Option 2 is fairly realistic for several species we keep in captivity when care is taken during the raising of the animal - ethical sourcing, exactly as the root comment of this thread mentioned. Is it going to be perfect? No, but it's a life, and they live it.
I eat meat. I also go out of my way to pay more for meat that's been raised in conditions that aren't the bare minimum we can do.
Now let's talk more seriously about this part:
>It also ignores that, in your parallel, we are the aliens. The aliens could make an option 3:: don't eat humans. And all they lose is something they find tasty.
Because honestly - I think you're taking a complete cop out here, and I think you basically stuck your fingers in your ears and went "nah nah nah nah" when reading the two options.
We aren't just raising those animals because they're tasty, and if we stopped they could go back to live in never-never land and be happy and healthy and independent.
We're allocating resources to their care because it's an efficient way to use those resources compared to the benefit we derive from those animals.
When we don't raise animals like this - historically, in EVERY fucking case since we left the hunter-gatherer stage, we destroy their habitat and repurpose it for something else - usually something that makes it inhospitable to those animals. We burn it down to clear it for crops. We pour concrete over it to make our homes. We hunt those animals not because we might eat them, but because they might harm us inadvertently, or bring disease into our communities, or harm our crops.
This is not a fairly tale - resource allocation is a real thing. If we don't allocate resources to raising livestock - we sure as fuck aren't going to leave those resources lying there for those same animals living outside captivity. We're going to allocate them to something else.
Basically - we're competing with those animals, and livestock is a form of mutualism that benefits both sides (arguably - us far more than the animals, but mutualism is hardly ever equal). We make sure they get food, water, shelter, space. We use their output - whether that's their labor, their hide, their meat, their milk, etc.
Side note - we do the same fucking thing with other humans, by the way. We just structure that mutualism in a different form.
I eat meat. I also go out of my way to pay more for meat that's been raised in conditions that aren't the bare minimum we can do.
Now let's talk more seriously about this part:
>It also ignores that, in your parallel, we are the aliens. The aliens could make an option 3:: don't eat humans. And all they lose is something they find tasty.
Because honestly - I think you're taking a complete cop out here, and I think you basically stuck your fingers in your ears and went "nah nah nah nah" when reading the two options.
We aren't just raising those animals because they're tasty, and if we stopped they could go back to live in never-never land and be happy and healthy and independent.
We're allocating resources to their care because it's an efficient way to use those resources compared to the benefit we derive from those animals.
When we don't raise animals like this - historically, in EVERY fucking case since we left the hunter-gatherer stage, we destroy their habitat and repurpose it for something else - usually something that makes it inhospitable to those animals. We burn it down to clear it for crops. We pour concrete over it to make our homes. We hunt those animals not because we might eat them, but because they might harm us inadvertently, or bring disease into our communities, or harm our crops.
This is not a fairly tale - resource allocation is a real thing. If we don't allocate resources to raising livestock - we sure as fuck aren't going to leave those resources lying there for those same animals living outside captivity. We're going to allocate them to something else.
Basically - we're competing with those animals, and livestock is a form of mutualism that benefits both sides (arguably - us far more than the animals, but mutualism is hardly ever equal). We make sure they get food, water, shelter, space. We use their output - whether that's their labor, their hide, their meat, their milk, etc.
Side note - we do the same fucking thing with other humans, by the way. We just structure that mutualism in a different form.