everything from actual goods and services, to ideologies, to personalities and people, and so on, are products, in the end. I often have the feeling that the intrinsic value of many things is lost, forgotten and discarded in an environment where everything is prioritized relative to its financial value, a secondary value - the "bottom line". I realize not everyone is sensitive to this sensation, but for me, it can at times be exhausting. I sometimes feel like a fish in a pond looking for refuge from this feeling, but realizing the water I inevitably must swim in permeates all reaches.

"Value" is both a moral and a metaphysical belief.

The materialist paradigm is the root of all branches in the secular world.

Since you cannot prove intrinsic value through empirical observation then why believe in it? (or so the thinking goes, whether consciously or not)

That is why nihilism and political activism are on the rise. When nothing matters intrinsically, then only outcomes can provide some facsimile of meaning and value in life. Each person's personal ratio of failed outcomes to successful outcomes serves as the ultimate Divine Judgment before your brain's electrical signals give out, and this is true for the entrepreneur trying to get rich or the Antifa zealot smashing in a car window. And for persons who cannot achieve successful outcomes on their own, they are happy to take a piece -- like owning stock in a company -- of the credit when the group they belong to succeeds, as if the group was succeeding on their behalf.

 

[M1chl]

Yeah well, it's pretty tough situation and I understand how hypocritical, I am in this situation. Search "slaughterhouse documentary" on youtube and tell me you can even stomach 10 minutes combined from those documentaries, you probably cannot. Makes me want to kill all humans in there. That shit makes me feel rage like probably nothing else.

...but then, I go to the grocery store and ohh they have some nice meat, cool.

 

[Texas Pride]

Morality and profits rarely line up with each other. Farmers in general don't get enough credit for what they do.

 

[Dontero]

While I'm not vegan, I can understand some of their concerns for the animals. I'm pressured to not allow animals to live long lives. Pressured to view them as just things.

IT is complete idiocy that people take live quality over life itself.
No. Life itself is far more important than life quality itself.
Simply put, without you being farmer those animals wouldn't be born at all.

Secondly farm animals exist only for humans to use them, they are nothing else than thing.
It is like Lion moralizing death of gazele. You aren't going to last if you are that kind of lion.