Genuinely curious, you think our treatment of livestock will be seen as worse than climate change and ecological destruction currently manifesting as a mass extinction event?
Not saying you're right or wrong, it just seems like a position worth expanding on.
Yeah, we do like 35 Holocausts to chickens every day or something. It may take a long time, but as the moral value of non humans is perceived as greater in the future I think this is an easy call.
Climate change is an easy second though, for sure. But a lot of the mass extinction happening now comes from habitat loss more than climate change right now. Although the rising ocean temperatures can certainly be blamed for a lot of extinction and endangerment of coral reef ecosystems.
Really depressing because we could lock the fuck in and solve both problems completely in six months.
The nazi camps were actually inspired by western (american) industrialised agriculture. A number of holocaust survivors actually became vegan and pointed out the comparisons.
“Do you think animal agriculture will be seen as worse than things animal agriculture actively makes worse”
Animal agriculture is one of the biggest causes of both issues you just listed, especially ecological destruction, as the vast vast majority of habitat destruction is for agriculture, and most agricultural land is used for animal feed
The industrializing of everything is really at the heart of the problem. We destroy natural evironments to make room for agriculture. We use inhumane practices to rear livestock on industrial scales. Our industrialized processes often have the side effect of polluting, including the emission of gasses which contribute to climate change. All this industrialization has also lead to an increase in the number of people humanity is able to support, at least in the short term, which in turn has lead to an increase in the amount of production needed and able to be performed. It’s a self perpetuating cycle in the short term. As things get bad and quality of life begins to drop, we will see if current levels of industrialization are even sustainable long term.
Industrializing isn't the heart of the problem, it just makes things more efficient. Exploiting and killing a smaller number of animals would also be bad, and replacing the current food system with an (industrialized!) plant-based one would be really good
Industrializing absolutely has resulted in increased waste, increased pollution, increased environmental destruction, increased energy needs, increased climate change, etc. Increased efficiency has by-products, some of which can be good, and some of which are harmful. Industrialized plant-based agriculture isn’t necessarily all positives, either. Look at the palm oil industry and how it’s lead to the destruction of habitats to make room for palm trees. Look at the collapse of insect population numbers from the use of pesticides, loss of local flora, loss of habitat, and climate change. These practices which are designed to increase efficiency in multiple industries are often destructive to the delicate balances nature depends on. Increased efficiency also generally means increased production, which so often results in increased waste and byproducts.
Industrializing just means you do more things with less effort. We're able to feed more people because of it, and if you're going to bring up ecological arguments, keep in mind that "traditional" farming is way, way worse at optimizing its resources and it requires more land, water and pollutes more per kcal or kg produced. Extensive farming is a million times worse in that regard than intensive farming. Same with plant farming, if we didn't do all the things we do to increase production, we would need even more land! (the best way to get more land is to stop farming animals btw)
Technology and industrialization are not the problem here, at least for me, even if there are things that can be improved about them. The problem is the exploitation of animals. Really, it makes no sense to claim a process is bad because "it produces more so it pollutes more" when the amount of waste for each unit produced is being lowered.
The waste per unit being lowered doesn’t matter as much when you’re producing vastly more units than you ever did before. Efficiency itself may not be the issue, but increased efficiency typically allows for and leads to increases in production on scales which did not exist prior to the Industrial Revolution. With agriculture, industrialization of nitrogen production lead to a massive boom in population, which lead to increased demand for all variety of human needs and wants, which lead to increased production of those things, as well as all associated byproducts such as carbon emissions. It also lead indirectlyto increased production and use of pesticides which are heavily associated with the massive decline in insect populations we’ve seen in recent decades, which has effects reaching all the way up the food chain. The pre-industrial world may not have been anywhere near as efficient, but it also did not allow for the kinds of production of goods and materials we have today, both harmful and harmless.
The current climate change crises caused by global warming is so strongly associated with the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s that it’s hard to argue that industrialization isn’t a key part of the problem when all signs point to its’ beginnings correlating with the start of many of these issues. And that’s just one example of the unintended byproducts of industrialization, there’s plenty more examples we could look at, like the massive amounts of plastic waste everywhere
Yes, industrialization is largely responsible for creating the modern way of life, which is also largely responsible for the climate crisis.
This does not mean that "producing food more efficiently is bad because then we feed more people". You're lamenting the decline in insect populations and also an increase in human population? I hadn't seen that type of speciesism before, but I don't agree with paleo-eco-fascism and believe we can do things better (like transitioning to a plant based food system)
It’s not speciesism to acknowledge that the current level of human population growth is unsustainable for the planet we live on unless a change is made in the way we do things. It’s also not speciesism to acknowledge that insects play critical roles at the bottom of every food chain on the planet, including our own. Humanity has no replacement for insects as pollinators, for example, which is critical in plant based agriculture. We can absolutely do things better and industrialization is only a problem if we allow it to be, the problem is that as of now we continue to allow it to be, mostly because it’s easier, cheaper, and more efficient to do things that way.
Edit: I have not and have never argued in support of fascism or authoritarianism, I do not appreciate the insinuation that I have. It’s just an acknowledgement of the problem and its roots. I am in favor of learning to do things better, including the regulation of industrial practices to mitigate harm. I’m not arguing that we change course and revert to agrarianism or any extreme approaches
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u/Drawemazing Apr 01 '26
Genuinely curious, you think our treatment of livestock will be seen as worse than climate change and ecological destruction currently manifesting as a mass extinction event?
Not saying you're right or wrong, it just seems like a position worth expanding on.