I downvoted this post as I don’t find this uplifting at all. I don’t eat meat, and I love my dog, but there’s no reason to single out dog meat consumption other than cultural norms and globalization. It seems like an unreasonable position for the South Korean government to have taken.
I’m interested, and I don’t know anything about South Korean meat production.
To be clear, I’m not arguing that people should eat dogs. I’m arguing that meat production tends to be horrific, and treating dogs any differently is ignoring some major issues in favor of human bias. I do know something about US factory farming, and it’s horrific: cruel to animals, environmentally unconscionable, and a social justice issue for humans working in and living near plants (for example, hog farms in North Carolina). I’m not sure how much worse dog farming could be. We just have more sympathy for them.
From what I’ve heard the dog meat industry is horrendous even by meat industry standards, and in many places it’s believed that if they suffer as they die it makes the dog meat taste better so they are often purposefully tortured and killed in a brutal fashion in order to make them suffer more. I don’t like any animals being mistreated in the meat industry even if they’re an animal provide food, but the dog meat industry is particularly bad.
In the attempt to seem intellectual, people say the craaaaaziest things. Is it that hard to believe that dogs are different from other animals, both domesticated and otherwise? I don’t even think you need to be an animal behaviourist to understand that some animals are much, MUCH more emotionally intelligent than others. Comparing a dog to a chicken or cow is just nuts to me.
There are countless studies proving the high emotional intelligence of dogs. People are conflating this with general intelligence with pigs. Sorry you’re being downvoted, you’re not wrong.
That was a good paper, but it inferred complex emotional capacity from things like “these herd animals feel comfortable in herds,” and “mother cows were distressed when separated from their calves”. It also says that in terms of cognition, they are less intelligent than pigs and goats. It’s a great summary, but not a smoking bullet. And I’m not sure what you believe about me, but I don’t think cows should be treated poorly. Just that dogs should be treated better.
Fair enough, I see your point and I do agree that dogs should be treated better, but more because of the fact that we bred them to be man’s best friend and I think we owe them as much. It seemed to me you were implying that they were incomparable, and I suppose we could have avoided some snarkiness if I hadn’t implied you were ignorant about cows, my apologies.
I’ve never really gotten the controversy on this one, the only real difference is dogs are the only primarily carnivorous mammal we as a species eat in any volume. Otherwise the problem appears to be mostly emotional, like I have a furball and I’d never eat him but I don’t have an emotional connection with the beef marinating in the fridge.
I’m actually surprised this is in uplifting news, unless outlawing meat consumption at all and enforcing veganism is uplifting. Which it might be to some people, but I like eating meat.
I’m eagerly awaiting lab-grown meat to become cheaper than slaughtered meat, though!
I would LOVE it if they had lab grown meat that could approximate real types of meat. I would stop eating slaughtered meat immediately and never go back.
“Breeding animals for consumption is fine, except this one.”
It is slightly odd how people are like, “cows? Gimme that burger. Sheep? Mmm, mint sauce. Chicken? Batter that baby up”. But then suddenly everyone turns into a vegan when it’s a dog or a horse.
I’ve got no interest in eating dog meat, but where’s the consistency?
I’ve got no counterpoint, but I had the same realization, and it has made me question not being vegan. I’m like 80% without trying, but also replacing eggs and cheese is difficult
I am firmly of the belief that most of the issues in the meat/dairy industry would be resolved if everyone simply consumed less of them as opposed to becoming vegan. That’s how I live my life and I’ve gotten praises from doctors and nutrition specialists about my diet. Exercise is another thing tho…
Right, that’s what I tell people too. I still eat fish on occasion, and if I order food to go and it’s accidentally meat, I will eat it to not waste it.
Have had a few relatives look at me blankly, like they’ve never considered it, when I tell them they don’t NEED to be vegetarian but reducing meat/dairy requires little effort. Sometimes they will send me pictures of the reduced meat meals they make now, which I think is so cute haha. Meat even just as a side dish and not the main course goes a long way :)
Me and my partner do this. We often eat vegan food but if we add a bit of cheese it doesn’t matter. We’ve still consumed way less meat and dairy than we would have a few years ago
I like to get eggs from my neighbors who have backyard chickens if they have extra. I can see them, know they’re not in pain, or mass produced :)
Cheese I still have no idea. Their isn’t anything easily available, like almond milk for dairy milk. The vegan ones I’ve tried (years ago) are gross and full of emulsifiers. Always striving/looking though.
There’s none, it’s based on what society tells you to feel empathy for. Dog eaters and corrida enjoyers are no different from people eating massively produced industrial chicken, they just live in an environment where it is normal to do that.
The base difference is that dogs evolved side by side with our species to develop and return emotional bonding and feedback with humans.
All other animals we managed to domesticate, at best, tolerate us or fear us. Cute little photos of cows and pigs enjoying being hugged and petted are exceptions, not norm.
I’ve been trying to understand, for years, what happened to turn dogs and cats food in asian countries (beside famines, hence desperation) but every single source I was ever able to find always gets muddled in exotheric notions of ”medicinal" use or some other folklore high tale.
For context: in Vietnam, cat meat is often served as being “little tiger”.
To the extent of my knowledge, the rest of the world never needed to wrap an animal in an exotheric tale to declare it as potential food.
This is an interesting angle. Makes me wonder, do we have a moral duty to reciprocate love and loyalty, or the potential for it? And if not, what basis can there be for treatment of human beings?
My concern is not morality and neither is that the issue here.
