you’re projecting your own thought processes onto something that has the brain capacity of a plywood door

Well, research begs to differ. Although I couldn’t find anything on the brain capacity of plywood doors, sheeps and cows definitely have some form of conscience and the ability to feel emotions and pain.
A litterature review conducted and published by Lori Marino and Kristin Allen (The psychology of cows, 2017) concludes that cows:

• are able to make sophisticated discriminations among not only objects but humans
• possess not just simple emotions but several emotional capacities, such as cognitive judgement bias and emotional contagion
• show an apparent emotionnal reaction to learning which may reflect a sense of self-agency similar to other mammals
• have distinct personalities
• exhibit several dimensions of social complexity, including social learning

Do you know how much a fucking cow is worth? 😂 Farmers are the tightest gits on earth, they’re not out there torturing their profits mate

Idk how much it’s worth, but I guess it’s a lot. I also know how financially difficult the situation of small-estate farmers is (several commit suicide every month in my country).
I got a question for you: do you know how much milk a cow would produce for its farmer if it wasn’t repeatedly impregnated and separated from its offspring ? The answer is much less than its current worth.
I don’t believe that most farmers voluntarily hurt their animals and enjoy it. But in my experience, most of them come from a culture in which the intelligence and emotions of cattle is being negated and we collectively make sure it stays this way because we don’t want to face the incredible amount of suffering we inflict on hundreds of millions of sentient beings every year.

If you Google “Un agriculteur accusé de maltraitance animale” you’ll find a lot of articles, which means that the laws against the abuse are working

If you Google “L214 videos” you’ll see a lot of horrific things happening in farms and In slaughterhouses which are still in operation without any additional oversight. There are laws, and sure some stuff is illegal and frowned upon, but it’s leagues away from preventing cattle abuse.

I’m from rural France btw, and I’ve lived where we produce this “cultural delicacy” called foie-gras, which is still very legal and celebrated as fuck.