Long-term, we solve the problem of meat-eating with artificial protein, which also solves many other problems.
Medium-term, we work to end factory-farming, which needlessly increases the suffering of animals. (I don’t want to get into it because there are many experts here and I’m not one of them, but it may be arguable that an animal which is bred for food but gets to live a decent life in a field is better off than if it hadn’t been born because people didn’t need to eat it. However, in the case of factory-farming, such an argument seems totally untenable).
Short-term, we accept that we live in an imperfect world and that most people value saving human lives, even at the cost of animal lives. So we work to save human lives and improve health and improve quality of life, and instead of losing sleep over the calculation of the net impact on animals, we support the amazing organisations who are working to end factory-farming (like Farmkind) and to develop alternative protein (like GFI).
It’s valuable to discuss questions like this, and I absolutely do not claim to have a definitive answer—all I say is that when I think about this, that’s how I rationalise it.
This is where we need a broad perspective.
Long-term, we solve the problem of meat-eating with artificial protein, which also solves many other problems.
Medium-term, we work to end factory-farming, which needlessly increases the suffering of animals. (I don’t want to get into it because there are many experts here and I’m not one of them, but it may be arguable that an animal which is bred for food but gets to live a decent life in a field is better off than if it hadn’t been born because people didn’t need to eat it. However, in the case of factory-farming, such an argument seems totally untenable).
Short-term, we accept that we live in an imperfect world and that most people value saving human lives, even at the cost of animal lives. So we work to save human lives and improve health and improve quality of life, and instead of losing sleep over the calculation of the net impact on animals, we support the amazing organisations who are working to end factory-farming (like Farmkind) and to develop alternative protein (like GFI).
It’s valuable to discuss questions like this, and I absolutely do not claim to have a definitive answer—all I say is that when I think about this, that’s how I rationalise it.