It's not cruel to cause (ultimately) unnecessary suffering to an animal? And that's your opinion, remember. Not a fact.

You're focusing on one aspect of dairy farming when there are a number of ethically unsound practices such as stealing the babies from their mothers and killing them for beef, even if not veal. Or artificially inseminating mothers and forcefully impregnating them, selectively breeding them to overproduce milk which wrecks their bodies. And then killing them at the end of a life of extreme suffering, still at a relatively young age. It doesn't make a difference to the fact that they're cruel, and necessary parts of large scale dairy farming, which is unnecessary as a whole.

And yet, biologically, a cow makes milk for her calf, and the calf is healthiest and happiest when allowed to suckle their own mother's milk naturally. Just like a human doesn't produce milk intentionally, but they do allow their baby to have it, since that's what works best for them and helps to form a maternal bond and nurture the baby. All the same is true for cows.

What do you mean "it didn't work"? Of course I mean that if we as a society eliminated it, that would prevent all of the harms involved in it. That hasn't happened yet.

Biologically they produce it for their calves, the intended recipient. Just like a human woman produces milk for their babies. All mammals do the same thing. The only difference is humans take the milk from cows when their calves need it, not just for nutrition but for the nurturing as they naturally gravitate to their mother's udders. Calves are separated from their mothers by humans to stop them doing that and steal the milk from another species. There's nothing normal or acceptable about it

It's absolutely necessary to kill cattle for meat in the dairy industry. It would not be financially viable otherwise, and small-scale farms that try to avoid this practice can't provide enough dairy to feed the human population if they're consuming dairy; and they still involve other unavoidable cruelties inherent in taking the milk designed for calves, separating them and selectively breeding cows to overproduce milk, docking and debudding them, etc etc.

USDA is inherently biased toward animal farming, and the first source I linked was a scientific study. But I'm not necessarily denying what USDA says. Holding a bias doesn't automatically make something untrue. You didn't quote anything they said, you made some hasty calculations based on their statistics, which seemed to overlook the distinction between male calves and female calves. You used this to make a statement that I never disagreed with, because I was making a different one. (One could call that a strawman fallacy).

Humane League is an animal welfare organisation. Of course they're going to focus on the most ethically unsound aspects of animal farming, since that's their purpose, but nothing they said was false. They did acknowledge that some male calves in the dairy industry are raised for beef, but that most are killed for veal.

One I can think of is false dilemma/false dichotomy (a false premise that erroneously limits what options are available, and forces us to choose between 2 options (either cause unnecessary harm and waste the full usefulness of the harm, or cause unnecessary harm and maximise its usefulness) when there is a third option to not cause the unnecessary harm in the first place.

However that's more general and I was looking for something more specific that refers to assuming something is necessary because it's an unavoidable component of another thing which itself is unnecessary.

It's pronounced GIF (sounding out each letter), like in that 'If Google Was A Guy' CollegeHumor video. Just so that it doesn't annoy or antagonise anyone for a meaningless purpose. Everyone wins.

Thanks so much for that, I really appreciate it!

I hope this is alright to ask, but do you agree with why they removed the post? Or would there be a way to appeal a removal in a case like this, when the reason given for removal doesn't seem to reflect the content? It doesn't seem accurate to me at all.

The reason given was this, from moderator candyman337 who commented:

"Locking this thread because this question seems to be inviting people to express ideologies of eugenics and that's a big nono."

This mod's comment received 4 downvotes.

I suppose they removed it completely after that, and I was able to find a reason listed as "super toxic comments" (the comments don't seem toxic to me at all, but I suppose that's subjective).

But with regard to the eugenics reason... uhhh what? I read the comments and there is no discussion of eugenics, and my question posed in the post also didn't relate to or encourage discussion of eugenics at all.

I found one comment that mentioned eugenics and that's it, and it seemed to be deemed by others to be as unrelated to the topic as I found it, since this comment received 3 downvotes and was left with a score of -2:

"this is eugenicist propaganda."

The comment this 'eugenicist propaganda' comment was in response to:

"Just because you are made uncomfortable by a comparison does not invalidate it, nor should it be shunned unless it is factually incorrect. In many places the disabled and mentally ill are treated like animals or worse. Unfortunately alot of the world does not fall under our idea of "humane" and that should be recognized and utilized as a data point."

I fail to understand how that comment had anything to do with eugenics, and then shortly after the mod locked the thread saying that my question was encouraging discussions of eugenics, based on that one person's seemingly irrelevant comment.

This doesn't seem fair to me, and it makes me wonder if just one single person commenting "this is eugenicist propaganda" in response to something that has nothing to do with that, will cause the whole post to be locked or removed, regardless of the topic?

Something tells me this mod was just looking for any reason to take down the post due to personal gripes with it, but I'm not claiming I know that. The reason really doesn't make sense at all.

Sorry for the long comment and thanks again for the help!

Just out of interest, what if we make it a (not-human) animal instead of a human? Or, what if we make it trillions of animals every year. What about a world that doesn't require it but still includes mass amounts of animal sacrifice unnecessarily? That's the world we're in right now 😂

This show is very profound to me. It explores important issues, timeless and topical moral questions, and social/political dilemmas with such depth and thoughtful consideration. I really hope it gets a fourth season