- Many people live with an uncomfortable contradiction: They like animals and don’t want to see them harmed, yet they also enjoy eating meat, milk, and eggs.
- Psychology researchers call this the “meat paradox, ” and have found that people deploy a range of creative strategies to try to resolve the uncomfortable cognitive dissonance it causes.
- The meat paradox has made it incredibly difficult to make progress on the factory farming problem, which harms hundreds of billions of animals around the globe each year.
- But some research-backed interventions to disarm the meat paradox seem promising.
Of all the hot-button social issues in America, there’s one that often flies under the radar but can unleash a torrent of strong feelings — swirling with apparent contradictions — when it surfaces: meat.
Case in point: Last month, the popstar Billie Eilish argued that you can’t say you love animals and eat them. Her comments made sense, though they set off a heated, weeks-long debate among X and Instagram users, who responded with a flood of strange justifications for eating meat, despite the terrible treatment of farmed animals.
The spat vividly illustrated a psychological phenomenon called the “meat paradox”: the cognitive dissonance and deep discomfort people feel when their behavior of eating meat and other animal products clashes with their fondness for animals.
This paradox has proved an exceedingly difficult hurdle to overcome in encouraging people to change how they eat — and even for having productive conversations about meat without things quickly getting heated (as they did for Eilish). But some research also suggests there are ways out of the meat paradox, which could help relieve the psychological strain for people, as well as the suffering of animals in factory farms…”
People don't like feeling bad about their habits. Hell, I posted in a different sub about ever since switching to a bidet, I think wiping with just paper is gross. The defensiveness was bonkers.
> refers to the phenomenon of acting against one's better judgment—the state in which one intentionally performs an action while simultaneously believing that a different course of action would be better. Sometimes translated as "weakness of will" or "incontinence," akrasia describes the paradoxical human experience of knowingly choosing what one judges to be the inferior option.
> The concept of akrasia raises philosophical questions regarding the connection between reason, desire, and action by challenging the intuitive assumption that rational judgment governs an agent's behavior.
The last I looked into this sort of thing, government subsidizes meat to keep the price down. 1lb of ground beef could otherwise cost over $30.
Why don't we try subsidizing progress towards a meatless future instead of legally cementing the profit of the capitalists who will continue to burn down the whole world for more cattle grazing land.
Agreed. The way I see it, every dollar I give to the meat industry is a dollar they can use to lobby politicians for more meat subsidies. The cycle stops with me.
Despite the fact that eating meat - especially to the degree and amount Americans typically do - is harmful to human health. The Senate Select Committee on Human Needs and Nutrition took on the meat industry in the 1970s and had their findings watered down and buried.
It’s wild the way the story isn’t interested in people who have changed their behavior rather than take refuge in denial. I cut fast food burgers out of my life after I saw Food Inc. As a broke ass grad student, I started buying meat from local farmers despite the expense. I think a lot of people would make different choices if they were provided with information and options. (And the industry knows it too, that’s why there’s no longer “pink slime” in McDonald’s burgers!) I get the reason for the pessimism—the centerpiece is this pessimistic study—but I dont know if it’s warranted… change is happening and would happen faster if people had to confront the facts.
I have cut out all meat except chicken and switched to a local meat market who sources meat locally. It happens to be on par or cheaper with big box stores meat prices as well. All it took was a quick google search and now I feel much better about my meat consumption habits.
Right, so, please share with me how you imagine it looks and operates where there is industrial (eg, capitalist, seeking profit before other concerns) animal slaughter, but not endless suffering.
I am just asking you to use your imagination to tell me how it's going to look. What we have now is corporate dystopia. I'm not asking you to give up meat, or to even care, but to just share your opinion with me. You're the one making the claims.
Also a follow up to your last sentence. Do you not consider it abusive to kill something?
I buy my beef from a ranch that lets their cows roam free and graze on ~10,000 acres. No feedlots, no injections or growth hormones, just a very big fence. They’ve been in business for 150+ years. I wouldn’t call that endless suffering.
I'm of two minds on this. I think that is better, relatively, than industrial factory farming.
But moral relativism is not going to fix anything.
I, as an aspect of my philosophy and politics, find the whole operation to be hinged on cruelty. The animals are forced to breed, they are husbanded and bred until their bodies give out, and then they too are murdered for their bodies.
I reject the idea that any liberating philosophy doesn't include the eventual total animal liberation. It's very very easy to think "but they're just animals", but I believe in the abolition of all hierarchical structures, thus I cannot and will not be satisfied with an answer that only becomes morally sound in comparison to the evils of other answers. I am no better than a dog or goat, and they no better than I.
