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Those convictions are extremely rare though. France even made illegal to fact to denounce such (illegal too) acts if this denunciation could harm the farmer.

https://welfarm.fr/adoption-de-lamendement-le-fur-une-attaqu...

> if cats tasted good

How do you know they don't?

By all accounts dogs taste good, but there's only a small number of cultures that eat them.

They probably don't taste bad...I mean, most animals somewhat taste good (crocodiles, frogs, hogs, deers, pigeons, eels etc). Now, it would be utterly ineffective to try to breed cats for meat, which is IMHO why we have such a small variety of regular meat. We chose the species that were the most convenient, regardless of any other inherent ethical consideration.

So for better or worse the line is purely arbitrary, and people's pet pig being off-limit by virtue of being declared a pet is an example of that.

I bet you if you haven't eaten in 3 days the cat would taste pretty good to you too.

I'm partially kidding, but we are afforded to have these discussions in the comfort in our home when we have an abundance of food around us available 24/7. (Speaking of mostly of developed nations)

> Don’t worry, if cats tasted good they would be receiving the same treatment!

I don't think that's true: dog meat isn't widely eaten, but enough countries do eat it to suggest it's palatable.

Not the OP, but:

I try to minimize the amount of meat that I eat; however, at this time I don't think that veganism is a viable strategy for optimal health for most Americans. That's particularly the case for athletes. It's simply too difficult to get enough protein and minimize carbs on a plant based diet.

That's not to say that it's impossible. I have a friend who is a vegan bodybuilder but it requires a lot of extra work on her part. That extra work is a big ask for people who are just trying to hold their lives together.

Zooming out from food, there isn't a widely available alternative to leather or wool if you care about the textile's performance (strength, durability, insulation when wet, flame retardation, etc.). That's particularly true if you care about avoiding petrochemicals.

I actually agree.

I have said this in another comment but I feel like its up to us. Slavery wasn't eradicated suddenly and became suddenly morally bad, I think that slowly but steadily we got better though till the point that now everyone mostly considers slavery morally evil.

Lets hope the same can be the case with animals as well.

I can't emphasize the impact of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gqwpfEcBjI&t=25s (earthlings documentary) had on me. I am mostly vegan (well aside from some eggs which I also can easily quit), I highly recommend it.

The pendulum could swing the other way and instead animal rights activists could be looked upon with complete disdain. Just like human rights, progress is never guaranteed.

The difference being that enslaved humans actually were equal and are thriving now, the enslaved animal populations will crash when the farming stops. Though better to die free, than live as a slave.

Yo I've been a vegan for over 30 years and personally I wish that were true, but honestly I don't see groupthink on this topic ever shifting substantially.

Ideology which confirms ones desires are stronger than socially collective cerebralization about theoretical ideals.

I actually think AI will be granted empathy far sooner than animals simply due to its ability to speak and thus engage in the ideological layer.

Cultures that have many offspring usually care less about animal welfare (human and non-human) than those that have less offspring.

Cultures that have many offspring usually become the dominant culture of future generations.

Unless something catastrophic happens, I don't see how you can be right and I can be wrong.

"Future generations are gonna look back at us for our treatment of animals, especially farmed animals, much the way we look back at our slave owning ancestors." I predict that in the next 100 years, or less, consumption of animal products will be much the same taboo as tobacco consumption (in the USA) is today. Yes, they will still be around, but if you enjoy them openly, you will be a bit of a social pariah in many circles.

You don't know what future generations are going to believe. The evolution of beliefs and norms are much too complicated for any person to predict.

The rhetorical ploy you just tried is only slightly more credible than "I'm a time traveler from the future. Here's what the people of the future think of the people of the present."

There is an immense difference between factory farming, and traditional farming, of which most countries and places still do.

I don't know what sort of fantasy lifestyle people think wild animals live, but it's constant fear of death all day long, fights with other of its kind over territory, constant predation, disease, pests (including bot flies and worms), starvation during population upswings, dying of thirst during drought, and very short lives.

Compare that with protection from predators, medical care, vaccination, shelter, reliable food and clean water, and stress free lives until a quick and fast death.

Lumping caring farmers in with factory farming is unfair, and again most of the world isn't the US.

For animals such as cows? Peace, contentment, and stress free life is indeed a boon.

Traditional farmers don't install automated cow scratchers for profit. They do it so animals are happy:

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/h3SG72cKA9o

> Future generations are gonna look back at us for our treatment of animals, especially farmed animals, much the way we look back at our slave owning ancestors.

A lot of people already do.

Hopefully technology (robots) and science (lab grown meat) can accelerate this.

In his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari called the farming of animals by humans "Nature's biggest fraud", which I always found to be an apt description.

It makes me wonder if humans are the only animals who "farm" other animals in some way (not on the same scale as humans do of course).

At the same time, it makes me wonder, "is being a parasitic animal socially better or worse than animals who farm fellow animals" ;).

I am with you on principle. But how to get animal protein without harming animals? Can't do milk & related products because of lactose intolerance and other vegetarian sources are not that protein dense.

Very limited number of decades have passed since we considered torturing other humans prime entertainment do the whole family. Give us a minute.

