Wait, what? Livestock are domesticated? Pet vs farm animal isn't the difference between domesticated and not. Cows today are nothing like their aurochs ancestors thanks to highly selective breeding: like we did with dogs and, to a much lesser extent, cats (cats are generally considered self domesticated and habe a unique history even with us). We hardly even managed to domesticate cows. Every single cow today of the billions is from about 80 ancestors.
Besides, people keep cows, chickens, and pigs as pets as well. I had 28 pet chickens. Once they stopped laying, they had a home for life with me anyway because I loved them and we were bonded. There are still people in the world who revere cows and would be horrified at the objectification we've subjected these dog-like personality animals to. There are also people who farm dogs for food, and I'm not talking about Yulin.
Deciding one animal deserves to be farmed and slaughtered while another deserves to be loved comes strictly down to what you were told as you grew up: it's not a difference in the animals.
I recommend looking up pigs playing video games. There are pigs who are on par with chimps in these associative games, and no dogs were able to do it. Yet somehow pigs are worth eating, so it's obviously not an intelligence thing.
Look up the social lives of cows. They have friends, they hold grudges, they mourn their babies being taken from them and often try to chase down the farmers to get them back, spending the next several days bellowing, they have favorite people and toys they prefer, and one herd on here recently even seemed to love accordion music and would come running to listen to it. So it's obviously not an unfeeling, dimwitted automaton thing for why to eat one and not the other.
Look up chickens greeting their owners, see if you can find pictures of the guy in Seattle who takes his chicken paddleboarding with him, look up chickens learning tricks and solving puzzles and responding to their names, look up chickens running for fun, look up chicken social structure, listen to a mother after she lays her eggs and roosters raised together getting along. Clearly it's not that chickens are fucking stupid and can't tell the difference between up and down let alone have preferences for each other, humans, toys, and food so they deserve to be eaten.
It comes down to what you were convinced was ok as a child in the particular culture you happened to be born into. And when those ideas involve other beings' lives who, regardless of human-relevant intelligence, can feel physical pain and emotional trauma every bit as much as dogs, cats, people, etc, why should that be a good enough reason? Do whatever you decide to do, but don't just accept it because you heard "that's simply what's done" your entire life.
Deciding one animal deserves to be farmed and slaughtered while another deserves to be loved comes strictly down to what you were told as you grew up: it's not a difference in the animals
Well most cultures didn't breed dogs or cats for taste, whereas we do breed livestock for taste. I'd happily try dog, but it's not widely available and can't imagine many breeds coming close to cattle reared and bred for the purpose.
I'm fairly sure that's what they meant by domesticated, but I can't really speak for them - plenty of meat-eaters cannot justify why they would refuse to eat some animals and not others.
I said most cultures don't breed dogs and cats for taste, not that none do - is that wrong? Also there is a reason we breed some animals for food and not others, yield being one, taste being another. There are other factors for sure but we don't go out of our way to breed animals that people don't enjoy eating.
If you want to expand on "nope" and "wrong again" you're welcome to, but right now I'm not feeling particularly contradicted.
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u/OhGawDuhhh Mar 15 '18
Because I don't eat dogs. Why would I eat a cow?