this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2024
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This is the argument that I used when I was an adolescent who thought himself very wise and smart but in reality just wanted an excuse to not have to change the lifestyle that I was comfortable with.
Saying "life only comes from death" is a cowardly reductionism. It creates a false equivalence between plant and animal life that lets you ignore the fact that sustaining human life does not require the wanton suffering of animals. And it certainly doesn't require animals to be suffering at such massive scales and in such cruel ways.
You're probably someone who will cite studies which indicate that plants emit distress signals when they take physical damage, and you'll argue that therefore plants suffer the same as animals. But that's an intellectually dishonest argument. Suffering as we understand it is more than just a chemical reaction to stimulus; it emerges from an awareness of being alive and an instinctual desire to remain alive and unharmed. Plants do not have that kind of awareness.
There are predators in nature that only know how to hunt to survive. Their digestive systems are specialized to consume the bodies of other smaller animals. And their ecosystems depend on those predators to balance out the reproductive cycles of their prey, otherwise the prey animals would become overpopulated and wipe out life forms lower on the food chain.
The fact of the matter is that humans have not been a collaborative member of any ecosystem for tens of thousands of years. We cause massive harm to every ecosystem that we're a part of, and the mass slaughter of farm animals is the worst thing we've done to this planet yet, even more harmful overall than CO2 emissions. We're eroding the soil and using up the fresh water in ways we can't sustain, and then to top it all off we're inflicting the largest scale unnecessary suffering in the history of this planet. And all of it is being done so that humans can enjoy a pleasure that is both unnecessary and easily replaced with a small amount of agricultural and supply chain reform.
Humans are omnivores and the simple reality is that as an omnivore with options at your disposal you have a choice about whether the process of sustaining your life involves wanton suffering at a massive scale or not. If you think the suffering of animals is worth the pleasure you derive from eating their flesh then just be honest and say so. Don't be a coward like I used to be by pretending that animals and plants are the same.
Not that I particularly disagree with you, but I think that calling the eradication of the entire meat industry, “a small amount of agricultural and supply chain reform” is a little disingenuous.
A little disingenuous, yes, but the reality is that if we redirected the meat industry's subsidies towards a supply chain that centers around plant based diets, we'd have a more sustainable industry as well as a more affordable food supply for everyone.
Sustaining the status quo of meat consumption is a constant battle against the laws of physics.
/agree
First, I just want to say that this isn't personal to me. I am concerned with the overarching ramifications of dismantling the current industrial meat, animal, and agricultural industries without first having sufficiently scalable solutions to replace them. This will kill a lot of people, and they will die in horrible ways. If you want to stop the suffering of animals you better know how to do so in a way that won't cause additional suffering to humanity, otherwise you are never going to reach the critical mass necessary to make the change. I'm also more than willing to admit that the greed and corruption in the governmental and economic systems of the world would need to be changed as well. Good luck with that, I fully support it.
No, it is an objectively verifiable fact that is backed up by even the most basic level of scientific literacy. You are confusing the higher order ethical dilemmas of sentient consciousness with the fundamental realities of nature. You can dislike it, and I understand that. I don't like it either, but I am also not naive enough to simply ignore reality because it makes me feel bad. You are using the same kind of blind dogmatism in your response that you are accusing me of using even though I did no such thing.
That is entirely dependant upon your interpretation of "wanton". There is currently no other way for us to sustain life on this planet with the same degree of convenience that is afforded to us by the industrialization of the food system. Can it be made better? Sure, and I am 1000% in favor of that. But suggesting that we are going to be able to eliminate the need for animals in the supply chain anytime soon is a complete fantasy. Even if we could, there will be other health considerations that come from that which need to be researched, and well understood before we bank our survival on them. That will take many decades at best.
I literally never said that. You're projecting here, which is whatever honestly. I get people make this argument. I'm just not one of them.
I'm not sure it has been quite that long, but I agree with your general premise. Overall humanity is a destructive force if you consider the preservation of nature in its pre-industrial form to be optimal. I can appreciate that argument. I'm not entirely convinced that human life is more valuable than any other life. I'm also not entirely convinced that the proliferation of life more generally has any objectively quantifiable value. That is a philosophical argument that is beyond the scope of this conversation. Again, I'm only interested in logistically feasible goals that can be realistically implemented.
Not really. What I do personally is entirely inconsequential. Systems matter. People don't. I don't enjoy killing things. I don't "derive pleasure" from the suffering of others in the way you are accusing me of. However, I am willing to accept the ethical realities of eating animal protein, and I understand that I would not be alive today if my ancestors had not done the same for billions of years. So no, I don't enjoy it, but unlike you I do accept it. I am perfectly willing to facilitate moving the system in a more humane direction in whatever small ways I can make an impact, but I'm also not stressing about livestock having to die in order to feed people either. On some level it just is what it is.
Animal agriculture is comically inefficient, produces pathetically small amounts of protein for the amount of pesticides, fresh water, and sheer unimaginable pollution it requires, and to top it all off, it’s nutritionally unhealthy.
The only human suffering that “forced” veganism would cause is having to endure dumb people living longer lives due to better health. Imagine all those steak-eating morons no longer dying of heart attacks and diabetes at age 60. The horror of their protracted existence.
Afaik, we could produce food way more efficiently if we did not produce meat. Meat takes a lot of land, food, water and energy, because the animals use a lot of the energy they are fed in the form of crops just to live. That doesn't all get converted to meat. In terms of pure energy, being vegan is way more efficient.