vegan

"Commodification" here refers to viewing animals as property, resources, or objects for human benefit—not just in a capitalist sense, but as a fundamental mindset that reduces sentient beings to objects or things to be used.

this makes more sense to me, ty!

Framing this as a non-sanctuary scenario makes it worse, not better. Where do these backyard chickens come from? Almost certainly a breeder or farm that exploits them as egg-laying machines, meaning their very existence is rooted in commodification. The act of keeping them for eggs (even "kindly") reinforces the idea that animals exist to serve humans.

again this scenario is really only intellectual masturbation for the most part, the vast majority of animal agriculture is subject to factory farming conditions or at the very least subject to market forces and the ethics of keeping a chicken in your backyard really does not matter for the vast majority of humanity, so to me bringing in where these eggs come from in today's world doesnt matter for the purposes of this convo. like, pretend i am tony stark and have easy access to cloning equipment and i stumble upon a chicken who escaped a coop, to me that isnt all that far off of the ethics of having a backyward chicken coop lol.

Nobody considers exploiting tarantulas for their eggs because they’re not culturally conditioned to see them as commodities (at least for that purpose). Veganism seeks to extend that baseline respect to all animals, rejecting the idea that chickens (or their eggs) are exceptions.

i think i get what you're trying to say here but this is a particularly poor argument for it (i believe this is the whole line of argumentation where you press a non-vegan why they get upset over dog meat and not cow meat no?). nobody considers exploiting tarantulas (or any other animal if we're being honest, again vast majority of people interact with meat only in the context of factory farms or restaurants at best) because they have been completely separated from the production of food, and those relative few arent isolated already know what the market wants.

Regarding roadkill: You’re dodging the core analogy. The question isn’t "Why don't most people eat roadkill?"—it’s "Why do some people consider deer roadkill 'acceptable' but recoil at the idea of eating a dog or human corpse under the same conditions?" The answer is objectification. Society assigns arbitrary value to animals based on human utility, not inherent worth. Veganism rejects human supremacy outright.

wasn't trying to dodge anything. anyways, the roadkill aspect when you approach it from this angle seems irrelevant to me, it's the same old argument of pressing non-vegans into confronting why they find it so horrifying that dogs get eaten in some parts of the world like in china. that angle is again weak to me because even many years before i was a vegan i found 0 problem with eating any animal, even dogs.

This isn’t symbiosis—it’s domestication under oppression. These chickens are the result of centuries of selective breeding to turn them into egg-producing machines. Jungle fowl (their wild ancestors) don’t lay nearly as many eggs

this is a much better argument, and is what i was kind of trying to investigate here, if it's even possible to have a symbiotic relationship with a chicken in this manner?

Guard dogs? Same issue. Domestication is human supremacy in action—breeding animals into servitude and pretending it’s "for their own good."

let me be clear: i am trying to think of this from a pure self interest perspective while also not being cruel: i have no illusion that we ever bred animals "for their own good" or that even in this scenario it is truly for the chicken's "own good". however, if in this scenario the human is receiving a benefit, like a guard dog, and the animal is also receiving benefits without giving up too much, im not sure 100% sure why that is unethical. like a guard dog has to: keep an ear/eye out for strange happenings. maybe risk injury/death to attack an intruder (and even this is extremely rare), if it's even the breed that is expected to do so, and in return it receives: guaranteed safe place to sleep, guaranteed food, love and attention, medical care that is beyond unknown to a wild dog, it's inconceivable to a wild dog/wolf. again, these are mostly "side effects" these dogs are getting, not the intention, but this is also how i would describe symbiosis in nature. i doubt most animals in symbiotic relationships in nature understand exactly how or especially how much they are helping each other; they just know "i am getting benefit, and the other animal is letting me stick around to get that benefit as long as i do x". this is opening another can of worms (please i dont really want to argue about the ethics of pets, i already find the ethics of veganism the least important part of arguing for veganism anyways. why i opened this line of discussion/argument? i was bored sue me ), but even having animals be pets is a symbiotic relationship; ultimately, very very few people are actually taking care of animals just to take care of them (which could itself be seen as its own benefit but i digress), but they at bare minimum want companionship/love from them.

Veganism isn’t about tweaking exploitation to be kinder—it’s about dismantling the very mindset and system that treats animals as tools to begin with.

i agree, for the most part. i guess i should say im not 100% certain u hexbear vegans will uh... accept me and that's why i dont comment here much but im 100x more concerned with the system of animal exploitation than i am the mindest. seriously, i dont care if ur a meat eater but if we make animal agriculture actually reflect its real price you'll see even the delusional carnivore grifters start singing the praises of vegetables lmao