Look to how many indigenous cultures handle it. Animals are killed for meat and other products, yes, but with respect and gratitude for the animal and for the wider ecosystem.
(I don't claim to be an expert, just saying that not every culture sees death, hunting, or animal husbandry as necessarily a cruel thing)
If your landlord forced you to get pregnant, and then shot you in the head when you could no longer breed, but they threw a little party and said a prayer about it, would you find this to be a morally acceptable position if it was your life in question?
Humans could, through effort great and small, divest itself entirely from meat. It takes more farmland per person to feed people with meat than with non meat options. The world has a surplus of food even while we also murder the earth to do it (and in fact, cattle feed and industrial cattle populations are massive drivers of climate change).
The whole industry is propped up on a series of specious moralizing propositions, that profoundly cease to be coherent the moment you reject the idea that humans are inherently superior than human prey.
Your criticisms of the existing industry are valid and you're entitled to your own moral framework, but to put it simply the morality of the matter is not as objective as you think it is. I disagree with your framing of the issue. I do agree that we need to at least drastically reduce meat consumption both for sustainability and to reduce the cruelty of the industry for both humans and animals.
Right. And short of truly radical action, which I personally would find very satisfying, I will point to my original comment where I propose reducing and eliminating the meat subsidies, and instead refocusing them on sustainable and cruelty free (to the best our ability) alternatives. Let the meat actually cost its true price, not the price your taxes get the thrill of paying, and then allow the problem to solve itself. I can think of no simpler or less labor intensive solution than that.
I have no interest in tearing down a family owned farm, or forcing people to return to hunter gatherer lifestyles. But the least we could do, as a society and as a species, is at least slightly put our money where our mouth is. If an un-subsidized pound of ground beef costs $30+, people will absolutely seek out the alternative. It's morally insane to pay billions to artificially shrink the price of meat in order to prop up the meat industry, and my original comment suggests ending that propping up.
The morality is quite simple, for what it's worth. I find it quite frustrating that people will proclaim that meat consumption needs to be reduced, and to lessen cruelty in the world, but can only fathom a solution in the form of a concession from capitalists.
People could, simply stop supporting the industry as best they're able. It's not even that hard to cut out meat in this day and age. But the common attitude is to pass that buck along to the capitalists that own the country and sorta mope around hoping for some undefined, incremental, progress at some vague future point. Instead of doing anything, at all, right now.
I think the biggest problem with these systems is the living conditions of the animal, not the dying conditions. Slaughter is scary and torturous, yes, but we ALSO don't need to be raising animals on huge concrete feed lots with barely enough space to survive, or hooking them up to milking machines and forcing them to breed in order to spike their milk production before forcibly tearing their babies away from them. Beef raised by small growers on open pasture would be acceptable to most people, I think. How do you like that as a middle ground?
I don't like it. Sure, it's "better" than other options. But it is not "good" nor is it plausible or realistic. This is just "enlightened centrism". I think killing animals is wrong. Saying "well, they got to have more space before getting killed" is a bizarre compromise to try to forward. It's nowhere near "acceptable" to anybody who thinks about it.
I am not satisfied with moral relativism. Eventually when all the moralizing and equivocation are stripped away it's right back down to Right vs Wrong. It is Wrong to kill something that you did not need to kill. You can dress it up in whatever fantasy you want but at the end of the day, the paradigm is not changed in the slightest.
If you are a person who considers killing to be wrong, then it doesn't really matter what the life conditions were for the animal. The animal which, by the way, never had a choice in the matter. It was born already "owned" by the "owner" of its mother, then kept fenced in a paddock for its entire life. A human being could not be happy under those conditions. The destiny of that animal was decided hundreds of generations back. It was never given the option to truly roam free, and it was a slave from birth and its children will be slaves from birth.
We, humanity in 2026, do not need to do this awful practice at all. We have more food than we consume already, and the waste from our cruellest supply of food is killing us.
Edit: I also want to be extremely clear that I vehemently reject your first sentence. I do not think that's the case. People are unaware. It's a felony to be a meat industry whistleblower. Having your life amount to being slaughtered one day is an abhorrent living condition. I reject utterly the arrogance of that position. It is shoddy logic to base your stance on; the two things are one and the same. These corporations that own the industry aren't motivated to feed they are motivated to extract value.
