this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2025
658 points (98.8% liked)
196
2892 readers
2803 users here now
Community Rules
You must post before you leave
Be nice. Assume others have good intent (within reason).
Block or ignore posts, comments, and users that irritate you in some way rather than engaging. Report if they are actually breaking community rules.
Use content warnings and/or mark as NSFW when appropriate. Most posts with content warnings likely need to be marked NSFW.
Most 196 posts are memes, shitposts, cute images, or even just recent things that happened, etc. There is no real theme, but try to avoid posts that are very inflammatory, offensive, very low quality, or very "off topic".
Bigotry is not allowed, this includes (but is not limited to): Homophobia, Transphobia, Racism, Sexism, Abelism, Classism, or discrimination based on things like Ethnicity, Nationality, Language, or Religion.
Avoid shilling for corporations, posting advertisements, or promoting exploitation of workers.
Proselytization, support, or defense of authoritarianism is not welcome. This includes but is not limited to: imperialism, nationalism, genocide denial, ethnic or racial supremacy, fascism, Nazism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, etc.
Avoid AI generated content.
Avoid misinformation.
Avoid incomprehensible posts.
No threats or personal attacks.
No spam.
Moderator Guidelines
Moderator Guidelines
- Don’t be mean to users. Be gentle or neutral.
- Most moderator actions which have a modlog message should include your username.
- When in doubt about whether or not a user is problematic, send them a DM.
- Don’t waste time debating/arguing with problematic users.
- Assume the best, but don’t tolerate sealioning/just asking questions/concern trolling.
- Ask another mod to take over cases you struggle with, if you get tired, or when things get personal.
- Ask the other mods for advice when things get complicated.
- Share everything you do in the mod matrix, both so several mods aren't unknowingly handling the same issues, but also so you can receive feedback on what you intend to do.
- Don't rush mod actions. If a case doesn't need to be handled right away, consider taking a short break before getting to it. This is to say, cool down and make room for feedback.
- Don’t perform too much moderation in the comments, except if you want a verdict to be public or to ask people to dial a convo down/stop. Single comment warnings are okay.
- Send users concise DMs about verdicts about them, such as bans etc, except in cases where it is clear we don’t want them at all, such as obvious transphobes. No need to notify someone they haven’t been banned of course.
- Explain to a user why their behavior is problematic and how it is distressing others rather than engage with whatever they are saying. Ask them to avoid this in the future and send them packing if they do not comply.
- First warn users, then temp ban them, then finally perma ban them when they break the rules or act inappropriately. Skip steps if necessary.
- Use neutral statements like “this statement can be considered transphobic” rather than “you are being transphobic”.
- No large decisions or actions without community input (polls or meta posts f.ex.).
- Large internal decisions (such as ousting a mod) might require a vote, needing more than 50% of the votes to pass. Also consider asking the community for feedback.
- Remember you are a voluntary moderator. You don’t get paid. Take a break when you need one. Perhaps ask another moderator to step in if necessary.
founded 2 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'm curious what would happen to all the cattle. We'd only need a tiny fraction. So would some actually be released into the wild? Would probably be hard on them. Many would probably be slaughtered to sell off as "the last real meat".
They would be killed, plain and simple. But that's their fate anyway and in this scenario, at least we'd stop breeding more of them.
It's sad to think about, but we've bred most of these animals to a point where their very existance includes suffering and their only path in nature would be extinction.
If some of them were simply allowed to roam free on some of the no longer needed land used for grazing they would live and recover for the most part. Animals, even domesticated ones, still have the insticts to survive and while they would struggle at first, each generation would filter out the negative traits of domestication until a healthy population is left.
Yes, this is even true for livestock. A few aggressive bulls being around the herd instead of separated will be a defense against a lot of predators, just like in wild cattle herds.
No, cows are far too domesticated to have a decent go of it in the wild. They depend on things like antibiotics and vitamins and constant vet maintenance to survive. They'd be pretty fucked in short order and until then they'd wreak havoc on native ecology.
They really don't as a total population though, that is more about keeping them healthy while they are forced to grow faster than they did before farming. They only need vitamins when they are force fed grain that bulks them out with few nutrients.
It would require thousands for a diverse enough genetic population and maybe some protection from poachers, but even beef and dairy cattle could be as successful as the Yellowstone bison. There just needs to be enough for them to reproduce enough to overcome the initially high rate of death.
Fair points all around in your first paragraph. But the question remains... Why would we want to maintain a herd of large, non-native, probably ecologically destructive, post-domesticated animals in the wild? Seems like a very poor choice, and a treatment we've repeatedly failed to extend to most native species.
We wouldn't necessarily want to release all of the domesticated animals, but we have lost a lot of native ecology and some of them could fill those missing niches. Like cattle could replace bison if we didn't expand the bison herds, because large grazers is a niche and we already destroyed that niche in North America. We wouldn't need to release turkeys since we still have wild turkeys. Chickens and pigs could probably go away too, since I'm pretty sure both are invasive.
But the mindset of them all just dying out in the wild is important to dispel, both because it is a bad justification to wipe them out by itself and a dangerous assumption for people that might want to keep some around as pets, not realizing they have a high chance of surviving if they run wild.
I don’t know how many factory-farmed animals can even live without human intervention. Sadly, they’ve been so selectively bred I’m not sure that living in the wild is an option anymore.
Pigs thrive when they get loose. Feral horses have successfully started breeding populations multiple times. Chickens frequently roam free on non-factory farms and just stick around for the easy food, but can find more on their own.
They'd be slaughtered right on schedule and just not replaced. It'd be like when cars took over for horses.
Um the same thing would happen to them that already happens to them: They'd be killed within a few years for people to eat. The only difference is that they wouldn't be forcibly inseminated to have more babies. I must say though, yours is not at all the first time I've heard someone ponder this and the confusion over the scenario always baffles me. You know that we raise cows specifically to kill them and we have complete control over how many are born, yea? No they wouldn't wander aimless into the ecosystem, they'd stay on the farm until slaughtered and we just wouldn't raise more of them.
But I bet some environmental groups would try to get them released. Other environmental groups would protest against lab meat for being "unnatural". Many farmers will protest and want to be compensated for lost income. Some farmers would take pity on their animals.
And of course it wouldn't happen over a year but it would take longer for lab production to ramp up and the prices will gradually decrease. And all this time all the different groups with different interests would voice their grievances. And some governments would pass laws to free some cows, some would compensate or subsidise farmers.
I'm pretty certain that it will be a complicated process. Maybe kinda similar to electric cars. With ethical implications beyond climate impact on top.
There would still be a market for "authentic, grass-fed" meat. It would become the fancy stuff, despite not tasting any different. There will also be a market for milk.