I agree with your thoughts too. If the article speculated on the awful experience if any of those things happened, or if I had just taken that logical step on my own, I should be ashamed or at least contrite. It left those things up to me and I took the bait and just enjoyed the characters in the story that remained. It happens that I'm reading Sapiens right at this moment and it pulls you into a different perspective on the importance of a single human life as compared to the massive extinctions occurring and the incredible sad reality that we humans create for domesticated livestock. It is sad, this man who probably died, indeed.