But that's the thing, I absolutely don't consider killing to be wrong. The Billy Eilish sentiment in the article is one that I personally think goes too far. Humans and PLENTY of other species on this planet have evolved to kill and eat other life--including plants, btw, which, if you don't count the killing of as "wrong" (which I don't), then you need to include some increasingly messy framework for what makes an animal morally "worthy of death" or not. Death is a part of life.
However, this is my personal belief. I, personally, have no problem killing and eating animals who I have met. I've worked on farms and raised plenty of animals destined for slaughter, and killed some myself that I later consumed. I believe that's a choice that I should be allowed to make, or at least to debate, without being labelled as a murderer (even if technically that's what it makes me). But what I want to highlight is that there is a much weaker argument to be made for the consumption of animals AT ALL, than there is for the current manner in which we raise, slaughter, and consume them. The argument against this latter case is fairly straightforward, but so often this conversation gets lost in absolutes and loses meaning for the majority of people--people who, given the chance, should be allowed to slaughter and consume their own animals, but who so frequently can't stand to look that process in the eye. The cheeky argument I often find myself making in my head is that animal consumption should only be legal for those who are willing to participate in the process. Impractical by all means, but shouldn't there be a certain impracticality to eating flesh? Wouldn't that prevent these horrors that factories commit on a daily basis?
We need to draw a line somewhere between "all killing is wrong" and "all meat is fine." Your line might be somewhere outside this spectrum, but I don't think it's fair or realistic to hold everyone to this standard, and by trying to do so, you allow the horrors of the industry to continue by losing rhetorical ground. Because there is a line somewhere within those parameters that would make things astronomically better, and which is much more logically sound. We could have that debate right now, if you like, but I wanted to establish that outright. Killing is wrong is your stance, but you don't get to make it mine.
It is if you know how to prepare them properly. I even use bean broth most days for soups and it's way tf better than chicken broth/bone broth/chicken noodle.
I also still use dairy but mostly cheese and sour cream.
Native American civilizations were thriving off of beans and corn for a very long time. And we were never meant to consume meat anywhere as frequently as the majority of USA/China does.
I agree with most of what you are saying, but chicken has a texture to it I haven't been able to replicate with plants, which just makes it irreplaceable. I eat most of my meals without meat, but I would love lab grown chicken.
One of the things meat causes for me when I eat it again is constipation. As opposed to eating fiber rich beans, eating meats often causes me to not go number 2 for a full day after so it's like I'm shitting two full days worth at one time lol.
People need to use some self control and put another living things life ahead of putting a hamburger in their mouth. Nobody stands up for anything anymore. People have a choice to not accept the horrible treatment of animals and stop eating them. People are so weak and uncaring. It's disgusting. I grew up on a farm in the middle of Missouri and stopped eating meat at 13 years old, cold turkey. Vegan at 30. 48 now. It wasn't that hard.
part of the allure of capitalism is the myth that you don't have to be responsible for or to anything anymore. instead of grappling with complex and difficult questions of morality, you just delegate your humanity to market forces.
Capitalism wants to reduce costs and increase revenue. Wages are one of the easiest costs to reduce as the employer inherently has more economic power than each individual worker. This wage exploitation creates desperate people, and desperate people don’t have the time to investigate and navigate these problems, nor the money to absorb the increased costs of doing so. Labor laws help, unions help, but capitalism creates this suffering by reducing meat production costs and perpetuates it by reducing labor cost. The problem is capitalism.
It's in the best interests of the meat industry to pretend this is an issue that only individuals can solve, and this article contributes to that by focusing on consumer habits instead of structures that influence consumer habits.
Imagine a version of the battle against Big Tobacco in which the only tactic was to shame smokers. It wouldn't have worked. There was some shaming, but there was also a lot of regulation and dismantling of corporate subsidies. The world had been built around smoking, with ashtrays in every public space, then suddenly all buildings were smoke-free and it became massively inconvenient to smoke. One key component of the battle against Big Tobacco was the acknowledgment that widespread tobacco use was fostered from the top down, so top down measures were required to reduce use. With meat, we're living in the equivalent of a world where ashtrays are still available in every public space, but people scold smokers and shame them for partaking.
This isn't a moral issue so much as a public health and ecological issue. We need to stop subsidizing animal agriculture, ban factory farm conditions and enforce the law, and significantly reduce the amount of meat served in public institutions like schools, hospitals, the military, etc. Start with these basics, and we can refine them as time passes. Our problem is corporate lobbyists more than hypocritical individual meat eaters. Those meat eaters and their children will stop eating meat if their environment changes, just as so many people stopped smoking or didn't take it up.
