cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27622066

And yet, unhitched from the menial task of transportation, the average horse today enjoys a far better quality of life than the average pre-car horse. Why? Horse girls. You see, now that the market demand for horses is no longer based on actual horsepower, horses can render the service of “just being themselves” for those who appreciate that most (in much more forgiving circumstances). In this way, horses truly are forever… and the real losers really are mankind. And its machines. In this essay, I will

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      57·
      1 day ago

      It’s questionable whether horses would still exist for any other purpose considering we created them and brought them around the world. The only untouched wild horse left in existence is Przewalski’s horse from Central Asia, and some reintroduced/invasive NA wild mustangs.

      Without animal husbandry they would probably be about as rare as buffalo, currently only 500,000 and at one point only a confirmed 325 existed.

      The way I see it, horses currently have it pretty good on average with wide spaces, very little work to do, and they tend to live full lives as they’re not usually bred for meat. Probably happier than the average human.

      • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.caEnglish
        61·
        10 hours ago

        That is not a justification for their abuse and subjugation. You wouldn’t make that argument about an enslaved race of humans.

        • TimewornTraveler@lemm.eeEnglish
          31·
          9 hours ago

          imagine someone killing a whole neighborhood and enslaving the survivors and when the resistance says “we don’t exist to serve you” they replied “um actually you’d be dead without us”

            • TimewornTraveler@lemm.eeEnglish
              11·
              4 hours ago

              point missed, metaphors discovered. just don’t overlook the dissonance in the fact that horses being incapable of organizing a resistance is another point against the ethics of enslaving them

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          21·
          8 hours ago

          Horses are not human. They are entirely different beings from us which require our understanding and not just our empathy, if you imagine yourself living like a horse then you’ve failed the assignment.

          I said they were probably happy having humans feed them, cloth them, clean up their shit, mani/pedi, brush them, and let them run around big open fields. That is justification.

          Horses that Humans created are symbiotic.

      • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.netEnglish
        52·
        1 day ago

        The steady march of human-driven extinctions is a terrible argument for forcibly breeding a population into the hundreds of millions for the express purpose of manual labor until death. That’s like reading I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream and being on the side of the malicious AI because it’s keeping a half dozen people alive specifically to torture them. Also living things don’t need a “purpose” merely to be alive, this is a capitalist delusion.

          • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.caEnglish
            31·
            10 hours ago

            Your point genuinely escapes me. I think you are just engaging in distraction, and I think it is you that you are trying to distract.

            • TimewornTraveler@lemm.eeEnglish
              21·
              9 hours ago

              it’s exactly that. People cant handle the cognitive dissonance in the fact that modern treatment of domesticated animals is utterly unethical.

              if you fully accept that you’re contributing to the suffering of millions by participating in the meat and dairy industries, you have to be able to live with that. I understand that it’s one of the shittier things i do. maybe I should hate myself but i dont, I’m human and complicated like everyone else, and I dont need to tell myself that all my actions are morally good. maybe one day ill quit various things, like murder and smoking

          • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.netEnglish
            41·
            1 day ago

            I guess more generally it is a hierarchical delusion, since it’s hierarchy that demands purpose from it’s subordinates, capitalism is just the specific hierarchy at play here.