What’s the conventional wisdom as to why this is so bad, but eating meat basically gets a pass? Like, meat offers sustenance, yes, but it’s by no means required. So basically, humans eat meat because it tastes really good — it’s great “culinary entertainment.”
This is a different kind of entertainment, but it’s deeply offensive to many folks. I’m not trying to be a dick about it, just curious why this is seen as such a sin.
Is it that these animals weren’t “supposed” to be killed? Would a movie about a beef cow who ends up getting slaughtered, both onscreen and IRL, be seen as better? Worse?
Broadly, people are not ok with animals being mistreated. An animal that is raised in safe, comfortable conditions and then killed painlessly is not mistreated by the standards of many people.
Abusing a puppy and kitten to make a film is absolutely mistreatment, hence the different reaction.
I’m not trying to be a dick about it
Doubt. “Just asking questions” is so often a deliberate dick move.
safe, comfortable conditions and then killed painlessly
Do you even think this is real
Knowing some farmers personally, yes, yes it is real
Do they know exactly what happens at the slaughterhouse or are they doing it themselves?
The farmers I know go through a handful of local butcher shops to handle everything from that point forwards. The butcher gets high quality meat to sell and the farmer doesn’t have to deal with the parts of the process that aren’t part of their skillset or that they otherwise don’t want to handle. So while they aren’t part of the killing and butchering process, they are confident in their trust of the individuals and small businesses they rely on for it
From what I’ve seen and learned, small businesses and small farms have the capability to handle the process of breeding and nurturing their stock for processing into the cuts of meat we buy at the store in a humane manner, but very large farms and very large meat processing operations every individual is simply too disconnected from the full process to ensure every step is as humane as it should be.
Ultimately this is why we need to greatly expand the USDA to ensure every step of the process of our food being brought to our plates is as humane and safe as possible. The USDA already has full time inspectors who work at meat processing plants full time to ensure everything is safe and by the book, with the power to pause operations at any moment if they see a problem, but this needs to be expanded. We need USDA and FDA inspections to be frequent and thorough at every food processing facility in the country. Farms that product stock for these facilities need to be regularly audited. The erosion of the FDA and USDA is part of why there’s been so many salmonella outbreaks and food recalls in recent years
Werner Herzog boiled 11000 living rats in ink for Nosferatu.
Dutch behavioral biologist Maarten 't Hart, hired by Herzog for his expertise with laboratory rats, revealed that, after witnessing the inhumane way in which the rats were treated, he no longer wished to cooperate. Apart from traveling conditions that were so poor that the rats, imported from Hungary, had started to eat each other upon arrival in the Netherlands, Herzog insisted the plain white rats be dyed gray. To do so, according to 't Hart, the cages containing the rats needed to be submerged in boiling water for several seconds, causing another half of them to die. The surviving rats proceeded to lick themselves clean of the dye immediately, as 't Hart had predicted they would.
Holy shit.