A better nation that isn't subservient to 200 or so billionaires and a few dozen powerful special interest groups would put a bunch of money into subsidizing lab grown meat and other alternatives to deal with not just this moral issue, but the environmental one as well.
Could even just move the subsidies currently propping up these industries over to that space.
Alas, we must instead make sure Jeff Bezos pays no taxes and we keep paying a tax dollar premium subsidizing billion dollar for-profit companies to provide basic services other nations governments do themselves cheaper.
I think most people hold a fairly easy "out" on the purported paradox.
Yes, they love animals. But no, they do not love all animals. Is that position 100% coherent? No, but it's easier for people to live with than the strawman proposition (they love all animals but are okay with cruelty to those same animals).
Doesn't everyone want their meat to run around frolic a bit before they get around to slaughtering and consuming it? I mean... those cages and feedlots are just terrible!
Not a paradox. People would love to be able to support the more ethical humanely raised and harvested option, but those are expensive, people are hurting for money, and they still have to eat.
Silver lining is that they are slowly changing their eating habits.
People do consume it. Tons of it also gets thrown away, because it would impact the profit of capitalists, to have it be used. America could feed millions just off the food that an average grocery store throws away.
The price of meat is kept doubly low by its overproduction. No industrial meat firm has ever asked if they're making enough to feed the people, only if they're producing enough to maintain an expected rate of profit.
I dunno, maybe 20% of the world population exploits the other 80%, who exploit the world’s resources, so the 20% can live comfortably. Case in point is children mining Cobalt in Bolivia for iPhone mfg.
Meat should be a treat. People should pay more for pasture raised, free range, etc. Those animals are more expensive but they are better for people, the animal, and the earth. Phase out "cheap" meats and pay more for less, but better quality.
[OP] James_Fortis | 10 hours ago
Introduction
“Key takeaways
- Many people live with an uncomfortable contradiction: They like animals and don’t want to see them harmed, yet they also enjoy eating meat, milk, and eggs.
- Psychology researchers call this the “meat paradox, ” and have found that people deploy a range of creative strategies to try to resolve the uncomfortable cognitive dissonance it causes.
- The meat paradox has made it incredibly difficult to make progress on the factory farming problem, which harms hundreds of billions of animals around the globe each year.
- But some research-backed interventions to disarm the meat paradox seem promising.
Of all the hot-button social issues in America, there’s one that often flies under the radar but can unleash a torrent of strong feelings — swirling with apparent contradictions — when it surfaces: meat.
Case in point: Last month, the popstar Billie Eilish argued that you can’t say you love animals and eat them. Her comments made sense, though they set off a heated, weeks-long debate among X and Instagram users, who responded with a flood of strange justifications for eating meat, despite the terrible treatment of farmed animals.
The spat vividly illustrated a psychological phenomenon called the “meat paradox”: the cognitive dissonance and deep discomfort people feel when their behavior of eating meat and other animal products clashes with their fondness for animals.
This paradox has proved an exceedingly difficult hurdle to overcome in encouraging people to change how they eat — and even for having productive conversations about meat without things quickly getting heated (as they did for Eilish). But some research also suggests there are ways out of the meat paradox, which could help relieve the psychological strain for people, as well as the suffering of animals in factory farms…”
Maximum_Rat | 5 hours ago
People don't like feeling bad about their habits. Hell, I posted in a different sub about ever since switching to a bidet, I think wiping with just paper is gross. The defensiveness was bonkers.
diethyl2o | 10 hours ago
Not a paradox. Hypocrisy and being reluctant to give up things we enjoy are defining human traits.
dust4ngel | an hour ago
akrasia:
> refers to the phenomenon of acting against one's better judgment—the state in which one intentionally performs an action while simultaneously believing that a different course of action would be better. Sometimes translated as "weakness of will" or "incontinence," akrasia describes the paradoxical human experience of knowingly choosing what one judges to be the inferior option.
> The concept of akrasia raises philosophical questions regarding the connection between reason, desire, and action by challenging the intuitive assumption that rational judgment governs an agent's behavior.
diethyl2o | 41 minutes ago
Learned something thanks. Or in laypeople’s terms, “sometimes, it feels good to be bad.”
BrutalN00dle | 10 hours ago
The last I looked into this sort of thing, government subsidizes meat to keep the price down. 1lb of ground beef could otherwise cost over $30. Why don't we try subsidizing progress towards a meatless future instead of legally cementing the profit of the capitalists who will continue to burn down the whole world for more cattle grazing land.
cindyx7102 | 10 hours ago
Agreed. The way I see it, every dollar I give to the meat industry is a dollar they can use to lobby politicians for more meat subsidies. The cycle stops with me.
