I think cattle are moral individuals that have the capacity to be wronged. That is all. That doesn't require that they are human-like people with full human-like capacities and rights. Just because a human is worth more than a cow doesn't mean a cow is worthless and you can do whatever you want to her, doesn't mean that a cow cannot suffer every bit as harshly as you can.
Giving different words to the crimes we commit against animals is a way of insulating yourself from the crimes you commit, like how calling cow flesh "beef" insulates you from the horror and cruelty you commit.
How do you recoup the costs of raising a bull to full weight (which happens at a fraction of its natural lifespan) without slaughtering him? It's like saying breathing isn't necessary because you can just hold your breath.
Carnism is the typically unconscious and unexamined belief that cruelty and violence to vulnerable individuals such as livestock can sometimes be good or acceptable. It's not. The more you pick at it, the more it falls apart. I spent years trying to find ways to be an ethical consumer of other individual's flesh. It's fucking impossible, it contains contradictions you can never solve. Your whole idea of a "proper farm" would be laughable if it wasn't such a horrifying and self-serving delusion. Just stop abusing vulnerable individuals, it's actually so much easier than trying to consume "ethical meat".
Yes, it is an economic requirement. They can't compete with beef cattle for meat production, keeping them alive just makes the milk more expensive than the farmer down the road who murders his calves can sell it for.
It's not clear here if you think that is the only problem with rape, child theft, torture, and murder. It's not even clear whether you understand that a child has to be created, neglected, and abused for a mother's milk to be sold.
Prometheus didn't risk anything in the sense one of us would use the term. He has forethought; nothing is a surprise to him. He didn't take a risk, he traded certain punishment for his children's enlightenment.
non sequitur
you're clearly speaking from a place of ignorance, about what you want to be true. you should learn more about where your food actually comes from and what externalities are being paid by others because of your choices. right now you're just brainwashing yourself so that you don't have to emotionally cope with your cruelty and violence.