Last year, I wrote a great deal about the rise of “ventilation shutdown plus” (VSD+), a method being used to mass kill poultry birds on factory farms by sealing off the airflow inside barns and pumping in extreme heat using industrial-scale heaters, so that the animals die of heatstroke over the course of hours. It is one of the worst forms of cruelty being inflicted on animals in the US food system — the equivalent of roasting animals to death — and it’s been used to kill tens of millions of poultry birds during the current avian flu outbreak.
As of this summer, the most recent period for which data is available, more than 49 million birds, or over 80 percent of the depopulated total, were killed in culls that used VSD+ either alone or in combination with other methods, according to an analysis of USDA data by Gwendolen Reyes-Illg, a veterinary adviser to the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), an animal advocacy nonprofit. These mass killings, or “depopulations,” in the industry’s jargon, are paid for with public dollars through a USDA program that compensates livestock farmers for their losses.
I raise my own chickens. I love them very much. Some of them get eaten. I am very grateful to those. You don’t have to be a vegan to be a good person.
In their eyes you do.
Also a backyard chicken owner. My ladies live well
You don’t necessarily have to be vegan to be a good person. I’m sure your chickens wouldn’t miss an egg or two every once in a while. It is pretty fucked up to claim that you love them, but also kill and eat them sometimes. Like, I love my cat, and because of that the idea of putting her dead body in my mouth makes me feel sick.
“I love my chickens so much that I kill and eat them sometimes”
Remind me not to let you watch my dogs
Wow. I’m really fucking floored by y’all’s response. Where do you think your food comes from man? Seriously. I’m not being ugly, like you are, im trying to understand how you feel like you have less impact than I do. I am just able to take the responsibility for my own food
My food comes primarily from farms. I’m not saying I necessarily have less of an impact on anything than you, all I’m saying is that I don’t kill animals for food and I don’t pay for them to be killed.
You mocked me, man. It only hurts in the super small space that internet strangers can reach but it exists, regardless of how small. So. Bullshit.
I pointed out some cognitive dissonance. I care a little bit more about random animals’ lives than I do about random internet strangers’ feelings.
And while we are talking about cognitive dissonance, where the fuck do you think YOUR food comes from?
I already said farms. Who’s the dumb fuck here?
Go kill some more chickens and then claim to love them. Or maybe stop pretending you care about animals
Are you trolling me? Lol. I feel like im in the other end of some joke
I was being sarcastic you dumb fuck.
You should consider that the only way you will convince people to care more about random animals’ lives is if you care about strangers’ feelings. You don’t change minds by attacking someone, whether it be a personal attack or a lifestyle one.
If it makes you feel bad when people tell you that killing animals is wrong, then you should look into not killing animals. How am I supposed to try to convince you to stop eating meat if I have to set my morals aside and say “actually there’s nothing really wrong with eating meat, and you shouldn’t feel bad at all about it?”
You’re really missing the point, so I’m just going to let it go now. The amusing thing is that we’re on the same side, but you do fall into that latter group I described.
How are you supposed to win new friends when you turn off people who are already on your side? You need to look into your tactics if you want to be effective. I’m sure you disagree, but I would really encourage you to think about it.
You have to do this basically every time you want to convince someone, occupying their position better than they can occupy it themselves and still coming out with the correct opinion is part of being empathetic and mature. There’s not really any inherent or objective morality to whether or not raising and then killing your own chickens is good or not. Someone who’s really invested in the concept of ownership as a specific right is really not going to care about your own moral code of infringing on the chicken’s right to not be killed randomly. They’re just going to say that it’s their right to kill their chicken, and that’s that. It obviously has to become bigger than that, you have to give alternatives, spell out why their ideological position doesn’t really work out at scale, give out alternative perspectives, you have to be intellectually honest and give them ground when they push back.
If you just kind of, resorting to occupying your own position forever, and then calling out other people that violate that position, then you’re just gonna be kind of blindly hitting other people for reasons that they don’t fully understand, like what happens on the internet constantly. It’s maybe more self-affirming to be someone else’s ideological landmine, but I think it’s probably harmful overall, because it’s a selfish short-term gain that doesn’t see the bigger picture. It prioritizes your own self-affirmation over someone else’s ability to be emotionally vulnerable and open to new ideas. Your own morals should probably not preclude you from being nice to people that you see as bad or evil or dicks. But then that’s just my two cents, I dunno.
Where the fuck do you think meat comes from? Farms.
… I don’t eat meat.
Okay?
I’m genuinely confused about your comment. Why is it relevant that some farms produce meat? I don’t buy meat that’s produced at farms.
Are you suggesting that, because meat also comes from farms, buying meat is the exact same thing as buying vegetables from farms?
Because you made it a high horse statement to say that your food comes from farms. As though meat doesn’t also come from farms.
Do you kill them?
Yes. I do. I have a separate small flock. I feed my family a proportion of our food over half that I grow, rise, and make myself. It would be impossible with out the protein from the chickens. And before anyone says some dumb shit to me, you do the math of your monoculture grown vegan food and if you still think my overall footprint is greater than yours, you are wrong.
That must be really hard on you. I’ve killed animals before and that’s why I know I never want to be part of that and I never want to make anyone else do that for me. I know the statistics, people who kill animals are more likely to abuse drugs, self harm, hurt others, and commit suicide. When you kill animals you kill part of yourself. You have to, because our human instincts make us empathize with animals.
That’s why I’m vegan. I don’t pretend like consumer choices are going to save the environment - nothing either of us do as individuals matters on that front. I’m vegan because someone has to kill those animals and it fucks people up. Maybe you’re fine. I doubt it.
Seek help.
You are an insane person and a coward. You buy your food at a supermarket and are not able to comprehend the impact of your precious soy. As a matter of fact, your not even on my level really. You are probably a child. If you ever need help, call me.
Oh honey.
You’re not improving your argument by making inane and disparaging comments like this.
what would you think of a backyard farm where chickens are only killed once they’re dead? or, are only basically killed when they would otherwise die from old age in the next, say, 2 months, to just put a random number on it? would only be killed when they are diseased, have cancer etc. Cause we already do that with people a good amount of the time, assisted suicide, hospice, whatever.
also what do you think of if we just ate like old people
I’d honestly be okay if someone ate their 17 year old dog that they had to put down because she broke her hip or whatever; they lived a good and long life filled with love and were put down humanely. I think that’s weird as fuck and I sure as hell wouldn’t do it, but I don’t have a problem with it. I guess.
You have to realize how ridiculous the concept is, though, right?
Well yeah, it’s kind of ridiculous, but I wonder like. How much of that is cause we just don’t do it that often? It’s sort of like if you saw someone just fill up a cup with their spit and then drink the whole thing. It’s nasty, but is there anything really wrong with it? I don’t actually know, I don’t know anything about the biology and consumption of a large amount of spit, I imagine it has to be pretty alright since we’re mostly consuming spit all the time, but I don’t really know. Just an example, anyways.
Can I have dibs on your dog? Or, put another way, are you gonna finish that?
This comment was a rollercoaster ride. I don’t know how to feel. Maybe it’s time for me to go to sleep.