It's not about eating, it's about how we are treating them while they are alive.
There are rules, for instance, about how you can transport cows.
Sadly, in the UK, the transport network (both tube and trains) often (during the hot summer days) provide conditions for human transport that are inferior to the minimum legal requirements for cows.
> Sadly, in the UK, the transport network (both tube and trains) often (during the hot summer days) provide conditions for human transport that are inferior to the minimum legal requirements for cows.
Well, cows can't decide 'this transport is going to be uncomfortable or possibly dangerous, but I really want to go to the other place, so I'll deal with it'. Would you rather have uncomfortable, possibly dangerous transport or no transport? Yes, you'd rather have comfortable, unlikely to be dangerous transport, but that doesn't seem to be something the transportation network is able to offer.
I think your argument falls short when we consider the compulsion that drives most onto these metaphorical cattle trucks at rush hour in the first place.
The employment industry in our prevailing economic structure demands punctuality, often through crowded, uncomfortable and frankly, degrading means of transportation. This perceived "choice" is not a luxury but an enforced necessity, much like the bovine passenger being shipped off to slaughter, with the only distinction being, we humans "chose" this.
One could argue that the transportation network isn't able to offer comfortable and safe transit, yet it is more a matter of priorities than abilities. The ability to provide such transport exists, but the political and economic will, sadly is not in abundance.
Is it not curious that a society which can show empathy for the transportation of its livestock struggles to extend the same basic courtesy to its own kind? After all, are we not more than just cattle to the abattoir of capitalism?
Am I missing something or did I actually just stumble across a conversation where people are seriously comparing being put in a steel box on the way to being murdered in a slaughterhouse to suffering the indignity of riding in a crowded transit car on the way to work, because holy fuck.
At least the cows only travel like that once.
With more and more London companies pushing to "return to office", the "choice" is taken away from humans - if they want to be able to pay their bills that is.
