Animal Agriculture As An Atrocity
Animal kill clock: https://animalclock.org
I believe that some day, humanity will look back at what we have done to animals as an atrocity, alongside other examples of war and genocide.
I believe that most people understand that animals can suffer and feel pain and do not want to die. The dominant ideology in our culture is to allow this harm anyway, for the sake of taste preferences and tradition.
Allow me to forecast, at the risk of erring. There is a chance that someday, the technology of lab-grown meat (and similar animal products) will advance sufficiently such that they will become cheaper than animal-originated products and taste nearly the same (or close enough that it hardly matters). If this happens, and lab-grown products become readily available, I would expect there to be a consumer shift towards these products. If there is a product that is cheaper and tastes the same (and hopefully is no more unhealthy than the originals), why would people not choose this option?
When it is easy to make this shift, I would also expect a significant proportion of the population to become more receptive to the ideas that animal activists have been voicing (that it is wrong to harm animals when unnecessary[1]). This will become a more popular mindset, especially because less people would be using animal products. It's easier to take a stance when you don't have to work hard to stop violating it.
Do I wish more people could open their eyes to AAAAA before it is (presuming my forecast above may ever come true) easier to do so? Of course I do. This is the work of the vegan activist. But social movements take time. Science/technology takes time.
Must I spell out the atrocity?
Various sources will show that globally, we kill 50-80 billion land animals every year for food. Each of these animals had an experience of life. They likely were extremely uncomfortable (and likely were brutalized) during their life and were likely killed much, much earlier than what their natural lifespan would be.[2]
Am I equating animal suffering/death to human suffering/death? No, I am not equating them. I would prevent a human genocide rather than prevent the mass killing of animals at a factory farm. But I would prefer to prevent both.