BrutalN00dle | 10 hours ago
Ruthless capitalism for the poor, comforting socialism for the rich. Irresponsible of Vox to not analyze this aspect of the issue.
GrumpySquirrel2016 | 10 hours ago
Despite the fact that eating meat - especially to the degree and amount Americans typically do - is harmful to human health. The Senate Select Committee on Human Needs and Nutrition took on the meat industry in the 1970s and had their findings watered down and buried.
BrutalN00dle | 10 hours ago
We're just another FDA appointment or two away from cigarettes being good for you again.
GrumpySquirrel2016 | 9 hours ago
But just lights and menthols, right? Lol 🤣 ...
BrutalN00dle | 8 hours ago
They're filtered!
omegaphallic | 10 hours ago
Just go away with your annoying vegan judgements.
BrutalN00dle | 10 hours ago
Lol, burn!! You got me so good!
Accomplished_Self939 | 10 hours ago
It’s wild the way the story isn’t interested in people who have changed their behavior rather than take refuge in denial. I cut fast food burgers out of my life after I saw Food Inc. As a broke ass grad student, I started buying meat from local farmers despite the expense. I think a lot of people would make different choices if they were provided with information and options. (And the industry knows it too, that’s why there’s no longer “pink slime” in McDonald’s burgers!) I get the reason for the pessimism—the centerpiece is this pessimistic study—but I dont know if it’s warranted… change is happening and would happen faster if people had to confront the facts.
AjDuke9749 | 7 hours ago
I have cut out all meat except chicken and switched to a local meat market who sources meat locally. It happens to be on par or cheaper with big box stores meat prices as well. All it took was a quick google search and now I feel much better about my meat consumption habits.
Accomplished_Self939 | 3 hours ago
Now that conventional prices have spiked, organic/ free range/ sustainably raised foods are 💯 % the better value.
AjDuke9749 | 2 hours ago
I’ve been going to this meat market since 2021 before prices got crazy. It’s always been better quality and cheaper for me.
lgodsey | 9 hours ago
We don't have to accept the premise that any kind of meat is impossible without animals living in unceasing torture.
BrutalN00dle | 9 hours ago
What scenario do you imagine, in that case, where animal slaughter is not tortuous?
lgodsey | 8 hours ago
Animals, like every living thing, die.
But the time they are alive need not be endless suffering.
BrutalN00dle | 8 hours ago
Right, so, please share with me how you imagine it looks and operates where there is industrial (eg, capitalist, seeking profit before other concerns) animal slaughter, but not endless suffering.
lgodsey | 8 hours ago
You were the one who framed the corporate dystopia. There must exist a middle ground where animals can be raised without abusing them.
BrutalN00dle | 8 hours ago
I am just asking you to use your imagination to tell me how it's going to look. What we have now is corporate dystopia. I'm not asking you to give up meat, or to even care, but to just share your opinion with me. You're the one making the claims. Also a follow up to your last sentence. Do you not consider it abusive to kill something?
puppylust | 8 hours ago
Dude, why so aggressive?
BrutalN00dle | 8 hours ago
A question better directed at the monopolists of violence and cruelty: industry and the state (one and the same, really, under imperial capitalism).
Also, may be controversial take here, but killing is wrong and should be opposed by all people seeking a better world.
Vesploogie | 8 hours ago
I buy my beef from a ranch that lets their cows roam free and graze on ~10,000 acres. No feedlots, no injections or growth hormones, just a very big fence. They’ve been in business for 150+ years. I wouldn’t call that endless suffering.
BrutalN00dle | 8 hours ago
I'm of two minds on this. I think that is better, relatively, than industrial factory farming.
But moral relativism is not going to fix anything.
I, as an aspect of my philosophy and politics, find the whole operation to be hinged on cruelty. The animals are forced to breed, they are husbanded and bred until their bodies give out, and then they too are murdered for their bodies.
I reject the idea that any liberating philosophy doesn't include the eventual total animal liberation. It's very very easy to think "but they're just animals", but I believe in the abolition of all hierarchical structures, thus I cannot and will not be satisfied with an answer that only becomes morally sound in comparison to the evils of other answers. I am no better than a dog or goat, and they no better than I.
saintcrazy | 8 hours ago
Look to how many indigenous cultures handle it. Animals are killed for meat and other products, yes, but with respect and gratitude for the animal and for the wider ecosystem.
