There is no hypocrisy in cattle farming. No species on earth other than humans care about another species existence other than how it will benefit their own species.
I'm not saying humans shouldn't be different, but there is no hypocrisy in keeping in line with every other species in the known universe.
I don't disagree with you, but I'm unaware (naive?) of any other species farming/enslaving/capturing hordes of another species and effectively torturing them the way humans do
Being suddenly killed by a lion is a rather short torture/cruel experience compared to what humans do at larger and larger scales. I think animals even have a mechanism that I forget the name of that spares them a lot of the pain involved in such a situation (adrenaline, "going into shock", etc)
I really do wish I/we could do something to be less cruel but everything seems driven by profit margins and that makes it rather difficult/impossible. They're outlawing 'lab grown' meat! :|
(I eat meat, but I don't feel good about it when I think about it)
Humans didn't care either until very recently, when it became apparant just how much capacity we have to drive other animals to extinction. Our ability to destroy is many orders of magnitude beyond any other animal, so having at least a little more restraint is basically a requirement for a sustainable society.
I'm not saying humans shouldn't be different, but there is no hypocrisy in keeping in line with every other species in the known universe.