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We modify their genes. We modify their movement. We modify their living environment. We modify their appearance, their senses, their emotional states. We modify the way they exist as individual creatures for the maximum amount of human benefit they can provide.

The word modify derives from the Latin root med- "to take appropriate measures," which evolved into the Old French word modificare- "to restrain and limit." Are the measures we take appropriate? We modify to restrain, to push them to their limit.

Only two bulls account for the 9 million dairy cows in the U.S. today, meaning that every single cow traces its genetic roots back to these two bulls. Both of them were birthed around the 1960s and have been recognized as having the most optimal gene pools for milk farming. Every single one of their genes are compared and contrasted with one another, an extreme case of artificial selection.

Cows are not much better in this regard, with most cows tracing back to approximately 50 different sets of genes. This genetic non-diversity erases the possibility of uniqueness negatively affecting production. Every cow is uniform. As a result, inbreeding increases exponentially by the year, but does not pose a problem to the milk machine.

First used in 1620s, “to cast as seed,” this word derives from inseminatus, past participle of Latin inseminare “to sow, implant”

The context of “sowing” reflects the way that dairy cows are impregnated. No sex occurs between male and female cattle; semen from selected bulls with favorable genes are injected into each cow. They are the same as a farm crop.

There is no pleasure; there might not even be pain. Devoid of sensation and emotion and its original purpose of reproducing, just what is producing milk to the cow?

To talk about automation, I must first talk about movement: “change of position; passage from place to place”, “exercise; start, instigation,” “to move, set in motion,” “to push away, to surpass," “change one’s place or posture, stir, shift; move the body; move from one’s place, change position," “influence (someone, to do something), guide, prompt or impel toward some action.” These are all old definitions of movement, in Latin, Old French, Old English.

Their movement is designed, with every change in position calculated, guided, and enforced. Rather than being replaced by automation, they are automated. They are the machines.

origins
(12th century), “in life, living,” contraction of Old English on life “in living, not dead”
derives from root a-: in Old English, can mean “on, in, or into” or also as “motion away from” could also derive from Romanic languages as “to, towards” derives from Old English life, “animated corporeal existence; lifetime, period between birth and death” derives from High German root leip- “to stick, adhere”
(16th century) “in a state of operation, unextinguished” (the automated farm is more alive than the cows?)
(1709) “active, lively”
(1732) “attentive, open”

The cows are the only living things on the automated farms, yet they do not possesss any of the qualities described by aliveness