(I don't claim to be an expert, just saying that not every culture sees death, hunting, or animal husbandry as necessarily a cruel thing)
BrutalN00dle | 7 hours ago
If your landlord forced you to get pregnant, and then shot you in the head when you could no longer breed, but they threw a little party and said a prayer about it, would you find this to be a morally acceptable position if it was your life in question? Humans could, through effort great and small, divest itself entirely from meat. It takes more farmland per person to feed people with meat than with non meat options. The world has a surplus of food even while we also murder the earth to do it (and in fact, cattle feed and industrial cattle populations are massive drivers of climate change).
The whole industry is propped up on a series of specious moralizing propositions, that profoundly cease to be coherent the moment you reject the idea that humans are inherently superior than human prey.
Edit: typos
saintcrazy | 4 hours ago
Your criticisms of the existing industry are valid and you're entitled to your own moral framework, but to put it simply the morality of the matter is not as objective as you think it is. I disagree with your framing of the issue. I do agree that we need to at least drastically reduce meat consumption both for sustainability and to reduce the cruelty of the industry for both humans and animals.
BrutalN00dle | 4 hours ago
Right. And short of truly radical action, which I personally would find very satisfying, I will point to my original comment where I propose reducing and eliminating the meat subsidies, and instead refocusing them on sustainable and cruelty free (to the best our ability) alternatives. Let the meat actually cost its true price, not the price your taxes get the thrill of paying, and then allow the problem to solve itself. I can think of no simpler or less labor intensive solution than that.
I have no interest in tearing down a family owned farm, or forcing people to return to hunter gatherer lifestyles. But the least we could do, as a society and as a species, is at least slightly put our money where our mouth is. If an un-subsidized pound of ground beef costs $30+, people will absolutely seek out the alternative. It's morally insane to pay billions to artificially shrink the price of meat in order to prop up the meat industry, and my original comment suggests ending that propping up.
The morality is quite simple, for what it's worth. I find it quite frustrating that people will proclaim that meat consumption needs to be reduced, and to lessen cruelty in the world, but can only fathom a solution in the form of a concession from capitalists.
People could, simply stop supporting the industry as best they're able. It's not even that hard to cut out meat in this day and age. But the common attitude is to pass that buck along to the capitalists that own the country and sorta mope around hoping for some undefined, incremental, progress at some vague future point. Instead of doing anything, at all, right now.
Edit: mobile formatting
taco_tuesdays | 2 hours ago
I think the biggest problem with these systems is the living conditions of the animal, not the dying conditions. Slaughter is scary and torturous, yes, but we ALSO don't need to be raising animals on huge concrete feed lots with barely enough space to survive, or hooking them up to milking machines and forcing them to breed in order to spike their milk production before forcibly tearing their babies away from them. Beef raised by small growers on open pasture would be acceptable to most people, I think. How do you like that as a middle ground?
BrutalN00dle | 2 hours ago
I don't like it. Sure, it's "better" than other options. But it is not "good" nor is it plausible or realistic. This is just "enlightened centrism". I think killing animals is wrong. Saying "well, they got to have more space before getting killed" is a bizarre compromise to try to forward. It's nowhere near "acceptable" to anybody who thinks about it.
I am not satisfied with moral relativism. Eventually when all the moralizing and equivocation are stripped away it's right back down to Right vs Wrong. It is Wrong to kill something that you did not need to kill. You can dress it up in whatever fantasy you want but at the end of the day, the paradigm is not changed in the slightest.
If you are a person who considers killing to be wrong, then it doesn't really matter what the life conditions were for the animal. The animal which, by the way, never had a choice in the matter. It was born already "owned" by the "owner" of its mother, then kept fenced in a paddock for its entire life. A human being could not be happy under those conditions. The destiny of that animal was decided hundreds of generations back. It was never given the option to truly roam free, and it was a slave from birth and its children will be slaves from birth.
We, humanity in 2026, do not need to do this awful practice at all. We have more food than we consume already, and the waste from our cruellest supply of food is killing us.
Edit: I also want to be extremely clear that I vehemently reject your first sentence. I do not think that's the case. People are unaware. It's a felony to be a meat industry whistleblower. Having your life amount to being slaughtered one day is an abhorrent living condition. I reject utterly the arrogance of that position. It is shoddy logic to base your stance on; the two things are one and the same. These corporations that own the industry aren't motivated to feed they are motivated to extract value.
taco_tuesdays | 2 hours ago
But that's the thing, I absolutely don't consider killing to be wrong. The Billy Eilish sentiment in the article is one that I personally think goes too far. Humans and PLENTY of other species on this planet have evolved to kill and eat other life--including plants, btw, which, if you don't count the killing of as "wrong" (which I don't), then you need to include some increasingly messy framework for what makes an animal morally "worthy of death" or not. Death is a part of life.
