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[Bauglir]

I don't think it's unreasonable to bring up consent, because it's not the sole element of an act's morality. It's one of many elements that go into working out exactly what a given act means. Consent is the difference between rape and one of the most pleasant things a human can experience, yeah. But applied to death, it's the difference between murder and a heroic sacrifice*, and both of those are considered bad things to have to happen, even if the latter can be said to be worth it.

There certainly is a lot of hypocrisy in how we treat entities that can consent**, but I feel like the meat industry is not hypocritical, even given an opposition to zoophilia, at least if the industry is compliant with the standards we've been talking about. Those standards are basically a claim that there are acceptable ways to kill an animal for its resources, but no acceptable way to abuse an animal (that is to say, cause unnecessary harm). The protracted suffering of nonconsensual sex and the payoff of orgasms, vs the fast and nearly-painless suffering of slaughter and the payoff of all the animal products, seems to me to create a very large gulf between the two scenarios.

The argument doesn't extend to humans because humans are assumed to be so valuable that murder is never worth that payoff, no matter how humane. Essentially, it seems like the claim is that the mind's inherent value is distinct from the value of the pain it can feel. The ratio of the former to the latter is assumed to be much lower in cows than in humans. If you don't buy that, then you won't agree with the conclusion, but it's still an internally consistent one.

*There's also suicide, which is the equivalent of masturbation in this analogy, and I'll admit that consent is crucial in that one.
**While I agree with most of your examples, the concentration camp thing is kind of odd. The people in the camps usually don't consent.

EDIT: tl;dr version. I think it's okay to say, "You can kill animals for resources, just don't be a dick about it." Zoophilia often falls in the category of "being a dick".

[MetalSlimeHunt]

What's porc?

Pig. Swine. Pork. Porc.

I know what pork is, but but I didn't know what porc was. Or if there was a difference, or that porc was a real word.

It is. It's French though. If only English could be consistent while stealing other nations vocabulary.

You can't create a global language without breaking a few consonant sounds. I do wonder what English will be like after it's engulfed everything, since all signs point to its spread being unstoppable.

[10ebbor10]

I doubt a unified language will survive. We might get a situation similar to modern day Chinese; were the same writings can be read in a few different languages.

So there'll be no unified sound of English, just a hundred variants.

[scriver]

... huh. I wasn't aware of any countries that have made blanket hunting bans. Got a list?

Hunting, in any country that is progressive in regards to animal rights, require the hunter to at least aim for the head or to make a lethal shot. If it could be proven that a hunter consequently strives for causing prolonged suffering in his prey, he could be prosecuted for animal abuse. That it would be hard be hard to prove is beyond the question.

You're not allowed to violently murder animals in progressive countries.

interesting.

or is that not violent enough for your personal taste?

No progressive country allows ritual slaughter like that of kosher or halal. If a country allows it, it is not a progressive country when it comes to animal rights.

And regardless, killing animals is necessary for the procuring of meat, which, as you very well know, is one of our main sources for protein, which we need to live. Our want for food outweighs the ending of the animals' life (and - as said - any progressive country demands the suffering of the animals to be kept to a minimum). Harming animals is not even necessary for the zoophiliac to get an orgasm, he can literally take that matter into his own hands. His want to fuck them does not outweigh the harm done to the animals.

You're not allowed to violently murder animals in progressive countries.

You've never seen the inside of a slaughterhouse I take it?  Or what they do to all the male chicks in egg farms?

And here you're faced with the terrible realisation that your country might not be a particularly progressive one.

You can violently murder them, skin them, and consume their flesh, without people batting an eyelash or asking if they want to be murdered, skinned, and ate (not that that would matter, as the laws generally disallow that even with consent, iirc), but frisky times come up and suddenly everyone's in jail. Consistency!

I'unno, it does sort of fit in with the general western trend of sex somehow being exponentially worse than violence...

This is an American trend, not a "general western" one.

[Darvi]

I'm not American...

[Helgoland]

scriver, by your definitions no country is progressive, making 'progressive' a useless word...
One thing that I noticed: We all seem to take for granted that zoophilia hurts the animal. Is that necessarily the case?

[10ebbor10]

@Scriver: Can we get an example of a progressive country. Because the goalposts are rapidly accelerating now, and soon there might be no countries left.

scriver, by your definitions no country is progressive, making 'progressive' a useless word...
One thing that I noticed: We all seem to take for granted that zoophilia hurts the animal. Is that necessarily the case?

Legally, yes. Technically, I wouldn't know.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Scriver, I'm with you on ritual slaughter being bad, but we all know what you really mean by "progressive country". You're describing Swedish law almost verbatim.

[Bauglir]

To be fair, we could probably manage without meat, even on a worldwide scale. If we were arguing against meat, then you could make a pretty convincing argument based on grain-and-beans as protein sources, considering the relative energy and farming costs. Of course, you'd have to contend with other convincing arguments about things that could hypothetically skew the balance toward meat. But I think we're going into this assuming that meat is okay? Because getting two tangents removed from the original question is maybe too much.

[Shakerag]

And here you're faced with the terrible realisation that your country might not be a particularly progressive one.

Tell me something new.

[RedKing]

But a progressive country also respects and protects the religious and cultural traditions of its minorities, does it not? Banning kosher/halal slaughter could be seen as religious persecution.

[10ebbor10]

But a progressive country also respects and protects the religious and cultural traditions of its minorities, does it not? Banning kosher/halal slaughter could be seen as religious persecution.

It certainly will be seen.

The fact that animal welfare activists like to draw references to the Holocaust, and that the Nazi regime also forbid ritual slaughter aren't helping much.

Additionally, there's not much proof that ritual slaughter is actually that inhumane. A properly executed procedure results in rapid unconsciousness and death within the minute (With certain governments implementing laws that require stunning if death doesn't happen soon enough. Stunned animals are no longer kosher/halal though.) Also, according to some unsourced/proritual slaughter documents I found on Wikipedia, prestunning fails 10% of the time.

[SealyStar]

Healthy food is racist.

What is this, The Social Justice Times?

[Frumple]

Hunting, in any country that is progressive in regards to animal rights, require the hunter to at least aim for the head or to make a lethal shot.

So, uh. You're saying it wouldn't be violent murder if you killed a human with a head or otherwise lethal shot? Just to, like. Make sure I'm reading that right?

[10ebbor10]

I don't think it's unreasonable to bring up consent, because it's not the sole element of an act's morality. It's one of many elements that go into working out exactly what a given act means. Consent is the difference between rape and one of the most pleasant things a human can experience, yeah. But applied to death, it's the difference between murder and a heroic sacrifice*, and both of those are considered bad things to have to happen, even if the latter can be said to be worth it.

There certainly is a lot of hypocrisy in how we treat entities that can consent**, but I feel like the meat industry is not hypocritical, even given an opposition to zoophilia, at least if the industry is compliant with the standards we've been talking about. Those standards are basically a claim that there are acceptable ways to kill an animal for its resources, but no acceptable way to abuse an animal (that is to say, cause unnecessary harm). The protracted suffering of nonconsensual sex and the payoff of orgasms, vs the fast and nearly-painless suffering of slaughter and the payoff of all the animal products, seems to me to create a very large gulf between the two scenarios.

The argument doesn't extend to humans because humans are assumed to be so valuable that murder is never worth that payoff, no matter how humane. Essentially, it seems like the claim is that the mind's inherent value is distinct from the value of the pain it can feel. The ratio of the former to the latter is assumed to be much lower in cows than in humans. If you don't buy that, then you won't agree with the conclusion, but it's still an internally consistent one.