I’ve had a certain debate a few times where you might say we argue over the “semantics” of the meat industry.
I am what you would call a vegetarian. While vegetarians won’t eat things that caused harm to produce, a vegan won’t eat anything having to do with an animal. A lot of those who would fall under the latter category hate us because they say anything that remotely resembles someone enjoying an animal product is supporting the meat industry which then kills animals, which means merely eating an animal product makes someone a murderer.
Meanwhile, there’s this concept many call piracy. It’s the idea that, as the meme proverbially puts it, “you can download a car”. The idea here, which I say in the way I do because there’s still an ongoing debate about it, is that it affects nobody. But then there’s the whole industry thing I mentioned. People on the other side of the debate often say “well what about the industry”. I’m not sure where on the scale in this topic you might put me, but I feel like there’s a glaring contradiction here. When it comes to animals, people think of the industry, but otherwise that’s not a factor.
My question is… why?
Vegans tend to be vegans because they care about the well being of animals that are generally considered unwilling participants in their industry… the cow didn’t apply to be a slaughter cow straight out of high-school… so, the meat industry exploits animals for profit.
Contrast that with the music/movie/video game industry… the first two have a well known track record of exploiting their creatives (look at the stories about Orange is the New Black residuals… or Prince) the latter is well known for exploiting QA testers and developers with grueling overtime. In all three of these industries the majority of money goes to fucking assholes at the top but the creative talent still gets paid and joined into the industry voluntarily.
I also think, if you’re young, then your friends may have all lived through the past blissful fifteen years of these industries being beaten down from their exploitation… Netflix, Steam, Spotify/iTunes etc… all have allowed consumers reasonably priced access to their products but the needle is shifting back towards piracy being more reasonable than just paying for things. It’s likely the next five years will see a strong uptick in piracy.
So, I don’t think the industries are entirely dissimilar in how they exploit talent, but the meat industry is completely involuntary.