Pilgrim

Nobody said that you have to care about animals in the same way as you care for humans. Nobody said that they’re on the same level. You just literally said that you don’t care about their suffering, which sounds insane to anyone.

You talk about “humane killing of animals without any necessity”. Does “humane killing” sound humane to you? Humanely treated? Why do 99% of people claim they prefer “humanely treated” animals, when appr. 99% of all animal products come from factory farming? That’s the opposite of humane. Nothing in the industry is humane. They all try to make money. I don’t have to explain to you how you do that, I assume

It’s not a common moral framework. But we don’t have to discuss this any further. I see that you’re not really open for that discussion.

That sounds like you have that “if it doesn’t affect me, why would I care” mind, which would be crazy. But I might have got that wrong what you just said.

To not care about cruelty is not “normal”. To not have empathy for animals is far from normal. If I go into the city and show people videos of animal abuse, they’d be shocked. They have empathy.

So I wonder, why do you say that you don’t care about cruelty? Is that just in regard to animals? Or do you also not care about other people suffering?

And for the second part: I disagree. People tend to care about the environment even though they consume animal products. It’s just that they don’t care enough so that they’ll change their way of living. They prefer not to go out of their comfort zone. They want to consume. And they put personal wealth over the wellbeing of nature and other individuals if you ask me

And many different human ethical systems exist. If you believe that eating animals is always unethical, that is your ethic. If that means you believe I am unethical, then that viewpoint is valid within your system of ethics.

Sorry, but that is just a very poor try of avoiding the argument. What you say here is basically true, because if I move to other countries, I can do bad things that are under their umbrella of “local ethics”. Like moving somewhere east where women are still seen as property and where I can abuse them.

Does that mean that we cannot challange “local ethics”? No. You can challange any ethical standpoint. And you should.

But you avoid the core argument by stating empty phrases like the one above :/

the only way to change a person’s ethics is to appeal to them by showing the commonalities between belief systems, then showing them the benefits of certain variations that you believe.

In this case I can simply use logic. Logic shows that there is no justification for the suffering and deaths of all these innocent animals as long as there is no necessity for that. Don’t believe me? Try to justificate it right now :)

Neither you nor I like animal suffering. The difference is, I’ve seen plenty of animals lead relaxed, happy lives, that end painlessly before the animal is turned into meat. I understand that the notion repulses you.

I grew up with many animals that all had to die. I saw how they died, with pain and without pain. But the difference is that, even though I was tought that this “is OK”, I challanged this belief system, which is quite easy. And the main difference between me and other people is that I accept if I’m wrong, I do admit that and, after this first step, I change things.

I saw that it’s wrong to just consume and not give a fuck about the environment. That’s why I’m changing a lot even though it’s highly uncomfortable at times.

I saw that it’s wrong to judge people. So I stopped that

I saw that it’s wrong to pay for animals to suffer and die, when there is no necessity to do so. That’s why I started a vegan lifestyle

You kind of explained your viewpoint, but you didn’t say anything constructive in regard to the arguments. So it’s nice that you try to explain your viewpoint, that’s something I really appriciate, but you should atleast try to state some arguments to the arguments that have been told. Right?

What exactly do I reject?

I think the main difference between you and the people from your prehistoric roots is that you have many other choices. You don’t have to continue to hunt down many animals, because you can choose to buy certain foods and you also have the choice to buy plant based foods.

Whenever you have the choice to buy plant based foods, there is no chance to argue that purchasing animal products in that case is somehow ethical.

The only way to defend hunting for your own survival is when you don’t live in a place where you have many foods available. Like, let’s say you are on an island where there is no shopping centre or anything. You obviously need to hunt to survive. But if you live somewhere where many plant based foods are available, saying that killing animals is justified in order to get food makes no sense at all. And is certainly not ethical (Deciding to kill an individual being without any necessity can never be ethical)

I think there could be a game changer. If I remember right, they already found a way to reproduce cheese and other dairy products in the lab, which can’t be distinguished from the original. The only problem is that it’s such an act to start it in Europe under the European Parlament. I think it was “precision fermantation”

For example, companies like Perfect Day are pioneering this technology, using fermentation to produce milk proteins without cows. By feeding sugars to microflora, these organisms create the same proteins found in cow’s milk, which can then be used to make products like ice cream, cheese, and yogurt. This process reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 97% compared to traditional dairy farming, offering both environmental and ethical benefits​(InsideHook)​(ScienceDaily). https://www.insidehook.com/food/precision-fermentation-milk-dairy https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240801121845.htm

May I ask this… Would you decide to gradually change your lifestyle to a less cruel one when the vegan arguments seem to be correct or would you rather wait for a law against eating meat?

Which reveals how little they understand about what they’re talking about

But you can just simply ask them if they want to say by that that cutting an onion is in principle the same as cutting the throat of a cow. They’ll row back then I assume

Exactly. I don’t think it’s hard to see what OP meant here.

And I think it’s still the case that they prefer certain types of people to push in the music industry

Downvoting this guy for stating this simple fact won’t change the fact.

It’s like throwing a middle finge at a person in a discussion where the other person tells you a simple truth that you just don’t like. You’d look like a fool. So why do it here? It’s infantil. Just go into a nice discussion

An omnivore is predisposed to eat anything. Absent synthetic food processing? Yes, an omnivore must eat both meat and plants.

