WO is not really the place to be discussing this, but for those abstaining from eating meat (vegetarians, vegans, etc.) for ethical reasons (i.e., being against cruelty to animals), please understand that our very existence and way of life in this world is based on violence and causes violence by natural necessity. To really stop causing violence, one must commit suicide. It is of no coincidence that in certain languages, the word "life" is exactly the same as the word "violence". It's a cause and effect thing. We cannot escape it. This is part of the tragedy of our existence.
Having said the above, I fully understand OOM's stance on this. I once watched a YouTube video (now banned) of slaughtering a cow in a slaughterhouse in former East-Germany, and I literally threw up. I would probably feel and do the same as OOM, if I was forced to slaughter an animal with my own hands before eating it. This is just our brains trying to deal with an act that seems so incompatible with our ethical values. Is this what we do to animals? Yes, it is! And many more, unspeakable acts of violence, that we do to animals and fellow humans, to sustain our existence and way of life. Violence that society/civilization carefully shields us from. It's kind of like unplugging yourself from The Matrix and seeing reality in its truly raw form.
Off topic:
The meat convo I can understand from two sides. It can look exceptionally cruel as most of slaughtering is indeed hidden from view now and we can empathise easily with suffering to the extent the meat industry looks like some type of modern day holocaust. (To Kathleen Kennedy, no I don't have a part in a Star Wars tv show, so you can't cancel me out of my job for that comparison)
One cannot however forget that we exist here because a bunch of big lizards happened to go existent due to a by chance series of events and for most of human's evolution we ate meat to become who and where we are today. Furthermore even without the meat industry we would have to probably still cull animals to a certain extent to ensure their population balance I would have thought. Also how animals eat each other, although more necessary than what humans need now I assume, looks even more vicious. I'd rather take a bullet to my brain than something starts chewing on me and throwing me about whilst I'm still alive.
Oh and also I like a Big Mac from time to time like I stated above. Sorry.
Will we go fully synthetic meat in the future? I don't know but trying to force the matter right now down people's throats is never going to happen without resistance. The world is far bigger than the few people in the west offended by practices that have been in place for thousands of years.