You can find the abuse of animals morally objectionably (I do), but comparing it to human slavery rests on a grossly false moral equivalence between human beings and other animals. Indeed, it usually rests on sentiment or convention rather than a sound and rationally grounded objective ethics.

Chattel slavery was first and foremost morally objectionable, because human beings have rights that conflict with its practice. Rights are rooted in two properties human beings have, namely, the ability to comprehend one's actions and one's situation, and the ability to freely choose between alternatives. If I can understand my actions and I can freely choose to act one way or another, then I am, in principle [1], a moral agent and thus morally responsible for my actions. But for me to be able to fulfill those responsibilities as a moral agent, certain conditions must be met and this claim on others to supply me with those conditions we call rights. Without those conditions, I cannot do what I have a responsibility to do. Non-human animals [2] lack these properties, which is why we do not hold them morally accountable, and because they don't have responsibilities, they do not have rights. (I realize that it has become customary to pull rights out of thin air without the slightest moral scruple or justification about doing so.)

Of course, it would be morally objectionable for us to torment animals, but we are free to make use of animals in ways that do not contract the human good, rightly understood.

[0] The only sound, objective basis for morality is human nature, which determines what actions accord with it and which contradict it. So, it is morally objectionable to torment animals, even though they have no rights, because - in short - it contradicts human nature and thus my good as a human being. Sadism is a serious defect.

[1] I say "in principle", because in practice, as you'll recall, mens rea has legal significance for a reason. If I kill someone by accident, then I did not choose freely to kill him, and so I have not committed murder, only involuntary manslaughter or whatever. If I kill someone, because I believed he was a monster from the 7th dimension trying to kill me, then I did not comprehend my situation and thus the nature of my action. So, in practice, I may fail to exercise what in principle I have the power to do by virtue of my nature as a human being. But other animals do not have this power by nature.

[2] To preempt the inevitable petty drive-by pedant, I define "human" as any animal with these two properties, so according to this view, an intelligent alien from another planet would also be human, despite occupying a place in a separate phylogenetic tree or whatever.

hm, if i understand you correctly (non-native speaker here) you are advocating for plant based diet - and if thats the case, I don't agree with you. It might be possible to live on plant based diet in Mediterranean, but here up north where i reside (and even further in Arctic) it is, I think, next to impossible to survive only on plants - human body, afaik, cannot get everything that is needed in this environment, purely from plants. Taking maybe a very graphic example to get the point across - Eskimos did not learn to hunt whales (which was and is for them very dangerous) for fun but to survive - to counter the cold you need to consume more calories than you can get from (with reasonable amounts of) plants. (of course in arctic, theres whole another issue of growing anything ). Ofc one might say that in today's world everything can be flown in, supplements can be taken - but what's the cost ? to the body, to the environment where the plants/supplements are manufactured...?

30 million years in and vegans still haven’t won. Why do you expect that to change?

> Future generations are gonna look back at us for our treatment of animals, especially farmed animals, much the way we look back at our slave owning ancestors.

Absolutely not.

People are so much more important than pigs. Or dogs. Or any other animal.

This isn’t a comparison a rational, empathetic person would make.

You have a point but we are literally talking about an association whose entire and only raison d'etre is to perpetuate violent crime. Maybe it shouldn't be outright criminal, since people can potentially register for other reasons than to participate, but it definitely should at least be under scrutiny.

We essentially criminalize membership in other kinds of criminal groups centered around producing and sharing illegal content, the same should apply to animal abuse.

Tell that to the members of organisations deemed to be terrorists

The focus should absolutely be on actions, not associations

> "Membership" in anything should never be criminalized

Conspiracy is the criminalisation of association to commit a crime. Fredom of association doesn't magically mean you won't face consequences for what your association is about.

We must secure the existence of animal abuse groups and a future for free association.

Membership in an anti-constitutional organization is a crime under German law btw and I'm pretty sure there are other countries with similar laws. The US does criminalize membership but only as an add-on to other charges (co-conspiracy, basically). Of course in the US this is mostly for going after "gangs" so it's almost exclusively used against Black people.

That's a fairly weak punishment, tho.

If you want to be this pedantic, killing humans is technically legal in every country that has soldiers and law enforcement officers.

There's one in the bottom left, but there's not much detail so I did some googling

Cats generally don't overeat like dogs do.

Apparently he's named idiot because his moustache markings resemble the chinese character for "idiot", and stupid because he once flooded his feeder with the water bottle, somehow.

Might we know what these areas are?

Hey Cat as a Service (we meow not concatenate) is a fine idea

Touch Grass as a Service?

I like the one cat rescue out of ohio that streams their cat area inside 24/7.

They get a ton of donations of food and toys so it seems to work out well.

Why? They're providing food for stray cats.

I noticed all the feeders seem to be similar / same. I'm in California, I feed 3 strays in an area where the average outdoor cat's lifespan is about 4.5 years (fires, traffic, hawks, coyotes, evil people).

Right now my process is very manual but it's a labor of love. All 3 cats only show up after dark. Ring stick up camera, bowls out (clean them every day), run out on a motion alert, etc. problem is I also have racoons, opposssums and skunks. (I'm not in L.A. highrises, I'm close to the ocean).

Where can such feeders now be purchased (US customer). Thank you!

Every meow and then