> First, only one party in this "deal" has a full understanding of what the deal
consists of and the endless cruelties and indignities inherent in it.

These "endless cruelties and indignities" exist in one way of farming only, the
factory farms found in modern industrialised nations and spreading slowly like
a rot throughout the world as we speak because capitalilsm is a disease that we
don't know how to cure, like cancer.

But for most of our history, there were no "endless cruelties and indignities
inherent" in farming, as there aren't any still in much of the world today.

Below are a few examples.

Goat farming in Chavignol (to make Crottin de Chavignol AOP):

https://youtu.be/WPeasWmx1og?t=157

Goat farming in Corsica from a maker of Brocciou (pronounced broo-CHOO):

https://youtu.be/EftGyQXyDlo

Cow farming in the France region of Jura (to make Comté, AOP):

https://youtu.be/U0D_a_o9wcQ?t=100

Cow farming in Normandy (to make Camembert de Normandie, AOP):

https://youtu.be/0by1csFhtQg

Goat farming in the Greek Cyclades islands:

https://youtu.be/L6g0xn5TLtE?t=48

Sheep farming in the Greek island of Lesvos:

https://youtu.be/kRptFUO_uzM

Sheep farming in Transylvania:

https://youtu.be/Bcuaf_y_TWg?t=9

Those are from European countries that I'm more familiar with but you can find
similar practices in most of the world, although they constantly at risk from
large agribusinesses that want to take over the farmers land and business.

More importantly, we have only been able to domesticate the animals we have
because of their character and because of our character, and while there was no
formal agreement, because a formal agreement can only be made between humans
(because it needs language that only humans posses) it is very wrong to say that
animals entered their contract with ours unwillingly. We have only been able to
domesticate animals that allowed themselves to be domesticated: we have not
domesticated zebras, for example, or tigers, or hippos. And we have only been
able to domesticate animals because we ourselves, like our domesticated animals,
are a gregarious, sociable species, that is kindly disposed towards other kinds
of animals and has a natural instinct to care for them and tend to their needs.
A lion could not domesticate sheep: it would just slaugther the entire herd. A
weasel could not domesticate chickens: it would just strangle the entire flock.
We were able to do it because we are, by our nature, as a specias, capable of
caring for other beings than ourselves, even for beings of another species than
ourselves. Which I think is most clearly seen in ideas like "animal liberation",
albeit taken to extremens.

> Second, the terms of the "deal" have changed tremendously for both parties
since it was first "signed" (that is, when humans and animals first entered into
the symbiotic relationship of domestication).

This is true. Absolutely, 100%, heart-breakingly, infuriatingly, shamefuly true.
But again this is because of the modern practices of factory farming that
threaten to destroy our bond with our domesticated animals, this "mutualism"
that Michael Pollan speaks of. Rather, to dig deeper still, the name of the
culprit is capitalism and it's the result of the extreme distortions that it
causes to the very mechanisms that sustain life on the planet, themselves. That
is where the shame and the crime and the horror come from: capitalilsm. And the
sooner we realise the mess we're in because of this inhuman economy we have
created, the better we'll all be. Unfortunately, before this happens, everything
we have achieved as a civilisation and as a species will be destroyed.

Sorry for the rant.