The documentary, and "animal welfare" in general, is not about abstaining from meat or anything on the demand side. Rather, it is a supply side effort intended to (and only to) reduce suffering before an inevitable and necessary death. Indeed the supply (and profitability) of animal products would necessarily go up, because the improved conditions would result in more animals surviving to slaughter.

We meet Temple Grandin, who designed slaughter techniques to minimize animal suffering. Grandin did more to reduce animal suffering than almost anyone else alive. But Grandin’s attitude is puzzling—while she acknowledges that many welfare issues on the farms remain, she describes farms as pretty good. When Jack asks her about the conditions of broiler chickens, she declines to answer. She describes the life of a crated pregnant pig as being like having to spend the entire duration of your pregnancy in an airline seat, without ever being able to go into the aisles. Yet she sees this as a cause for tweaks at the margins, to make things less cruel, rather than a reason to swear off meat entirely. Grandin is not vegan.

Grandin should be viewed as the ultimate Animal Welfare hero, and all Animal Welfare advocates should aspire to model her: reduce animal suffering, not being vegan be damned! Why judge her by an absent standard?

This reminds me of an interaction between Jack and his father in the documentary:

Jack: Well, but if I'm dedicating my life to a problem that you don't even think exists, then surely you think I'm being a bit silly or naive.

Dad: I think maybe. Yes. Uh, it's a case of which side of the fence you're on. If you think it's wrong for animals to be killed, that's fair enough.

Jack: What if the position is just I don't think animals should suffer.

Jack's statement here is not very "vegan" either...

Thoughts?

-The Dub-meister

This Daily Show 'bit' will not surely increase concerns and donations for shrimp. People are unlikely to believe that the shrimp welfare project is even real.

Chieng: So you decided to dedicate all your time and money into saving the lives of shrimp...
Zorrilla: Not quite. We're actually working to reduce the suffering when they die...
Chieng: So after all your work is done, they still die?
Zorrilla: Yes, less painfully.
Chieng: How did you make this even stupider?

Chieng has made an excellent and arguably bulletproof observation with his rhetorical question.

Even if the numbers of shrimp being killed is larger than fish, chickens, cows, pigs, the idea that skipping over the effort to prevent their death and focusing on reducing their suffering when they die does not have any merit.

The simple thought experiment is: you are a shrimp. A human with a dollar is nearby. Do you, as a shrimp, want the person to spend that dollar on possibly preventing your death? Or do you, as a shrimp, want that person to instead spend that dollar to possibly make you suffer less when you die?

What we have here is that the person who cares is making and funding a machine for not preventing death, but rather, funding a machine to reduce suffering before an inevitable death.

What am I missing, @Andres Jimenez Zorrilla 🔸 ?

Zachary,

Actually, in a word...Hinduism. 

78% of India is Hindu, which explains why 40% of Indians are vegetarian.

And yes, that brings (some) ethical differences.

India's reasons for being highly vegetarian are not going to be easily transferrable to other countries.

Nor would that be desirable...India is the world's largest consumer of dairy, and the world's second largest consumer of eggs.

Egg Consumption by Country 2026

Milk Consumption by Country 2026

What is the number of dollars used towards cage-free corporate campaigns in the time range 2015-2024? I'd like to know how many chickens' lives have been improved, relative to the total number of chickens -- is it 10%, 1%, or a different number...