Personally I would prefer growing up in prison and being slaughtered when done growing to never having existed in the first place.
The consequence of eating less meat would seem to be fewer farm animals existing. It seems possible, even likely, that many farm animals suffer so much that their existence is net negative, though I find that hard to judge. But arguing that this has to be the case for any and all kinds of farming seems to be a stretch to me. If you are concerned about the wellbeing of animals buying low suffering high happiness meat and encouraging others to do likewise seems a more effective strategy than boycotting meat altogether (it might be that the resources saved by vegetarianism would allow greater gains from buying food and animal utils separately, but it's far from obvious to me that this is actually the case. Right now vegetarian dishes seem to be more expensive than equivalent dishes with factory meat for me if I factor in time, and I suspect "happy" meat is much more appealing than vegetarianism for most people who aren't already inclined towards vegetarianism).
I admit that animal wellbeing is not a very high priority for me so I'm not doing that consistently, but I don't eat all that much meat and I've stopped eating fish even though I like it more than most other sorts of meat since it's not defensible on the grounds above (I used to buy sustainably fished fish).
For the above reason I would also prefer "happy" meat to indistinguishable artificial meat with identical footprint (though since artificial meat seems very likely to have a lower footprint this is probably moot).
Personally I would prefer growing up in prison and being slaughtered when done growing to never having existed in the first place.
Seriously? I wouldn't.
(I wonder if it would be worth doing a poll on that...)
(Note: I wasn't quite sure whether this warranted a high level post or just a discussion. I haven't made a high level post yet, and wasn't entirely sure what the requirements are. For now I made it a discussion, but I'd like some feedback on that)
I've been somewhat surprised by the lack of many threads on Less Wrong dealing with vegetarianism, either for or against. Is there some near-universally accepted-but-unspoken philosophy here, or is it just not something people think of much? I was particularly taken aback by the Newtonmas invitation not even mentioning a vegetarian option. If a bunch of hyper-rationalists aren't even thinking about it, then either something is pretty wrong with my thinking or theirs.
I'm not going to go through all the arguments in detail here, but I'll list the basic ideas. If you've read "Diet for a Small Planet" or are otherwise aware of the specifics, and have counterarguments, feel free to object. If you haven't, I consider reading it (or something similar) a prerequisite for making a decision about whether you eat meat, just as reading the sequences is important to have meaningful discussion on this site.
The issues:
1. "It's cruel to animals." Factory farming is cruel on a massive scale, beyond what we find in nature. Even if animal suffering has only 1% the weight of a humans, there's enough multiplying going on that you can't just ignore it. I haven't precisely clarified my ethics in a way that avoids the Repugnant Conclusion (I've been vaguely describing myself as a "Preference Utilitarian" but I confess that I haven't fully explored the ramifications of it), but it seems to me that if you're not okay with breeding a subservient, less intelligent species of humans for slave labor and consumption, you shouldn't be okay with how we treat animals. I don't think intelligence gives humans any additional intrinsic value, and I don't think most humans use their intelligence to contribute to the universe on a scale meaningful enough to make a binary distinction between the instrumental value of the average human vs the average cow.
2. "It's bad for humans." The scale on which we eat meat is demonstrably unhealthy, wasteful and recent (arising in Western culture in the last hundred years). The way Westerners eat in general is unhealthy and meat is just a part of that, but it's a significant factor.
3. "It's bad for the environment (which is bad for both human and non-human animals)." Massive amounts of cows require massive amounts of grain, which require unsustainable agriculture which damages the soil. The cows themselves are a major pollution. (Edit: removed an attention grabbing fact that may or may not have been strictly true but I'm not currently prepared to defend)
Now, there are some legitimate counterarguments against strict vegetarianism. It's not necessary to be a pure vegetarian for health or environmental reasons. I do not object to free range farms that provide their animals with a decent life and painless death. I am fine with hunting. (In fact, until a super-AI somehow rewrites the rules of the ecosystem, hunting certain animals is necessary since humans have eliminated the natural predators). On top of all that, animal cruelty is only one of a million problems facing the world, factoring farming is only one of its causes, and dealing with it takes effort. You could be spending that effort dealing with one of the other 999,999 kinds of injustice that the world faces. And if that is your choice, after having given serious consideration to the issue, I understand.
I actually eat meat approximately once a month, for each of the above reasons. Western Society makes it difficult to live perfectly, and once-a-month turns out to be approximately how often I fail to live up to my ideals. My end goal for food consumption is to derive my meat, eggs and dairy products from ethical sources, after which I'll consider it "good enough" (i.e. diminishing returns of effort vs improving-the-world) and move on to another area of self improvement.