However, this is my personal belief. I, personally, have no problem killing and eating animals who I have met. I've worked on farms and raised plenty of animals destined for slaughter, and killed some myself that I later consumed. I believe that's a choice that I should be allowed to make, or at least to debate, without being labelled as a murderer (even if technically that's what it makes me). But what I want to highlight is that there is a much weaker argument to be made for the consumption of animals AT ALL, than there is for the current manner in which we raise, slaughter, and consume them. The argument against this latter case is fairly straightforward, but so often this conversation gets lost in absolutes and loses meaning for the majority of people--people who, given the chance, should be allowed to slaughter and consume their own animals, but who so frequently can't stand to look that process in the eye. The cheeky argument I often find myself making in my head is that animal consumption should only be legal for those who are willing to participate in the process. Impractical by all means, but shouldn't there be a certain impracticality to eating flesh? Wouldn't that prevent these horrors that factories commit on a daily basis?
We need to draw a line somewhere between "all killing is wrong" and "all meat is fine." Your line might be somewhere outside this spectrum, but I don't think it's fair or realistic to hold everyone to this standard, and by trying to do so, you allow the horrors of the industry to continue by losing rhetorical ground. Because there is a line somewhere within those parameters that would make things astronomically better, and which is much more logically sound. We could have that debate right now, if you like, but I wanted to establish that outright. Killing is wrong is your stance, but you don't get to make it mine.
BrutalN00dle | an hour ago
I don't respect your belief at all. Have a nice day, there is no point to further deliberation.
taco_tuesdays | an hour ago
How disappointing.
mayorjinglejangle | 9 hours ago
I think if lab grown or plant based meats come down in price there would be more of a demand, especially with the cost of real meat going up.
Describing_Donkeys | 10 hours ago
I wish I had lab grown meat available. Take the animal out of it.
PrometheusLiberatus | 8 hours ago
You can do one better and simply rely on plant based protein. Powered directly from the sun instead of bioreactors.
I make a batch of beans every couple of weeks and it never goes bad. I rely on 7 different legumes/pulses.
LMAO at the insecure meat eaters paying out the butt for food and downvoting anyone that even suggests relying on vegetarian potein.
your meat habits won't be as pretty when you ain't got the money for your favorite! Time to adapt or starve!
Describing_Donkeys | 8 hours ago
I have more of those in my diet than anything else, but it's not a perfect chicken substitute.
PrometheusLiberatus | 6 hours ago
It is if you know how to prepare them properly. I even use bean broth most days for soups and it's way tf better than chicken broth/bone broth/chicken noodle.
I also still use dairy but mostly cheese and sour cream.
Native American civilizations were thriving off of beans and corn for a very long time. And we were never meant to consume meat anywhere as frequently as the majority of USA/China does.
Describing_Donkeys | 4 hours ago
I agree with most of what you are saying, but chicken has a texture to it I haven't been able to replicate with plants, which just makes it irreplaceable. I eat most of my meals without meat, but I would love lab grown chicken.
PrometheusLiberatus | 4 hours ago
One of the things meat causes for me when I eat it again is constipation. As opposed to eating fiber rich beans, eating meats often causes me to not go number 2 for a full day after so it's like I'm shitting two full days worth at one time lol.
Sea-Worry-802 | 7 hours ago
People need to use some self control and put another living things life ahead of putting a hamburger in their mouth. Nobody stands up for anything anymore. People have a choice to not accept the horrible treatment of animals and stop eating them. People are so weak and uncaring. It's disgusting. I grew up on a farm in the middle of Missouri and stopped eating meat at 13 years old, cold turkey. Vegan at 30. 48 now. It wasn't that hard.
dust4ngel | an hour ago
> Nobody stands up for anything anymore.
part of the allure of capitalism is the myth that you don't have to be responsible for or to anything anymore. instead of grappling with complex and difficult questions of morality, you just delegate your humanity to market forces.
onwee | 8 hours ago
I don’t personally see a problem with continuing to eat meat, but as an occasional luxury rather than a regular staple
un_internaute | 7 hours ago
Capitalism wants to reduce costs and increase revenue. Wages are one of the easiest costs to reduce as the employer inherently has more economic power than each individual worker. This wage exploitation creates desperate people, and desperate people don’t have the time to investigate and navigate these problems, nor the money to absorb the increased costs of doing so. Labor laws help, unions help, but capitalism creates this suffering by reducing meat production costs and perpetuates it by reducing labor cost. The problem is capitalism.