No. That is just plain wrong. By the same logic, you are predisposed to rape when you have a penis. Saying that an omnivore must eat both (meat and plants) is unscientific. I gave you the hint that there is something like scientific consensus about this topic, but you still refuse to open your mind about this topic and look for some facts. That’s sad

But at the same time, most of the world doesn’t have the privilege to decide whether or not to eat only specific things

Why do you talk about the world now? Did I say everybody has to eat plant based? No. I just pointed out how it’s unethical to pay for innocent beings to suffer and die when the only reason you have is “I like meat, it tastes good” (while there are definitly thousand plant based dishes with the same taste experience available, easily)

It’s simply nature.

Appeal to nature fallacy

I don’t criticize your reasons for not eating meat.

You don’t criticize that I refuse to pay for innocent animals to suffer and die without any necessity? Why would you? Or do you state this, just so you can say “so don’t criticize my way”, because that would make no sense

But if you think your arguments are novel to me, you’re wrong. And if you think I eat meat only for flavor, you’re also wrong.

I don’t care about if they’re novel to you. You fail to explain how it’s justifyable to pay for animals to suffer and die. You want to claim there is a necessity? You fail to give one

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not about you. I don’t care about you and your choices. However, you responded here saying “There’s nothing wrong with being omnivorous as long as you’re ethical about it.” which is simply absurd, so now we kind of have to go down this road.

We need to reduce the amount of animal protein we take in - not because of ethics, but because it’s unhealthy to overindulge.

So you can’t justify the suffering and death of these innocent animals, therefore you just pretend that there is no ethical conflict?

Reality is complicated. I don’t deal in absolutes.

Reality in regard to this isn’t complicated. Go and watch dominion, then come back and tell me the reason why those animals deserve that, even though there is no actual necessity for that

No, it’s really simple. There were no absolutes in this discussion.

What? You don’t eat cats, okay. But what’s the point?

There is nothing wrong with being an omnivore lol. Sure, it’s just what you are. Does being an omnivore mean you HAVE TO eat meat or do you think that the scientific consensus might be that we don’t have to?

And if we don’t have to, what’s the main reason why you still eat it? Taste? Personal pleasure? Do you think that this is a good justification for harming other individuals?

You can’t be ethical about “killing individuals that don’t want to die for trivial reasons like taste pleasure” which might sound a bit overexaggerated at first, however if you look it up and find out that you don’t have to eat any meat, you’ll see that it’s exactly that. It’s not ethical.

Test if by changing the situation while you keep the logic. Tell me where personal sensory pleasure is a legit justification to bring harm or death upon individuals

Well, why not start with gradual changes?

If you feel bad, you already made the first step: listening to yourself because you already realised how wrong it is.

If you need motivation, watch dominion. I think it’s fair to say that people should have footage like that in the back of their mind when they want to enjoy animal products.

You might not believe me, but changing things like your diet to be free of any animal cruelty feels fucking great, and it just takes a certain amount of time to learn new recipes and then it’s just easy going.

I can help you with whatever you struggle with if you ever need some help

Not only dogs and cats are individuals who have their own way of showing how they feel and how much they love you.

Most people would probably switch to a vegan lifestyle if they realised how much we underestimate animals (and overestimate ourselves)

Well, I agree, but the fact that non vegans tend to have certain deficiencies more often doesn’t mean that a vegan diet is 100% safe. So again, I agree but it’s not like a good argument if you ask me

Edit: Oh sorry, this was one year ago. I didn’t see

Same here. We were worried as well, although everything seemed fine because we had expensive supplements all the way. However, my wife then decided to eat eggs again because she was too scared that she was not eating enough of certain nutrients (this was based on scientific research about vegan diets during pregnancy and one key nutrient was cholin, which is high in eggs, plus extreme cravings my wife started to have for eggs out of nowhere during pregnancy)

I have to admit that we broke with it in pregnancy.

But the reason was that we searched for the latest information about eating vegan during pregnancy and it was a bit confusing. Some sources said it’s save when you have some food supplements (which we had), but others said there is always a certain risk especially in regard to cholin. So that’s why my wife decided that she will eat eggs. She also had this inner desire for it during pregnancy that you typically get when you miss out on any nutrient (like when your body needs iron, you might get this inner desire for foods that are high in iron) and that was gone within a week after our child was born.

And I say “we broke” because it was our decision. I personally didn’t change anything. We found a local source for the eggs where the circumstances for the chicken could be described as the best circumstances you can have, although I don’t know where they get their chicken from (probably from the industry)

Btw, I always said that I wouldn’t change anything, not even in pregnancy if there is no latest evidence proving the vegan diet to be very risky, but when you are at that point, you wan’t it to be 100% safe. So that’s why we figured that we will do it that way

I like the idea from a roleplaying-POV.

However, as someone who loves to play medic since BF2, I can tell you that I’d stop playing supportive (medic) if they’d remove the guns from the class. It sounds like it’s just half as fun.

TIL

Why. The child would only then not get everything it needs when the mother doesn’t get everything she needs. That’s a concern that people should have for every diet. Now when you think that you might not get every nutrient, then just make some research and look into what’s important. You can find so much information about it. It’s not a reason to pay for animals to suffer and die when there is no necessity right?