• I’d recommend not judging others based on merit. I for one have an eating disorder which makes it really difficult for me to eat, let alone enjoy most vegetables or meat alternatives. So yes, meat pretty much is a necessity for me, even if I would like to eat less of it. So does that make me a killer, doing it to enjoy my freetime or make a profit? Or does that mean I’m just trying to live my life without starving?

        • There is very much a problem with a lot of people simply refusing to accept what butchering actually entails.

          There was a public experiment done by a reputable German science magazine where they asked a farmer to set up a stand for freshly butchered geese at a nearby city’s outdoor market. The catch was that the geese were still alive and they’d be killed and butchered at the location. So many people reacted with outrage, and in the end only one goose got slaughtered, because the buyers themselves were more than aware of the butchering process. The rest of the geese were rescued by an animal rights advocate who bought them all to be kept at a rescue farm.

          Here’s the video, obviously fully in German, but you can see pedestrian reactions: https://youtu.be/9AXt-6mAVEo

          • And yet almost everyone I’ve ever shown slaughterhouse footage to did not change at all.

            I think that has more to do with being seen to do a thing or not. Nobody is actually stupid enough to just forget what is involved from one moment to the next.

            • I think a big difference is how seeing it happen in real life is much more impactful than on a video.

              I grew up around butchering animals, and even got to visit a nearby family-owned slaughterhouse on occasion, for me slaughtering and butchering animals is something that I’m much more aware of due to these experiences, I’ve even been taught how to slaughter animals, and though I would never advocate to have everyone who wishes to eat meat slaughter an animal themselves, I think it’s absolutely important to see the process in person and not just on video.

              Something that happens a lot in my experience is that specific animal parts are considered “gross”, entrails and such are usually the most common parts considered as such. That’s probably the easiest way to figure out if someone is aware of what butchering means or not, no, considering them gross is not directly a problem, but going all “eek” and stuff is a great way of telling me that the other person is ignorant of the meat industry.

    • There is a difference between wanting food you think is delicious and killing something for that reason and taking pleasure in the process of killing something. In one scenario the killing is a necessary evil in the other it’s the whole point of the process.

      Aside from that the fact that so many people do pay “hitmen” should tell you that they do not enjoy the killing part, because otherwise they’d do it themselves.

      • There’s a difference between wanting to feel pleasure at the result of killing someone and wanting to feel pleasure over the result of killing them?

        How is a meal different to a trophy or a photograph? Or even just the memory of the killing.

        • There’s a difference between wanting to feel pleasure at the result of killing someone and wanting to feel pleasure over the result of killing them?

          I’m not sure what the difference between those two options is. But those aren’t the two options I was talking about. There are people that enjoy the process of killing things. There are people that like to eat dead animals but do not enjoy the process of killing the animal. Those are two different things in my mind.