JenningsWigService | 5 hours ago
It's in the best interests of the meat industry to pretend this is an issue that only individuals can solve, and this article contributes to that by focusing on consumer habits instead of structures that influence consumer habits.
Imagine a version of the battle against Big Tobacco in which the only tactic was to shame smokers. It wouldn't have worked. There was some shaming, but there was also a lot of regulation and dismantling of corporate subsidies. The world had been built around smoking, with ashtrays in every public space, then suddenly all buildings were smoke-free and it became massively inconvenient to smoke. One key component of the battle against Big Tobacco was the acknowledgment that widespread tobacco use was fostered from the top down, so top down measures were required to reduce use. With meat, we're living in the equivalent of a world where ashtrays are still available in every public space, but people scold smokers and shame them for partaking.
This isn't a moral issue so much as a public health and ecological issue. We need to stop subsidizing animal agriculture, ban factory farm conditions and enforce the law, and significantly reduce the amount of meat served in public institutions like schools, hospitals, the military, etc. Start with these basics, and we can refine them as time passes. Our problem is corporate lobbyists more than hypocritical individual meat eaters. Those meat eaters and their children will stop eating meat if their environment changes, just as so many people stopped smoking or didn't take it up.
Guardiancomplex | 9 hours ago
Buy local.
I go and wander around in the fields where my steaks come from. I don't feel slightly bad about how the animals there live.
NOLA-Bronco | 5 hours ago
A better nation that isn't subservient to 200 or so billionaires and a few dozen powerful special interest groups would put a bunch of money into subsidizing lab grown meat and other alternatives to deal with not just this moral issue, but the environmental one as well.
Could even just move the subsidies currently propping up these industries over to that space.
Alas, we must instead make sure Jeff Bezos pays no taxes and we keep paying a tax dollar premium subsidizing billion dollar for-profit companies to provide basic services other nations governments do themselves cheaper.
woowoo293 | 4 hours ago
I think most people hold a fairly easy "out" on the purported paradox.
Yes, they love animals. But no, they do not love all animals. Is that position 100% coherent? No, but it's easier for people to live with than the strawman proposition (they love all animals but are okay with cruelty to those same animals).
NihiloZero | 4 hours ago
Doesn't everyone want their meat to run around frolic a bit before they get around to slaughtering and consuming it? I mean... those cages and feedlots are just terrible!
pb_barney79 | 59 minutes ago
Not a paradox. People would love to be able to support the more ethical humanely raised and harvested option, but those are expensive, people are hurting for money, and they still have to eat.
Silver lining is that they are slowly changing their eating habits.
SemperAliquidNovi | 9 hours ago
Suddenly, everyone eats locally-sourced, free-range, organic animals from their local, anarcho-syndicalist commune.
I wonder where all the financial support for factory farms is coming from. 🤔
BrutalN00dle | 7 hours ago
Your taxes.
SemperAliquidNovi | 3 hours ago
Absolutely, subsidies are a big part of it, but somebody has to actually be consuming this crap.
These people who claim to know the name of the cow that reposed on satin pillows before becoming their burgers are just next-level disingenuous.
BrutalN00dle | 3 hours ago
People do consume it. Tons of it also gets thrown away, because it would impact the profit of capitalists, to have it be used. America could feed millions just off the food that an average grocery store throws away. The price of meat is kept doubly low by its overproduction. No industrial meat firm has ever asked if they're making enough to feed the people, only if they're producing enough to maintain an expected rate of profit.
tomlucas66 | 9 hours ago
I dunno, maybe 20% of the world population exploits the other 80%, who exploit the world’s resources, so the 20% can live comfortably. Case in point is children mining Cobalt in Bolivia for iPhone mfg.
ktreddit | 5 hours ago
True, but we can consider more than one issue at a time.
dust4ngel | an hour ago
see also: oppression olympics
whatfresh_hellisthis | 7 hours ago
Meat should be a treat. People should pay more for pasture raised, free range, etc. Those animals are more expensive but they are better for people, the animal, and the earth. Phase out "cheap" meats and pay more for less, but better quality.
omegaphallic | 10 hours ago
Its the job of the government to crack down on inhumane treatment, folks still got to eat.