this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
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Animal husbandry is not an unique thing to humans only. I think it's incredibly arrogant to think we're so above nature we aren't part of it just like ants, rodents, deer or tigers or whatever are. We should strive for eating as few animal products we can since we're killing the planet with our over-consumption - and factory farming is a grotesque crime against nature. But some random siberian nomad with their reindeer is living way more sustainably than any vegan that's sitting on a computer and writing here is.
Farming always requires killing, even if it's just growing crops. Just controlling the rodent populations alone means either poison or cats. And the bigger the operations, the more you need to kill
Would you eat a human? Would you farm humans? Breed and raise them so you can eat them?
I wouldn't, but I wouldn't farm and eat whales, apes, crows, parrots or elephants for example either. Where's the threshold for what's intelligent enough not to eat? I don't know, but it's not a cuteness factor, I would farm and eat rabbits and I've kept pet rabbits and love them. Or I would eat a beloved horse that had to be put down, that's just the respectful thing to do. Would you require that the random siberian nomad leaves their lifestyle and gives up their culture, just because you'd deem them keeping and eating their reindeer worse than you eating crops that are killing millions of birds, insects and rodents? Considering all animals equal, they're still killing way less than we are
Though I also wouldn't eat humans because it increases the risk for prion diseases. Especially the brains should not be eaten
I'd eat humans. I'll gladly grill up some billionaires and have them with barbecue sauce. I think people with terminal diseases should have the option of signing a consent waiver to be eaten, with a strict prohibition on any sort of monetary transaction surrounding the meat. I was also really looking forward to Bite Labs' celebrity eats. I wanted a taste of some famous people's cloned meat.
But I wouldn't support farming of humans. If money is involved in the ending of people's lives, I'm not. And I think it's horrific to raise humans for eating. Same for any animal. The only form of animal agriculture I'm okay with is Aboriginal Australian animal agriculture. Before colonisation, the First Australians would use cold fire to terraform the ecosystem into an ideal habitat for grazing and eating. That's a form I'm okay with. The animals are free to go where they like, and live how they please until they're killed. There's no imprisonment or forced labour, no slavery. And the totem system ensures respect and sustainability.
I won't pass judgement on groups I haven't studied, but I'll say this: I'm dead sure there's no white tradition of farming animals for meat that I'm okay with. And I have yet to be told any tales of a culture whose animal agriculture can compare to the ethical standards set by the Australians. There are only two non-Aboriginal ways of using animals I've decided I'm okay with: Beekeeping, because bees can just fly away if the queen's wings aren't clipped. And hunting wild kangaroos, because they need to be hunted or culled or they'll overpopulate.
I see no problem with farming as long as the animals are kept (and killed) well, since having a safe life, with no parasites and fell fed, and then a quick death, is a lot better than most animals ever get in the wild. There's absolutely no need to keep and treat them as horridly as we do now for profit, you can just let them graze and be pretty naturally depending of the climate and all that, though in many places you have to have livestock guardian dogs at least with them so they don't get eaten by the wildlife.
That kangaroo hunting is very comparable to hunting in many places, since a lot of it is done because humans have erased natural predators and their numbers need to be controlled to prevent overpopulation. Killing for sport is not the reason for hunting everything everywhere else, though even trophy hunting can be done relatively ethically, since the locals can use the money to protect the species and the trophy hunters get to cull the ones that would be killed to keep the population healthy anyway.
And reindeer herding has some similarities to that aboriginal style, though the siberian nomad tribes don't stay in one place but herd the flock around in certain places depending on the time of the year, and the more stationary way is done for example up in Lapland. They release the reindeer in the nature and then herd some of them in one place only on certain times of the year. But on that more stationary way they lasso them and put markings to their ears, so I don't know would you be okay with that. And a lot of them get eaten by the wolves
I'll also add that "no white tradition" is a pretty vague assumption, since I do not know what does "white" include to you. For example the traditional way of keeping cows around here was pretty good since you'd keep them for milk foremost, and mostly the excess bulls and old cows only for meat. You'd just let them go graze in the morning and call them back for milking for the night, though they did have to stay inside all winter since it's so cold here, so maybe that alone would mean it doesn't count. And we finns weren't considered white in USA before 1908 so that way of keeping was done by "whites" only for some decades before the modernization took over anyway.
It's been done in a similar way in many places in Europe (especially the remote mountain areas), with sheep and milk cows at least. But maybe those require more herding than just calling them back, I haven't looked deeply into it