The animals we call farm animals today came from what are considered prey animals and the process of domestication was essentialy a process of reducing fear and wariness towards our species.
Dogs came to be from an apex predator that, we speculate, found advantageous to actively associate with our species for mutual benefit.
How can you tell this happened more to dogs and cats than any other domestic animal? Many people report farm animals to establish emotional bounding too, typically cows wanting to play and cuddle, way more than the average cat. Cows are also considered sacred by a notable percentage of humanity.
I’m pretty sure there are thousands of other examples of traditions providing tales about why some animal is eaten. One Christian example that comes to me is Easter lamb.
I think your point is still the cultural bias I talked about earlier.
Then let’s turn this on another angle: dogs came to be from a predator, and an apex one, capable and willing to prey on our species, unlike all other species we managed to domesticate.
Cats are not even domesticated, for all objective parameters. Cats are still predators, both potential and active. It is not without reason domestic cats are being viewed more and more as destructive for wild species.
I can go out on a leg and speculate these two species became viewed as food wrapped in myths, with tales of obtaining special powers or some other strange purpose besides avoiding death by lack of nourishment.
All other species we managed to tame came froma what are commonly considered prey animals and it was mostly a process of reducing the animals wariness to us.
Cows are considered a representation of one of the many indu gods and have a very unique status as such but are nonetheless still a source of food through the milk they provide.
Your examples are true and valid but I will insist those are exceptions and not norm. I live in a rural area and sheep, goats and cows are part of the landscape. The animals tolerate human presence, often understand it as a source of food and safety, but are wary, suspitious and generally keep their distance. Even pigs, that are considerably more inteligent than all farm animals don’t easily mingle with humans. But any dog, even a feral one, will approach us willingly.
A very welcome bonus to my job is going to places where usually other people won’t go and often find varying degrees of feral dogs. After the initial suspition, I find myself approached by the animals, observed, sniffed and “bothered” for pets and play. I wish I could do this with other animals but other animals avoid me and do their best to keep me as far away as possible.
Your remark on the lambs. The christian/jewish/islamic carried over the tradition from previous people. Sheep were often offerings towards supernatural entities but started as a resource/food source (wool and milk and finally meat).
I agree. The only counter I can think of is that for thousands of years most dogs have been bred as companions or workers. To me it feels like a violation of some ancient pact to slaughter them. I doubt this has much merit. Just a feeling I get.
Hey what can I say im not sure how else to descibe it. Its just a vibe. I understand that sparing one intelligent animal over another is completely arbitrary. I’m not trying to reconcile some dissonance either. I’ve eaten whale and horse in the past, and if I got really hungry Fido might end up on the menu too.
We domesticated a highly emotionally intelligent animal. Who cares if there’s “consistency”, if they were killed to make it consistent it wouldn’t be better.
Cows were domesticated for the explicit purpose of being livestock, not companions. I do think they are intelligent, but I don’t believe their emotional intelligence is higher than that of a dog. Dogs literally evolved(bred) eyebrows to facially emote. Having been around cows, and known many farmers with cows and dogs, their emotional intelligence isn’t as apparent. I am not trying to say cows don’t deserve compassion and rights, and frankly eating them is definitely immoral to some degree (yet I still do it). If we were feeding our livestock food scraps and not this corn eco-nightmare and humanely slaughtering, I dont think it would be. But dogs aren’t livestock and are clearly very social animals akin to our similarly protected animals like dolphins, whales, cats, etc. We make excuses for some cultures who are actually dependent on whales/seals etc because of actual longstanding tradition, sustainable harvesting practices, and somewhat humane (or at least no different from a predator/prey in nature), but we don’t need to make the same excuse for an industrial society not dependent on dogs and filled with nonsense about dog and cat meat’s healing properties
I guess for me, whatever difference in emotional intelligence a whale, dog, or cat has from a cow just isn’t enough to categorize them differently. For me it’s splitting hairs. I suspect it’s a symptom of working backwards to a solution from a problem. As a society we don’t like killing these animals. Why? Because we live more closely with them / enjoy their personality. Let’s call them emotionally intelligent and ban the consumption of meat from these types of animals.
Seems like an arbitrary definition arising out of an emotional response.
All this being said, I still eat meat. But I forced myself to come to terms with this, with as little guilt as possible. That helps me reduce and avoid my meat intake and support more alternative forms of protein. Something I think everybody could benefit from.
It’s not the emotional intelligence alone. It’s the result of dogs being bred for cohabitation/work, while the cow was livestock, which includes em int. It’s not splitting hairs, it’s genetics and evolution fueled by deliberate breeding.
You say I’m absurdly reductionist then follow up with an absurd reductionist statement like “all animals are not alike” Your cognitive dissonance is amazing.
It’s purely for a cheap optics win. President Yoon is a fascist incel that has been taking L after L, so he worked to ban dog meat despite almost nobody eating it except the absolute poorest of society. Dog meat isn’t a delicacy, it wasn’t something people ate because they saw it as high status, it was largely abandoned by an increasingly westernized South Korea, except for those who couldn’t afford anything else. Barely anyone was eating it.
Instead, it’s virtue signaling by a fascist looking to grab cheap publicity wins rather than actually making good systemic change. Dog meat wasn’t an especially pressing concern, it was an almost gone practice out of necessity, coming from food insecurity, especially during and after the Korean War.
TL;DR still a good thing, but ultimately just a publicity stunt to distract from the fascist President Yoon butchering the economy and targeting women, minorities, and disabled people.
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