Predators eat their whole life without wondering where it came from or what it implies about the world. It seems like the base state for every living individual, and is the most natural thing in the world. I think this is an important distinction to make, because if you don't make it you end up expressing contempt for those who don't think more widely rather than admiration for those that do.

Operative word being predator. People eat meat and most can’t stand the sight of animals being slaughtered in the method they currently are.

Predators also put themselves at risk often, fail often, etc.

Factory livestock is very much removed from this.

I think the 'is meat ethical' conversation is a different conversation from 'is the meat industry ethical'. I'd like to think that even if every slaughterhouse in the land closed up shop people would still be nuanced enough to realise that hunting and fishing are in a different league altogether.

You have to keep in mind that having easy access to meat without hunting is a recent thing relative to history.

>I'm often confused by this as well, it's always been fairly obvious to me that other animals are sentient just like us (why wouldn't they be, their physiology is similar, they're descended from common ancestors).

Exactly, I'm not sure how anyone who's spent any time around animals could come to a different conclusion. I definitely think people who aren't willing to do the slaughtering themselves have no business eating meat too for that matter. My first ever job was on a meat and fish counter and the amount of people who couldn't stomach seeing a fish get gutted or a steak cut off a sirloin joint because 'it looks too much like an animal' was really shocking. I'm a meat-eater myself, but to deny the inherent violence in a carnivorous diet as those people do is just objectively incorrect in my opinion.